ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

By John Kiriakou President-elect Donald Trump is accusing CIA Director John Brennan of being the source of “fake news” about him, essentially calling our new supreme leader a Russian stooge and accusing him of taking part in a sexual kink in full view of Russian intelligence cameras in a Moscow hotel room several years ago. I have no idea whether or not Trump, during a visit to Moscow in 2010, hired prostitutes to urinate on a Four Seasons Hotel Presidential Suite mattress because the Obamas had once slept there. I don’t care. I also have no idea if the Russian government “hacked” the Democratic National Committee and stole Clinton campaign manager John Podesta’s emails. I have not seen any CIA, FBI, or NSA evidence, so I have come to the personal conclusion that the hacking story is overblown. All countries spy on each other. It’s a fact of life. The U.S. spies on just about everybody in the world. So I have a problem with the righteous indignation that I’m seeing from so many of my f...

More than 20 U.S. intelligence, military and diplomatic veterans are calling on President Obama to release the evidence backing up allegations that Russia aided the Trump campaign – or admit that the proof is lacking. MEMORANDUM FOR: President Barack Obama FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) SUBJECT: A Key Issue That Still Needs to be Resolved As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take the oath of office Friday, a pall hangs over his upcoming presidency amid an unprecedentedly concerted campaign to delegitimize it. Unconfirmed accusations continue to swirl alleging that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized “Russian hacking” that helped put Mr. Trump in the White House. As President for a few more days, you have the power to demand concrete evidence of a link between the Russians and WikiLeaks, which published the bulk of the information in question. Lacking that evidence, the American people should be told that there is no fire under the smoke and mi...

By Moon Of Alabama The city of Deir Ezzor (Deir ez-Zur) in east-Syria is on the verge of falling into the hands of the Takfiris of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). More than 100,000 civilian inhabitants of Deir Ezzor and thousands of soldiers defending them are in immediate danger of being murdered by the savage ISIS forces. The current situation is a direct consequence of U.S. military action against the SAA and non-action against ISIS. Deir Ezzor is besieged by ISIS since September 2015. But the city was well defended by its garrison of Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and all further attacks by ISIS were repelled. Supply to the city was hauled in by air through the Deir Ezzor airport and through air drops by the Syrian and Russian airforces. Relief by ground forces and ground supplies are not possible as Deir Ezzor is more than 100 km away from the nearest SAA positions west of Palmyra and as the desert in between is under the control of ISIS. Google map - bigger Four days ago a ne...

Ex-intelligence analyst more than 6 years into a 35-year sentence for leaking classified documents By AP U.S. President Barack Obama is commuting the prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the former army intelligence analyst who leaked classified documents. The White House says Manning is one of 209 inmates whose sentences Obama is shortening. Manning is more than six years into a 35-year sentence for leaking classified government and military documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. Her sentence is now set to expire May 17. She was known as Bradley Manning at the time of her 2010 arrest and attempted suicide twice last year. Chase Strangio, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's LGBT Project who has been representing Manning, said he was "relieved and thankful" that the president commuted the decades-long sentence. "Since she was first taken into custody, Chelsea has been subjected to long stretches of solitary confinement — including for attemp...

Click to see the full-size map Following previous gains in the Wadi Barada area northwest of Damascus , the Syrian army and its allies entered the militant-held town of Ayn al-Fijah and seized over a half of it, according to local sources. Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, Ahrar al-Sham and other militant groups operating in Ayn al-Fijah, Dayr Miqrin and Kafr Az Zayt are in a very bad military situation because government forces control strategic heights north of these villages. There are little doubts that soon, government forces will be able to liberate Ayn al-Fijah and launch a fresh push in the direction of Dayr Miqrin. Meanwhile, a group of militant has surrendered with their weapons to government forces in the area of the 81st Brigade Base in eastern Qalamoun. The surrendered militants had been members of the so-called “Free Syrian Army”. The militants will be pardoned under an amnesty decree signed by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Click to see the full-size map Heay clashes are ongoing in the areas of Cemetry, Al Fourat University, Al-Maqabis Production and Jiraiya in the Syrian city of Deir Ezzor as ISIS terrorists have been attempting to develop a momentum gained earleir this week . Cotrolling al-Assad Hospital and Al Fourat University, government forces still have some chances to link up the Deir Ezzor Airport with the rest of the government-held pocket. However, it will not be an easy task. ISIS had deployed a singificant number of troops (some sources note that these were elite units redeployed from Raqqah and Mosul), military equipment and artillery pieces. Army positions are under a constant artillery fire. Pro-ISIS sources claim that dozens of government troops have been killed and about 10 units of military equipment destroyed during the clashes. Pro-government outlets claim that about 70 ISIS members have been killed since January 16. However, both sides don’t provide enough video and photo evidenc...

Iraqi security forces (ISF) have cleared from ISIS militants the Mosul Park and the areas of Al-Muhandisin, Nurqal, Taqafah and the Ancient Nineveh, de-facto setting up control over the whole eastern part of Mosul. ISF units have also gained control over 5 Mosul bridges from the eastern side of the city. Click to see the full-size map

by GARY LEUPP Photo by Jedimentat44 | CC BY 2.0 It seems so strange, twenty-seven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, to be living through a new Cold War with (as it happens, capitalist) Russia. The Russian president is attacked by the U.S. political class and media as they never attacked Soviet leaders; he is personally vilified as a corrupt, venal dictator, who arrests or assassinates political opponents and dissident journalists, and is hell-bent on the restoration of the USSR. (The latter claim rests largely on Vladimir Putin’s comment that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a “catastrophe” and “tragedy”—which in many respects it was. The press chooses to ignore his comment that “Anyone who does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart, while anyone who wants to restore it has no brain.” It conflicts with the simple talking-point that Putin misses the imperial Russia of the tsars if not the commissars and, burning with resentment over the west’s triumph in the Cold War, pl...