ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the National Defense Forces (NDF) have repelled a counter-attack of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) and its allies in the northern part of the province of Hama. On April 25, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies attacked government forces in Masasanah and near Zilaqiat. In Masasanah, militants used a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) to break Syrian army defenses and entered the village. In Zilaqiat, HTS-led forces engaged government troops in a series of firefights. The goal of the counter-attack was to stabilize the defense line in the Zalaqiat-Masasanah-Buwaida-Morek line and to prevent further advances by government forces. Pro-government sources also claimed that the SAA had destroyed a HTS VBIED near Masasanah. However, last night, the village remained under the HTS control. On April 26, the SAA and the NDF, led by the  Tiger Forces  and the  5th Assault Corps , regroupp

This text  originally appeared at southfront.org  in February, 2017. When the PLA Navy first eluded to its intention to build another class of guided missile destroyer (DDG) to follow the Type 052D, there was much speculation as to the dimensions, displacement, and intended role of such a vessel. In March of 2014, images began to circulate on the internet that clearly illustrated a test-bed mock-up of the new vessel’s superstructure at the PLA Navy’s testing center at Wuhan, in southern China. Military analysts and enthusiasts keep a watchful eye on the Wuhan facility, as mock-ups for China’s  Liaoning  CV-16 aircraft carrier, and now the follow-on CV-17 have provided a useful tool by which to extrapolate the eventual size and weapons and systems complement of the finished vessels. Comparing the Type 055 mock-up at Wuhan to the hull modules currently being constructed at the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai, gives a relatively accurate estimation of total size and displacement. T

© Sputnik/ Ramil Sitdikov On April 26, Chief of the Main Operational Directorate Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoi announced at a press conference of the Russian Defense Ministry that Russia had withdrawn half of its warplanes from the Hmeymim Airbase near the Syrian town of Jableh. Rudskoi said that the number of Russian warplanes in Hmeymim between November 10, 2016 and January 10, 2017 did not exceed 35 fighters, 80 UAVs. Rudskoi added that the Russian Aerospace Forces has carried out four times more airstrikes than the US-led coalition against terrorist targets in Syria. He also confirmed that the withdrawal of some warplanes comes after the decreasing of the number of terrorists in Syria. “The number of terrorist units has decreased, which allowed us to withdraw almost half of the aircraft based at the Hemeymim airbase,” Rudskoi said, according to  the Russian state-run news agency Sputnik . Rudskoi insisted that the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has managed to fully recapture P

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The Syrian army backed by allied forces managed to recapture some towns and villages in the west-central province of Hama from Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly known as al-Nusra Front) terrorists, killing some 300 members of the foreign-backed terror group. Following the Syrian army’s operations on Monday, the units restored security and stability to the towns and villages of al-Masaseneh, Zour al-Heiseh, and Zour al-Teibeh in the northern countryside of Hama, the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported. In the operations, army units killed nearly 300 terrorists and injured a large number of others, destroying 20 vehicles, two ammunition warehouses and two tanks. Fierce clashes are now underway between the government forces and the militant group in the surrounding areas of Hama. The latest developments came after the army on Sunday succeeded in liberating the areas of Halfayia, Zalin, al-Wabida, Zour al-Nasiryia, Zour Abu Zaid, Talet al-Nasiryia a

By Nick Xenophon  We are faced today with a question that has never before arisen in our history. From January 1788, when the First Fleet sailed into Botany Bay, to 2008, during the Global Financial Crisis, we've had first Britain and then the USA as both trading partner and strategic ally. But now China is our largest two-way trading partner in goods and services ($150 billion), our largest export market ($86 billion) and our largest source of imports ($64 billion). And the integrated East Asian economic zone is the world's fastest growing. So, how do we negotiate the tension between our major security partner and our major trading partner? China sees as vital to its security the string of archipelagos from northern Borneo to the Kuril Islands north-east of Japan. It has piled sand onto reefs in the South China Sea, creating seven new artificial islands, and has installed missile batteries and radar facilities, giving it effective control over sea and air traffic in the r

By Jacob G. Hornberger The best thing that South Koreans could ever do, both for themselves and for the American people, as well as the Japanese citizenry, is boot all U.S. troops out of their country. Isn’t the reason obvious? If President Trump, the Pentagon, and the CIA succeed in instigating a war with North Korea, guess who is going to pay the biggest price for such a war. No, not the United States. At the end of such a war, the continental United States will remain untouched, just like it was after World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and all the other foreign wars in which the U.S. government has become embroiled. The same cannot be said about South Korea and Japan. While North Korea would undoubtedly end up losing a war against the United States (assuming that China doesn’t enter the fray), South Korea will end up as a devastated wasteland. That’s because as it is going down to defeat, North Korea can be expected to cause as much death and de

© Sputnik/ Lugansk People’s Republic people’s militia By  Zorana Dobriza ; Originally appeared at  Globalresearch The Ukrainian army continues to increase its activity in the east of the country in the combat zone between the Ukrainian armed forces and the Luhansk People’s Republic’s units. Thus, in the morning of April 23 a patrol vehicle of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) blew up on a mine in not controlled by Kiev Slavyanoserbsky district of the Lugansk region. As a result of the explosion, a US citizen working as a medical officer of the mission was killed and two mission employees were injured. Being unable to conduct active armed actions, Kiev focused its efforts on asymmetric combat operations against the Donbass insurgents through sabotage actions. A.Marochko , an official representative of the People’s Militia of the Luhansk People’s Republic, said that the undermining of the cars of the OSCE mission is a terrorist act of Ukrainian special services that w

President Donald Trump salutes military personnel as he leaves Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Jan. 20, 2017, after taking the presidential oath. (Saul Loeb/Pool Photo via AP) Written by  David Hungerford  exclusively for  SouthFront The missile attack by the United States against Syria on April 7, 2017 came as a shocking reversal of Trump administration foreign policy. Substantial steps had been taken to depart from the Obama policy of “regime change,” in favor of acceptance of the recognized Assad government. Peace and an international agreement on settlement of the war in Syria were in prospect. Suddenly, everything went smash. A chemical weapons attack on Syrian civilians was reported on April 4. Trump blamed it on the Assad government with no investigation. The missile attack, a flagrant act of aggression, came soon after. It is useless to go no further than to hurl personal invective at Donald Trump. The concentration on personalities only gets in the way of the re