ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

An alleged photo of Suheil al-Hassan, Commander of the Tiger Forces, with Russian miltiary advisers from the area of Palmyra. Source: https://twitter.com/MIG29_/status/860421930607923200 The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) is preparing to launch an operation from the city of Palmyra to capture the town of Sukhnah, located on the road of Palmyra-Deir Ezzor about 50 km east of Palmyra. The goal of the operation is to set a foothold for a further advance on the key Syrian city of Deir Ezzor besieged by ISIS terrorists. On Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry also  confirmed  that government forces, backed up by the Russian Aerospacce Forces, will develop the advance west of Palmyra. This liberation of the city of Sukhnah can be considered as the first phase of a broader effort aimed at lifting the siege from the SAA forces in the city of Deir Ezzor. According to reports, large reinforcements from  the SAA’s Tiger Forces have moved  from the eastern Aleppo countryside and the northern

A Russian military blog,  NAVY_KORABEL,  released ( LINK ) an interesting analysis providing a fresh look at the US missile strike on the Syrian Ash-Shayrat airbase and measures that the Russian Navy could implement in order to prevent similar developments in the future. SouthFront provides a translation of this analysis from Russian and recommends  NAVY_KORABEL   as a great blog about the Russian Navy. Translated by  AlexD  exclusively for  SouthFront;  Pics are taken from the original text.  A Missed Shot A few weeks ago, on April 7 2017, at about 4 a.m. (inevitably reminding us of June 22, 1941), American destroyers DDG 78 Porter and DDG 71 Ross of the Arleigh Burke class (forward deployment station in Rota, Spain), from an area near Crete, struck with a massive 59 Tomahawk launches ( reference 1 ) of Block III TLAM-C or Block IV TLAM-E (distance of launch 1600 km) ( reference 2 ) on the Syrian Air Base of government forces in the Homs province. The missiles (36 of them, th

Written by  Paul Craig Roberts ; Originally appeared at  his webste Trump’s “sell-out,” as it is called, coming on top of Obama’s eight-year “sell-out,” is instructive. We have now had a Democratic president who sold out the people who elected him and a Republican president who has done the same thing. This is a very interesting point, the meaning of which most people miss. But not Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. At the Valdai discussion club, Putin summed up Western democracy, which I paraphrase as follows: In the West, voters cannot change policies through elections, because the ruling elites control whoever is elected. Elections give the appearance of democracy, but voting does not change the policies that favor war and the elites. Therefore, the will of the people is impotent. People are experiencing that they and their votes have no influence on the conduct of affairs of the country. This makes them afraid, frusrated, and angry, a combination of emotions that is d

FILE IMAGE A military strike on a school in the western part of the Iraqi city of Mosul killed 81 people, including 29 women and 19 children, the Turkish pro-government media outlet “Anadolu Agency”  reported  on May 5. Citing security sources, Anadolu Agency reported that it is not clear what side bombed the school. However, there are no doubts that it was the US-led coalition or its partners on the ground. Nobody else can do this.

Commander of the Tiger Forces, Suheil al-Hassan, (L) and Tiger Forces members The Syrian military command has been redeploying the elite Tiger Forces of the Syrian Arab Army from the northern Hama countryside to the area of the ancient city of Palmyra, according to reports of local journalists and some military souces. The redeployment of the Tiger Forces to Palmyra followed the de-facto end of government forces offensive attempts in northern Hama. The Syrian military had regaimed the all areas lost to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allies in March and even gained additional ground. Now, the Syrian military is reportedly concentrating forces in the area of Palmyra for a widely expected push on the key city of Deir Ezzor besieged by ISIS terrorists.

By Mike Whitney “Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad said that his country has information that Jordan is planning to send its troops into southern Syria in cooperation with the United States….’Jordan is not an independent country. Whatever the United States wants, it will happen,’ said Assad.” — Middle East Monitor “In the event of a de-facto partition of Syria, the US and its allies will get a strategically important region. It is through Deir Ezzor that the proposed gas pipeline from Qatar is supposed to run….The Deir Ezzor province is also home to Syria’s largest oil deposit, the Al-Omar. …the city and the province are of particular value since the deposits there contain the highly valuable light sweet crude usable in the production of gasoline and diesel fuel.” — South Front, “The Stronghold of Deir Ezzor; What You Need to Know” May 03, 2017 " Information Clearing House " -   The United States is not going to launch a preemptive attack on North Korea.  The risks far

Houthi fighters Houthi forces Have conducted a series of new attacks against Saudi-led forces in Yemen. Houthi fighters have destroyed an armored vehicle of Saudi coalition forces in the northwestern Hawzan area after targeting it with an IED. They also destroyed two armored vehicles of the Saudi coalition in al-Mukha, in west of Taiz with anti-tank guided missiles, killing and wounding pro-Saudi militants inside them. Pro-Houthi media released videos of operations by Houthi forces and the Yemeni Army against Saudi forces. Yemeni fighters targeted the Saudi Army in the Salb mountain in Nahm, along with Saudi sites in Wadi Namla in Harib al-Qaramish. ( video ) Saudi Army units were targeted with artillery and rockets at Manfaz al-Khadra around Najran, as well as the targeting of Camp Aliyab in Asran. ( video ) The Saudi Arabia continued its air bombing against the Houthi-held areas. Three citizens were injured as a result of five Saudi airstrikes in Sa’ada. In Sana’a, Saudi