ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

By Media Lens When Russian and Syrian forces were bombarding 'rebel'-held East Aleppo last year, newspapers and television screens were full of anguished reporting about the plight of civilians killed, injured, trapped, traumatised or desperately fleeing. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian leader Vladimir Putin, both Official Enemies, were denounced and demonised, in accordance with the usual propaganda script. One piece in the Evening Standard  described  Assad as a 'monster' and a Boris Johnson  column  in the Telegraph referred to both Putin and Assad as 'the Devil'. As the respected veteran reporter Patrick Cockburn  put it : 'The partisan reporting of the siege of East Aleppo presented it as a battle between good and evil: The Lord of the Rings, with Assad and Putin as Saruman and Sauron.' This, he said, was 'the nadir of Western media coverage of the wars in Iraq and Syria.' Media reporting focused laser-like on 'La

First three Russian-made Ka-52 reconnaissance and combat helicopters have been delivered to Egypt, the Russian state-run news agecny TASS reported Tuesday citing a source in the Russian Defense Ministry. According to the agency, Egyptian pilots are currently undergoing training to use the helicopters. In 2015, Moscow and Cairo made a contract on delivery of 46 Ka-52 helicopters to Egypt. TASS added  that Russia will also sell Ka-52K ship-based helicopters for Mistral-class amphibious assault ships recently obtained by the Egyptian Navy: Russia also won the tender on delivery of Ka-52K ship-based helicopters for Egyptian Mistral class amphibious assault ships , Director of the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation Dmitry Shugaev said in June 2017. Russia and Egypt will hold talks on deliveries of Ka-52K helicopters at MAKS 2017 airshow , Shugaev said earlier today. Click to see the full-size map

FILE IMAGE: The charred remains of an armored vehicle are loaded onto a truck after a rocket-propelled grenade attack on a police checkpoint in el-Arish, Egypt, July 12, 2013. (AP/Muhammed Sabry) On Monday, five Egyptian policemen were killed and six others were wounded in two separate roadside bomb attacks in the Sinai peninsula. The Five policemen were as a result of the roadside bombe explosion in the city of Arish. Three others were wounded in the incident. The second roadside bomb targeted the vehicle arriving the scene and injured three more policemen. At the same day, Egyptian Air Force F-16 warplanes bombed gatherings of suspected militants in various areas across the northern part of the peninsula allegedly killing some 30 militants. On Sunday,  the Egyptian Air Force destroyed 15 vehicles belonging to militants . The vehicles wer loaded with weapons, ammunition, explosives and prohibited materials and were attempting to enter Egypt from Libya.

The latest in a series of moves by President Trump that appeared to throw a wrench into State Department efforts to calm the Qatar blockade situation saw him telling the Saudi King today that the  US could well just abandon their largest military base in the Middle East, the al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar . Officials from the blockading states have previously suggested that the US ought to consider finding an alternative to the Qatar base, as State and Pentagon officials express concern the protracted blockade could start impacting US wars in the region, which are run out of the base. This is a hugely important base for the US, and that’s a big part of why State Department officials have been so desperate to try to resolve the dispute. President Trump, however, has treated this base with relative ambivalence, and in his talk with King Salman today said he was confident other countries in the region would “gladly” build the US a replacement base if they abandoned Qatar. Trump may be

FILE IMAGE Major General Abdul Amir Yar Allah, commander of the military campaign for the liberation of Nineveh Province, said that more than 25000 ISIS fighters were killed during the 9-month long battle for Mosul city. According to Yar Allah, the liberation of the eastern part of Mosul took 101 days and the western part took 142 days. The operation began on October 17, 2016 and ended on July 10, 2017. Yar Allah announced that during the liberation of Mosul, the Iraqi Army killed 450 ISIS suicide bombers, destroyed 1247 VBIED, and downed 130 ISIS drones – some of them armed – as well as destroyed more than 1500 vehicles. “The battles to liberate the western and eastern parts of Mosul lasted about 9 months, with the participation of more than 100,000 fighters from the Army, Federal Police, Counter-terrorism, and Popular Mobilization Units (PMU),” Yar Allah said. Moreover, Yar Allah said that the operation to liberate Mosul was flexible as the Iraqi Army didn’t only had to

After 36 hours of continuous clashes, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) seized the meat company and all the surrounding buildings in Ayn Tarma area east of Damascus. The meat company is considered one of the strategic positions in Ayn Tarma. Click to see the full-size image According to pro-government sources, Faylaq al-Rahman tried to defend the position for the last minute, but the Syrian Republican Guard managed to control it after a successful raid on the meat company building. Opposition media claimed for the fifth time that the SAA used chlorine gas during its offensive on Ayn Tarma. The sources published a video of an opposition fighter claiming to have found a hand grenade containing chlorine and chemicals with the dead body of a Syrian soldier in Ayn Tarma. After a close look we were able to identify the bomb, a Russian-made RGN hand grenade, which is a conventional bomb containing only RDX explosives. Faylaq al-Rahman and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seem not to be in

FA-50PH Aircraft arrives at the Air Force City base Clark,81 km north or Manila on November 18,2015. Photo By Edward Solo The Philippine Air Force announced that it had stopped using the FA-50PH fighters after a failed airstrike that resulted in the killing and wounding of a number of Philippines soldiers in Marawi city where clashes between government troops and ISIS members are still ongoing. The Philippine Air Force announced that it would determine the cause of the incident before reusing it again. The Philippine Air Force has 12 FA-50PH multi-roller fighters made by the Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) in South Korea. Brig-Gen Restituto Padilla of the Philippine Army announced that the death toll in the Manila battle rose to 537, including 399 ISIS fighters, 93 Philippines soldiers and 45 civilians, and the Marawi battle is about to enter its third month. According to Padilla, The Philippine Army has so far managed to rescue 1723 civilian hostages from ISIS fighters, and

FILE IMAGE On Saturday, the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved two amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) banning the United States from participating in the Saudi war against the Houthis in Yemen. The Davidson amendment prohibits the United States from carrying out any military action in Yemen prior to its approval. According to the legislation, US military action in Yemen, since it’s not targeting Al-Qaeda or ISIS, is not subject to permission to use force against terrorist organizations given in 2001. The Nolan amendment prohibits the deployment of US troops in Yemen, and may prevent the United States even from air refueling Saudi and UAE warplanes over Yemen. Moreover, the House of Representatives is working to persuade the United States Senate to approve the same legislation to push US President Donald Trump to agree to stay away from Yemen war. Many politicians in USA believe that the war in Yemen has led to the destruction of the