ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

YAHYA ARHAB / EPA On September 22, the Houthis media wing announced that Houthi fighters captured two Saudi soldiers during raids inside Saudi Arabia. The two captives are Abdullah Bin Ali al-Sheli, an officer of the Saudi Army, and Za’r Mutliq al-Atibi, a Saudi soldier. The Houthis stated that they were treating both Saudi soldiers as prisoners of war. The two soldiers called the Saudi government to exchange them with Yemeni captives in a video released by the Houthis media wing. On June 24, the National Committee for Prisoners’ Affairs in Yemen announced that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been obstructing a comprehensive prisoner exchange deal among the all parties in Yemen. In a separated development, Yemeni sources revealed that dozens of fighters of the Saudi-backed pro-Hadi forces protested in the Ras Abbas military camp in Aden city on September 22 after their commanders refused to pay their salaries. The sources added that the fighters were al...

A screenshot from the video Iran has tested its newly  revealed Khorramshahr ballistic missile. The state-of-the-art ballistic missie has a range of 2,000km and is capable of carrying multiple warheads. Iran conducted the missile tests just days after the UN general assembly where US President Donald Trump described Iran as a “murderous regime” and vowed that Iran nuclear deal has to be revised.

There are lots of chemicals to worry about in the foods on our grocery stores’ shelves, whether it’s the pesticides on our fruit and vegetables or the unpronounceable preservatives found in pretty much everything on the lunchmeat and snack aisles. However, a new tactic that ISIS is believed to be planning could make those chemicals look relatively tame by comparison. According to  Zero Hedge , ISIS is calling on sympathizers to poison food in American supermarkets by injecting it with cyanide. Documents discovered when Mosul University was recaptured by special forces from Iraq indicate that they have already tested out the idea in Nazi-like experiments using prisoners, and it resulted in some very painful deaths. They are calling for attacks in the U.S. as well as Europe and Russia to coincide with the “sacrifice feast” of Eid al Adha. While the group has mostly employed assault rifles, trucks and knives in the past, it now appears they are widening their scope in hopes...

To borrow a phrase that was used hundreds – if not  thousands  – of times by leftists in the months following the election of Barack Obama, President Trump was “dealt a bad hand.” This is not an excuse for inaction or strategic mistakes, however, sort of like how the liberals used it to cover up Obama’s foolishness. Rather, the fact that Donald Trump was dealt a bad hand with regards to foreign policy is simply reality. Due largely to the fecklessness and the submissiveness of the prior administration on the global stage, America now faces several dangerous threats, not the least of which is North Korea. For months now, President Trump and Kim Jong-Un have been engaged in a war of words, so to speak, with both leaders casting threats at one another without actually pulling the trigger. However, in addition to these threats, Kim Jong-Un has been repeatedly testing intercontinental ballistic missiles, almost as if he is trying to provoke the United States into making the fi...

Z-10 The Z-10, with colored smoke dispensers, makes a flyby during aerobatic maneuvers at the 4th China Helicopter Expo. WeChat, via by78 At the 4th China Helicopter Exposition, an airshow in Tianjin, the nation flaunted its latest in aviation tech. Here are the highlights: HIGH SPEED HELICOPTER This ultra fast helicopter by AVIC uses push propellers (possibly turboprops) and rotor blades to reach speeds of more than 250 mph. by78 Of particular note was a high-speed aircraft with a 5.5-ton dual-rotor compound set-up. It's got the narrow fuselage of a conventional helicopter but with two long wings, each with a three-blade rotor on top horizontally aligned turboprop engine below. While the rotor/turboprop combination may be heavier than the tiltorotor found on the U.S.-made MV-22, it is expected to be less expensive to maintain.  It's arguably China's first baby step in the world of high-speed helicopters. It has a payload of only...

According to some analysts,  Americans may be overly confident in our military’s ability to shoot down North Korean missiles if the country were to attempt to strike. Maybe the reason we haven’t shot down North Korea’s test missiles is that we can’t.  While we all certainly hope that our military would be able to successfully defend the country against incoming missiles, we need to be prepared for any possibility. According to an article by Joe Cirincione of Defense One, the reason we don’t shoot down North Korea’s missiles when they fire them over Japan is because… We don’t have the capability. Joe Cirincione is the president of  Ploughshares Fund  and the  author of several books  about nuclear weapons, including  Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late . According to Cirincione, when Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said,  “We didn’t intercept it because no damage to Japanese territ...

Official fears violence after 25 September independence vote, as disputes grow in areas controlled by Kurd forces outside original KRG borders. Fears of fresh conflict in northern Iraq are bubbling to the surface weeks before Iraqi Kurds hold a contentious vote on independence, with warnings of war over disputed, ethnically mixed border regions and reports of Shia forces pushing Kurd officials from a town to prevent voting. The Kurdistan Regional Government, or KRG, has refused repeated requests from Baghdad, the US and regional powers to postpone its 25 September referendum, saying it would only do so if an alternative was presented by Iraq’s central government. Tensions have risen in areas liberated by KRG forces outside the region’s original 2003 borders, including the city of Kirkuk. On Monday the KRG’s president, Massoud Barzani, said “any attempt to change the reality using force” in Kirkuk “should expect that every single Kurd will be ready to fight.” Dr ...