ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Members of the Fatemiyoun Brigade during the Palmyra offensive in December 2016 Over 2,000 Afghans have been killed and about 8,000 have been injured fighting in Syria on the side of the Damascus government, according to media reports. “This brigade has given more than 2,000 martyrs and 8,000 wounded for Islam,” Zohair Mojahed, a cultural official in the Fatemiyoun Brigade, said in an interview to the Iranian newspaper Shargh. According to the official, members of the Fatemiyoun Brigade have been fighting in Syria for five years. The Fatemiyoun Brigade is one of the biggest and most effective Iranian-backed units operating in Syria.  Members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards play role of military advisers within Fatemiyoun units. The brigade supported operations of the Syrian Army in the provinces of Homs, Hama and Aleppo.  Now, the group’s members assist army troops operating in Idlib province .

FILE IMAGE Written by  Paul Craig Roberts ; Originally appeared at  paulcraigroberts.org In 1953 Washington and Britain overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh and installed a dictator to rule Iran for the benefit of Washington and the British. In declassified documents, the CIA has admitted its role in overthrowing the Iranian government. The overthrow pattern is always the same. Washington hires protesters, then introduces violence, controls the explanation, and unseats the government. Ever since the Iranian Revolution that overthrew the Washington-installed dictator in1979, Washington has been trying to regain control of Iran. In 2009 Washington financed the “Green Revolution,” which was an attempt to overthrow the Ahmadinejad government. Today Washington is again at work against the Iranian people. It is difficult to believe that any Iranian, after watching what Washington-organized protests have done to Honduras, Libya, Ukraine, a...

Mossad chief Yossi Cohen Israel has agents spying on the ground in Iran, Mossad chief Yossi Cohen said during a closed session at the Finance Ministry, Israel National News reported on January 9. “We have eyes and ears, even in Iran,” the media outlet quoted Cohen. He also warned that Iran is expanding further in the region. “The Iranians are spreading across the Middle East with a vast array of forces, and there is little holding them back.” The Mossad chief added that Teheran is en route “to realize its dream of creating what almost amounts to a land and air bridge allowing them to dump troops across the Middle East.” Cohen’s comment came just hours after reports that  the Syrian Air Defense had thwarted an Israeli missile attack on military targets in the Damascus countryside  and days after  Iranian public prosecutor, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, accused CIA, Israel and Saudi Arabia of fomenting the unrest which has swept across Iran.

Click to see the full-size image The Iranian authorities placed former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad under house arrest after he had publicly criticized the current Iranian government, according to a report of the UK-based al-Quds al-Arabi on January 6. According to al-Quds al-Arabi, Ahmadinejad accused the government of Iran President Hassan Rouhani of mismanagement and criticized it during a public speech in the southern city of Bushehr on December 28. “Some of the current leaders live detached from the problems and concerns of the people and do not know anything about the reality of society … What it suffers Iran today is mismanagement and not lack of economic resources,” Ahmadinejad said in his public speech, according to al-Quds al-Arabi. The al-Quds al-Arabi report suggested that Ahmadinejad’s statement was likely a response to President Rouhani, who accused him earlier of planning to confront the Iranian government. Western and Arab media linked the suppo...

Click to see the full-size image On January 7, a heavy VBIED exploded in al-Thalathin street in the western part of Idlib city. The Lebanese al-Mayadeen TV said that the VBIED targeted the headquarters of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Ajnad Caucasus group. 25 civilians and fighters of Ajnad Caucasus were killed and many others were injured in the VBIED attack, according to local sources. Al-Mayadeen said that opposition activists accused Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham of carrying out the VBIED attack as a punishment against Ajnah Caucasus because they fled the battlefield in the southeastern Idlib countryside. During the last few days, several prominent figures of the Syrian opposition and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) accused HTS of handing over its positions in southeastern Idlib to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). On the other side, pro-HTS activists accused FSA groups and even the locals of supporting the SAA, especially after the Syrian Arab Air Force Intelligence (SyAAFI)  leaked...

Illustrative image On January 7, ISIS fighters attacked several checkpoints and positions of the Afghan Police in Dewa Gul area of the eastern Kunar province, according to the ISIS-linked news agency Amaq. The media outlet claimed that ISIS fighters killed 15 Afghan policemen and injured 27 others. Five Humvee vehicles of the Afghan Police were reportedly destroyed by ISIS. Abdul Ghani Musamim spokesman for Kunar province governor told Pajhwok Afghan News that only three Afghan policemen were killed in the ISIS attack. Musamim also claimed that the Afghan Police killed 15 fighters of ISIS and injured 22 other while repelling the attack on their positions in Dewa Gul area. The ISIS attack in Kunar province shows how the terrorist group is trying to expand out of its main stronghold in Afghanistan, Nangarhar province south of Kunar. On the same day, the Afghan Army announced that 20 members of ISIS, including two key leaders of the terrorist group, identified as “Mawlavi Tur...

On January 5, thousands of civilians including women and children protested in the towns of Babbila and Beit Sahem south of Damascus city against the al-Qaeda-affiliated militant group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Hamas-affiliated militant group Jaysh al-Ababil, according to Syrian pro-government sources. The Lebanese al-Mayadeen TV said that the protestors condemned the terrorists acts of HTS and Jaysh al-Ababil during the protests and called on the two Islamist groups to leave the area. Local sources reported the Jaysh al-Ababil fighters injured several protestors with machine guns. Last week, dozens of children protested in the towns of Babbila and Beit Sahem against Jaysh al-Ababil, after it had arrested their relatives because they were planning to join the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). Click to see the full-size image The Syrian government has been negotiating with HTS and Jaysh al-Ababil to expel them from the towns of Aqraba, Beit Sahm, Yalda and Babila  since...

Illustrative image Written by  Prof Michel Chossudovsky ; Originally appeared at  Global Research In 2003, the war on Iran project was already Déjà Vu.  It had been on the drawing board of the Pentagon since the mid-nineties.  Since the launching of the  Theater Iran Near Term (TIRANNT)   war games scenario in May 2003 (leaked classified document), an escalation scenario involving military action directed against Iran and Syria had been envisaged, of which Syria was the first stage in 2011.   The initial invasion of Iraq under “Operation Iraqi Freedom” was launched on March 20, 2003, April 9 marks the Fall of Baghdad;  officially the invasion was completed on May 1st, 2003. In May 2003,  immediately  following the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the TIRANNT (Theater Iran Near Term) war games scenario were carried out as revealed by William Arkin, a former US intelligence analyst: “In early 2003, even as U.S. fo...