ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Washington still thinks it's calling the shots—and we'll fight forever to prove it. By Charles V. Peña   Speaking at the Hoover Institute, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson  laid out  the Trump administration’s vision for “a stable, unified, and independent Syria, free of terrorist threats and free of weapons of mass destruction.” Such a vision sounds a lot like what previous administrations said about Iraq and Afghanistan, which should be cause for worry. Afghanistan has become America’s longest running war and we still have troops in Iraq more than a decade after what some war supporters said would be a “ cakewalk .” Moreover, a long-term U.S. military presence in both those countries has not made them stable or unified—and nothing indicates they will be anytime soon. Nonetheless, Secretary Tillerson made clear that “[t]he United States will maintain a military presence in Syria” that is “conditions-based.” But why commit to do in Syria what we haven’t been able to...

A photo of the Taliban special forces with western weapons. On January 31, Taliban fighters attacked a joint position of the Afghan Army and the NATO around the city of Mehtarlam, the capital of the eastern Laghman province, according to the Taliban news agency Voice of Jihad. The agency said that seven Afghan soldiers were killed and five armored vehicles of the Afghan Army were destroyed by Taliban fighters. Taliban fighters also killed five Afghan soldiers and injured six others during a series of hit and run attacks on several checkpoints of the Afghan Army and Police in the district of Alishang in the province of Laghman. The Voice of Jihad also reported that Taliban fighters ambushed a convoy of the Afghan Army in Shalgar district of Ghazni province, also in eastern Afghanistan, on February 1. Twelve Afghan Army soldiers were reportedly killed and nine others were injured in the attack. Taliban fighters also destroyed four armored vehicles of the Afghan Army, accordin...

North Korea may be run by a deranged, tyrannical psychopath, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t a direct threat to the United States and the people that live here. During an interview with “CBS This Morning” earlier this week, CIA Director  Mike Pompeo  placed a significant amount of emphasis on a new report that suggests that the North Korean regime will be able to strike the United States with a nuclear warhead in just a “handful of months.” Previously, the intelligence community thought that North Korea wouldn’t be able to launch a successful nuclear strike on the United States for at least a year, but now it appears that there is less time than the U.S. government originally thought. (Related:  Watch this video lecture from the Health Ranger on how North Korea can exterminate 90% of the U.S. population .) “Here’s what we can say,” the CIA director said in the interview. “We can always identify that the program is continuing. …We’ll never know the exact nat...

63 more members of Kurdish militias have been ‘neutralized’ in the Syrian area of Afrin, the Turkish General Staff said in a statement on January 31. According to the statement, in total 712 so-called terrorists have been neutralized since the start of Operation Olive Branch On Janary 20. However, the numbers provided by the Turkish General Staff in its statements are clearly overestimated, according to local sources. Furthermore, the Turkish Armed Forces and its proxies from the Free Syrian Army have still been not able to break the defense of Kurdish YPG/YPJ forces in a number of points across the Afrin area. If Turksih forces are not able to do this in the near future, the Turkish leadership may face additional pressure from both the international community and own population. Turkish forces are at Bursaya Mount:

Illustrative image On January 24, the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence announced in an official statement that it conducted two successful security operations and foiled a plan of the Saudi Intelligence to carry out a terrorist bombing inside Iran, according to Iranian Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). According to the official statement, Iranian intelligence agents seized 23 remote controlled IEDs in the first operation. The IEDs were allegedly smuggled into the eastern border of Iran. In the second operation, equipment required for making bombs, including TNT, C-4, explosive kits, 150 explosive boosters and light weapons were seized by the Iranian intelligence in the western Iranian province of Marvin. The Iranian accusations against Saudi Arabia may be true becauuse Saudi officials have threatened Iran on many occasions. On May 3, 2017 Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman even said that Saudi Arabia “will not wait until the battle becomes in Saudi Arabia but we will work to ...

Click to see the full-size image On January 24, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) redeployed the Russian-backed Qalamun Shield Forces (QSF) from the Eastern Ghouta region to the southeastern Idlib countryside to counter the growing threat of ISIS, according to a report of the pro-government blog al-Masdar. ISIS fighters were besieged in the northern eastern Hama countryside and parts of the southeastern Idlib countryside by the SAA and its allies on January 20. Since then, the terrorist group has started conducting hit and run attacks against SAA units east of the town of Sinjar in southeastern Idlib. Click to see the full-size image The ISIS-linked news agency Amaq reported on January 24 that ISIS fighters killed five Syrian soldiers and captured two others in an ambush east of Sinjar. ISIS fighters also captured three vehicles and several weapons from the SAA. Click to see the full-size image Click to see the full-size image Click to see the full-size image Clic...

Photos of Strykers and up-armored Humvees flying U.S. flags were posted on social media over the weekend after the U.S. regional command confirmed that Special Forces troops in Syria had moved toward Manbij. (Qalaat Al Mudiq/Twitter) On January 24, the Turkish Army artillery shelled a position of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) around the village of al-Dindaniyah west of Manbij in the Syrian province of Aleppo, according to the SDF’s Manbij Military Council (MMC). Kurdish sources added that the village of Shuyukh north of Manbij was also shelled by the Turkish Army. The MMC reported that several warplanes of the US-led coalition flew over city after the shelling in what appears to be a US warning to the Turkish Army. Earlier, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned during a speech to the heads of local governments in the city of Ankara that the Turkish Army will extend its ongoing military operation against Kurdish militias in the Afrin area to include Manbij. “...