ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

File image The Damascus government and US-backed Faylaq al-Rahman have reahed an agreement over the evacuation of Faylaq al-Rahman fighters from Eastern Ghouta to the northern governorate of Idlib, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on March 18. The districts of Jobar, Ayn Tarma, Irbin, Zamalka and Hazzah in the Eastern Ghouta region are currently under the control of Faylaq al-Rahman and elements of the former branch of al-Qaeda in Syria, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Earlier, Wael Alwan, Faylaq al-Rahman’s spokesman confirmed to Reuters that the US-backed group is negotiating with the Damascus government to “guarantee the safety and protection of civilians.” “The most important points under negotiation are a ceasefire, ensuring aid for civilians and the exit of medical cases and injured people needing treatment outside Ghouta,” Alwan said. However, Alwan claimed that a general evacuation of civilians and militants from the Eastern Ghouta region is

Illustrative image, source: the official Facebook page of the Iraqi Federal Police On March 18, Commander of the Iraqi Federal Police (IFP) Lieutenant General Raed Shaker Jawdat announced that the IFP had conducted a successful security operation against ISIS cells in the Hawija area southwest of the city of Kirkuk during the last few days. According to Lite. Gen. Jawdat, the IFP was able to secure the following fourteen villages in the Hawija area: Khdr al-Abbas, Shubat Hussien, Zidan al-Harabi, Khalaf al-Asuad, al-Farhaniyah, Abbas Juad, Khalil Hantush, al-Hamidiyah, al-Madmumah, al-Ajmi, Adi Saleh, Wadi Zaghitun, al-Nakar and al-Awaj. The IFP also destroyed three tunnels that had been used by ISIS cells, captured an IED workshop and a multiple rocket launcher. The Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) killed 80 fighters of ISIS during a similar security operation in the Kirkuk province on March 15. Iraqi forces launched these security operations in the Kirkuk provi

AFP PHOTO / BULENT KILIC Originally appeared at TASS The United States is hampering the arrival of any representatives of humanitarian organizations and the UN mission to Raqqa in Syria, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Saturday. “The US is continuing to hamper the arrival of any representatives of humanitarian organizations to Raqqa, let alone the agreement on the arrival of the UN mission to the city, which should register the scale of the humanitarian disaster in order to determine the amount of emergency humanitarian assistance to the remaining population,” the Defense Ministry said. According to the Defense Ministry, “the United States, Great Britain and the countries of the “coalition” that intensively worked for the faster adoption of UN Security Council resolution 2401, are now completely ignoring the fulfillment of their own obligations in Syria.” On February 24, 2018, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 2401 on establishing a ceasefire in Syria for a

The substance used in the poisoning of Sergei Skripal may have originated from the countries studying the “Novichok” nerve agent, including the UK, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Sweden, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “The most likely source of origin of the toxin are the countries which have been carrying out intense research on the substances from the ‘Novichok’ program, approximately since the end of the 1990s until the present time, and this project is not the creation of Russia or the Soviet Union,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday. She listed the UK, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Sweden among the countries involved. The US should also “be put under question,” Zakharova said in an interview with the state broadcaster VGTRK. “How did they come to the conclusion about a Russian ‘footprint’ if they didn’t give us those samples? Logically they shouldn’t have this substance. Which samples have they compared with to draw such a conclusion?” s

On March 17, a convoy of the Turkish Army, consisting of 100 armored vehicles, bulldozers and trucks, entered the town of Andan, only 7km north of Aleppo city, according to Syrian opposition sources. The Syrian pro-opposition news outlet Enab Baladi and the Turkish Anadolu Agency confirmed that Turkish Army convoy will establish a new observation post in Anadan to monitor the de-esclation zone in Aleppo governorate. The Turkish Army established three similar observation posts  in the town of al-Eis  in the southwestern Aleppo countryside and the villages of  Tell Tuqan  and  Sarman  in the southern Idlib countryside in February. Turkey will likely establish even more observation posts in Idlib and Aleppo governorates in upcoming months. According to Tukey’s Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin,  Russia and Turkey have agreed to establish twelve observation posts in northern Syria during the Astana talks . Anadolu Agency reported that the Russian forces will position themselv

Contrary to what some on the left and many on the right often argue, Russia is not an ally of the United States and Vladimir Putin is not a friend. Rather, Russia is an incredibly strong nation that is seeking to acquire more power and more territory by way of force, and they don’t intend on letting anything – including the United States – stand in their way. As such, Russia should be treated as an enemy, not as an ally like so many Republicans today insist upon. The sooner our country comes to terms with the fact that Vladimir Putin would stab us in the back if he was ever given the opportunity, the better. In a  recent article , B. Rose Kelly of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs described at length the threat posed by Russia, and more specifically, their stockpiles of highly enriched uranium. Kelly sited a report put together by the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), which found that Russia currently holds the world’s largest stockpile o

Terrorists have already proved their interest in using the British rail and underground system to create havoc.  A blast on a packed commuter train on September 15, 2017 , caused panic and left several people injured. Commissioner Neil Basu, the senior national coordinator for counter-terrorism policing, called the blast a terrorist incident and this was confirmed by the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. In spite of this increasing threat, the British government is making an already vulnerable system even less secure by  installing digital signaling on the line between Manchester and York  – a type of system that is vulnerable to cyber-attack. In November 2016, during the government’s Autumn Statement, a $607 million fund was announced for the development of digital railway systems. $6.75 million of this has been allocated to Network Rail for the planning and development of the Manchester–York digital signaling line. The government believes that going digital in this way will increase

The advancement of technology is truly bittersweet. One the one hand, technology has made our lives incredibly convenient and simple, but on the other hand, it has led to the emergence of more privacy concerns and security threats that didn’t exist just decades ago. Currently, law enforcement is having a difficult time keeping up with the rapid advancement of technology, and more specifically,  the development of drones , which today have the ability to do everything from capturing video footage to carrying customized weapons. As former Secret Service agent and author Dan Bongino put it, the Secret Service is mainly equipped and trained to stop attacks that happen on the ground, meaning that airborne threats, such as threats posed by a weaponized drone for instance, create “additional security complications.” Many Pentagon officials have issued similar warnings, arguing that the current drone-fighting technologies are “still immature” and require “further development.” In respo