ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

FILE IMAGE On March 25 night, Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system was mistakenly activated and interceptors were launched along the border with the Gaza Strip. However, no rocket were fired in the area and the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) was forced to admit that the system was activated by “by machine gun fire in Gaza.” According to local sources, multiple launches of missile interceptors near Ashkelon took place as a result of the false alarm. Israeli sources speculate that the incident was caused by the March 25 live-fire drill conducted by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. An IDF spokesperson said the military would investigate the technical reason behind the situation in order to ensure that such an event does not repeat itself. A day earlier, the  Israeli Air Force conducted a raid against a Hamas compound in Gaza responding to a border breach and an arson attack against an IDF engineering vehicle.

Written by  Paul Craig Roberts ; Originally appeared on  paulcraigroberts.org I agree with Stephen Lendman (below) that the Russian government’s efforts to deal with the West on the basis of evidence and law are futile.  There is only one Western foreign policy and it is Washington’s.  Washington’s “diplomacy” consists only of lies and force.  It was a reasonable decision for Russia to attempt diplomatic engagement with the West on the basis of facts, evidence, and law, but it has been to no avail.  For Russia to continue on this failed course is risky, not only to Russia but to the entire world. Indeed, nothing is more dangerous to the world than Russia’s self-delusion about “Western partners.”  Russia only has Western enemies. These enemies intend to remove the constraint that Russia (and China) place on Washington’s unilateralism. The various incidents staged by the West, such as the Skirpal poisoning, Syrian use of chemical weapons, Malaysian airliner, and false charges, such

A video has appeared online showing Russian warplanes coducting airstrikes on militant targets in Syria from Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft-carrying missile cruiser. The video was filmed in 2016 when Admiral Kuznetsov particiapted in Russia’s coounter-terrorism campaign in Syria.

SLF fighter, Illustrative image On March 24, the Syrian Liberation Front (SLF) repelled another attack by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on its positions in the village of Mklbis in the western Aleppo countryside, the SLF-linked news agency Midad Press reported. The media outlet said that SLF fighters had destroyed a battle tank and an armored vehicle belonging to HTS. HTS attacked the SLF in the village of Mklbis on March 23  but and failed to penetrate the SLF defense lines around the village. According to Syrian opposition sources, HTS lost more than 25 fighters in this attack. In a related development, hundreds of civilians took at the streets in the town of al-Atarb, near the village of Mklbis, to protest against HTS members that had killed a civilian in the town a day earlier, according to Syrian opposition sources. Syrian opposition activists reported that the protestors had attacked the Regiment 46 base, which had been used by HTS as a base for its artillery and heavy

On March 24, a booby-trapped car exploded near a convoy of Egyptian security forces while it was passing the Tolip Hotel in the Stanley neighborhood of the coastal city of Alexandria, according to the Russian RT TV. The Ministry of Interior of Egypt revealed that Major General Mostafa al-Nemr, the head of security in Alexandria, had been the main target of the attack. He survived the incident. Two policemen were killed and four others were injured, according to the ministry. The attack came only two days before the Egyptian presidential election. Due to this, several Egyptian observers accused the Hassm Movement, the armed wing of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Party, of carrying out the attack in an attempt to sabotage the upcoming election. The Hassam Movement was established by radical elements of the Muslim Brotherhood Party after the Egyptian Army had removed the Muslim Brotherhood from power in what had became known as the “2013 Egyptian coup d’état”. Since then,

Jaysh al-Islam leader, Issam Buydani during a battle against the Syrian Arab Army, Illustrative image On March 23, Jaysh al-Islam agreed to release more than 3,500 captives from its prisons in the Duma district in the northern part of the Eastern Ghouta region following successful negotiations with the Damascus government, according to several Syrian pro-government sources. Under the same agreement, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) will evacuate more than 3,000 injured and sick civilians from the Duma district. Jaysh al-Islam has captured thousands of SAA soldiers and civilians, including entire families, since late 2011. The armed group imprisoned these soldiers and civilians in a large concentration camp in the Duma district, that’s known as the “al-Tuba prison”. Hundreds of families, mainly from minority groups, were captured by Jaysh al-Islam during a single attack on the civilian area of Adra southeast of Duma on December 11, 2013. This agreement will likely be followed by

On March 22, the Yemeni Missile Forces, that’s loyal to the Houthis, announced in an official statement that it had tasted a new short range “ballistic missile” named Bader-1. According to the statement, a key oil facility of the Saudi Aramco oil company in the southern province of Najran was successfully targeted with the new “ballistic missile” during the test. The Yemeni Missile Forces said that Bader-1 is a solid fuel “ballistic missile” with a speed of up to 4,5 Mach and high accuracy. However, the projectile’s images suggest that it is a solid fuel artillery rocket, not a “ballistic” missile. The Badr-1 is likely a copy of the Iranian Fajr-3 artillery rocket, as both rockets appear to have similar diameter and length. Furthermore, the range of the Fajr-3 is over 43km. This is more than enough to hit Najran province form the Houthis-held areas in northern Yemen. Meanwhile, Saudi Aramco denied in an official statement that any of its facilities had been hit by the Houthis. It

Click to see the full-size image On March 21, the Iraqi Army received the last batch of Russian-made Pantsir-S1 short to medium range air defense systems, which consisted of fourteen systems, according to several Iraqi sources. The Iraqi Army now has 48 Pantsir-S1 systems in active service. Preliminary agreements to sell $4.2 US billion of Russian weapons to Iraq, including 48 Pantsir-S1 systems, were signed during then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s state visit to Moscow in October 2012. The Iraqi Army’s variety of the Pantsir-S1 system is equipped with the advanced Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) target acquisition radar, which can detect and track targets from 40km (wider ranges is reported, probably under ideal conditions), with a higher jamming resistance. The Pantsir-S1 is armed with two dual 2A38M 30 mm autocannon guns along with up to twelve radio-command-guided 57E6 surface-to-air missiles with the operational range of 20 km and the flight altitude of