ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

File Image On April 25, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced in an official statement that its fact finding mission had visited a second site of the alleged chemical attack in the district of Duma and had collected samples from it.  The OPCW inspected the first site in Duma on April 21 . The OPCW added that its team had also interviewed some people who are related to the alleged chemical attack in Duma district and stressed that these interviews are part of its team’s mission. “The FFM [fact finding mission] will continue to carry out its independent and impartial mission based on interviews with relevant people, its findings from the site visits, analysis of the sample results, as well as any other information and materials collected,” the OPCW said in its official statement. In a related development, the OPCW announced that the Russian delegation to the organization will organize a briefing about the alleged chemical attack in Duma i

Kurdish fighters raise flag of PKK leader in centre of Raqqa Written by  Maksim Alexandrov ; Originally appeared on  warsonline.info ; Translated by  AlexD  exclusively for  SouthFront Not long ago in Washington at the Institute of National Strategic Studies of the National Defence University the round table on “The Multimodal Threats in the Kurdish Region” took place, a continuation of the “NATO and Regional Military and Political Alliance in 2018” Council. The organisers of the meeting, taking place on April 9 to 11, were the Institute of National Strategic Studies, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), the intelligence community and the commanders of the Special Forces of the US. The main agenda of the event was focused on clarifying the conceptual and analytical foundations of American policy in the framework of topical issues of the “Kurdish question”, the problem of improving the coordination of regional allies, as well as military and political modeling of crisis

On April 25,  the Russian Defense Ministry held a press briefing providing more details on the April 14 cruise missile strike carried out by the US, the UK and France on Syria . The Russian military  revealed wreckage of the intercepted missiles and showed at least one unexploded Tamahawk cruise missile . It also added that  two unexploded missiles (a Tomahawk and a high-accuracy air-launched missile) had been delivered to Russia from Syria.  FULL TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS BRIEFING According to the April 25 press briefing by the Russian military: only 22 US, French, British missiles hit their targets; 46 missiles were intercepted by Syrian air defense systems covering the capital of Syria and Duvali, Dumayr, Blai, and Mazzeh nearby airfields; 20 missiles were intercepted in three areas of the responsibility zone of air defense of Homs; a part of the missiles failed to reach their targets by different, apparently technical, reasons. SF recalls that according to the Pentagon’s

A Chinese frigate launches a missile during a naval drill in the East China Sea. Photo: Weibo The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy conducted a series of live-fire drills and formation maneuvers in a large show of force off Hainan Island in the South China Sea and nearby areas in the period between March 24 and April 11. The drills involved the Liaoning aircraft carrier and more than 40 vessels from China’s North, East and South Sea fleets. Following the exercises, on April 12, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping reviewed the PLA Navy in the South China Sea, saying that the need to build a strong navy “has never been more urgent than today”, according to the state-run news agency Xinhua. More than 10,000 service personnel, 48 vessels and 76 aircraft took part in the review. On April 10, the USS Theodore Roosevelt  conducted aircraft operations  as it was passing the South China Sea on its way to Manila, the US newspaper Navy Times reported.

The Iranian National Gas Company intends to raise the country’s share in the global gas trade, focusing at the international markets, according to Iranian media. The Iranian liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports reportedly rose to around 500,000 metric tons in April. According to reports, this month’s shipments were 14 percent up from last month’s figure bringing this year’s total shipments to 1.86 million metric tons. China’s Oriental Energy Company (OE), loaded 34,000 tons of propane and 14,000 tons of butane supplied by Iranian Gas Commercial Co., aboard an LNG tanker at Iran’s Gulf port of Assaluyeh, which is scheduled to arrive at China’s Qinzhou on April 25. Another ship will bring 33,000 tons of propane and 11,000 tons of butane to Ningbo on May 12. The shipments of Iranian natural gas come as OE was recently ordered by a Texas state district court to pay $523.8 million in damages to Germany’s Mabanaft following an LPG contract dispute. The court decreed that OE had breache

According to The Sunday People , British counter terror police have ­identified a Russian assassin ­connected to the Salisbury poisonings – a 54-year-old former FSB spy – codename Gordon. “Detectives believe there was a team of six behind the novichok chemical ­attack on double agent Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33,” The Sunday People’s article says adding that the UK’s intelligence services have ­compiled a list of key suspects involved in last month’s attack in the poisoning incident. They even have Gordon’s photo: “Suspect: Killer ‘Gordon’ in the 1980s” Do you see yourself in this photo? It looks that all the locals should be carefully because they can be identified as Russian assassin “Gordon”. The UK provided this new “irrefutable proof” of the Russian involvement as their version of the incident clearly collapses. The OPCW was not able to identify the origin of the nerve agent used in the poisoning. The Swiss state laboratory Spiez released results o

FILE IMAGE It looks that the US-led April 14 missile strike on Syria has backfired and now Washignton and its allies are considering what do with consequences of their decision. Israel is especially unhappy. For example, its defense minister Avigdor Lieberman is in fire  over the possible S-300 supplies to Syria by Russia. “ What’s important to us is that the defensive weapons the Russians are giving Syria won’t be used against us. If they’re used against us, we’ll act against them ,” Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman told the Ynet newspaper in an obvious remark over the current situation. “If anyone attacks us,  we will retaliate, regardless of S-300, S-700 or any anything else’s presence there .” Lieberman claimed that Israel “doesn’t interfere in Syria’s internal affairs” adding that however, Israel will not allow Iran “to flood” Syria “with advanced weapons systems that would be aimed against Israel.” The defense minister’s remarks came a day after an obvio