ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Taliban Special Forces. Illustrative image On December 8, the Taliban announced that its fighters had killed 14 soldiers of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and captured 23 others during a hit and run attack on a military base in the district of Shindand in the northwestern province of Herat. “12 PKM machine guns, 3 RPG launchers with 80 rounds, 17 rifles, 55000 rounds of rifle, 10000 rounds of PKM, 3 communication radios and a sizable amount of other ammunition were seized during the operation,” the Afghan group’s news agency, Voice of Jihad, said in a press release. Herat provincial council member, Najibullah Mohebi, confirmed to the Associated Press (AP) that Taliban fighters had carried out a coordinated attack on a base of the ANA in Shindand on December 6. According to local officials, the army repelled the attack after six hours of clashes. However, the Afghan group had already killed and captured many soldiers. This was the biggest Taliban attack in Herat since the

Written by  The Saker ; Originally appeared at  The Unz Review The AngloZionist propaganda machine is constantly warning us that Russia is about to invade some country.  The list of candidates for invasion is long and ranges from Norway to the Ukraine and includes the Baltic statelets, Poland and even countries further West.  Of course, we are also told that NATO and the US are here to prevent that.  Well, thank God for them, right? But what is conspicuously missing from this narrative is a discussion of the possible Russian motives for such a military move. Typically, we are merely told that Russia has broken the European post-Cold War order and borders by “annexing” Crimea and by sending military forces into the Donbass. Anybody with an IQ at room temperature or above by now realizes that both of these claims are total bunk. The ones who indeed broke the post-Cold War international order and borders were the NATO member states when they used military force, in complete illegal

Illustrative image On December 6, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu played down Hezbollah missile capabilities and claimed that the Lebanese group has only several dozens of precision-guided missiles. “According to Hezbollah’s plans, they were already supposed to be equipped with thousands of missiles, but right now they only have a few dozens. The reason that they only have a few dozen is, among others, sitting here in this room,” Netanyahu said at an award ceremony for exceptional Mossad operatives, according to the Times of Israel. Netanyahu went on to claim that the efforts of the Israeli military and intelligence prevented Hezbollah from accruing a higher number of precision-guided missiles. “It is the combination of the Mossad, the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces], and our entire security system. We are depriving them of that weapon as well, not absolutely, but to a very impressive extent,” said the Israeli PM. These remarks contradict with most of the previ

The text below is a full version of the anlysis entitled “ The Place and Role of Sniper Teams in Modern War “, which was originally released by SouthFront on February 26, 2018: The ongoing conflicts of varying level of intensity have significantly increased the importance of the combat role of snipers. Experience shows that even a few well trained and equipped snipers can decisively influence a battle on the modern battlefield. Many armies of the second half of the 20th century did not focus on training snipers, believing that in a large-scale conflict the decisive role would be played by large armored formations, supported by powerful airstrikes. The Russian Army, which during WW2 had the best sniper schools in the world, was forced to start almost from scratch in developing training programs for and aptitude in a new breed of snipers, after hard learned lessons in the conflicts in Chechnya. In the course of these conflicts, the military realized it had made a major mistake in

In April 2018,  the head of Russian Special Operations Command, Gen. Raymond Thomas, complainted  that the Russians are using their electronic warfare (EW) capabilities in Syria in order to deter actions of the US-led coalition there. “Right now in Syria we are operating in the most aggressive EW environment on the planet from our adversaries. They are testing us everyday, knocking our communications down, disabling our EC-130s, etcetera,”he started ignoring the fact that the US-led coalition had illegally invaded the country while the Russians are in Syria upon request from its legal government. Click to see the full-size image On November 30, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) a US-based think tank affilated with large defense contractors, released a fresh report, which also complains about the Russian decision to expand its EW capabilities in Syria and repeats remarks that it has a negative impact on the situation in the country. In particular the ISW adressed rep