The US intelligence community is not optimistic about the prospects of the Afghan government and the Taliban reaching a peace deal anytime soon to end the decades-long conflict in Afghanistan.  “We assess that prospects for a peace deal will remai...

The US intelligence community has put what it described as China’s ‘push for global power’ at the top of its latest annual report on worldwide threats to the national security of the United States.  Released on 13 April by the Office of the Direct...

Turkey’s Anadolu state news agency, quoting Turkish diplomatic sources, reported on 15 April that the deployment of two US Navy (USN) warships to the Black Sea scheduled for 14 and 15 April had been cancelled. Ankara had not been informed of any po...

US President Joe Biden announced on 14 April that he plans to withdraw the remaining 2,500 US troops from Afghanistan before 11 September, almost 20 years after the Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on the United States that resulted in the country engaging in its longest-running war.  “After consulting with our allies and partners, with our military leaders and intelligence personnel, with our diplomats and our development experts, with the [US] Congress and the vice president, as well as with [Afghan President] Mr [Ashraf] Ghani and many others ar...

The Philippines has increased the number of maritime assets deployed to areas it claims in the disputed South China Sea (SCS) amid what Manila described as a “continuous swarming” in the West Philippine Sea of Chinese coastguard and “maritime militia” vessels.    PLAN Jiangdao (Type 056/056A)-class corvette   Baise  was spotted by the Philippine’s NTF-WPS near the disputed Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea on 11 April.  (NTF-WPS)  The state-owned Philippine News Agency (PNA) reported on 13 April that the Phil...

Civilian casualties in Afghanistan rose by 29% in the first three months of this year compared to the same period in 2020, according to a 14 April report by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).  In its latest ‘Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict’ report, the UN mission said it documented 1,783 civilian casualties (573 killed and 1,210 injured), adding that of particular concern is the 37% rise in the number of women killed and injured, as well as a 23% increase in child casualties.  Afghan security officials ins...

Russian threat capabilities against Ukraine were added to on 7 April when Moscow’s Ministry of Defence announced that more than 10 amphibious landing and artillery ships are to be transferred from the Caspian Flotilla to the Black Sea Fleet headqua...

Kelvin Wong, unmanned systems editor has confirmed the use of the Chinese-made CH-3A tactical UAV in Myanmar. The latest open-source intelligence from Janes follows. Key pointsMyanmar’s military junta has begun to use its unmanned aerial vehicles to support its operations against protest movements.A rare sighting of the Chinese-made CH-3A tactical UAV over Mandalay has enabled Janes to confirm that it is in operational use in Myanmar following years of speculation.  Popular unrest in central Myanmar has been steadily increasing in the two month...

The Finnish security and intelligence service (Suojelupoliisi: SUPO) made a rare appeal to the public to bolster cyber-security efforts on 10 March. The organisation had noted an increase in cyber espionage utilising Finnish infrastructure to give...

Reports from the UN Secretary General to the UN Security Council and the EU’s High Representative to South Sudan, released in February and March respectively, show there is a long way to go to achieve the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) that was signed on 12 September 2018.  The deal, signed in Addis Ababa between President Salva Kiir’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and Army in Government (SPLM/A-IG) and Riek Machar’s Sudan People’s Liberation Movement and Army in Oppositi...

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) accused 20 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft of entering the island’s Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) on 26 March, a day after Washington and Taipei signed a memorandum of understandi...

A ballistic missile fired by Yemen-based Ansar Allah militants (more commonly referred to as the Houthis) hit an area outside a residential compound for workers of the state-controlled oil company Saudi Aramco in Dhahran, Eastern Province, on the evening of 7 March. Saudi Arabia’s defence systems downed the missile, with no casualties reported. On the same day, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) attack on the company’s storage tanks at nearby Ras Tanura was foiled. Energy assets across Saudi Arabia, most notably the Saudi Aramco-owned Abqaiq pr...

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has admitted for the first time that Eritrean troops are operating in his country’s Tigray region.  He told the parliament on 23 March that Ethiopia was indebted to Eritrea for providing a refuge to soldiers who...

Japan announced on 16 March that it is “resolved” to enhance its national defence capabilities and further strengthen its alliance with the United States amid what both countries described as “political, economic, military, and technological challenges” posed by China to both their alliance and the international community.  The announcement was part of a joint statement issued by Washington and Tokyo following the ‘2+2’ US-Japan Security Consultative Committee meeting held that same day between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, US Secret...

2020 full-year terrorism figures from Janes highlight 2,543 more deaths in 2020 from terrorist activity than in 2019 – despite operational activity slowing down.  LONDON (9 March) – Data from the 2020 Global Attack Index by Janes, spanning the entirety of 2020, demonstrates a total of 17,122 non-militant deaths in 2020 resulting from attacks by non-state armed groups (NSAG), a 17.4% increase from 2019.  Despite this, information from the trusted global agency for open-source defence intelligence recorded a 3.7% decrease in attacks – with 13,310...

The Omani government has signed an agreement with the University of Arizona’s Eller Executive Education to deliver training to Omani nationals as part of an offset agreement with US armoured vehicle manufacturer Lenco Armored Vehicles.  Under the agreement, Eller Executive Education will work to create a centre at Oman’s Institute of Public Administration (IPA) to train Omani nationals to become leaders in the country’s civil service. Aims for the project include: training 25 Omani instructors to teach future courses at the IPA; training for...

In a report released on 15 February, France’s information security agency, the National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (Agence nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d'information: ANSSI), revealed that hackers had breached networks...

Operation ‘Sea Guardian’ (OSG), NATO’s Mediterranean-based maritime security operation, carried out its first focused operation (FOCOP) for 2021 in the Alboran Sea. The February FOCOPS was led by the Spanish Navy’s Maritime Action Boats (Buques de...

On 2 December 2020, the State Council of the People’s Republic of China announced an ambitious plan under which China will develop a “weather modification system” by 2025. According to the press release announcing the plan, the “total area of artificial rainfall (snowfall) operation will reach beyond 5.5 million square kilometers, and for hail suppression it should go beyond 580,000 square kilometers”. This announcement was met with scepticism, caution, and concern in the international media, especially around China’s neighbourhood....

The EU is set to expand its support for technological cross-fertilisation between the civil, space, and defence sectors, and will promote its plan with new policies, money, standards, and networking schemes. Pushing a capability-driven approach (CD...