South African spy chief’s wife implicated in drugs arrest

March 17, 2009 by 1 Comment

Sheryl Cwele

Sheryl Cwele

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
The wife of Siyabonga C. Cwele, South Africa’s Minister of Intelligence, has been implicated by South African and Brazilian authorities in an international drugs trafficking case. Sheryl Cwele, whose husband has headed South Africa’s intelligence Ministry since last September, was found to have exchanged dozens of emails, letters and text messages with a woman arrested last June in Brazil, while secretly transporting over $300,000-worth of raw cocaine. The woman, Tessa Beetge, from Margate, a resort town in KwaZulu-Natal, traveled last summer from South Africa to Colombia and Peru, and from there to São Paulo, Brazil, where she was arrested on June 13, while transiting through on a flight to Johannesburg. Read more of this post

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EU official confirms Brussels espionage warnings

March 16, 2009 by Leave a comment

Dale Kidd

Dale Kidd

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
Last February, intelNews reported on a leaked internal European Union (EU) memorandum warning EU officials that “the threat of espionage is increasing day by day” and that  an increasing number of “countries […] lobbyists, journalists [and] private agencies […] are continuing to seek sensitive and classified information” in Brussels. The memo appeared to echo concerns by Alain Winants, Director of Belgium’s State Security Service (SV/SE), who in late January 2009 requested expanded investigative powers to combat the increasing presence of foreign spies in the country, including “dozens” of spies who operate in Brussels under journalistic cover. After pressure, EU officials hesitantly confirmed the existence of the internal memorandum. Now a new article in Wave magazine adds yet another confirmation from an EU insider. It quotes European Commission press officer Dale Kidd, who says that the European Commission has in fact “sent [out a] note in which it warns […] of increased risk of espionage”. Read more of this post

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Ex-KGB agent, wanted for murder in Britain, to run for mayor

March 16, 2009 by Leave a comment

Lugovoy

Lugovoy

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
Andrey Lugovoy, who is wanted in Britain for the 2006 murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, is poised to run for mayor in the Russian city of Sochi. British authorities believe that Lugovoy, who served in the KGB and in Russia’s Federal Protective Service (FSO) from 1987 to 1996, carried out the radioactive poisoning of Litvinenko, a former intelligence officer who had defected to the UK. Litvinenko, who was a vocal critic of former Russian President Vladimir Putin, came down with radioactive poisoning soon after meeting Lugovoy in a London restaurant. The latter is believed by British authorities to have acted “with the backing of the Russian state”. A victory by Lugovoy in next month’s mayoral race could potentially pose a diplomatic challenge for London, as Sochi will be hosting the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. If he wins, therefore, the prime murder suspect will be expected to lead local officials in “welcoming the British team to the Games”. Britain’s Daily Telegraph notes that such a possibility could ultimately “lead to the first ever British boycott of an Olympic Games”. Read more of this post

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CIA assassinations in Pakistan now almost routine

March 15, 2009 by Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
The targeted assassinations by the CIA in Pakistan have become routine to the extent that the US media have now stopped covering them. Last Thursday, four more missiles fired by a CIA-operated unmanned aircraft hit an alleged “militant hideout and training camp” in Kurram Valley, a tribally administered Pakistani region on the border with Afghanistan. A Reuters news agency correspondent in Islamabad quotes an unnamed senior Pakistani government official in Kuram who alleges that the missiles “hit a militant hideout and training camp in the Barjo area”. Also cited in the Reuters report is Noor Islam, a villager from the Barjo area, who stated that “[t]he training camp was completely destroyed” and that “at least 14 people were killed”. After a similar strike in Afghanistan last month, the US Pentagon was eventually forced to admit  that it killed “13 Afghan civilians and only three militants”. Read more of this post

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US Pentagon to build revolutionary spy airship

March 15, 2009 by Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
The US Department of Defense has announced that it is preparing to build a revolutionary surveillance airship that will remain constantly airborne for up to ten years. The 400 foot-long airship will be “a cross between a satellite and a spy plane” and will be powered by solar panels and fuel cells running on hydrogen. It will be able to spy on target planes, tanks and troop movements taking place within a 400-mile radius, while flying at the relatively safe altitude of 65,000 feet. Although Pentagon representatives hinted that the new airship would be primarily utilized along the Afghan-Pakistani border, they also noted it would be able to reach any global location within a fortnight. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Can US intelligence help with economic crisis?

March 14, 2009 by 1 Comment

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
Last month, US Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, warned that the ongoing global economic crisis should be Washington’s “primary near-term security concern”. Although it is unclear whether Blair’s statement represents a grass roots shift in the US intelligence community’s analytical and operational focus, his comments were seen as an attempt to raise economic intelligence to the top of Washington’s intelligence priorities. Observers have described such a potential transformation as “a sea change” and “a new prism” for analyzing global developments from an intelligence standpoint. But do Blair’s remarks represent a concrete change in US intelligence attitudes? Is the economic crisis really a more important intelligence concern than transnational terrorist networks? Read more of this post

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CIA veteran reveals agency’s operations in Tibet

March 14, 2009 by 1 Comment

Gyalo Thondup

Gyalo Thondup

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
A former CIA officer, who supervised the Agency’s covert operations in the Chinese region of Tibet, says he is working on a new book on the subject. John Kenneth Klaus, who, while stationed in India in the 1960s, directed the CIA’s support of Tibetan independence paramilitaries, has given a rare interview to Canadian newspaper The Toronto Star. In it, he admits that the CIA supplied weapons to Tibetan monks, who are widely known for their non-violent philosophy. According to 85-year-old Klaus, the origins of the CIA’s covert assistance to Tibetan monks date back to at least 1957, when Gyalo Thondup, older brother of the 14th (and current) Dalai Lama, sent the CIA five Tibetan recruits, whom the Agency trained in paramilitary tactics on the island of Saipan, in the Northern Marianas. Shortly afterwards the five men were covertly returned to Tibet “to assess and organize the resistance”. In the process, they recruited another 300 Tibetans who were secretly transported to Colorado and trained by Klaus and other US intelligence and military officers. Read more of this post

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Comment: Post-9/11 Intelligence Turf Wars Continue

March 13, 2009 by 1 Comment

Rod Beckstrom

Rod Beckstrom

By IAN ALLEN* | intelNews.org |
The stern assurances given to Americans after 9/11, that destructive turf wars between US intelligence agencies would stop, appear to be evaporating. Earlier this week, Rod Beckstrom, who headed the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) at the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), announced his resignation amidst a bitter row between the DHS and the National Security Agency (NSA) over the oversight of American cybersecurity. In a letter (.pdf) addressed to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, and carbon-copied to nearly every senior US intelligence and defense official, Beckstrom blasted the lack of “appropriate support [for NCSC] during the last administration”, as well as having to wrestle with “various roadblocks engineered within [DHS] by the Office of Management and Budget”. Most of all, Beckstrom, an industry entrepreneur who remained in his NCSC post for less than a year, accused the NSA of subverting NCSC’s cybersecurity role by trying to “subjugate” and “control” NCSC. 

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US officials step up warnings about missing Somali-Americans

March 13, 2009 by Leave a comment

Shirwa Ahmed

Shirwa Ahmed

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
IntelNews has previously reported on the case of Shirwa Ahmed, a US citizen of Somali descent who last October became history’s first known US-born suicide bomber. On October 29, 2008, Ahmed was one of five bombers who carried out near-simultaneous suicide bombings in the Somali city of Hargeisa, targeting the Presidential palace, the consulate of Ethiopia and a UN complex. The bombings have been attributed to al-Shabaab (the Party of Youth), a militant youth faction of Somalia’s Islamic Courts Union (ICU). Members of the ICU went underground in late 2006, after Ethiopia launched a US-aided invasion of Somalia with the aim of curtailing the ICU’s grassroots support and preventing the solidification of the group’s rule in Somalia. Al-Shabaab represents the most militant of the ICU-led underground, and is said to be one of several groups in Somalia with significant al-Qaeda links. Read more of this post

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US-China naval standoff worst in years, US intel chief says

March 12, 2009 by Leave a comment

Dennis Blair

Dennis Blair

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Last Sunday’s naval confrontation between a US Navy ship and five Chinese vessels was “the most serious” in seven years, according to US Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Admiral Dennis Blair. The last known serious intelligence row between the two nations occurred in 2001, when a Chinese Air Force plane collided with a US electronic surveillance aircraft over the South China Sea, killing the Chinese pilot and forcing the damaged US plane to perform an emergency landing on Chinese territory. Last Sunday’s incident also occurred in the South China Sea, approximately 75 miles off the Chinese island of Hainan. The US Pentagon initially claimed that its ship, the USNS Impeccable, was a “research vessel”, but it later admitted that it is used to “to hunt” foreign submarines. Read more of this post

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North Korean ex-spy meets Japanese abductee’s family

March 12, 2009 by Leave a comment

Kim Hyun-Hee

Kim Hyun-Hee

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Relatives of a Japanese citizen abducted thirty years ago by North Korean agents have held a meeting with a North Korean former spy, who told them their relative is still alive. Yaeko Taguchi was among 17 Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korean intelligence operatives in the 1970s and 1980s, and forced to familiarize North Koran spies with Japanese language and culture. The North Korean government, which has admitted conducting 13 of the 17 kidnappings, claims that Taguchi was killed in a car accident in 1986. But on Wednesday, Kim Hyun-Hee, a North Korean former spy who now lives in South Korea, told Taguchi’s son and brother that Taguchi was “her language tutor at a spy school in the North” and that she believes the Japanese woman is still alive. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Israel Lobby Ousts US Intelligence Nominee

March 11, 2009 by Leave a comment

Chas Freeman

Chas Freeman

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The near-hysterical reaction by Washington’s pro-Israel lobby against Charles “Chas” Freeman’s candidacy for National Intelligence Commission (NIC) Director has paid off. On Monday, Freeman, a State Department official with 44 years’ experience in the US diplomatic service, decided to withdraw his nomination to head the NIC –the government agency that works with the US intelligence community to compile national intelligence estimates. On February 26, Freeman, who was US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the 1990-1991 Gulf War, was nominated for the job by Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair. Blair had said the veteran diplomat would bring with him to the post “a wealth of knowledge and expertise in defense, diplomacy and intelligence”. But Freeman’s nomination was met almost immediately with vehement opposition from pro-Israeli lobby groups in Washington. Republican members of the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, as well as at least ten House Representatives, began a vocal campaign to stop Freeman’s NIC candidacy. Chief among the pro-Israel lawmakers were two Jewish Democrats from New York, Senator Charles Schumer and Representative Steve Israel. Along with another usual suspect, “independent” Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, they described Freeman as a “controversial” diplomat with “strong political opinions”, who “appear[s] inclined to lean against Israel” with “statements against Israel [that] were way over the top”. Read article →

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Bolivia expels second US diplomat for having CIA links

March 11, 2009 by 2 Comments

Evo Morales

Evo Morales

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Two weeks ago, Bolivian President Evo Morales said the CIA was actively conspiring to subvert his government’s energy policy. On Monday, the President announced the expulsion of a US diplomat, whom he accused of working for the CIA. The diplomat, Francisco Martinez, Second Secretary at the US Embassy in Bolivian capital La Paz, has been given 72 hours to leave the country. The Bolivian government says Martinez “was in permanent contact with opposition groups” in the country, and helped facilitate the separatist protests of September 2008. Martinez’s alleged actions were reportedly exposed by a Bolivian police officer who was recently arrested for participating in an alleged CIA-led effort to infiltrate Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), Bolivia’s nationalized oil company. The scandal led to several layoffs at YPFB and to the subsequent arrest of the company’s former Director, Santos Ramirez, on corruption charges. Read more of this post

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Mysterious clandestine group behind Turkish wiretap case

March 10, 2009 by 2 Comments

Tuncay Güney

Tuncay Güney

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Early last January, two concealed audio surveillance devices were found at the Ankara headquarters of Turkey’s Republican People’s Party (CHP). Officials and supporters of the center-left party, which is currently Turkey’s main opposition political force, were shocked by the discovery, and an investigation was launched to uncover the culprits. In a surprising move, Turkish police raided late last week the home of a prominent union official, and discovered documents that are said to directly link the CHP wiretaps with Ergenekon, a shadowy ultranationalist network with strong links to the Turkish armed forces. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Real IRA Attacks Part of Broader N. Ireland Military Buildup

March 10, 2009 by Leave a comment

RIRA gunman

RIRA gunman

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
On Saturday, March 7, two unarmed British soldiers were executed and two others seriously injured when three guerillas opened fire on them with semi-automatic weapons outside the British Army’s Massereene Barracks in Northern Ireland. Two nights later, a police officer was shot and killed in Craigavon, County Armagh, as he investigated reports of “suspicious activity” in the area. Northern Irish politics entered a new phase after these strikes, which have so far left three people dead and at least two seriously injured. Yet the attacks, which have been attributed to Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA) paramilitaries, were hardly unexpected; on the contrary, they are part of a broader pattern of intensification of covert military and paramilitary activity in the troubled region. Read article →

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