Senior Iranian scientist defected to CIA: report

March 31, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Shahram Amiri

Shahram Amiri

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
ABC News appears to confirm earlier rumors, which intelNews reported on last December, that a senior Iranian nuclear scientist has defected to the CIA. The Iranian government had initially accused American and Saudi intelligence agencies of kidnapping Shahram Amiri, a central figure in the Iranian nuclear research program, who disappeared last June during a hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. However, as intelNews reported last year, French intelligence sources  claimed that Amiri’s defection was facilitated through a carefully planned intelligence operation involving the CIA, as well as French and German operatives. Moreover, the alleged defector was said to have secretly briefed International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in Frankfurt, Germany, before they traveled to Iran to inspect a previously undeclared Iranian nuclear facility near the city of Qum. According to ABC News, which cites “people briefed on the operation by intelligence officials”, not only has Amiri defected to the CIA, but he has already been “extensively debriefed” since his defection. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #319

March 31, 2010 by 3 Comments

  • CIA asks Gulf countries to monitor terrorist funding. The CIA has reportedly asked Arab/Persian Gulf countries “to tighten surveillance and look for any suspicious movement of funds” in regional banks.
  • Questions remain in Headley terrorism case. The New York Times has aired an update on the court case of Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley, a former US Drug Enforcement Administration informant, who was arrested by the FBI in October for plotting an attack on a Danish newspaper. The paper points out that Headley “moved effortlessly between the United States, Pakistan and India for nearly seven years, training at a militant camp in Pakistan on five occasions”. There has been intense speculation in India and Pakistan that Headley is in fact a renegade CIA agent.

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Analysis: The limits of Israeli espionage

March 30, 2010 by 1 Comment

Ronen Bergman

Ronen Bergman

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
Israeli investigative journalist Ronen Bergman (The Secret War with Iran) has written an editorial in Yedioth Ahronoth, in which he argues that Israel’s espionage successes in recent years have failed to bring about significant changes on the strategic level. Bergman briefly recounts the significant post-9/11 reforms in Israeli intelligence, most notably the appointment of Meir Dagan as the director of the Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency. Dagan has “created a new Mossad”, argues Bergman, one that is more narrowly focused in its operations, and more collaborative with foreign intelligence agencies –notably American, Jordanian, Turkish and Indian. This shift in focus and tactics has undeniably helped Israel score some significant espionage victories, including the 2008 assassination of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyah in Beirut, Lebanon; the seizure of several ships carrying Iranian and Syrian weapons to Hezbollah; as well as the more recent assassination of Hamas military official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #318

March 30, 2010 by Leave a Comment

  • US State Dept. lawyer defends CIA drone attacks. State Department legal adviser Harold Koh has told a conference that “the considered view of this administration” is that the controversial CIA-operated drone attacks inside Pakistan “comply with all applicable law, including the laws of war”.
  • How the CIA let Anwar al-Aulaqi escape to Yemen. Last year, the Yemeni government asked the CIA to help collect intelligence on US-born al-Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Aulaqi. But the CIA refused, and so did US Special Forces officials, who had been asked by the Yemenis to help them pursue Aulaqi. Just months later, US Army Major Malik Nidal Hasan, who was in contact with al-Aulaqi, killed 13 US soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas.
  • More on alleged Israeli spy caught in Algeria. Algerian authorities insist that a man (identified only as “Alberto”), who was captured after entering Algeria using a forged Spanish passport, is a Mossad agent. There are also rumors that the US embassy in Algiers has been involved in the case, and that it was for this reason that FBI deputy director John Pistole traveled to Algeria last week.

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Study points to Chinese city as ‘world capital’ of cyberespionage

March 29, 2010 by 1 Comment

Shaoxing

Shaoxing

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
A major traffic analysis of cyberespionage attacks has identified a provincial urban center in southeast China as ‘the world capital’ of cyberespionage. The survey, conducted by cybersecurity firm Symantec, studied the origination points and targets of 12 billion malicious emails. It concluded that nearly one third of all email-based cyberespionage attacks originate from the People’s Republic of China –a percentage far larger than previously thought. It also traced most Chinese cyberespionage attacks to Shaoxing, a city of over four million residents in China’s southeaster Zhejiang province. The Symantec study said that large-scale Chinese cyberespionage attacks appear to be systematic and concentrate on carefully selected targets, such as defense policy experts and human rights activists. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #317

March 29, 2010 by Leave a Comment

  • Captured MI6 spy denied bail. Daniel Houghton, a former MI6 officer who allegedly attempted to sell British classified top-secret computer files to what he thought was a foreign intelligence agency (but were in fact MI5 counterintelligence agents) has had his bail application rejected.
  • Alleged Israeli spy arrested in Algeria. The Algerian security services have arrested an unidentified Israeli, who allegedly entered Algeria using a forged Spanish passport. No further information available at this time.
  • MI6′s top ranking female spy dies at 88. Daphne Park, the Baroness of Monmouth, who died Wednesday, aged 88, had a long career in the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), which culminated in her appointment as Controller Western Hemisphere in 1975, the highest post ever occupied by a woman at MI6.

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MI5’s tech skills lacking, admits director-general

March 29, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Jonathan Evans

Jonathan Evans

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
The director-general of MI5, Britain’s foremost domestic intelligence agency, has revealed his concern that the organization he heads lacks officers with even basic skills in information technology. Speaking before the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, Jonathan Evans said he thought “some [MI5] staff perhaps aren’t quite the ones that we will want for the future”. He continued by saying that that the lack of even basic computer skills among MI5’s aging officer ranks have sparked the introduction of a program of “both voluntary and compulsory redundancies”. Ironically, the expected layoffs are taking place during MI5’s most rapid expansion in recent memory. The agency’s budget has nearly doubled in less than a decade, and so has its workforce: from just over 2,000 employees in 2001, MI5’s workforce has now reached 3,500, and is expected to surpass 4,000 by 2011. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #316

March 28, 2010 by Leave a Comment

  • News videos on UK expulsion of Israeli ‘diplomat’. Commendable video-based amalgamation by Newsy.com of worldwide media comments on the recent expulsion of an Israeli intelligence officer by the British government. The expulsion was in response to the forging of British passports, employed by the Mossad in the killing of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai last January.
  • How Khost suicide bomber lured CIA agents to their deaths. According to the CIA’s internal investigation of the killing of seven CIA officers by Humam al-Balawi, in Khost, Afghanistan, last December, the fatal explosion happened as the CIA officers had gathered around Balawi to present him with a cake as a present for his birthday.

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Analysis: US commentator argues in favor of breaking up NSA

March 27, 2010 by 1 Comment

NSA Headquarters

NSA HQ

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
The US National Security Agency (NSA) is a gigantic intelligence organization –the world’s largest– which is tasked by the US government with worldwide communications surveillance, as well as communications security. But Wired magazine’s Noah Shachtman explains that the NSA’s two-fold mission forces two essentially distinct agencies to coexist under one roof. There’s the signals-intelligence directorate, the Big Brothers who, it is said, can tap into any electronic communication. And there’s the information-assurance directorate, the cybersecurity nerds whose job is to make sure the US government’s computers and telecommunications systems are hacker- and eavesdropper-free. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #315

March 25, 2010 by Leave a Comment

  • Nuclear bunker spy comes out of hiding. A British retiree named Mike Lesser has revealed he was one of the so-called “spies for peace”, a group of peace activists who in the 1960s helped uncover Britain’s secret network of underground bunkers built to protect the government in case of nuclear war.
  • Aussie spy agency spied on little girls. Secret files kept by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation reveal spooks tailed the teenage children of suspected socialists and communist sympathizers during the late 1960s, and anyone with whom they associated, including school friends and boyfriends.
  • Analysis: Under Panetta, a more aggressive CIA. Expectations among CIA hardliners were low when Leon Panetta arrived at the Agency’s headquarters in February 2009. But almost from the first week, Panetta positioned himself as a strong advocate for the CIA, to the extent that critics worry that Panetta has become a captive of the agency he leads.

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Latest from Hungary and Turkey on Budapest assassination

March 24, 2010 by 6 Comments

Trache murder

Trache murder

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
Despite the overwhelming silence in Western media about last week’s suspicious murder in broad daylight of a Syrian man in Hungary, the story continues to make headlines in Israel, the Arab world, Turkey and Hungary. IntelNews reported on Friday that a Bassam Trache, a Syrian man who had lived in Hungary for 20 years, was shot dead in Budapest on Wednesday morning, as he was driving his car. Witnesses reported that the assailant stole a small black briefcase from the 52-year-old victim’s vehicle, before fleeing the scene of the crime on foot. It also emerged that, in the week prior to the mysterious shooting, Hungarian air controllers located two Israeli Gulfstream spy planes hovering over the Hungarian capital, close to the airport, where Wednesday’s shooting occurred. Read more of this post

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Breaking news: UK expels Israeli diplomat over Dubai assassination

March 23, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh

Al-Mabhouh

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
While Israel continues to insist that “there is no proof” of its involvement in January’s assassination of a top Hamas military official, Britain has announced the pending expulsion of an Israeli diplomat over the killing. At least 12 forged British passports were used by a Mossad hit squad, whose members traveled to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to assassinate Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, on January 19. Announcing the decision, British foreign secretary David Miliband said that the high quality of the forged passports made it almost certain that “a state intelligence service” was behind the operation, and that London had “compelling reasons” to suspect Israel. He told the British Parliament that “such misuse of British passports is intolerable” and that the fact that it was perpetrated by an ally of the UK added “insult to injury”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #314

March 23, 2010 by Leave a Comment

  • Canadian spy agency to display cold war spy tools. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service is lifting the lid on some of Canada’s secret Cold War history with a first-ever public exhibit of the era’s exotic gadgetry and shadowy tradecraft, from a James Bond attaché case to Igor Gouzenko’s revolver.
  • Why planespotting in Egypt is a bad idea. British tourist Corbie Weastell, who was planespotting from his hotel window in Egypt, was arrested for spying, thrown in a filthy cell without food or water and left handcuffed and chained to other inmates for two days

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West German spy service employed former Nazis, documents show

March 22, 2010 by 1 Comment

Reinhard Gehlen

Reinhard Gehlen

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
West Germany’s intelligence service employed hundreds of former Nazi criminals from 1956 until at least 1971, according to internal documents. The links between the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND), the main foreign intelligence agency of the German government, and the remnants of the German Nazi party, are well known; even its first director, Reinhard Gehlen, was a former General of the Wehrmacht. But documents dating to the 1960s, which were leaked last week to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, show that Gehlen, who worked as a CIA agent after 1945, was aware of his officers’ Nazi past, as were his American counterparts. The Nazi connections were internally revealed in detail after 1963, when Gehlen set up an internal BND investigation office, called Unit 85, to unmask potential Soviet moles inside the agency. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #313

March 22, 2010 by Leave a Comment

  • British spies operated ‘renegade torture unit’ in Iraq. British military intelligence operated a secret operation in Iraq, called Joint Forward Interrogation Team (JFIT), which was authorized to utilize degrading and unlawful treatment of prisoners. The officers running the operation claimed to be answerable only “directly to London”.
  • Poland’s Jaruzelski was counter-intel officer. Documents in the infamous East German Stasi archives allegedly show that in 1952 the then colonel Wojciech Jaruzelski, who later became Poland’s last communist leader, began working for the Main Directorate of Information of the Polish Army –-the military police and counter-espionage agency in Poland.

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More information on alleged Mossad hit in Budapest

March 20, 2010 by 2 Comments

Crime scene

Crime scene

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
IntelNews reported on Friday that a Syrian man was shot dead in Budapest on Wednesday morning, as he was driving his car. Witnesses reported that the assailant stole a small black briefcase from the 52-year-old victim’s vehicle, before fleeing the scene of the crime on foot. It also emerged that, in the week prior to the mysterious shooting, Hungarian air controllers located two Israeli Gulfstream spy planes hovering over the Hungarian capital, close to the airport, where Wednesday’s shooting occurred. Is this Dubai reloaded? Late on Friday, Reuters news agency reported the dead Syrian-born man’s name as Bassam Trache, 52. Meanwhile, Hungarian officials continue to deny any link between Trache’s murder and the alleged Israeli spy planes. Hungarian government spokesman, Domokos Szollar, said the overflight was “routine” training that was cleared in advance with Hungary’s National Transport Authority by the Israelis. However, Hungarian “defense ministry officials appear not to have been informed” of the alleged training exercise. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #312

March 19, 2010 by Leave a Comment

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Another Mossad assassination, this time in Hungary?

March 19, 2010 by 17 Comments

Crime scene

Crime scene

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
IntelNews got word last night that an unidentified Syrian man was shot dead in Budapest early on Wednesday morning, as he was driving his car. Witnesses reported that the assailant stole a small black briefcase from the 52-year-old victim’s vehicle, before fleeing the scene of the crime on foot. A few hours later, it emerged that, in the week prior to the mysterious shooting, Hungarian air controllers located two Israeli Gulfstream spy planes hovering over the Hungarian capital, close to the airport, where Wednesday’s shooting actually occurred. The Hungarian government is so far refusing to release precise information as to the identity of the Syrian victim in Wednesday’s shooting. The country’s Ministry of Defense has also refused comment on the Israeli spy planes, except to say that they were “on a diplomatic mission”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #311

March 18, 2010 by 1 Comment

Al-Qaeda technical expert believed killed. Hussein Yemeni, an al-Qaeda bomb expert and trainer, is believed to have been among more than a dozen people killed in a CIA strike last week in Miram Shah, the largest town in Pakistan’s North Waziristan. Yemeni is thought to have had a major planning role in the December 30 suicide bombing in Khost, Afghanistan that killed seven CIA officers.

Al-Qaeda on the run, claims CIA director. CIA air attacks against al-Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal region have driven Osama bin Laden and his top deputies deeper into hiding and disrupted their ability to plan sophisticated operations, CIA Director Leon Panetta said Wednesday. Interesting; that’s not exactly what he said last week.

UK government defends use of foreign intel. The British Foreign Office has defended its use of intelligence obtained by foreign security agencies from terrorism suspects, even when it could not be sure how the informants had been treated. It’s not the first time this opinion has been expressed by a senior UK government source.

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Senate bill proposes closer links between US spies, private sector

March 18, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Olympia Snowe

Olympia Snowe

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
A bipartisan bill, unveiled yesterday in the US Senate, proposes closer links between US intelligence agencies and private sector companies active in areas of “critical infrastructure”. Drafted and proposed by Republican senator Olympia Snowe and Democrat Jay Rockefeller, the legislation builds on concerns by government officials that US energy and telecommunications systems may not be able to sustain a concentrated cyber-attack by a foreign government agency or organized cybercriminal group. The major practical problem in terms of the government protecting these systems is that most have been deregulated since the Reagan era, and are now almost entirely under the control of private corporations. According to the bill, the US government would have to define the term “critical infrastructure”, and then designate the companies in control of such infrastructure networks as “critical partners” in protecting strategic national interests. Read more of this post

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