2010: The year that was in espionage

December 31, 2010 by 4 Comments

ABC Australia

ABC Australia

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
I was interviewed yesterday by Australian National Radio’s Julian Morrow on the major espionage stories of 2010. Fortunately or unfortunately, there has been no shortage of spy-related news this past year, and one is forced to be selective in reviewing the subject. In the interview I spoke about Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the senior Hamas official who was assassinated on January 19 in Dubai by agents of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. I also spent some time recalling the intelligence aspects and diplomatic fallout of last May’s Israeli Navy attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which killed nine and injured over 100 international activists. Julian then asked me to speak briefly about last June’s Stuxnet virus, which attacked computers in Iran’s state-of-the-art uranium enrichment plant in Natanz and the nuclear reactor facility in Bushehr. We closed the interview by discussing the arrest last summer of eleven Russian illegals in the eastern United States. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #463

December 30, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • Iranian spy minister admits hacking emails. Iran’s Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi has publicly admitted that the Iranian government has hacked into the emails of Iranian opposition members. He claimed the hacking, conducted by Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, revealed messages exchanged between “foreigners and their elements inside Iran”.
  • Details on CIA officer killed in Afghanistan. An interesting article in The Washingtonian offers an interesting background story on Jennifer Matthews, a CIA officer who was killed nearly a year ago in Afghanistan in a suicide bombing by Taliban double-agent Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi.
  • China jails South Korean alleged spy. China is getting tougher with South Korean spies caught on Chinese soil collecting intelligence on North Korea, and has jailed one of them for more than a year, despite pleas from Seoul, according to news reports.

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Israel sabotaged Egypt’s Internet, says alleged Mossad spy

December 29, 2010 by 1 Comment

Undersea Internet cable

Undersea cable

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Israeli sabotage was behind the nationwide crippling of Egypt’s Internet in 2008, according to an alleged Mossad agent. The accused agent, Abdel Razeq Hussein Hassan, is an Egyptian businessman who was arrested earlier this year by Egyptian counterintelligence and is accused of working for the Israeli spy agency. Two of his alleged Israeli handlers, Joseph Daymour and Idid Moushay, are reportedly on the run and are wanted by the Egyptian government.  Hassan is due to go on trial next month, but transcripts of his interrogation records have been leaked to Egyptian media. In one instance, Hassan appears to tell his police interrogators that a team of Mossad operatives deliberately cut two undersea cables about 5 miles off the north Egyptian port city of Alexandria, disrupting the country’s Internet service for several days. Read more of this post

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Germany launches probe into poisoning of ex-KGB colonel

December 28, 2010 by 2 Comments

KGB seal

KGB seal

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
An official government probe into the alleged poisoning of a Russian former KGB colonel and his wife has been launched in Berlin, German officials have announced. Regular intelNews visitors will recall the recent case of Viktor Kalashnikov, a former colonel and authority on military matters for the Soviet KGB, who was taken in critical condition to a Berlin hospital along with his wife, Marina. The two were found to have over ten times the highest permissible level of mercury in their blood, which, according to medical experts, points to a deliberate poisoning attempt. The case intrigued German officials, since the Kalashnikovs, who moved to Germany last September, are known in Russia as vocal critics of the Putin-Medvedev administration. The two have co-authored scathing critiques accusing Moscow of manipulating the separatist Chechen movement in order to create “a national security state” in Russia. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #462

December 27, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • CIA secrets could surface in Swiss nuclear case. A seven-year effort by the CIA to hide its relationship with the Tinners, a Swiss family who once acted as moles inside the world’s most successful atomic black market, hit a turning point on Thursday when a Swiss magistrate recommended charging the men with trafficking in technology and information for making nuclear arms.
  • Pakistan spy chief to ignore US summons. The Pakistani government has announced that hat there is “no possibility” that Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the head of Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, would obey a summons requesting his appearance before a court in the United States relating to the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks.
  • Australia told to prioritize spy recruitment. Carl Ungerer, from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, has advised the Australian intelligence agencies to “look at ways to improve information gathering from human sources”, as they undergo a period of reform.

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Comment: Russian Espionage Steals 2010 Limelight

December 24, 2010 by 4 Comments

GRU emblem

GRU emblem

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
As the first decade of the 21st century is coming to an end, few would dispute that Israeli and American spy agencies have been among the most talked-about intelligence organizations of 2010. The reasons for this are equally undeniable: the United States tops the list because of its political prominence, which inevitably attracts media attention; Israel tops it because of the sheer ferocity of its espionage output throughout the Middle East. And yet there is nothing new about this, since neither the Central Intelligence Agency nor the Mossad are exactly novices when it comes to high-profile media exposures. The same cannot be said with respect to Russian intelligence agencies, which went through a period of prolonged hibernation following the end of the Cold War. Indeed, the year that is about to end demonstrates that the stagnant interlude in Russian espionage may well be in its closing stages.

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News you may have missed #461

December 23, 2010 by 1 Comment

  • London expels Russian diplomat for spying. Britain’s troubled relations with Moscow suffered another blow on Tuesday, when London announced the expulsion of an unnamed Russian diplomat in London following “clear evidence” of spying. The request was communicated to the Kremlin on December 10, and was reportedly countered by Russia with a tit-for-tat expulsion of a British diplomat from the country.
  • Syria saw Israel behind aide’s assassination, leaked cables show. Syria suspected Israel of carrying out the murder of Brigadier General Mohammed Sleiman, a top security aide of President Bashar al-Assad, who was assassinated by a sniper in August of 2008, according to US diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks. The killing empowered hardliners in Syria and put an end to moves by President al-Assad for rapprochement between Damascus and Tel Aviv, according to the cables.
  • Israel to publicly press for release of spy held in US. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to officially and publicly appeal to US President Barack Obama in the coming days for the release of Jonathan Jay Pollard, an American serving a life term in a US jail for spying on the US for Israel.

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WikiLeaks revelations keep coming, but few pay attention

December 22, 2010 by 1 Comment

WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Most Western news outlets are now focusing almost exclusively on the fate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Few are paying attention to the details of Assange’s rape allegations in Sweden, which have sparked an interesting —though limited— debate about possible links between Assange’s accusers and American intelligence. Even fewer are paying attention to the actual US diplomatic cable revelations by WikiLeaks, which keep appearing daily, mostly in British quality broadsheet The Guardian (The New York Times has largely lost interest at this point). One such revelation, published on Monday, concerns allegations by the Director of the Shabat, also known as Shin Bet (Israel’s internal security service), that Palestinian group Fatah asked Israel to attack rival Palestinian group Hamas, in 2007. The leaked cable claims Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin told US diplomats that Fatah, the secular Palestinian nationalist faction that controls the West Bank, was “demoralized” and “desperate” to halt the rapid rise of Islamic Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. Diskin further told US officials that Fatah understood it could only survive with Israeli support, and had thus directly “asked us [Israel] to attack Hamas”. Perhaps more importantly, the leaked cable appears to confirm intense speculation among some intelligence observers that Fatah is “actively gathering information on behalf of Israeli intelligence”. Read more of this post

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Israel silent on alleged Mossad spy ring uncovered in Egypt [updated]

December 21, 2010 by 6 Comments

Mossad seal

Mossad seal

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Israeli government officials have refused comment on charges announced yesterday against an alleged Mossad spy ring in neighboring Egypt. Less than a week after the discovery of what appear to be Israeli surveillance devices hidden in the mountains around Lebanese capital Beirut, two Israelis have been charged with espionage by the Egyptian government and are reportedly on the run. (Update: the names of the two Israelis, as reported on their arrest warrants, are Joseph Daymour and Idid Moushay). A third member of the alleged ring, Egyptian businessman Tareq Abdel Razeq Hussein Hassan, 37, will be facing similar charges in court soon, according to Egypt’s State Prosecutor Hisham Badawi. According to Badawi, Hassan set up an import-export business in Egypt to act as a front company, under instructions by Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, after he met with Mossad officers in Thailand in 2007. He then allegedly used his company regional business activities as an alibi in order to travel to Syria and Lebanon and establish close contacts with telecommunications personnel throughout the region, in exchange for money from the Israelis. Read more of this post

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Mystery ‘spy devices’ found in Lebanon mountains

December 20, 2010 by 2 Comments

Surveillance device

Spy device

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A statement issued by the Lebanese armed forces last week details the discovery of at least two mysterious spy devices located in mountain ranges around the Lebanese capital Beirut. The discovery, which was apparently made early last week, concerns two allegedly Israeli-made electronic devices hidden under two fake boulders. According to the statement, the two devices were found carefully concealed in the mountain of Sannine, directly north of Beirut, and Barouk, which is adjacent to the city’s southern suburbs. There were also reports last Wednesday of a loud explosion in Sidon, a port in southern Lebanon, which some news media said was an operation by unknown assailants to destroy a third surveillance device before it was discovered by the Lebanese security forces. The two devices captured by the Lebanese forces consist of surveillance cameras, electronic transmitters, as well as satellite signal reception systems. One of them was even connected to a third fake boulder, containing long-lasting batteries, which powered the device. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #460

December 17, 2010 by Leave a comment

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Leaked cable confirms end of US-NZ spy quarrel

December 16, 2010 by 1 Comment

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
To regular readers of this blog, this is not so much a revelation, as it is a confirmation. Back in October of 2009, we wrote about a peculiar comment made Hillary Clinton. The United States Secretary of State had told a press conference that “we [the US] are resuming our intelligence-sharing cooperation [with New Zealand], which we think is very significant”. Resuming? When had it been disrupted, and why? Most intelligence observers agree that the only glitch that could have caused the cooperation to end would have been New Zealand’s nuclear ban. It was in 1984 when, under mounting popular pressure, the Labour government of David Lange voted to bar nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships from entering New Zealand territorial waters. At the time, the ban was heralded by the global nuclear disarmament movement as a major victory. But Washington did not see it that way. Successive US administrations pressured Wellington to repeal the nuclear-free legislation and allow US warships to make use of strategic New Zealand ports. Washington’s pressure increased in the years after 9/11, culminating in 2006, when it threatened to cancel a free-trade agreement between the two countries if New Zealand refused to repeal the ban. It appears that, at some point in time, possibly after 9/11, the US actually terminated intelligence sharing between the two countries in order to force New Zealand to comply. Read more of this post

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Largest Afghan narcotrafficker was CIA, DEA informant

December 15, 2010 by 4 Comments

Haji Juma Khan

Haji Juma Khan

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The history of operational collision between the Central Intelligence Agency and illicit narcotics traders is both long and largely documented. But new revelations published in The New York Times this week come to add a new chapter in this ever-expanding saga. The revelations this time concern Haji Juma Khan, perhaps the most notorious of Afghanistan’s drug lords, who has been described by US federal officials as arguably the most dangerous narcotrafficker in Central Asia. In 2008, Khan was finally arrested in New York, where he was charged with conspiracy to fund terrorist operations through trading in narcotics. American prosecutors allege that Khan literally “helped keep the Taliban in business”, providing them with weapons and cash on a systematic basis. But The Times reveal that, over a number of years, Khan also acted as an informant for both the CIA and the Drug Enforcement Administration and was “paid a large amount of cash” in return for his services. Read more of this post

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German police probe poisoning of ex-KGB colonel

December 14, 2010 by Leave a comment

KGB seal

KGB seal

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Police in Berlin are investigating a possible attempt to assassinate a Russian former KGB operative and his wife, through mercury poisoning. According to German newsmagazine Focus, Viktor Kalashnikov, a former colonel and authority on military matters for the Soviet KGB, was taken in critical condition to a Berlin hospital along with his wife, Marina. The two were found to have over ten times the highest permissible level of mercury in their blood, which, according to medical experts, points to a deliberate poisoning attempt. Colonel Kalashnikov, who arrived in Germany three months ago, is known as one of the Russian government’s harshest critics. He became famous in the 1990s, when he joined other former KGB operatives —most notably the late Alexander Litvinenko, who was assassinated in 2007, and whose widow is also named Marina— in accusing the Russian administration of Vladimir Putin of manipulating the separatist Chechen movement in order to solidify his vision of “a national security state” in Russia. Read more of this post

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Three more Latin American countries recognize Palestinian state

December 13, 2010 by 1 Comment

Israel, Palestine

Israel, Palestine

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Three more Latin American countries officially recognized the state of Palestine last week, prompting harsh diplomatic responses from Israel and the United States. The recognitions were announced by the governments of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, which make up the majority of Mercosur, a South American common market area modeled after the European Union. All three nations said they officially recognized a Palestinian state based on internationally established borders prior to the 1967 Six Day War, during which Israel illegally occupied the West Bank and Gaza. The official recognitions were immediately endorsed by Riyad al-Maliki, Foreign Affairs Minister of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in the West Bank, who said that the PNA expected Paraguay —Mercosur’s fourth member— to follow suit early next year. The new recognitions by Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay follow earlier similar moves by Nicaragua, Venezuela, Costa Rica and Cuba. Diplomatic observers expect Palestine to soon be officially recognized by the vast majority of Latin American nations, with Colombia, Peru and a handful of Central American states being the few exceptions. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #459 (Russia edition)

December 10, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • Son of CIA double spy strikes deal with FBI. Nathan Nicholson, son of CIA officer Harold James Nicholson, who in 1997 was jailed for spying for Russia, has avoided a prison sentence after promising to help the FBI build a new case against his father. The latter has pleaded guilty to enlisting his son from prison to sell the Russians more secrets and collect money owed to him by the Russian spy services.
  • Moscow warns UK of tit-for-tat expulsions. Alexander Sternik, the Russian government’s senior official in Britain, has hinted that any attempt to deport parliamentary assistant Katia Zatuliveter, detained by MI5 for allegedly spying for Russia, could result in tit-for-tat expulsions.
  • Kim Philby honored by plaque at Moscow SVR HQ. Russia has honored British Cold War spy Kim Philby with a plaque at the headquarters of the country’s foreign intelligence agency. Philby, who defected to the Soviet Union in 1963, is depicted in a sculptured portrait on the plaque as the two-faced Roman god Janus.

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Even more underreported WikiLeaks revelations

December 9, 2010 by Leave a comment

WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
It appears increasingly likely that Sweden will extradite Julian Assange to the United States, where the WikiLeaks founder will face espionage charges. But the WikiLeaks revelations keep coming, although not all of them receive the worldwide media attention that they deserve. Take for instance the disclosure that at least three senior Australian Labour Party (ALP) politicians have operated as “protected sources” (diplomatic parlance for secret informants), providing regular updates on internal ALP politics to US embassy operatives in Canberra. According to internal US diplomatic cables released on Thursday, ALP politicians Bob McMullan, Michael Danby and Mark Arbib, who currently serves as the Australian federal government’s Minister for Sport, regularly held secret meetings with US embassy officials after 2004.  All three deny accusations that they acted as spies for the US. Another underreported WikiLeaks revelation concerns a 2008 proposal by the Saudi government to create an US- and NATO-backed Arab military force to invade Lebanon, seeking to obliterate Shiite paramilitary group Hezbollah, which controls large sections of the country. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #458

December 7, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • More arrests of alleged Russian agents in Georgia. The government of Georgia arrested six people suspected of being agents for Russia and accused them of staging a series of explosions, including one outside the US embassy in capital Tbilisi. At least 13 more people were arrested last month in Georgia, and are facing charges of spying for Moscow.
  • Iran defector says Tehran hosted N. Korean techs. Mohammad Reza Heydari, who resigned in January from his post as Iranian consul in Norway, and defected to the West, has told a conference in Paris that he saw North Korean technicians “repeatedly” travel to Iran.
  • Spy scandal MP helped second Russian woman stay in UK. British Liberal Democrat parliamentarian Mike Hancock, whose assistant, Katia Zatuliveter, is accused by MI5 of spying for Russia, helped 25-year-old Russian citizen Ekaterina Paderina stay in Britain after she ran into visa problems, in the late 1990s.

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Some spy news in the shadow of WikiLeaks’ revelations

December 6, 2010 by 2 Comments

Katia Zatuliveter

Katia Zatuliveter

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The WikiLeaks revelations continue, and so does the global news storm concerning the whistleblower site. Obviously, the news value of the WikiLeaks disclosures is unquestionable. However, there are notable intelligence-related developments taking place outside the now-familiarWikiLeaks context. Take for instance the recent arrest of what appears to be a Polish spy in Limassol, Cyprus. The unidentified man, who was reportedly detained in the vicinity of a Greek-Cypriot military base on the island, was carrying “a camera containing photos of National Guard posts, a laptop, two mobile phones, five memory cards, a GPS system and three pairs of binoculars”. Another interesting development concerns the arrest on espionage charges of Katia Zatuliveter, a Russian citizen who works as an assistant to British Member of Parliament Mike Hancock. Zatuliveter is expected to be deported on the basis of evidence gathered by MI5, Britain’s counterintelligence service, which has apparently been monitoring her for several months. Interestingly, Mr. Hancock, who is a member of the British House of Commons’ Defence Select Committee, is standing by his assistant. Read more of this post

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FBI allegedly looking for Russian spy inside NSA

December 3, 2010 by 4 Comments

NSA Headquarters

NSA HQ

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
American counterintelligence investigators are allegedly trying to uncover at least one Russian-handled double agent operating inside the US National Security Agency (NSA), according to information published on Wednesday in The Washington Times. The paper based its allegation on an interview with an anonymous “former intelligence official” with close ties to the NSA —America’s largest intelligence agency, which is tasked with worldwide communications surveillance as well as communications security. The anonymous source told the Times that the probe is directly connected to the arrest of nearly a dozen Russian deep-cover operatives by the FBI last summer. Washington eventually exchanged the Russian spies with several Western-handled Russian operatives captured by Moscow and held in Russian prisons. But the FBI allegedly believes that the deep-cover operatives, most of whom used false identity papers and had lived in the US for years, were primarily tasked with aiding at least one Russian-handled double spy operating inside the NSA’s Forge George F. Meade headquarters, in the US state of Maryland. Read more of this post

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