Researchers discover gigantic cyberespionage operation

March 31, 2009 by 1 Comment

Ronald Deibert

Ronald Deibert

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A team of Canadian researchers claims to have discovered a large cyberespionage ring located mainly in China. The researchers say the ring has managed to infiltrate nearly 1,300 mainly government and corporate computers in at least 103 countries around the world. The report, entitled Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network, was compiled after a ten-month collaboration between Ottawa’s SecDev group and the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Although the report concludes that the cyberespionage ring is located mainly in China, it specifically rejects claims that GhostNet is inevitably a Chinese government operation, saying that there is no evidence that Beijing is behind the operation. University of Toronto associate professor Ronald Deibert suggested that the operation could potentially be the work of non-state pro-Chinese actors, or could be conducted by a profit-oriented group that sells the acquired information to whoever offers it the highest monetary compensation. “It’s a murky realm that we’re lifting the lid on”, said Dr. Deibert: “This could well be the CIA or the Russians”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ex-CIA historian claims Soviet asset was double agent

March 30, 2009 by Leave a comment

Adolf Tolkachev

Adolf Tolkachev

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
In official historical accounts of the CIA, Adolf Tolkachev is described as the Agency’s greatest Soviet asset in the 1980s, whose impact was “limitless” and of “immense value”. Tolkachev, codenamed GTVANQUISH in internal CIA documents, was a Soviet electronics engineer who conducted research for the Soviet armed forces. From 1979 until his capture in 1985, he secretly collaborated with the CIA and give the Agency countless documents on Soviet avionics and radar systems. But Benjamin Fischer, a former CIA clandestine operative and retired CIA historian, now claims that Tolkachev was actually a KGB double agent tasked by Soviet intelligence with providing US military strategists with false information. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Israel said to be behind mystery airstrikes on Sudan

March 29, 2009 by 5 Comments

Port Sudan

Port Sudan

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Sudanese government officials revealed on Tuesday that Sudanese territory was hit thrice by foreign warplanes last January and February, killing hundreds. The airstrikes appeared to target convoys travelling in Sudan’s desert coastal region near Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast. The revelation was confirmed on Thursday by Fatih Mahmoud Awad, an official at Sudan’s Ministry of Transport, who claimed that the three airstrikes destroyed dozens of vehicles and killed “as many as 800 people”. Shortly afterwards, an Associated Press report cited Ali Youssef, a Sudanese official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who confirmed Awad’s revelations, but refused to speculate on the exact number of casualties. Interestingly, the Sudanese government did not disclose the airstrikes at the time, probably because it “was embarrassed to acknowledge that its sovereignty and air space could be violated so easily”, according to one observer. The question is who was behind the attacks. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

CIA expert claims Chávez rigged 2004 Venezuela vote

March 28, 2009 by Leave a comment

Hugo Chávez

Hugo Chávez

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
In a development that will undoubtedly worsen relations between Washington and Caracas, a CIA expert has accused Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez of rigging the 2004 recall referendum. Speaking before the US Election Assistance Commission in Orlando, Florida, CIA cybersecurity specialist Steve Stigall said that all networked election systems are inherently insecure, and gave the 2004 Venezuelan referendum as an example. Stigall claimed that president Chávez fixed the referendum results through the Venezuelan government’s control of the electronic ballot systems firm that oversaw the voting. He also pointed to a programming analysis of the voting systems by a group of anti-Chávez mathematicians, who allegedly discovered “a very subtle algorithm that appeared to adjust the vote in Chavez’s favor”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Analysis: Early Thoughts on Medhat’s Assassination

March 25, 2009 by Leave a comment

Kamal Medhat

Kamal Medhat

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Kamal Medhat, 58, was a senior Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) official. He was assassinated on March 23 by a roadside bomb that struck a PLO convoy outside the entrance to the Mieh Mieh refugee camp, located near Sidon in southern Lebanon. Since Medhat’s assassination, intelNews has received several emails from readers pointing the finger at Israel’s intelligence services. There is no doubt that Medhat’s assassination is a significant setback for the broader secular Palestinian movement, and especially for Fatah, of which Medhat was a senior member. A former aide to the late PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Medhat had previously served as Fatah’s director of intelligence in Lebanon, and was a key supporter of Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. To my knowledge, Medhat was the most senior Palestinian official (of any faction) assassinated in Lebanon in nearly 30 years. Nevertheless, although an Israeli role in his assassination should not be ruled out, it would be premature to conclude at this stage that Israeli intelligence services were behind the operation. Read article →

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Yemen Islamists sentenced for “illegal” Israel contacts

March 25, 2009 by Leave a comment

al-Haidari

al-Haidari

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
On January 10, I reported on the arrests in Yemen of three individuals, who were accused by Yemen’s President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, of working for “an Islamist terrorist cell with links to Israeli intelligence”. Prosecutors told a Yemeni court that one of the arrestees, Bassam al-Haidari (a.k.a. Abu al-Ghaith), 26, communicated with Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert via email, offering to collaborate with Israeli authorities prior to the September 17, 2008, attack on the US Embassy in Yemen’s capital Sana’a. The intercepted emails allegedly show that al-Haidari wrote to Olmert “[w]e are the Organisation of Islamic Jihad and you are Jews, but you are honest, and we are ready to do anything”. The Yemeni government claims that Olmert (or, more likely, someone from Israeli intelligence who was forwarded al-Haidari’s message) actually wrote back telling al-Haidari “[w]e are ready to support you […] as an agent”. On Monday, a Yemeni court sentenced al-Haidari to death for “making illegal contact with the Zionist Jewish Israeli entity” (Yemen does not recognize Israel). Al-Haidari’s co-defendants, Imad al-Rimi, 23, and Ali al-Mahfal, 24, were given five-year and three-year prison terms. Speaking on behalf of Ehud Olmert, Mark Regev dismissed the Yemeni government’s allegations as “completely far-fetched”. However, as I explained last January, if true, Yemen’s accusations will not signify the first time that Israeli intelligence agencies have actively supported militant Islamist groups in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the three Yemeni defendants have vowed to appeal.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

German authorities arrest two on espionage charges

March 24, 2009 by Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
German federal authorities have announced the arrest of two men, one German and one Macedonian, who passed German classified information to the governments of Kosovo and Macedonia. Anton Robert K., 42, and Murat A., 28, were arrested in the German city of Stuttgart last Tuesday. Germany’s Federal Prosecution office alleges that German citizen “Anton Robert K.” regularly supplied “Murat A.” with sensitive German government documents during 2007 and 2008, while he served in Germany’s diplomatic mission in the Kosovar capital Pristina. “Murat A.” then allegedly gave the documents to organized crime syndicates as well as “state actors” in Kosovo and Macedonia. The Macedonian is alleged to have “intelligence ties” with both countries, but no other information about him has yet emerged. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , ,

Analysis: The timeliness of the Alger Hiss case

March 23, 2009 by 2 Comments

Susan Jacoby

Susan Jacoby

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Susan Jacoby, author of Alger Hiss and the Battle for History, has written a noteworthy opinion piece on the symbolism of the Alger Hiss spy case. The veteran reporter and author’s piece was published by The Los Angeles Times on March 22, 58 years to the day after Hiss began serving a 44-month prison sentence. Alger Hiss was a US State Department official and alleged former member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). He served as US President F.D. Roosevelt’s chief aide during the 1945 Yalta Conference, and at the 1945 San Francisco Conference that established the United Nations Charter. In 1948, former CPUSA member Whittaker Chambers alleged that Hiss had been a covert communist sympathizer who had used his State Department privileges to supply classified government documents to the Soviets. Hiss was convicted of perjury, not spying, and never admitted collaborating with the Soviets. Susan Jacoby, who says she is “95% certain that [Hiss] did pass on government documents”, considers the Hiss case to be symbolic of the politics McCarthyism, which continue to split America today. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

FBI accused of infiltrating California mosques

March 23, 2009 by 1 Comment

Niazi in court

Niazi in court

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Several American Muslim groups have said they are considering severing ties with the FBI, which they accuse of planting spies and informants in mosques and Islamic centers throughout California. In a statement issued last Tuesday, the American Muslim Task Force on Civil Rights and Elections accused the Bureau of employing “McCarthy-era tactics”, including sending “agents provocateur” to Muslim communities and blackmailing mosque members into becoming informants. The Task Force’s statement cites the case of Ahmadullah Niazi, a naturalized citizen of Afghan descent and a member of the Islamic Center of Irvine, who was arrested last February by federal agents. According to the statement, Niazi claimed he was arrested after refusing to work as an informant for FBI agents, who threatened to make his life “a living hell” if he failed to cooperate. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Analysis: Interesting interview with a CIA psychiatrist

March 22, 2009 by Leave a comment

David Charney

David Charney

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Veteran national security correspondent Jeff Stein has published some interesting highlights of an interview with psychiatrist Dr. David L. Charney, who has worked for the US intelligence community for over 20 years. Charney is one of several medical professionals whom the CIA has appointed to assist its personnel in dealing with a variety of emotional issues. Additionally, he has previously been appointed to supervise the psychiatric assessment of a number of American double spies, including Robert Hanssen, the former FBI agent who spied for the Soviet Union and Russia for over two decades. In the interview, Charney identifies a number of psychological disorders that tend to burden CIA officers, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which often plagues agents who have survived “death-defying escapes after their covers were blown”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

“Unprecedented” history of MI5 to be published in October

March 21, 2009 by Leave a comment

Dr. Andrew

Dr. Andrew

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The MI5, Britain’s foremost counterintelligence organization, made headlines in 2002, when it appointed Cambridge University history Professor Christopher Andrew to produce an authorized account of its long history. Now book publishers Penguin Group have announced that the book, titled Defense of the Realm, is to be published by Allen Lane in October 2009, in time to mark the agency’s centennial. Professor Andrew is well known for his considerable contributions to intelligence history scholarship, which include Comrade Kryuchkov’s Instructions (1991, with Oleg Gordievsky), For The President’s Eyes Only (1995), and of course The Mitrokhin Archive (1991, with Vasili Mitrokhin). Penguin has described Defense of the Realm as “unprecedented” and claims that “no major intelligence organization in the world has ever let an independent historian into its archives in this way” (though James Bamford, author of Body of Secrets may object to this). Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

US Pentagon report acknowledges Israel has the bomb!

March 20, 2009 by Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Ever since the early 1970s, the United States and Israel have maintained what nuclear proliferation experts call “a policy of ambiguity” on Israel’s nuclear weapons program. Namely, American and Israeli officials will neither confirm nor deny that Israel has nuclear weapons. The reason for this pretended vagueness is the 1976 Symington Amendment, which prevents the US from providing any economic or military assistance to countries “that deliver or receive, acquire or transfer nuclear enrichment technology”. Now, however, a declassified report by the US Pentagon has been found to confirm that Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal. The US Joint Forces Command study (pdf), which was compiled last year by the US Army, includes Israel among the world’s nuclear powers. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Israeli ex-spy barred from the US wants US visa

March 19, 2009 by 1 Comment

Uzi Arad

Uzi Arad

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
On March 9, I wrote about an interesting diplomatic incident in which the US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, met in Israel with Uzi Arad, a former Mossad agent who is currently barred from entering the US for his involvement as a co-conspirator in the Lawrence Franklin spy case. Lawrence Anthony Franklin was a US Defense Department analyst, who in 2006 was given a 12-year prison sentence for handing classified US military information to Israeli officials and two lobbyists of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). On Tuesday, The Washington Times finally discovered that Uzi Arad is barred from entering the United States. The paper even headlined its article “exclusive”; hmmm…they must not read intelNews, or Ha’aretz for that matter. What is new in The Times‘ piece is the somewhat predictable revelation that, for nearly two years, Israeli officials and pro-Israel Americans have been pressuring the US State Department to grant Uzi Arad a visa, so that he can once again enter the United States. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Advisors tell Obama to expand covert war inside Pakistan

March 18, 2009 by Leave a comment

Baluchistan

Baluchistan

By I. ALLEN and J. FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Reports are emerging today that the Obama White House is considering intensifying US covert operations and CIA drone airstrikes deep inside Pakistan. If carried out, these operations will be taking place in Pakistan’s vast Baluchistan province, and would represent a major escalation in the so-called “war on terrorism”. Until now, strikes by US unmanned drones, operated by the CIA, have been strictly limited to Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border. But The New York Times report that “at least two of the high-level reports on Pakistan and Afghanistan that have been forwarded to the White House in recent weeks have called for broadening the target area” to include Baluchistan. Additionally, the paper reports that several of the President’s advisors favor “conduct[ing] cross-border ground actions [deep inside Pakistan], using CIA and Special Operations commandos”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ex-KGB officer’s wife, son, to remain in Canada

March 18, 2009 by 2 Comments

Lennikov

Lennikov

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
On March 2, we reported that the Canadian government had notified Mikhail Alexander Lennikov, a former KGB officer living in British Columbia, that he and his family were soon to be issued with deportation orders. Last week, however, the family received what Canadian media describe as “a partial reprieve”. Specifically, they were told that Lennikov’s wife, Irina, and son, Dmitri, will not be deported back to Russia. Lennikov, who spent five years working for the KGB in the 1980s, has been living in Canada with his wife and teenage son since 1992. Late last February, however, Canada’s Public Safety Ministry rejected Lennikov’s refugee claim and notified him that he “can be ordered deported from the country in as early as a few weeks”. Canadian authorities have refused to reveal the precise reason for the former KGB agent’s pending deportation. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , ,

← Older posts