News you may have missed #0095

• New revelations about Bulgarian domestic spying case. It appears that Operation GALLERY (a.k.a. Operation GALERIA), by the Bulgarian State Agency for National Security (DANS), was primarily aimed at the Bulgarian tabloid newspaper Weekend and journalist Dimitar Zlatkov. Journalist Ognyan Stefanov, who was nearly beaten to death after authoring an article implicating DANS officials in illicit trafficking activities (see previous intelNews coverage), appears to have been simply collateral damage.
• Taliban use CIA-supplied mines against US-led forces in Afghanistan. Evidence from the US Defense Department, Canadian forces in Afghanistan and the Taliban itself suggest that the increased damage to NATO tanks by Taliban forces has come from anti-tank mines provided by the US to the jihadi movement in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
• Massive domestic spying revealed in Russia. From January to June this year, Russian intelligence agents surreptitiously opened 115,000 letters, listened in on 64,000 personal phone conversations, and broke into 11,000 private homes according to information from Russia’s Supreme Court.