2010: The year that was in espionage

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. The eleven, who were handled by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), were later exchanged with spies held by Russia in the largest post-war spy-swap between Washington and Moscow. I was ready to get into the impressive resurgence of Russian espionage, which in my opinion topped spy-related developments in 2010, when the time pressures of the radio cycle forced us to wrap up our conversation. There was no time to get into the subjects of WikiLeaks, the al-Alam spy ring arrests in Lebanon, the suicide bombing in Khost, Afghanistan, which killed seven CIA personnel, and several other items of interest. Maybe next time! You may listen to the interview by going to ABC Radio’s website, here (see “The year that was in espionage” aired on December 31).