French Presidential scandal linked to journalist’s disappearance

January 2, 2009 Leave a comment

Couraud

Couraud

Jean-Pascal Couraud was Editor-in-Chief of Tahiti News, a large Polynesian newspaper based in Pape’ete, the capital of French Polynesia. In 1997, he disappeared. His body has never been found. The official explanation, which is fervently rejected by Couraud’s family, is that the prominent journalist committed suicide. However, on December 29, a suspicious letter was seized from the office of former Polynesian President, Gaston Flosse. It was written by Vetea Cadousteau, a former member of Groupement d’ Intervention de la Polynésie (GIP), the Polynesian secret services. In it, Cadousteau claims that he helped GIP abduct Couraud to stop him from further investigating an alleged illegal fund transfer by a large Polynesian company to a secret Japanese bank account belonging to French former President Jacques Chirac. Read more of this post

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FBI continues arrests of Iraqi intelligence operatives in US

December 31, 2008 1 Comment

Using Iraqi intelligence documents recovered during the 2003 US invasion, the FBI is continuing its arrests of Iraqi agents on US soil. On December 23, Saubhe Jassim Al-Dellemy, an American citizen of Iraqi origin, pleaded guilty to having “served for more than a decade as an agent of the regime of Saddam Hussein”. FBI documents state that Al-Dellemy exploited the proximity of his Maryland restaurant to the National Security Agency to “gather information about the US government”. On December 24, Mouyad Mahmoud Darwish, a Canadian citizen of Iraqi origin, was arrested while entering the United States from Canada, and charged with acting as an unregistered agent of the Iraqi government before, during, and shortly after the US invasion of Iraq. Read more of this post

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UK Home Office to propose outsourcing interception database

December 31, 2008 Leave a comment

A few months ago, UK Home Office Minister, Jacqui Smith, postponed the proposal of a controversial legislation placing in the hands of private companies a database containing all of the country’s intercepted telephone call and Internet traffic use data. The huge database collects the identity and location of all telephone callers and website visitors in the UK. Smith was eventually forced to abandon the plan, but now says she intends to publish a consultation paper re-introducing it to the public. She enjoys the backing of British law enforcement and intelligence services, who say “it is no longer good enough for communications companies to be left to retrieve such data when requested” to do so. Read more of this post

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Indonesian court clears former spy official of human right activist’s murder

December 31, 2008 Leave a comment

In 2004, Indonesia’s most renowned human rights activist, Munir Said Thalib, was poisoned during a flight to the Netherlands. He was traveling aboard a plane operated by Garuda, Indonesia’s state carrier, when he consumed arsenic that had been clandestinely dispensed into his in-flight meal. A few months ago, Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, an off-duty Garuda pilot who was sitting next to Mr. Munir during his fatal flight, was given a 20-year prison term for poisoning the activist. During the court case, however, it was revealed that the convicted assassin had engaged in frequent telephone communication with General Muchdi Purwoprandjono, then Deputy Director of Indonesia’s State Intelligence Agency, commonly known as BIN. Read more of this post

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Former US Army engineer admits spying for Israel

December 31, 2008 Leave a comment

Kadish

Kadish

It was an almost jovial gathering at a US Federal Court in Manhattan, yesterday, when a retired US Army engineer pleaded guilty to charges of passing classified US military documents to Israel. Ben-Ami Kadish, 85, of  Monroe Township, NJ, admitted handing secret technical information on F-15 fighter jets, the Patriot missile, and even on nuclear weapons, to Israel between 1979 and 1985. Last April, after being charged with four counts of conspiracy and espionage, Kadish confessed having worked without compensation for Israeli intelligence and detailed providing the classified documents to Yosef Yagur and Ilan Ravid, who were “science advisers” (probably intelligence agents) at the Israeli Consulate in New York and the Israeli Embassy in Washington, respectively. Mr. Kadish was reportedly extremely pleasant during the hearing and, after declaring that he spied “for the benefit of Israel”, made sure to wish everyone present “a happy New Year”. His lawyer was quick to thank the US government for agreeing “not to oppose or object to a non-jail sentence” and expressed a collective wish that “Mr. Kadish can go on and spend the golden years of his life with his lovely wife, Doris”. Asked about the espionage case, a spokesperson at Israel’s Consulate General dismissively pointed out that “[t]his is an old case which occurred over 25 years ago, and all aspects of it are part of the past”. [IA]

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Israel using cell phones to caution Gazans

December 29, 2008 Leave a comment

Palestine cell phone

IDF calling

On December 4 we reported that the Israeli intelligence services appeared to be calling thousands of seemingly random telephone subscribers in Syria with automated messages in Arabic, inquiring about missing Israeli soldiers and offering a multimillion dollar reward. It now appears that Israeli agents are again employing cell phones, this time to warn Palestinian civilians in the Gaza strip that they may become targets if they live nearby Hamas-affiliated facilities. An article in The Australian reports that an undisclosed number of Gaza residents have been receiving “unusual phone calls” during the past three days, with an automated request in Arabic “that they and their families leave their homes as soon as possible for their own safety”. The male voice is said to identify itself as representing the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Read more of this post

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Analysis: Behind Israel’s Attack on Gaza

December 29, 2008 Leave a comment

In contrast to the vague international protestations by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, about Israel’s “right to self-defense”, the domestic Israeli press has been extremely candid about the reasons behind Israel’s ongoing attack on the Gazan population. On Sunday, the country’s most respected newspaper, Ha’aretz, published a detailed account of what it described as the Israeli government’s “[l]ong-term preparation, careful gathering of information, secret discussions, operational deception and the misleading of the public” which lie behind the latest onslaught against the imprisoned Palestinian population. Read Article →

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British diplomat and FSB colonel in strange Moscow accident

December 28, 2008 Leave a comment

Andrew Sheridan

Andrew Sheridan

British newspaper The Daily Mail has published a brief account of a bizarre accident in Moscow, involving a British diplomat and a senior official of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB). Andrew Sheridan, Deputy Director of the British Council’s office in Moscow, apparently hit an FSB agent while driving a car issued with official diplomatic tags. The Russian agent, who was named by the FSB only as “Alexander T.” trains intelligence recruits “for frontline duties, including securing borders”. He suffered a broken leg and head injuries. The British Council, which is sponsored by the British Foreign Office, is often seen as the educational and cultural extension office of British diplomatic missions around the world. It has long been involved in a diplomatic dispute with the Russian government and security services, in the context of which Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, recently described it as “a nest of spies”. The Daily Mail article reminds that the Council’s branch offices in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg were recently shut down by the Russian authorities “over alleged tax irregularities”. The British Foreign Office described the incident as “an unfortunate traffic accident [with nothing] more [to be read] into it”. The FSB have yet to officially comment on the subject. [IA]

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Analysis: A good primer on FSB contract killings

December 27, 2008 Leave a comment

Forbes magazine, whose motto is “the capitalist tool”, is not known for its investigative journalism. However, it has a personal reason for closely following the ongoing trial of the alleged assassins of Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Namely, Forbes editors suspect that the same syndicates who killed Politkovskaya in October 2006 were behind the murder of Forbes‘ Russian edition reporter Paul Klebnikov, who was shot to death in 2004. Interestingly, all three of Politkovskaya’s accused assassins were employed by, or have strong links to, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB). Read more of this post

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Comment: Spreading Democracy Involves Routine Bribing

December 26, 2008 2 Comments

Online pundits appear immensely amused by a recent article in The Washington Post, which reveals that Viagra is among numerous “novel incentives” handed out by CIA officers to Afghan warlords in efforts to “win [them] over” to the American side. The article cites an unnamed CIA agent who confirms that pharmaceutical treatments for erectile dysfunction are occasionally dispensed by the Agency to “aging [Afghan] patriarchs with [several young wives and] slumping libidos”. Unlike most, I find the article’s revelations to be neither novel nor amusing. Read more of this post

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Rare revelations on Detroit counterintelligence operations

December 24, 2008 Leave a comment

Assistant Attorney Eric Straus, chief of the East Michigan District Criminal and National Security Division of the US Attorney’s Office, has given a rare interview discussing counterintelligence operations in Detroit. Among other things, Straus revealed that his Division has been monitoring alleged support for Hamas and Hezbollah among Detroit’s substantial Middle Eastern population, which is one of the largest in the United States. He also described military and dual use (i.e. civilian with potential military application) technologies as prime targets of international espionage in the Detroit area. Finally, he briefly commented on a number of counterespionage prosecutions against Iraqi spies, employed by the government of the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, operating in the Detroit area before 2003. He did not go into details on whether these were trained and accredited intelligence officers working for Directorate 14 of the Iraqi Intelligence Service (Mukhabarat), but hinted that most were not. The interview is available here. [JF]

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Kissinger forced to reveal transcripts of phone conversations

December 23, 2008 Leave a comment

During his long career as US National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger kept many secrets. One of these was that he clandestinely recorded all telephone conversations he had with US government officials, which he subsequently had transcribed by his private secretary. Upon leaving office, in early 1977, Kissinger had the audio recordings destroyed but held on to the transcripts which he described as “private papers” not suitable for public release. George Washington University’s National Security Archive had a different view on the matter, however, and in 2004 managed to force the US government to hand over the transcripts. The Archive has now released a generous portion of 15,000 pages of transcripts, fully catalogued and indexed. William Burr, a senior analyst with the National Security Archive, who edited the released documents, described them as “ranking up there with the Nixon tapes as the most candid, revealing and valuable trove of records on the exercise of executive power in Washington”. Among other things, the transcripts reveal that Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger “shared a belief in 1972 that the [Vietnam] war could still be won”. [IA]

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Incoming European Union President under influence of Russian intelligence, claims former FBI agent

December 22, 2008 1 Comment

Vaclav Klaus

Vaclav Klaus

Robert Eringer, the former FBI counterintelligence agent who now works for Prince Albert II of Monaco, has written a column for The Santa Barbara News Press, alleging that the incoming European Union (EU) president was a “long-term communist collaborator who may still be under the influence of Russian Intelligence”. The accused is no other than Vaclav Klaus, the former Prime Minster and current President of the Czech Republic, who in 1991 co-founded the country’s conservative Civic Democratic Party. Eringer cites “knowledgeable sources within the intelligence community” in alleging that Klaus was recruited by “Czech counterintelligence” (sic, probably refers to Czechoslovakia’s Státní bezpečnost –State Security, or StB) in 1962 to “spy against democratic reformers”. Read more of this post

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US State Department accused on spying on interfaith group

December 22, 2008 2 Comments

The International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) is a faith-based organization, established in 1919, with offices in over 50 countries. Current or past members of IFOR include several Nobel Laureates, among them Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel. In a statement released on December 17, IFOR has accused the US State Department of routinely intercepting “for two full years” the electronic communications of the organization’s US branch. Specifically targeted were communications concerning FOR’s Latin America program, generated both in the US and Colombia, the statement said. It also alleged that the spying on FOR appears to be part of a wider operation targeting “more than 150 e-mail accounts of human rights organizations, journalists, academics, and labor organizations”. Read more of this post

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US, Soviet intelligence murdered General Patton, new book alleges

December 21, 2008 Leave a comment

Target PattonOn December 9, 1945, a chauffeur-driven US military vehicle carrying US Army General George S. Patton was involved in what appeared to be a minor collision with another US military vehicle. The collision fatally injured General Patton a day before he was scheduled to leave US-occupied Germany and return to the United States. On December 21, 1945, Patton mysteriously died from his injuries, even though he appeared to be recovering. Now a new book by military historian Robert Wilcox claims that General Patton was assassinated in a combined operation by the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS, forerunner of the CIA) and the NKVD (forerunner of the Soviet KGB). Read more of this post

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