Polish agency report refutes Russian link in shooting incident

December 3, 2008 Leave a comment

On the evening of November 23, automatic gunfire erupted about 100 feet away from a motorcade carrying Mikhail Saakashvili, President of Georgia, and Lech Kaczynski, President of Poland. The latter was on a state visit to the former Soviet Republic. Nobody was hurt during the incident. Saakashvili was quick to blame Russian forces stationed in Georgia’s breakaway province of South Ossetia, saying at a subsequent press conference that Russian troops are manned with “unpredictable people [who] weren’t happy to see our guest and they weren’t happy to see me either”. Read more of this post

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CIA will not embrace “left Democrat” Director, article warns

December 3, 2008 Leave a comment

On November 16, 2008, we reported that John Brennan, former head of the National Counterterrorism Center and supporter of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques”, was  said to be “a potential candidate for a top intelligence post” (the CIA) under Barack Obama. Brennan’s support for torture during interrogations proved too controversial for the Obama transition team. On November 25, Brennan sent Obama a letter [pdf] essentially resigning from the candidacy of Director of the CIA. Now The New York Times has published a report describing the Brennan resignation as “the biggest glitch so far in what has been an otherwise smooth transition for Mr. Obama” and warning that Obama’s decision to exclude Brennan from the CIA has “created anxiety in the ranks of the agency’s clandestine service”. Mark Lowenthal, who left the CIA in 2005, is quoted as stating that the President-Elect’s decision to axe Brennan’s name from the directorship candidacy list has been perceived by the agency to mean that “if you worked in the CIA during the war on terror, you are now tainted”. The problem, however, appears to be somewhat deeper than just Brennan’s name, and seems to be related to politics more than anything else. Essentially, “CIA veterans suggest that the president-elect may have difficulty finding a candidate who can be embraced by both veteran officials at the agency and the left flank of the Democratic Party”. [IA]

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Analysis: Political policing in the war on terrorism

December 1, 2008 Leave a comment

Today’s revelation from Minneapolis that the Ramsey County Sheriff’s office infiltrated groups planning civil disobedience actions during the 2008 Republican National Convention should come as no surprise. The infiltration of the Minneapolis Republican National Convention Welcoming Committee by three undercover operatives of the local police department’s Special Investigations Unit is indicative of a recent pattern of intensification of surveillance of mostly lawful domestic political groups by US intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Joseph Fitsanakis outlines the general picture in “Political Policing in the War on Terrorism”. [JF]

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New information unearthed on CIA mind experimentation projects

December 1, 2008 Leave a comment

The CIA’s past mental-related experimentation (projects MKULTRA and others) is well-known and well-documented. Now new information has surfaced, which seems to implicate yet another doctor and yet another hospital in the CIA mental experimentation projects. Dr. Robert K. Hyde is said to have performed CIA-funded experimentation on non-consenting patients in Boston, in the 1950s. He then relocated to Vermont State Hospital’s Waterbury facility. Further research and some “new evidence, though incomplete, [now] suggests that similar tests might have been conducted at the Vermont State Hospital”. Although further research on this subject will always be hampered by the CIA’s deliberate and illegal destruction of relevant documentary evidence in the early 1970s, the issue remains relevant and important in light of the fact that “techniques developed through testing […] on [non-consenting] mental health patients […] are related to the interrogation methods used [today] in the war on terror”. [IA]

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Pakistan warns of moving troops away from Afghan border

December 1, 2008 Leave a comment

Yesterday we reported on the plausible theory that the small army that recently attacked selected targets in Mumbai has been part of a calculated ploy with a twofold operational mission: (a) “to provoke a crisis, or even a war, between the India and Pakistan”; and by doing so (b) to divert Pakistan’s attention from its Afghan to its Indian border, thus “relieving pressure on al-Qaeda, Taleban and other militants based there”. It is now being reported that “Pakistan has warned that it will divert troops fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida on its western border with Afghanistan to its eastern frontier with India”. An unnamed Pakistani security official has stated that Pakistan has “made [it] very clear to the Americans and the British that if a situation arises on our eastern borders, our priority would be our eastern border”. [IA]

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Comment: India’s intelligence, police force part of the problem

December 1, 2008 4 Comments

It is fine to accuse the Pakistani Army and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of complicity in the recent attack by a small army of selected targets in Mumbai, but this overlooks the responsibility of Indian intelligence agencies to prevent such attacks by militants. Those who criticize the ISI are ignoring the recent revelations in Indian newspapers that “clear warnings of a coming assault were ignored” and “that Indian intelligence agencies had precise information at least 10 months ago that Pakistani militants were planning an attack” but failed to act. Read more of this post

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Further details on German spy arrests in Kosovo

December 1, 2008 Leave a comment

Further detailed information has seen the light of day in relation to the recent arrest of three German intelligence agents in Kosovo. The three spies, which were arrested while investigating the scene of an explosion at the EU offices in Pristina, were part of a constant presence in the Kosovar capital of the Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND, Germany’s foreign intelligence service. Their cover was being employed by a BND front company called LCAS (Logistics-Coordination & Assessment Service), which was registered in Munich in April of 2007, and has “offices” in Pristina. The operation was so secret that “the official BND attaché stationed at the German Embassy in Pristina knew nothing of it. The German ambassador was likewise in the dark”, according to a new report by Der Spiegel. This would also explain (though not necessarily justify) why it was these agents, and not the BND resident at the German Embassy, who were sent to investigate the explosion at the EU building on November 14. The Kosovar government is now expected to use the information it gained from the arrest of the three agents, as well as from raiding the LCAS office in Pristina, to uncover the “extensive network of informants among high-ranking functionaries of the KLA and the Kosovar administration […] which is more extensive in Kosovo than in most countries around the world” and which the BND has maintained since the early 1990s in this former region of Serbia. Specifically, the Spiegel article further states that “the Kosovo government may now arrest large numbers of informants who have provided the BND with valuable information”. [JF]

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Mumbai attacks a plot to shift Pakistani troops from tribal areas

November 30, 2008 Leave a comment

A commendable article has appeared in The London Times, articulating the theory that  the small army that has attacked selected targets in Mumbai in the past few days has been part of a calculated ploy with a twofold operational mission: (a) “to provoke a crisis, or even a war, between the India and Pakistan”; and by doing so (b) to divert Pakistan’s attention from its Afghan to its Indian border, thus “relieving pressure on al-Qaeda, Taleban and other militants based there”. Such a scenario is strategically plausible, in the sense that it would clearly alleviate the two-sided pressure (from Pakistan and Afghanistan) that al-Qaeda currently faces, thus allowing the group a higher degree of flexibility in Pakistan’s tribal border regions. [IA]

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America is losing the war in Somalia, say observers

November 30, 2008 Leave a comment

The Chicago Tribune has published a relatively well-researched analysis article by Paul Salopec, focusing on the African front of America’s so-called “war on terrorism”. In what is in fact America’s most recent war, the US approved and assisted an Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, in late 2006. The operational aim of the invasion was to terminate the local grass roots leadership of the Islamic Courts Union and prevent “anarchic Somalia from becoming the world’s next Afghanistan”. For the most part it has been a rarely seen or heard of conflict, “a standoff war in which the Pentagon lobs million-dollar cruise missiles into a famine-haunted African wasteland the size of Texas, hoping to kill lone terror suspects who might be dozing in candlelit huts”, as The Chicago Tribune puts it. Lately, however, it has become apparent that the native Islamic movement in Somalia, strengthened by anti-Ethiopian sentiments among the population, has regrouped and is fighting back, scoring significant victories in the process. Factions associated with the Islamic Courts Union are now said to control most of the Somali countryside, and to be increasingly gaining control of major sections of the capital, Mogadishu. The Tribune article quotes Matt Bryden, “one of the world’s leading scholars of the Somali insurgency who has access to intelligence regarding it”, who states that the US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia “was a stupid idea, [which] actually strengthened the hand of the Islamists and helped trigger the crisis we’re in today”. [JF]

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Nicaragua becomes second nation to recognize breakaway Georgian republics

November 30, 2008 Leave a comment

Contrary to common belief, Russia is not the only nation to recognize the Georgian breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Both republics declared their independence in the early 1990s while engaging in armed confrontations with Georgian government forces. Following the 2008 South Ossetia War, Russia extended formal recognition of both Abkhazia and South Ossetia, giving considerable boost to pro-independence voices in the two regions. On September 5, 2008, Nicaragua became only the world’s second country to formally recognize the two tiny republics of the Caucasus. On November 29, Georgia responded to Nicaragua’s recognitions by suspending diplomatic ties with the government of Daniel Ortega. In light of Dmitri Medvedev’s recent historic tour of Latin American capitals, it will be interesting to see whether the remaining member-states of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), namely Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Honduras, and Dominica, will also side with Russia in recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia. [JF]

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Analysis: German intelligence in Kosovo

November 29, 2008 Leave a comment

The epicenter of the latest round of intelligence positioning in the Balkans is the tiny Albanian-dominated region of Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia in February 2008. In the early hours of November 14, Kosovo Police arrested three individuals suspected of detonating an explosive device at the International Civilian Office, an urban landmark in capital Pristina that houses the office of the European Union’s (EU) special envoy to Kosovo. The three turned out to be German Federal Intelligence Service agents, employees of Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND, Germany’s foreign intelligence service. What is more, all of them appeared to be working in deep cover (“in private capacity”, as the Kosovo Police spokesperson put it), having no affiliation with the German Embassy in Pristina, no diplomatic passports and no diplomatic immunity. Would the BND really instruct its agents to place a bomb at the EU mission in Pristina? And what is the BND doing in Kosovo anyway? Joseph Fitsanakis explains. [JF]

 

REFERENCES CITED IN THIS REPORT:

Fitsanakis, J. (2008) “German Intelligence Active in Kosovo”, intelNews, November 29

https://intelligencenews.wordpress.com/latest-news-analysis/content/analysis001/

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UK spy trial outcome linked with Iran covert operation?

November 28, 2008 Leave a comment

On November 17, intelNews reported on a possible covert infiltration operation by British agents along Iran’s southeastern border. Interestingly, Iran appeared to deny reports from Reuters that it had busted the undertaking. Now another British-Iranian spy scandal has been added to this interesting mix. A court in London has sentenced Daniel James (born Esmail Gamasai in Tehran, Iran) to 10 years for spying for Iran while serving as personal interpreter to General Sir David Richards, Britain’s top General and the most senior military commander of the multinational NATO force in Afghanistan. In late 2006, James made contact with Colonel Mohammad Hossein Heydari, military attaché at the Iranian Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, sending him classified documents and stating “I am at your service”. He was arrested in December of that year. James was convicted of “a single count of communicating information useful to an enemy”, though the jury had to take the British government’s word that he was arrested “before he could become a fully-fledged agent”. What is interesting, in connection with the alleged covert operation by British agents in southeaster Iran, is that the British government suddenly decided not to try James under the full extent of the law in accordance with the Official Secrets Act. Instead, the prosecuting QC “applied for the charges to be allowed to lie on file, meaning there would be no further proceedings”. This has caused knowledgeable observers to question whether the decision to back off this case is in some way linked to the busted covert operation in southeaster Iran earlier this month. Should we be expecting a spy trade-off soon, or has one already taken place? Watch this space. [JF]

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British nationals among Mumbai attackers

November 28, 2008 Leave a comment

Reports in the Indian media state that at least two “British citizens of Pakistani origin” were among the small army that has attacked selected targets in Mumbai in the past few days.  The source of the information is apparently Indian Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, as has been confirmed by the Associated Press. In a related development, the head of Inter-Services Intelligence, the Pakistani intelligence service, is preparing to visit India to assist in the investigation of the Mumbai attacks. It is not clear when exactly General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the head of the ISI, will b e leaving for India; but if he does indeed go, it will be the first time that the head of the ISI will have visited India. [IA]

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US intensifies attack on Bolivia

November 28, 2008 Leave a comment

George W. Bush has been dismissed as a “lame duck” President, but his aggressive policy on Bolivia points otherwise. Although at the last stages of his presidency, Bush appears to be intensifying its vindictive war on the South American nation. Specifically, on Wednesday the White House announced that the US will be suspending “special trade benefits with Bolivia because of its failure to cooperate in drug-fighting efforts”. The “failure to cooperate in drug-fighting efforts” refers to the recent decision of the Bolivian government to halt the operations of the US Drug Enforcement Agency in the country, after it discovered that the agency tried to tap the telephone conversations of Bolivian President, Evo Morales, and actively funded and supported anti-government secessionist movements in selected oil-rich provinces. Using standard blackmail terminology, White House spokesperson Dana Perino stated that “the benefits can be restored if Bolivia were to improve its performance under the criteria of both programs and at the president’s discretion”. [IA]

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US President briefed about severe cyber-attack on Pentagon

November 28, 2008 Leave a comment

Conflicting and muddled reports have emerged in the US media about a purported cyber-attack that struck the Pentagon’s computers last month. The only thing that appears certain at this point is that the attack “raised potential implications for national security” that were considered important enough to brief the President. It also appears that the malicious software-based attack severely affected computer networks at CentCom, which oversees US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to one report, the software originated in Russia and appeared “designed specifically to target military networks”. Another report claims the attack actually originated in China, although “[m]ilitary electronics experts have not pinpointed the source or motive of the attack”. The pattern of the reports appears to point to yet another case of “the Pentagon once again has no idea what’s the matter with their computer networks so they’re simply blaming the usual suspects (Russia and China) hoping to deflect attention from the dire security standards in government computer networks”. [JF]

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