News you may have missed #516

  • UK government will continue to spy on Muslims says official. Britain’s Home Secretary, Theresa May, says she does not see “anything wrong with identifying people who are vulnerable to being taken down a certain route”.
  • UK government outed IRA double agent. Senior Irish Provisional Army volunteer Denis Donaldson, who spied for the British government, was deliberately outed by the government to send a message to the IRA that he was expendable, and that it had another, more valuable informant within the IRA leadership ranks. The revelation is contained in a leaked US diplomatic document published by whistleblower website WikiLeaks. Donaldson was shot dead shortly after his role as an MI5 informant was revealed.
  • Legendary CIA airline now in danger of crashing. There was a time, not so long ago, that CIA-linked contractor Evergreen International Aviation was doing quite well for itself. Today, the venerable intelligence-helpers have fallen on hard times. The other day, it had to unload its 200 million square foot maintenance facility in southern Arizona in order to help pay off its debts.

Former Mossad chief calls Israeli leadership ‘reckless’

Meir Dagan

Meir Dagan

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
The man who headed for eight years Israel’s most powerful spy agency has launched a new round of serious criticisms against the country’s political leadership. Meir Dagan, who led the Mossad from 2002 until January of this year, told Israeli newspapers that Israel’s current government is led by “reckless and irresponsible” people, who will not hesitate to engage in military adventurism abroad to ensure their political primacy at home. Israeli commentators interpret these comments as a reference to a reputed military attack by Tel Aviv against Iran’s nuclear energy program installations. Dagan’s comments follow similar criticisms he leveled against the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month. Speaking at a conference held at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, he warned that any military action against Iran would be “patently illegal under international law” and that it would probably not achieve its goals, since Iranian nuclear installations are deliberately dispersed in locations across that vast country. Consequently, the widespread nature of the attack could lead to a prolonged war, “the kind of thing where we know how it starts, but not how it will end”, he told conference participants. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #515

  • US spies tracked suspected terrorists in Sweden. US intelligence agents have staked out suspected terrorists in Sweden without the authorization of the government there, Svenska Daglbadet newspaper has reported. Last November, Norway, Sweden and Denmark launched official investigations into reports that US embassies there operated illegal intelligence-gathering networks.
  • Aussie spy agency reported on WikiLeaks. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s department has revealed that WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, were the subject of Australian intelligence reporting last year, as the government anticipated the whistleblower website would spill “highly sensitive and politically embarrassing” secrets.
  • Former Taiwanese general accused of spying. Taiwanese government prosecutors are seeking a life sentence for Major General Lo Hsien-che, the most senior Taiwanese official to be arrested on espionage charges in the country since the early 1960s.

News you may have missed #514

  • The spy kid. Multipart series by The Oregonian‘s Bryan Denson, on Nathaniel James Nicholson, son of CIA double agent Harold James Nicholson, who was convicted for spying on the US for Russia. Nathaniel was convicted in 2009 for maintaining contacts with his father’s Russian handlers.
  • Listening bug found in NZ MP’s home. Sources close to New Zealand’s Government Communication Security Bureau (GCSB) have said that at least one clandestine listening device has been found after a sweep of senior government officials’ homes.
  • Israel sells spy camera to Turkey despite concerns. Israel’s defense establishment has approved the sale to Turkey of the Long-Range Oblique Photography pod, a sophisticated intelligence system considered the pinnacle in Israeli military technology, despite worsening relations between the two countries.

US SEALs ‘pocket guide’ left behind in bin Laden hideout

Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A document provided to members of the US Navy SEALs who assassinated Osama bin Laden, was left behind in bin Laden’s compound by mistake, and has reportedly been accessed by The London Times. It contains remarkably detailed descriptions of the compound’s occupants and frequent visitors, including their ages and legal names, all the way down to bin Laden’s wives, children and grandchildren. It also details the approximate timing of the arrival of each of the compound’s residents, as well as the precise location of their bedrooms and living quarters. Furthermore, the guidebook discusses the possibility that bin Laden’s youngest wife, Amal Ahmed Abdel-Fatah al-Sada, who also lived in the compound, may have given birth to twins in recent years. Remarkably, the pocket guide, which must have been carried by every member of the SEALs team that attacked the al-Qaeda founder’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, earlier this month, describes even bin Laden’s usual clothing preferences. It states that he “[a]lways wears light-colored shawal kameez with a dark vest” and that he “occasionally wears light-colored prayer cap”. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #513 (Pakistan edition)

  • Pakistan spy chief tells US to end drone strikes. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the outgoing director of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has reportedly told CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell that Pakistan “will be forced to respond” if the US does not stop its drone strikes in the country.
  • CIA-ISI back in business. Overall, however, the meeting between Pasha and Morell was focused on mending CIA-ISI relations, according to Pakistan’s leading newspaper The Nation.
  • Leaked cables reveal joint US-Pakistan missions. US Special Forces were embedded with Pakistani troops on intelligence-gathering missions by 2009, confidential American diplomatic cables showed, a revelation that could hurt the Pakistani military’s public image. The Pakistani government has denied the reports.

Spy defectors claim Iran had foreknowledge of 9/11

9/11 attack

9/11 attack

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A new filing in a nine-year court case in Manhattan contains testimony by two defectors from Iran’s intelligence service, who claim that Tehran had “foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks”. According to The New York Times, the two unnamed defectors also claimed that the Iranian intelligence services helped al-Qaeda in planning the attacks, and that operatives of the Iranian government funded and helped train the 9/11 hijackers. The filing also claims that Hezbollah, the Iranian-linked militant group that controls large parts of Lebanon, helped shelter al-Qaeda members in the months and years following the American invasion of Afghanistan. The filing was submitted to a US federal court on last week, in support of a lawsuit seeking damages from the government of Iran for its alleged “direct support for, and sponsorship of, the most deadly act of terrorism in American history”. The lawsuit was initiated 2002 on behalf of families of people who died in the 9/11 attacks. But neither the names of the Iranian defectors nor the precise content of their testimony has been revealed to the public, as their assertions were submitted to the presiding judge under seal. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #512

Expelled Israeli spy was after Russian-Arab arms deals, says FSB

Vadim Leiderman

Vadim Leiderman

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The military attaché at the Israeli embassy in Moscow, who was unceremoniously expelled by the Russian government last week, was allegedly gathering intelligence on Russian arms exports to the Arab world. The FSB, Russia’s foremost counterintelligence agency, said Soviet-born Vadim Leiderman, a colonel in the Israeli army, was “caught red-handed” during a sting operation in Moscow, which is said to have occurred on May 12. His arrest led to the first expulsion of an Israeli diplomat from Russia in over two decades. Commenting on the case, a spokesperson from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the Kremlin had intended to conceal Leiderman’s expulsion from the media, as a “gesture of goodwill” to Israel. But its effort to keep the operation secret collapsed after Russia’s RBC TV aired a surveillance video of Leiderman’s arrest by a group of FSB officers, as the seemingly unsuspecting Israeli diplomat was dining with another man at an exclusive Moscow restaurant. Read more of this post

Iran arrests dozens in connection with alleged CIA spy ring

Iran

Iran

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The Iranian intelligence services have announced the arrest of at least 30 individuals accused of being part of an elaborate CIA “espionage and sabotage network” operating in the country. According to Iran’s Fars News Agency, spy ring members, which include government administrators, were handled from abroad by as many as 42 CIA operatives, whose identities are allegedly known to Iranian counterintelligence investigators. Iran’s Intelligence Ministry claims that spy ring members, who are believed to be Iranian, were recruited by CIA officers operating out of US embassies in several predominantly Muslim countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Malaysia. They were then trained and sent into Iran to gather intelligence on energy projects, academic research, as well as telecommunications installations and border control systems. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #511

News you may have missed #510 (bin Laden edition)

  • Europe says US slow in sharing bin Laden intel. European security officials have lots of questions about the intelligence being analyzed from Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan, but so far they have seen very little of it, they say.
  • Did Pakistani official lead US to bin Laden? There are rumors in Pakistan that the CIA was tipped off about the location of bin Laden’s hideout from a walk-in informant at the US Embassy in Islamabad.
  • CIA interrogates bin Laden’s wives. US intelligence officials have interrogated the three wives of Osama Bin Laden who were left behind in his compound after Navy Seals shot dead the al-Qaeda leader. The women, Amal Ahmed Abdel-Fatah al-Sada, of Yemen, and Khairiah Sabar and Siham Sabar, both of Saudi Arabia, were apparently “hostile” and uncooperative during the interrogations

Did compromised laptop prompt Israel to bomb Syrian nuclear reactor?

Al-Kibar reactor

Al-Kibar reactor

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
One of the Middle East’s biggest mysteries in recent years concerns Operation ORCHARD, the September 6, 2007, attack by Israeli fighter jets on a site deep in the Syro-Arabian Desert. Many observers, including former CIA Director, General Michael Hayden, have called for the secrecy surrounding the covert operation to be finally lifted. But it has been more-or-less confirmed that the attack targeted a plutonium production reactor, which was part of Syria’s secret nuclear weapons program. And officials in Tel Aviv have repeatedly hinted that Israel was behind the operation. The burning question, however, is how did Israel learn of the existence of Syria’s nuclear reactor at Al-Kibar, a secret and isolated site deep in the Syro-Arabian Desert? The authoritative account of the operation, which appeared in German newsmagazine Der Spiegel in 2009, suggested that the initial tip came from the US National Security Agency, which “detected a suspiciously high number of telephone calls between Syria and North Korea”. But it also alleged that the Mossad managed to acquire vital clues about the Al-Kibar building site by installing a stealth “Trojan horse” program on the laptop of a Syrian government official, while the latter was visiting Britain. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #509 (Blackwater edition)

Comment: Bin Laden’s Alleged ‘Magazine Stash’ May be CIA PsyOp

Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
Rumors of an alleged discovery of “a stash of pornography” in Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan have spread like wildfire since Friday, when Reuters published an “exclusive” report on the subject. The report, written by Mark Hosenball and Tabassum Zakaria, cites “current and former US officials […] who discussed the discovery […] on condition of anonymity”. According to the allegations, “[t]he pornography recovered in bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, consists of modern, electronically recorded video and is fairly extensive”. The report was almost immediately picked up by several news outlets, including The New York Times, which notes that the disclosure “will be welcomed by counter-terrorism officials because it could tarnish [the al-Qaeda founder’s] legacy and erode [his] appeal”. Indeed. It appears that only Danger Room‘s Spencer Ackerman thought it wise to air a brief disclaimer to the effect that the “welcomed disclosure” may in fact be “a CIA information operation”. He has a point. Read more of this post