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Book claims CIA framed Bulgaria over assassination attempt on Pope

April 25, 2011 Leave a comment

John Paul II

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A new book claims that the United States Central Intelligence Agency concocted a link between the Bulgarian intelligence services and the 1981 failed assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II. Entitled Kill the Pope: The Truth About the Assassination Attempt on Pope John Paul II, the book is authored by Italian investigative journalist Marco Insaldo and Turkish researcher Yasemin Taksin. Both say that Kill the Pope is the result of a twenty-year study into the incident. Pope John Paul II was shot four times by a 9mm handgun fired by Turkish citizen Mehmet Ali Ağca, while riding in the back of an open-roof car at the Vatican’s St Peter’s Square. Although Ağca’s motives are shrouded in mystery, many intelligence historians believe that he was operating as an agent for the Bulgarian secret services. It has been speculated that the Soviet KGB instructed Bulgarian intelligence to use Ağca and another Turk, Oral Çelik, to kill the Polish-born Pope, because he had strong ties with Poland’s dissident Solidarność (Solidarity) movement. But Insaldo and Taksin insist that there is no evidence to connect the Bulgarian government to the assassination operation, and that Ağca operated under the command of Turkey’s Grey Wolves, a nationalist, anti-Western paramilitary group, which consists of both secular and Islamist factions. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #502

April 22, 2011 2 Comments

Interesting interview with career US intelligence officer. A discussion on al-Qaeda’s quest for nuclear weapons with Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and former Director of Intelligence and Counterintelligence at the US Department of Energy.
CIA reveals World War I documents. The CIA has declassified secrets for writing with invisible ink and even opening sealed letters without detection: state-of-the-art spying techniques from World War I.
Israel indicts Australian for spying for Hamas. Australian citizen Iad Rashid Abu Arja, has been indicted in Israel for allegedly entering the country on a mission from Hamas. According to Israel, Arja “aimed to acquire various technological devices for the purposes of encryption, photography, and guiding missiles”.

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News you may have missed #501 (United States edition)

April 21, 2011 1 Comment

Ex-double agent Hanssen’s house goes on sale. The five-bedroom home on Talisman Drive in Vienna, Va., offered by Llewellyn Realtors for $725,000 as “perfect for a growing family”, is the former lair of ex-FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Hanssen, who is regarded as one of the most damaging spies ever to betray the US government.
Ex-CIA officer critical of US activities in Pakistan. Speaking on Pakistan’s TV show Express 24/7, former CIA officer Robert Baer said there were no less than 16 US intelligence agencies working in Pakistan and none of them talked to each other, with even officials from the New York police department at one point in time conducting investigations in Pakistan.
US agents descending on Mexico According to Mexican daily El Diario, the country’s Attorney General’s Office estimates that there are currently over 500 US intelligence operatives working in Mexico, up from just 60 in 2005.

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Leaked US cable reveals concern about China spying in Chile

April 20, 2011 2 Comments

WikiLeaks

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A leaked US government document reveals strong concerns expressed by the US embassy in Santiago about Chinese intelligence operations in Chile. The document, classified “secret”, and dated August 29, 2005, was released by whistleblower website WikiLeaks. It contains a report sent by the embassy to the US Department of State, concerning Chinese intelligence collection activities in the South American nation. The report points out that the Chinese embassy in the Chilean capital is one of the largest in Latin America, with 22 employees, who are “all good Spanish speakers”. It also notes that Chinese news agency Xinhua maintains three full-time correspondents in Chile, who are “assumed [to be] involved in some kind of collection activity”. But the leaked document focuses mostly on alleged Chinese intelligence collection activities aimed at the Chilean military, which is heavily subsisted by the United States. It suggests that bilateral ties between the Chinese and Chilean military were significantly strengthened in 2004, when, during an official visit to China, the then Chief of the Chilean Army, General Juan Emilio Cheyre, adopted a Chinese proposal to establish a Mandarin-language training program for selected officers of the Chilean military, which became operational shortly after. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #500

April 19, 2011 Leave a comment

US diplomatic cables reveal lack of Iran intelligence. “Taken together, the cables portray a US government ravenous for any scrap of information about Iran, no matter how incomplete or contradictory —and admittedly blind to much of what is taking place in a country where the US has not had an official presence in more than a generation”.
Castro’s spy who betrayed the Bay of Pigs invasion. Benigno Perez Vivancos was only one of dozens of Fidel Castro’s spies who infiltrated exile Cuban plots in the 1960s as part of a highly effective intelligence-gathering operation that allowed the Cuban leader to prepare well for the invasion 50 years ago and to defeat it after just three days of fighting.
Mixed signals over status of Iran’s chief spy. Iran’s intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi, offered his resignation from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government on Sunday, but in an apparent high-level political dispute, Iran’s top leader ordered the minister to remain in his post.

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German spies meddled in ex-Nazi Eichmann’s trial in Israel, records show

April 18, 2011 3 Comments

Adolf Eichmann

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The West German government instructed its intelligence agency to interfere in the trial of former senior Nazi official Adolf Eichmann in Israel, in order to avert the incrimination of other Germans over the Holocaust. Eichmann, who was Obersturmbahnführer in the German SS from 1940 onwards, was among the chief organizers of the Holocaust and was personally responsible for the extermination of untold numbers of European Jews during World War II. However, in 1946 he managed to escape from American custody and eventually fled to Argentina with the help of a network of Franciscan Catholics in Italy. But in 1960, a ten-member Israeli intelligence team kidnapped Eichmann from his home in Argentina and transported him secretly to Israel, where he would be tried and, eventually, executed by the Israeli government. The public trial attracted the world’s attention, but at least one government was fearful of it, namely that of West Germany. The reason was Bonn’s concern that Eichmann might publicly name as responsible for the Holocaust several other Nazi officials, many of whom were living at the time in West Germany. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #499 (CIA edition)

April 17, 2011 Leave a comment

CIA sued for failing to release Bay of Pigs history. The non-profit group National Security Archive has sued the CIA over its failure to release its history of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the US-sponsored effort to topple Fidel Castro in 1961.
Ex-CIA Deputy Director on intelligence priorities. Thirty-year CIA veteran John McLaughlin explains that he perceives intelligence priorities in terms of concentric circles, with the innermost circle containing items of the highest priority for national security.
Is it OK for spy agency chiefs to tell the truth? “Public officials need to choose their words carefully, but we should not be so timid that our language confuses everyone –including ourselves”, says Michael V. Hayden, who directed the CIA from 2006 to 2009.

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News you may have missed #498

April 16, 2011 Leave a comment

US claims Iran helping Syria crackdown. Iran is secretly helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad put down pro-democracy demonstrations, according to US officials, who say Tehran is providing gear to suppress crowds and assistance blocking and monitoring protesters’ use of the Internet, cellphones and text-messaging.
Frenchmen arrested in Pakistan. One of the French citizens is of Pakistani origin and the other is a Caucasian convert to Islam; the two had apparently intended to travel to Pakistan’s North Waziristan region, where al-Qaida’s top command is based, for terrorist training, according to a US official.
Did US blow up its old spy satellite? The US military’s huge reconnaissance satellite Lacrosse 2, which was launched 20 years ago, has been reported by amateur satellite observers as missing in action –a sign that the classified spacecraft may have been purposely destroyed in Earth’s atmosphere.

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CIA losing scores of officers to private sector, report finds

April 15, 2011 9 Comments

CIA HQ

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
An extensive report on intelligence outsourcing in the United States has revealed that dozens of senior CIA officials have migrated to the private sector in the years since 9/11, usually taking with them decades of experience and training, paid for by the US taxpayer. Most of these upper-level officials, which number nearly 100 since 2001, have assumed lucrative posts in private intelligence firms and security consultants, often making significantly more than they could ever make working at the CIA. According to The Washington Post, which compiled the report, the decision to leave the CIA for the private sector is usually based on strictly financial grounds. But private contractors view these officials as invaluable intermediaries in their effort to gain access to government contracts, which have increased exponentially in number and monetary value in recent times. As a result, three CIA Directors, four Deputy Directors for Operations, three Counterterrorism Center Directors, as well as all five of the CIA’s Division Heads have been lured by private sector intelligence contractors since 9/11. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #497

April 14, 2011 1 Comment

Interview with Finnish ex-counterespionage officer. Finland’s Helsingin Sanomat has published a very interesting interview with Hannu Moilanen, who recently retired as a senior officer with SUPO, the Finnish Security Intelligence Service. Among other things, Moilanen says SUPO considered the CIA “the bad boys” of the Western bloc during the Cold War, because the Americans would not always disclose to SUPO the identities of CIA officers stationed in Finland, as they were supposed to.
European Union sent intelligence officers to Libya. But the EU’s Joint Situation Centre denies they were spies. “They were technical specialists who went to help with satellite phones and that type of thing”, said JSC Director Ilkka Salmi.
Talks aimed at mending rift between CIA and ISI. The CIA has agreed to reveal more about its operatives and their activities in Pakistan, and pledged expanded cooperation on drone strikes, US and Pakistani officials said. Meanwhile, however, the drone strikes on Pakistani soil appear to be continuing.

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West German defector dies in Moscow

April 13, 2011 2 Comments

Tiedge

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A senior West German counterintelligence official, whose 1985 defection to the Soviet bloc shocked Western intelligence, has died in Moscow. Hans-Joachim Tiedge headed the Cologne office of West Germany’s now-defunct Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV). He was also involved in the BfV’s counterintelligence work against East German spy operations on West German soil. But on August 19, 1985, Tiedge boarded a train to East Germany. Once there, he walked over to a branch of the Ministry for State Security (commonly known as the Stasi) and declared his intent to defect. His defection caused disarray in West German intelligence circles, prompting the recall of dozens of West German officers and agents operating in East Germany. It eventually led to the resignation of the Director of the BfV, Heribert Hellenbroich. In his autobiography, published in 1998, Tiedge said he decided to defect “due to personal problems” relating to chronic alcoholism and financial debt. He also said his decision to flee to East Germany was prompted by the fear that he was about to be reassigned to a less desirable post inside the BfV. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #496

April 12, 2011 Leave a comment

US secretly collaborating with Chinese spies on North Korea. Leaked records of highly sensitive US-China defense consultations reveal that the CIA, the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the US Defense Department, have all held secret discussions on North Korea with Chinese military intelligence.
Cuba denounces acquittal of ex-CIA agent. Cuba has denounced as a ‘farce’ the acquittal in the United States of Luis Posada Carriles, a former CIA agent who Havana says participated in terrorist attacks against the island. Carriles was accused of lying to US immigration officials.
Analysis: US spy agencies struggling to adjust to Middle East changes. With popular protests toppling rulers in Tunisia and Egypt and threatening leaders in Yemen and elsewhere, US intelligence agencies are struggling to adjust to a radically changed landscape, US officials, former intelligence officers and experts say.

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News you may have missed #495

April 11, 2011 Leave a comment

Nazi who arrested Anne Frank became a spy for West Germany. Karl Josef Silberbauer, the Gestapo officer who arrested the Holocaust victim Anne Frank, was one of hundreds of Nazi henchmen who were recruited en masse by West German intelligence after the Second World War to spy on the Soviet bloc, a new book has revealed.
Kremlin rejects Russian spy’s proposal to ban Skype, Gmail. The Kremlin has rejected a proposal by a senior official of the Federal Security Service, Russia’s main domestic security agency, who suggested banning Skype, Gmail and Hotmail because they are a major threat to national security.
Iran expels Kuwaiti diplomats in spying dispute. Iran has expelled three Kuwaiti diplomats in retaliation for the expulsion of three Iranian diplomats accused of spying in the emirate last month.

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Australian Labour Party leader worked for Soviets, claims historian

April 11, 2011 1 Comment

H.V. Evatt

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
One of Australia’s leading intelligence historians has said that Herbert V. Evatt, who led the Australian Labour Party in the 1950s, operated as a secret agent for the Soviet Union. Dr Desmond Ball, professor at the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, made the claim following last week’s release in London of previously classified documents relating to Australian intelligence. The documents, which came from the archives of MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, reveal that Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies was convinced that Evatt was a Soviet agent. His fear appears to have culminated two days before the national election of November 22, 1958, when he privately expressed the fear that Evatt would destroy Australian counterintelligence documents on the Soviet Union if the Labour Party was elected to power. With this in mind, he ordered the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) to share top-secret documents on the Soviet Union with London and Washington. Following Menzies’ directive, the ASIO provided Britain’s MI5 and MI6, as well as America’s CIA with two sets each of a number of intelligence reports acquired through KGB defector Vladimir Petrov. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #494

April 8, 2011 Leave a comment

David Petraeus tipped to be new CIA director. The Obama administration may tap CIA Director Leon Panetta to succeed Bob Gates as Secretary of Defense. If this happens, then General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Afghanistan, may take over Panetta’s job at the CIA.
Reuters denies bureau chief had CIA contacts. The Reuters news agency has denied an accusation made on Cuban state television that its bureau chief Anthony Boadle helped arrange a meeting between an undercover Cuban agent and a US diplomat described as a CIA operative.
UK court grants Russian ‘spy’ aid to fight deportation. Katia Zatuliveter, who is accused by Britain’s MI5 of spying for Russia, has won legal aid to help fight her case against deportation, according to news reports.