News you may have missed #492 (history edition)

April 5, 2011 Leave a comment

  • Holocaust spy’s memoir gets movie treatment. The extraordinary memoir of Jan Karski, a Polish resistance fighter who gave the first eyewitness report on the Holocaust to the Allies, is to be made into a film by the producer of The King’s Speech. In 1943, Karski escaped from Nazi-occupied Poland and went to London with a hidden microfilm, revealing the persecution of Europe’s Jews by the Third Reich.
  • British spy files shed light on Nazi saboteurs in the US. Declassified British intelligence files describe the activities of Nazi sabotage teams sent to the US in June 1942 to undermine the American war effort. A detailed new account of the German mission, code-named Pastorius, is provided in a report written in 1943 by MI5 intelligence officer Victor Rosthchild.
  • New information on Evdokia Petrova’s defection. New information has emerged on the 1954 defection to Australia of Evdokia Petrova, wife of Vladimir Petrov, who was the most senior Soviet intelligence official to have defected to the West until that time.

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News you may have missed #491

April 4, 2011 Leave a comment

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MI5 concealed report on Soviet penetration from CIA

April 4, 2011 Leave a comment

Kim Philby

Kim Philby

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
British counterintelligence officials decided to conceal from their American counterparts a report detailing Soviet spy penetration of the UK, because it showed London’s permissive attitude towards intelligence infiltration. The secret report, entitled “Survey of Russian Espionage in the UK 1935-1955”, was authored by the D Branch of MI5, which was tasked with countering Soviet intelligence operations on British soil. It was declassified on Monday by Britain’s National Archives, 55 years after it was initially authored. The survey was apparently commissioned following the embarrassing defections of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, MI5 and MI6 officers respectively, who escaped to Moscow in 1951, after several years of spying for the Soviet Union. Its pages detail the cases of over 50 Soviet intelligence operatives and double agents who were believed at the time to be mostly at large in the UK or abroad. But senior MI5 officials decided to limit the report’s distribution, fearing that it revealed too many weaknesses in Britain’s counterintelligence posture. Instead, they decided to print only about 25 copies of the report, which were to be distributed strictly within MI5. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #490

April 2, 2011 Leave a comment

  • How Moussa Koussa defected to Britain. This is the best account (so far) of the recent defection of the Libyan former intelligence chief, by The Independent of London, republished here by The New Zealand Herald.
  • Mossad does not play by the rules, says ex-MI6 director. “Israel plays by a different set of rules than the rules that we observe in the UK”, said former MI6 director Sir Richard Dearlove in a conference Wednesday, adding that British intelligence isn’t always forthcoming with sharing information with the Mossad.
  • Kuwait may expel Iranian diplomats over spying affair. Kuwait’s foreign minister said yesterday that three Iranian diplomats may be expelled over a spying row in the Gulf Arab state, and that his government had withdrawn its ambassador from Tehran.

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CIA active on the ground in Libya ‘for several weeks’

April 1, 2011 Leave a comment

Libyan rebels

Libyan rebels

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Few intelligence observers have been surprised by revelations in The New York Times that several cells of Central Intelligence Agency officers have been active on the ground in Libya for the best part of March. The US newspaper published the disclosure after the Reuters news agency first broke the story early on Wednesday. According to Reuters, US President Barack Obama authorized a secret Presidential finding three weeks ago, in which he instructed the CIA to deploy teams of operatives in the North African country. In reality, as Reuters commented later on, US intelligence officers were active on the ground in Libya before President Obama’s authorization for covert action. But his authorization gave the green light for the intensification of CIA activities throughout Libya’s northern regions. The CIA operatives are not working alone; they are part of what The Times called “a shadow force of Westerners”, which include “dozens of British special forces” and officers of the Secret Intelligence Service, otherwise known as MI6 —the UK’s foremost external intelligence agency. Citing “American officials”, The Times speculates that Western intelligence agents are actively collecting tactical intelligence on the Libyan armed forces, thus helping guide aerial strikes by NATO jets. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #489

March 31, 2011 Leave a comment

  • Russian spies want their stuff back from the FBI. Two of the ten Russians deported from the United States in a spy row last July have demanded that some of the property they were forced to leave behind be returned to them. The claim was lodged on behalf of Vladimir and Lidia Guryev, better known as Richard and Cynthia Murphy.
  • Kuwait sentences three to death for espionage. Two Iranians and a Kuwaiti national, all serving in Kuwait’s army, were condemned to death yesterday for belonging to an Iranian spy ring, which allegedly passed on information to the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards. A Syrian and a stateless Arab, who are also members of the alleged spy ring, were handed life terms.
  • ‘Foreign spies’ hacked Australian leader’s computer. Chinese hackers seeking information on commercial secrets are suspected of having broken into a computer used by Julia Gillard, the Australian prime minister. Her computer was among 10 machines used by senior government ministers which were compromised by the hackers. According to one source, the Australians were tipped off to the hacking by the CIA and the FBI.

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Israel to revoke citizenship for spying under new law

March 30, 2011 4 Comments

Avigdor Lieberman

Avigdor Lieberman

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A new law passed by the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, allows courts for the first time in Israel’s history to revoke the Israeli citizenship of those convicted of espionage, treason, or aiding “enemy organizations”. The new law, which the Knesset enacted on Monday night by a vote of 37 to 11, amends the country’s revered Citizenship Law, which was first enacted in 1952. Along with citizenship rights, judges will be allowed to revoke the permanent residency permits of individuals found guilty of assisting organizations designated as terrorist by the Israeli government. The legislation was primarily sponsored by the ultraconservative Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is Our Home) party, which is led by Israel’s current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Avigdor Lieberman. During the 2009 national elections, Mr. Lieberman campaigned on a so-called “no loyalty, no citizenship” political platform. This ultranationalist stance formed the basis of the citizenship revocation legislation enacted on Monday. The new law is in fact a watered down version of Yisrael Beiteinu’s original proposal, which included a requirement for loyalty oaths administered to all non-Jews living in Israel. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #488

March 28, 2011 Leave a comment

  • Russians claim NATO plans ground operation in Libya. The international coalition force is “developing a plan for a ground operation on Libyan territory”, according to Russian news agency RIA Novosti, which quotes “a high-ranking Russian intelligence service source”.
  • Dutch Libya evacuee ‘not a spy’. An individual who was to be evacuated from the Libyan city of Sirte during a botched Dutch Navy helicopter rescue mission on February 27, is not a spy but an engineer who had been working there for two years on a construction project. This according to Erik Oostwegel, CEO of Royal Haskoning, the company that employed the engineer.
  • Syria arrests US engineer for ‘spying for Israel’. Syria has arrested an Egyptian engineer carrying a United States passport, who had been working in Syria after a secret visit to Israel, according to Syrian state-run television. But a “senior Syrian diplomatic source” has told Egyptian media that the spying charges are to be dropped.

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Did Jordan help Israeli Mossad abduct Gaza engineer?

March 28, 2011 1 Comment

Dirar Abu Sissi

Dirar Abu Sissi

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
This blog has covered the case of Dirar Abu Sissi, a Jordanian-born engineer in the Gaza strip who was abducted in the Ukraine by Israeli spy agency Mossad on February 19. Sissi had traveled to Ukraine, birthplace of his wife, to apply for citizenship in the Eastern European country. But he disappeared in the early hours of February 19, shortly after boarding a train from Kharkiv to Kiev, in order to reunite with this brother, a Dutch national, whom he had not seen since 1997. His disappearance remained a mystery until the United Nations High Commission for Refugees told the Associated Press that Sissi had been kidnapped by Israeli operatives and had been secretly transported to a prison in Israel. His whereabouts were later confirmed in a report by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza. But some observers now suspect that the Israelis did not act alone during the abduction operation. Dirar’s brother, Yousef Abu Sissi, has spoken to American journalist Richard Silverstein about his brother’s trip from the Gaza Strip to Ukraine, prior to his abduction. He told Silverstein that Dirar’s trip involved an initial flight from Egypt to Jordan. It was there, according to Dirar’s brother, that the Gaza resident was detained by Jordanian intelligence. The latter confiscated his passport, refused to allow him to board his flight to Ukraine, and held him at the airport through the night. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #487 (Canada edition)

March 27, 2011 1 Comment

  • Canadian MPs want spy services director to quit. A group of Canadian parliamentarians have asked for the resignation of the country’s Security Intelligence Service director Dick Fadden, who claimed last summer that several Canadian politicians were under the control of foreign governments.
  • Canada agencies still not sharing intelligence. Almost a decade after 9/11, the many arms of Canada’s national security network still do not share all their intelligence about terrorist threats with sister agencies, according to a new parliamentary report by the special Senate Committee on Anti-terrorism.
  • Chinese intelligence are after us, say immigrants to Canada. A spokesman for a Falun Gong group in Ottawa has accused the Chinese government of planting spies among the Chinese ex-pat community in the country. According to an unnamed former employee at China’s embassy in Sydney, Australia, who defected in 2005, there are more than 1,000 Chinese spies operating in Canada.

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News you may have missed #486

March 26, 2011 Leave a comment

  • Hundreds of US officials to leave Pakistan in Davis deal [unconfirmed]. Pakistani newspaper The Express Tribune claims that 331 US officials in Pakistan have been identified by Islamabad as spies and are “to leave the country”, under a secret deal between Pakistan and the United States. The alleged deal was reportedly struck between the two sides as part of the release of Raymond Davis, a CIA operative who shot dead two people in Lahore.
  • Australian government unveils new spy legislation. The Intelligence Services Legislation Amendment Bill, which has been unveiled by the Australian government, contains changes to the intelligence services and criminal code legislation designed to “improve the operational capabilities of key spy agencies“, according to the country’s Attorney-General.
  • Dutch military intelligence: closed on Sundays. A Dutch government-commissioned report has revealed that the country’s military intelligence service, the MIVD, played no role in the decision, earlier this month, to attempt an evacuation operation by helicopter near the Libyan city of Sirte. The reason is because the evacuation took place on a Sunday, and requests for intelligence went unnoticed at MIVD headquarters.

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CIA behind ‘illegal’ anti-drug operation in Costa Rica

March 25, 2011 3 Comments

Costa Rica

Costa Rica

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
An espionage operation against drug trafficking by a mysterious unit within the Costa Rican intelligence service was organized and funded by the US Central Intelligence Agency, it has been alleged. The operation, codenamed CINEC, was revealed by Costa Rica’s former Minister of Public Security, Rogelio Ramos, in an interview earlier this week with the country’s leading newspaper, La Nación. Ramos told the newspaper that CINEC was conducted for a period of ten years by a group of “special agents” operating out of the Dirección de Inteligencia Seguridad (DIS), Costa Rica’s intelligence agency. The former government minister said CINEC members were stationed in houses throughout the country that were leased by front-companies operating on behalf of the CIA, and that they used equipment, including vehicles, supplied by the US agency. He also said that CINEC operatives were recruited, vetted, administered polygraph tests, and trained by the CIA. According to the Nación article, Ramos said that operation CINEC included activities that “are not legal”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #485

March 23, 2011 Leave a comment

  • Gaza engineer describes abduction my Mossad. Dirar Abu Sissi, who was abducted by Israeli spy agency Mossad from the Ukraine on February 19, has described details of his abduction in a report issued Monday by the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights.
  • Gaddafi regime fed names of jihadists to the CIA and MI6. Diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks paint eastern Libya as a fertile ground for radical extremism. One source told US officials in 2008 that for young men from Derna, a city east of Benghazi, “resistance against coalition forces in Iraq was an important act of ‘jihad’ and a last act of defiance against the Gaddafi regime”.
  • Investigators say secret CIA files could aid Chile. Chile’s truth commission has determined that 3,065 opponents of US-supported Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet were killed in the 1970s. Most of these cases were investigated, and some 600 military figures and civilian collaborators have been put on trial. Now campaigners are trying to get the CIA to open its files on Pinochet.

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New Israel intelligence unit spies on Western leftwing groups

March 22, 2011 4 Comments

Israel, Palestine

Israel, Palestine

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Israel’s Military Intelligence has set up a new unit tasked with infiltrating and monitoring Western leftwing organizations that criticize Israel’s policies on the Palestinians. The unit, whose name remains unknown, was reportedly established earlier this year by the research division of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate (MID). It has been given the sole task of targeting Western groups that routinely criticize Israeli policies, campaign for economic boycott or divestiture from Israel, and try to bring war crime charges against senior Israeli government officials. Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz quotes “senior Israeli officials and [MID] officers” who claim that these worldwide campaigns “delegitimize Israel and question its right to exist”. They also suggest that there are links between organizations lobbying worldwide against Israel’s policies on the Palestinians and “terror groups”. The paper reports that the new unit was set up in the wake of the official Israeli investigation into the bloody events of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in June of 2010, when Israeli commandos killed eight Turkish and one American citizen in international waters. Read more of this post

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West directs spies, information-warfare at Libya

March 21, 2011 Leave a comment

Libyan rebels

Libyan rebels

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Along with airborne surveillance and the bombing of targets, Western nations in charge of imposing a no-fly-zone over Libya are directing their intelligence and information-warfare arsenals against the Libyan regime. British newspaper The Daily Mail reports that MI6, the UK’s primary external intelligence agency, is sharing with the British military its lists of telephone numbers belonging to senior Libyan military officials. The latter are now receiving calls from British civilian or military intelligence officers prompting them to defect. The paper cited “a senior source” who claimed MI6 is warning senior Libyan military officers that the Royal Air Force has “the GPS coordinates” of their command posts and that “it could be fatal to remain loyal to the Libyan leader” Muammar al-Gaddafi. Presumably, the calls are conducted in the Arabic language. They also do not appear to be pre-recorded, unlike those directed by the Israel Defense Forces at Palestinians during the 2008-2009 Israel-Gaza conflict. The “senior source” told The Mail that the same technique “worked in Iraq” in convincing senior military commanders to either defect or —in most cases— abandon their posts. Read more of this post

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