intelNews

US paying ‘price in blood’ for Israel-Palestine conflict, say ex-CIA officers

January 21, 2011 7 Comments

Bruce Riedel

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Two former CIA officers have warned that America will continue “paying an increasing price in blood” for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and urged the White House to directly meddle in domestic Israeli politics in order to help end the dispute. Speaking on Thursday at a conference on achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace, Bruce Riedel and Frank Anderson, whose combined CIA careers span 55 years, agreed that a new all-out war between Israel and the Palestinians would be inevitable unless the United States aggressively “puts down its own map of a two-state solution”. Anderson, who is currently President at the Middle East Policy Council, opined that America is “paying an increasing price in blood for [the Israelis’ and the Palestinians’] failure and refusal to reach an agreement”. Riedel, who is Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, argued that “American lives are being lost today” due to the conflict’s impact on American national security. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Brookings Institution, Bruce Riedel, CIA, conferences, Fatah, Foundation for Middle East Peace, Frank Anderson, Israel, Middle East, Middle East Policy Council, national security, News, Palestine, Philip Wilcox, United States

News you may have missed #470

January 19, 2011 Leave a comment

Blackwater still working for US despite denials. Reports that Blackwater is out of the US government’s private-security game appear to have been greatly exaggerated. A consigliore to the company’s new owners has said the firm still holds security contracts with the US State Department, and intends to seek more.
CIA gets spooky with new radio commercials. The CIA’s National Clandestine Service is continuing its recruitment drive with new radio commercials, complete with a spooky soundtrack of sawing violins and rising timpani –and something about “no one will ever know what you do”.
Iranian shah’s son found dead in Boston. Alireza Pahlavi, the youngest son of the late shah of Iran, has been found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Boston’s South End. In June 2001, Alireza’s sister Leila was found dead in a London hotel room from an overdose of barbiturates. The late siblings’ father was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic revolution. He died in Egypt in 1980.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 0 Blackwater still working for US despite denials, 0 CIA gets spooky with new radio commercials, 0 Iranian shah's son found dead in Boston, Alireza Pahlavi, Blackwater, CIA, CIA NCS, intelligence outsourcing, intelligence recruitment, Iran, Leila Pahlavi, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, News, news you may have missed, United States, US Department of State, Xe

Ex-CIA agent and anti-Castro militant on trial in Texas

January 18, 2011 2 Comments

Carriles in 1962

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A former CIA agent and militant anticommunist, who is idolized by America’s anti-Castro Cubans, but is considered a terrorist in parts of Latin America, has gone on trial in Texas. Luís Posada Carriles, 82, known as “the bin Laden of the Americas” by his detractors, gained notoriety for his self-confessed participation in a string of bombings of hotels in Havana, Cuba, in 1997. He is wanted by the governments of Cuba and Venezuela for his alleged role in the dramatic 1976 midair bombing of Cubana flight 455, which killed all 73 crew and passengers onboard. The United States government has placed Carriles on trial for lying about his militant activities to US immigration officials, after arriving here in 2005. Specifically, Carriles faces 11 charges of perjury, obstruction and naturalization fraud, which he is said to have committed at a 2007 immigration hearing in El Paso. At that hearing, he allegedly denied under oath his participation in the 1997 Havana bombings, and failed to report being in possession of a fake Guatemalan passport, which he had used to enter the United States two years earlier. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Arturo Hernández, Cuba, Cubana de Aviación Flight 455, forgery, Gilberto Abascal, Guatemala, immigration intelligence, Latin America, lawsuits, Luis Posada Carriles, News, terrorism, travel documentation, United States, Venezuela

Tunisian security officials arrested, killed, amid counter-coup fears

January 17, 2011 Leave a comment

Ali Seriati

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Several key figures in Tunisia’s crumbling security apparatus have being either apprehended or killed, amid fears that they were planning a countercoup against the country’s new unity government. Most notable among the arrestees is General Ali Seriati, longtime director of deposed Tunisian dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali’s Presidential Security Force. Seriati was arrested on Sunday, reportedly “by citizens as he tried to cross into Libya”. Reports from Tunis suggest that Ben Ali’s Interior Minister, Rafik Belham Kacem, who commanded the country’s’ domestic intelligence apparatus, has also been detained. Meanwhile, the BBC reports that Imed Trabelsi, a politically powerful nephew of the former dictator’s wife, was lynched to death late on Saturday. Seriati and Kacem’s arrests are seen as attempts by the new government to prevent a widely feared coup plot, organized by the remnants of Ben Ali’s security apparatus, aimed at returning him to power. Initial stages of the coup materialized on Saturday, when several gunmen riding in unmarked cars launched a wave of armed attacks against opposition targets in capital Tunis and elsewhere. Political observers in the country appeared to immediately connect the attacks with General Seriati’s Presidential Security Force, said to include some of the former president’s staunchest supporters. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Africa, Ali Seriati, coup plots, Imed Trabelsi, Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), Libya, News, Parti Démocrate Progressiste (Tunisia), political asylum, Rafik Belham Kacem, Saudi Arabia, Tunis, Tunisia, Tunisian Presidential Security Force, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali

News you may have missed #469

January 15, 2011 Leave a comment

Vulture not a Zionist spy after all, declare Saudis. After more than a week of febrile rumor and speculation, the King of Saudi Arabia has declared that a vulture found on the country’s territory, carrying a GPS tracker labeled “Tel Aviv University”, is not part of an Israeli reconnaissance plot.
Germany jails two Libyans for spying. Two Libyans have been sentenced in a Berlin court for spying on members of the Libyan opposition living in Europe. ‘Adel Ab.’, an officer for the Libyan intelligence service, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison while his accomplice, ‘Adel Al.’ was sentenced to one year and 10 months.
Russian aide accused of spying to remain in UK until October. Britain’s MI5 accuses Katia Zatuliveter, former assistant to Liberal Democrat MP Mike Hancock, of spying for Russia. But she will remain in the UK until next October, when she will be able to challenge her pending deportation at an immigration hearing.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 0 Russian aide accused of spying to remain in UK until October, 0 Vulture not a Zionist spy after all, Adel Ab, Adel Al, aerial reconnaissance, counterintelligence, espionage, Germany, immigration intelligence, Israel, Katia Zatuliveter, Libya, MI5, Mike Hancock, News, news you may have missed, Russia, Saudi Arabia, UK

News you may have missed #468

January 14, 2011 Leave a comment

Lawyer says Assange could face death penalty in US. Mark Stephens, a defense attorney for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claims his client could face the death penalty if he is extradited to Sweden, and if that country then passes him to US authorities.
Uncertain future for CIA’s climate change unit. The future of the CIA’s unit on climate change is “in jeopardy” because of pressure for intelligence budget cuts and resistance from conservative lawmakers, according to a new report by Northwestern University. Here is an excellent report from Canada on the CIA’s climate change endeavors.
Renault files official espionage complaint. French carmaker Renault has lodged an official complaint on the suspected industrial espionage case that led to the suspension of three executives. Meanwhile, China denies connection with what has become known in France as “L’affaire Renault‎”.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 0 Lawyer says Assange could face death penalty in US, 0 Renault files official espionage complaint, 0 Uncertain future for CIA's climate change unit, China, CIA, CIA Center on Climate Change, climate change, extraditions, France, industrial espionage, Julian Assange, lawsuits, News, news you may have missed, Renault, Sweden, United States, whistleblowing, Wikileaks

Why is Germany protecting Iraqi informant who lied about WMDs?

January 13, 2011 2 Comments

Alwan al-Janabi

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
German politicians in the state of Baden-Württemberg are questioning the protection given by German intelligence services to a notorious Iraqi informant, who lied about Iraq’s weapons program. Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, known in intelligence circles as “Curveball”, arrived in Germany in 1999, where he applied for political asylum, saying he had been employed as a senior scientist in Iraq’s biological weapons program. Despite serious doubts expressed at the time by officials in Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service, the BND, and by some of their CIA colleagues, al-Janabi was given asylum in Germany. Moreover, information gathered from his testimony became a major source of the Bush Administration’s argument in favor of going to war in Iraq in 2003. Less than a year later, both the BND and the CIA concluded that al-Janabi had been lying about his alleged biological weapons role, and that he was in reality a taxi driver from Baghdad, who had used his undergraduate knowledge of engineering to fool Western intelligence. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 'curveball', Baden-Württemberg, BND, Bush Administration, CIA, front companies, Germany, Green Party (Germany), immigration intelligence, informants, Iraq, Iraq War, Rafid Ahmed Alwan, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, Thiele und Friedrichs

News you may have missed #467

January 12, 2011 Leave a comment

Ex-Mossad chief says Iran nuke program behind schedule. Meir Dagan, Israel’s recently retired spy chief, thinks Iran will not be able to build a nuclear bomb before 2015, further pushing back Israeli intelligence estimates on the subject. Time for critics of the 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate to reconsider their views?
NSA breaks ground on Utah cybersecurity center. Ground was broken last Thursday on the Utah Data Center, a $1.2 billion, 1 million-square-foot cybersecurity center being built for the US National Security Agency at Camp Williams, near Salt Lake City. Secrecy is expected to shroud the center, with the groundbreaking being one of the public’s last chances to take an open look at the project.
Colombian judge orders arrest of ex-spy chief. Colombia’s Prosecutor General has ordered the arrest of Jorge Noguera, a former director of the country’s DAS intelligence agency, for his alleged involvement in the spying on government opponents. This is not the first time Noguera, who was director of the DAS between 2002 and 2006, has been sent to jail. He was imprisoned and released twice for his alleged involvement in allowing members of paramilitary organization United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia to infiltrate the intelligence agency.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 0 Colombian judge orders arrest of ex-spy chief, 0 Ex-Mossad chief says Iran nuke program behind schedule, 0 NSA breaks ground on Utah cybersecurity center, 2007 NIE, Camp Williams (Utah), Colombia, corruption, DAS (Colombia), Iran, Iranian nuclear program, Israel, Jorge Noguera, lawsuits, Meir Dagan, Mossad, News, news you may have missed, NIE, NSA, United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, United States, Utah

New clues in extensive recount of al-Mabhouh assassination

January 11, 2011 Leave a comment

Ronen Bergman

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The current issue of US-based magazine GQ contains what must be the most extensive account in English of the 2010 assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh by Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Written by Israeli investigative journalist Ronen Bergman (author of The Secret War with Iran), the piece contains several new clues about the targeted killing of al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas official, in a luxury hotel in Dubai last January. One new element that stands out in Bergman’s account is that, two months prior to his assassination, al-Mabhouh survived a poisoning attempt by the same team of Israeli operatives, again in Dubai. The Hamas official fell ill, but recovered fully. Bergman also claims that the operation to target al-Mabhouh, which must have lasted several months or even years, involved the use of an elaborate Trojan horse virus that was implanted on al-Mabhouh’s computer, and allowed Mossad operatives to monitor his email correspondence. It was through this method that the Israelis became aware of al-Mabhouh’s itinerary during his fatal trip to Dubai. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Analysis, assassinations, Austria, computer hacking, Dubai, Hamas, Israel, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, Mossad, Palestine, Ronen Bergman, telephony, United Arab Emirates

Ex-CIA officer faces up to 120 years for leaking secrets

January 10, 2011 1 Comment

James Risen

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A former CIA officer, who sued the Agency after he was fired, was arrested last Thursday in St. Louis, Missouri n charges of leaking classified information about a botched CIA covert operation in Iran. There is no information on the indictment about the recipient of the information that was leaked by Jeffrey Alexander Sterling, who worked for the CIA from 1993 until 2002. But it is common knowledge Sterling spoke to James Risen, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for The New York Times. In 2002, Risen wrote an article about Sterling’s lawsuit, in which the plaintiff claimed he was told by his superiors that he was “too big and black” to operate covertly overseas. According to the indictment, in 2003, after Sterling’s lawsuit was thrown out on national security grounds, he started leaking information (presumably to Risen), which he had gathered while working for the CIA’s Iran Task Force. Risen reportedly tried to publish Sterling’s disclosures, but The New York Times declined to print them, after its editors were warned by the White House that they would be severely detrimental to national security. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with CIA, CIA Iran Task Force, Iran, Iranian nuclear program, James Risen, Jeffrey Alexander Sterling, lawsuits, News, United States, whistleblowing

News you may have missed #466

January 7, 2011 Leave a comment

France blasts economic warfare by industrial spies. The French government says it is the victim of an economic war, after Renault, France’s partially state-owned carmaker, suspended three top executives over leaks of secret electric-car technology. The French intelligence services are probing a possible Chinese connection. It should be noted that, according to US estimates, France leads industrial spying in Europe.
Canada a target for foreign interference, says spy chief. A keenly anticipated report by Canadian Security Intelligence Service director Richard Fadden paints a picture of a broad threat of foreign interference from countries out to influence Canada’s policy and politicians, target dissidents and pilfer technology. It is the most detailed articulation of the spy service’s concerns about overtures from foreign agents, including two suspected cases involving provincial cabinet ministers.
Jordanian Hamas spy awarded PhD in jail. Jordanian Azzam Jaber, jailed in Jordan for spying for the Palestinian group Hamas on potential targets including the Israeli embassy, has obtained his doctorate from the University of Yarmuk.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 0 Canada a target for foreign interference says spy chief, 0 France blasts economic warfare by industrial spies, 0 Jordanian Hamas spy awarded PhD in jail, Azzam Jaber, Canada, China, counterintelligence, CSIS (Canada), economic espionage, France, Hamas, industrial espionage, Israel, Israeli embassy in Jordan, Jordan, News, news you may have missed, Palestine, Renault, Richard Fadden, University of Yarmuk

Analysis: Understanding WikiLeaks

January 6, 2011 8 Comments

WikiLeaks

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
The WikiLeaks cablegate revelations appear to be subsiding in the new year, and so is the public debate about their meaning and consequences. And yet, as calmer moods prevail, now is the appropriate time to probe the WikiLeaks phenomenon. To do so constructively, it is necessary to move beyond a mere political assessment of WikiLeaks. The question of whether the website, its founder, and its hundreds of volunteers, are criminals, heroes, terrorists, or dissidents, cannot even begin to be answered until WikiLeaks is understood, first and foremost. By ‘understood’, I don’t mean empathize. I mean comprehending WikiLeaks as an ideological paradigm, a technological vehicle reflective of the personal philosophies of its members, but also representative of a much wider sociotechnical trend. Click here to read my analysis brief published today by the Research Institute for European and American Studies.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Analysis, computer hacking, crypto-anarchism, declassification, Internet, Joseph Fitsanakis, Julian Assange, secrecy, whistleblowing, Wikileaks

News you may have missed #465

January 5, 2011 Leave a comment

Germany denies secret spy collaboration with the US. Germany’s aerospace center denied Monday that it is working with the US on a $270 million high-tech secret spy program, insisting that its plans for a high-resolution optical satellite have purely scientific and security uses. The denial was in response to US State Department cables obtained by WikiLeaks and revealed by Norwegian daily Aftenposten.
Was Iranian nuclear defector tortured? Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, who returned to Tehran in July after what he called a “kidnapping” by the CIA, has been held in detention by Iranian authorities for two months and tortured so badly he was hospitalized, according to a dissident Iranian web site.
WikiLeaks reveals France leads industrial spying in Europe. France is the country that conducts the most industrial espionage on other European countries, even ahead of China and Russia, according to leaked US diplomatic cables, reported in a translation by Agence France Presse of Norwegian daily Aftenposten‘s reporting.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 0 Germany denies secret spy collaboration with the US, 0 Was Iranian nuclear defector tortured, 0 WikiLeaks reveals France leads industrial spying in Europe, CIA, defectors, ELINT, France, Germany, industrial espionage, Iran, Iranian nuclear program, News, news you may have missed, Norway, nuclear proliferation, satellite reconnaissance, Shahram Amiri, surveillance, torture, United States, Wikileaks

US denies Ivory Coast coup claim

January 4, 2011 Leave a comment

Emile Guirieoulou

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The United States has emphatically rejected assertions by officials in the Ivory Coast that it is plotting to overthrow the government of the West African country. For weeks now, Washington has been echoing calls by the United Nations, the African Union and the European Union for Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo to stand down, after losing in the November 28 national elections. But Gbagbo’s government, which controls most of the military, rejects the alleged election victory of his political rival Alassane Ouattara, and refuses to hand over power. On December 29, the Ivory Coast’s Minister of the Interior, Emile Guirieoulou, told a press conference that the United States had dispatched at least ten German “mercenaries” to its embassy in Abidjan, as part of a multinational Western plot to overthrow Laurent Gbagbo. He told journalists that the German mercenaries were onboard a US-operated flight from Algiers to Bouake, Ivory Coast’s second-largest city. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Abidjan (Ivory Coast), Africa, Alassane Ouattara, Bouake (Ivory Coast), coup plots, Emile Guirieoulou, Germany, Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo, Mark Toner, News, United States, US Department of State

News you may have missed #464 (Mossad edition)

January 3, 2011 4 Comments

Mossad may apologize for use of UK passports. There are unconfirmed reports that Tamir Pardo, the newly installed Director of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, is “drafting an apology to London” for the use of forged British passports by a Mossad hit squad that killed Hamas senior official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh a year ago in Dubai.
NZ halted Mossad probe to safeguard secrets. New Zealand’s former Prime Minister, Helen Clark, was hesitant to publicly prosecute Uriel Kelman and Eli Cara, two Israeli Mossad spies arrested in New Zealand in March of 2004, fearing that the court case would expose counterintelligence methods. This according to the latest leaked US embassy cables released by whistleblower website WikiLeaks.
Did Israel abduct and kill Iranian ex-deputy defense minister? Iran has asked the United Nations to help probe the reported death of Iran’s deputy defense minister, General Ali-Reza Asgari, allegedly in an Israeli jail. But Politico‘s Laura Rozen quotes well-informed Iranian-American activist Pooya Dayanim, who says Asgari was never in Israel.