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News you may have missed #353

May 18, 2010 2 Comments

Name of British Mossad agent handed to Interpol. Dubai police have identified another suspect in the January murder of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, by Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. He is reportedly a 62-year-old British citizen, who is believed to be currently hiding in western Africa.
Russia jails man for spying for the US. Gennady Sipachyov, a Russian whose age and profession have been kept secret by Moscow, has been sentenced to a four-year sentence for allegedly emailing secret military maps identifying classified Russian military infrastructure to the US Pentagon in 2008. Earlier this month, a Russian court rejected an appeal by another alleged US spy, Igor Sutyagin.
Bulgarian government wants to copy CIA. Bulgaria’s Defense Minister, Anyu Angelov, has proposed the merging of intelligence services to create a mega-structure of the CIA type. Meanwhile, a panel investigating Bulgaria’s communist-era police files has exposed two of the country’s former counterintelligence heads as former communist state security agents.

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Was release of French ‘spy’ part of Iranian-French deal? [updated]

May 18, 2010 Leave a comment

Majid Kakavand

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
This blog has closely monitored the case of Clotilde Reiss, a French language assistant who was arrested in Iran last year on accusations of being a ‘nuclear spy’. Despite the obviously nonsensical nature of the allegations, Reiss, a 25-year-old Farsi-speaking French-language assistant at the University of Isfahan, was forced to confess to her ‘crime’ on Iranian television. Last August, however, after spending nearly two months in the notorious Evin prison complex, Reiss was released on bail, on condition that she would remain confined inside the walls of the French embassy compound in Tehran. Then, last weekend, her ten-year prison sentence was suddenly commuted to a fine of $285,000, and she was able to return home to France on Sunday. Why the sudden change of heart on the part of Tehran? Read more of this post

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Private US spy network still operating in Pakistan

May 17, 2010 1 Comment

US Pentagon

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Senior US Pentagon officials continue to rely almost daily on reports from a network of contracted spies operating deep inside Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to The New York Times. Last March, when the paper revealed the existence of the network, several senior US military sources expressed serious concerns about the operation, which some say borders on illegality, and is currently under investigation by the US government. Although The Times is apparently “withholding some information about the contractor network, including some of the names of [its] agents”, it appears that the network is staffed by former CIA and Special Forces operatives. The entire operation appears to be an attempt to evade some of the stringent oversight rules under which the CIA and the US Pentagon are required to operate. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #352

May 17, 2010 Leave a comment

CIA rewarded extraordinary rendition supervisor. A CIA counterterrorism official who supervised the agency’s extraordinary rendition and torture of Khaled El-Masri –a German citizen who was later found to be innocent– has been promoted twice since that episode.
US Pentagon picks contractors for intel IT. The Defense Intelligence Agency has picked 11 private contractors to compete for up to $6.6 billion in information technology contracts over the next five years. They include the usual suspects, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, General Dynamics Corp, and Northrop Grumman, among others.
Alleged spy’s lawyers threaten trial boycott in Israel. Lawyers representing Israeli citizen Amir Makhoul, who is accused of spying on behalf of Hezbollah, have threatened to boycott an upcoming trial hearing unless they are allowed to meet with their client.

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CIA ‘used fake British passports’ in kidnap operation

May 17, 2010 1 Comment

British passport

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
British authorities are looking into allegations that a team of CIA agents made use of forged British passports during an abduction operation in 2003. The allegations surfaced last week in Spain, where a team of prosecutors is currently investigating the activities of 13 CIA agents (11 men and two women) who appear to have used the Spanish tourist resort of Majorca as a base for conducting various operations around Europe. Following the example of Italy, which last year convicted several CIA operatives for illegally abducting a Muslim cleric in Milan, Spanish authorities are now considering issuing arrest warrants for the 13 CIA agents. They are all believed to have been involved in the abduction and rendition of German citizen Khaled El-Masri. El-Masri was abducted in Skopje, Macedonia, in 2003, and later transferred on a secret CIA flight to a Syrian prison, where he says he was brutally tortured. He was later released without explanation, once US authorities realized they had the wrong man. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #351

May 16, 2010 Leave a comment

Former CIA agent admits role in Plame case. In an extensive interview with Truthout, former CIA counterterrorism official John Kiriakou has disclosed for the first time his role in the events that led to the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame.
Indian double agent refused Pakistani handler’s marriage proposal. Madhuri Gupta, second secretary at the Indian high commission in Islamabad, Pakistan, who was arrested for working for Pakistan’s ISI spy agency, had a “relationship of personal affection” with an aide of her Pakistani handler, but says she refused his offer of marriage.
US Pentagon details Cold War mind-control tests. More than 30 years after it was written, the US Pentagon has released a memorandum detailing its involvement in the CIA’s infamous Cold War mind-control experiments.

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Comment: Major changes in Australian, NZ spy agencies

May 14, 2010 1 Comment

Kevin Rudd

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
This website has been keeping tabs on the ongoing transformation of New Zealand and Australian intelligence agencies. Recent media reports from both countries indicate that the changes, many of which are still underway, will mark the broadest reorganization in New Zealand and Australian intelligence agencies’ operational focus and mission in over half a century. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #350

May 14, 2010 Leave a comment

Gulf authorities still silent on Iranian spy ring. The Kuwaiti government has banned local media from commenting on the recent busting of an alleged Iranian spy ring, and Gulf leaders still refuse to comment on the issue.
NSA head confirmed as chief of US Cyber Command. US Army Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, head of the National Security Agency, has been promoted to four-star general and will now head the US Pentagon’s new Cyber Command, as well as the NSA.
Venezuela to release more alleged Colombian spies. Three more of the eight alleged Colombian spies, who were arrested by Venezuelan government forces last month, are to be released. Four others were released on April 12, which leaves in custody only one of them, Luis Carlos Cossio, who has dual Colombian and Canadian citizenship.

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Analysis: Europe Offers Different Counterterrorism Approach

May 13, 2010 Leave a comment

Counterterrorism

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
I have in the past posed the intriguing question of whether US intelligence agencies should learn from the French approach to counterterrorism. This issue has now come up again in an interesting Washington Post essay, which examines the different approaches to Islamic militancy by American and European intelligence organizations. Some of these differences are undoubtedly contextual: there are no First Amendment rights in Europe, and European law enforcement and intelligence organizations enjoy a somewhat wider legal latitude in which to operate domestically. Moreover, the Europeans, especially the French and the British, have a longer experience than the Americans in dealing with armed insurgencies. But there are also critical differences in tactics. Importantly, the European approach to Islamic militancy has not only been more pro-active than the American, but also a lot more discreet and clandestine. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #349

May 13, 2010 1 Comment

New spy agency won’t spy…says Fiji government. Fiji’s head of defense, Ratu Epeli Ganilau, has argued that the proposed National Intelligence Agency will not be a spy organization. According to news reports, he is adamant that the use of the word “spying” is inappropriate to describe the agency’s mission.
Ex-CIA analyst lashes out at Ignatius. Former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman, currently senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, has accused The Washington Post’s David Ignatious of being a “chief CIA apologist”.

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Israel arrests prominent Arabs on Hezbollah spying charges

May 12, 2010 Leave a comment

Omar Sayid

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Israeli authorities have arrested two prominent Arab-Israeli political activists, accusing them of spying on behalf of Lebanese Shiite organization Hezbollah. The arrestees are Omar Sayid (or Sayeed), who campaigns on behalf of Israeli-Arab political party Balad, and Amir Makhoul, who heads Ittijah. This Haifa-based group, known as the Union of Arab Community-Based Associations, aims to combat alleged cases of discrimination against Arab-Israelis. Sayid was arrested by members of the Israeli police and intelligence agency Shin Bet on April 24, and Makhoul was arrested on May 6. But the Israeli media were not allowed to report on the arrests until late last Sunday, due to Israeli censorship laws enforced in “national security investigations”. Nevertheless, news of the arrests began circulating almost immediately on Arab electronic media outside of Israel, and the Israeli government was eventually forced to lift the gag order, upon learning that hundreds of Haifa residents were preparing a demonstration on Monday in support of the two arrestees. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #348

May 12, 2010 Leave a comment

US knew Guatemalan Army was behind notorious 1982 massacre. Declassified documents released on May 7 show that US officials knew the Guatemalan Army was responsible for the 1982 Dos Erres massacre, one of Guatemala’s most shocking human rights crimes.
New presiding judge in US FISA court. Three years after he was first appointed to serve on the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), John D. Bates has taken over as the presiding judge. Last week, Judge Martin Feldman was appointed to serve on the secretive court, which reviews (and invariably approves) government applications for counterintelligence surveillance and physical search.
UAE security sector benefits from al-Mabhouh assassination. Business for security companies in the United Arab Emirates has been brisk, with some companies reporting a 40% increase in business, as hotels spend millions bolstering their security systems. Some attribute this to last January’s killing in Dubai of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, by a Mossad hit squad.

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India blacklists Chinese phone companies over spying concerns

May 11, 2010 1 Comment

Huawei HQ

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The government of India has officially barred a number of Chinese telephone equipment providers from operating in India, citing their strong links with the Chinese military. At the center of the move is Huawei Technologies, one of China’s largest telephone equipment manufacturers. Several intelligence insiders see the company, based in Shenzen, China, as a covert arm of the intelligence wing of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. The company, which has business concerns in several countries around the world, has attracted the attention of American, British and Australian counterintelligence agencies, among others. In early 2008, the US government prohibited Huawei’s purchase of a significant amount of shares in US network security equipment maker 3Com, which supplies telecommunications hardware to the US Department of Defense. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #347

May 11, 2010 Leave a comment

CIA drones now target non-listed targets in Pakistan. It used to be the case that the CIA unmanned drone attacks in Pakistan were directed at confirmed Taliban senior operatives. But an American official has said that the CIA does “not always have their names”. Instead, the Agency targets them based on their “actions over time” that make it “obvious that they are a threat”.
Democrat Senator presses Obama for more NSA powers. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) is pressing the Obama Administration to give the National Security Agency more power to oversee privately owned portions of the Internet. Speaking on Thursday, Mikulski complained that “we don’t know who the hell is in charge” over the security of private networks.
Lebanese officer charged as Israel spy may get death. A Lebanese prosecutor has requested the death penalty for Gazwan Shahin, an army colonel charged with having provided Israel’s spy agency with pictures, information and coordinates of Lebanese civil and military posts during and after the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

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Analysis: An Economic Security Role for European Spy Agencies?

May 10, 2010 2 Comments

Economic spying

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Last February, Spain’s intelligence service began investigating alleged suspicious efforts by foreign financial speculators to destabilize the Spanish economy. According to newspaper El País, the Spanish government asked the country’s Centro Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI) to probe links between speculative moves in world financial markets and a series of damaging editorials “in the Anglo-Saxon media”. There are indications that the National Intelligence Service of Greece (EYP) is following in the CNI’s footsteps. In February, when Athens and Brussels began to realize the magnitude of the financial crisis threatening the European common currency, several news outlets suggested that the EYP was cooperating with Spanish, Irish and Portuguese intelligence services in investigating a series of coordinated speculative attacks on money markets, most of which allegedly originated from London and Washington. Read more of this post