Year in review: The biggest spy-related stories of 2018, part I
December 27, 2018 Leave a comment
Since 2008, when we launched intelNews, it has been our end-of-year tradition to take a look back and highlight what we believe were the most important intelligence-related stories of the past 12 months. In anticipation of what 2019 may bring in this highly unpredictable field, we present you with our selection of the top spy stories of 2018. They are listed below in reverse order of significance. This is part one in a three-part series; Part two is available here. Part three is here.
10. Taiwan admits that Chinese general Liu Liankun was one of its spies. In April, the government of Taiwan acknowledged publicly for the first time that Liu Liankun, a Chinese major general who was executed by Beijing in 1999 for espionage, was indeed one of its spies. Liu, who headed the Department of General Logistics of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, was accused by the Chinese government of having spied for Taiwan for five years, in exchange for nearly $2 million in bribes. He was eventually executed by lethal injection in a Beijing prison. He was 58. At the time of his conviction, Liu was the most senior Chinese military officer to have ever been convicted of spying for Taiwan. The island nation denied that Liu spied on its behalf and refused to acknowledge that it had any role in his espionage activities. But in April Taiwan’s Military Information Bureau unveiled its renovated memorial at its headquarters in Taipei City. Among the plaques, visitors to the memorial saw one dedicated to Liu for the first time.
09. Israel charges former cabinet minister with spying for Iran. In 1992, when he was 35, Gonen Segev, was elected as one of the Knesset’s youngest members, representing the conservative Tzomet party. Initially an opposition Knesset member, Segev eventually left Tzomet and joined a governing coalition with the Labor Party, in which he served as Minister of Energy and Infrastructure. In 2004, after exiting politics, Segev was arrested on a flight from Holland while reportedly trying to smuggle several thousand ecstasy pills into Israel. He was jailed for five years but was released from prison in 2007, after a commendation for good conduct. Shortly after his release, Segev moved to the Nigerian city of Abuja, where he practiced medicine. It was there, the Shin Bet claims, that he was recruited by Iranian intelligence. He was reportedly detained in May of this year during a trip to Equatorial Guinea, following a request by Israeli officials. He was then extradited to Israel and arrested as soon as he arrived in Tel Aviv. Israel’s Shin Bet security service said that Segev admitted being in regular contact with Iranian intelligence agents in Nigeria, where he lived after 2007, and other countries around the world. He also said that he was given a fake passport by his handlers, which he used to visit Iran on two separate occasions in order to hold secret meetings with Iranian intelligence officers.
08. European Union agrees to establish joint intelligence training school. In November, 25 members of the European Union agreed to establish a joint intelligence training academy, a move interpreted by some as a concrete effort to deepen inter-European security cooperation following Brexit. The announcement came just hours after leading EU heads of state spoke in favor of establishing a joint EU defense force. Calls for tighter cooperation between EU members in the areas of defense and security have been issued for decades. But the upcoming departure of Britain from the EU —popularly known as Brexit— appears to have prompted Germany and France to propose deeper integration as a response to the rise of anti-EU sentiment across the continent. The new intelligence academy initiative will be led by Greece —an EU member since 1981— and will be headquartered in Cyprus, which joined the EU in 2004. It will work in cooperation with the individual intelligence agencies of the 25 co-signatory states, along with NATO and with other regional security bodies.
This is part one in a three-part series; Part two is available here. Part three is here.
► Authors: Joseph Fitsanakis and Ian Allen | Date: 27 December 2018 | Permalink
Western intelligence agencies thwarted a plot involving two Russians intending to travel to a Swiss government laboratory that investigates nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and hack its computer systems. According to two separate reports by Dutch newspaper 
In a dramatic change to longstanding policy, senior United States diplomats have reportedly held secret meetings with Taliban leaders without the presence –and presumably knowledge– of the Afghan government. For over a decade, the Taliban have refused to negotiate with the Afghan government, which they view as a puppet regime controlled by Washington. They have instead sought to speak directly with the United States, without Kabul’s mediation. In 2015, the United States sought to initiate peace talks with the Taliban in the Qatari capital Doha, but the effort collapsed after the Afghan government denounced it and demanded a seat at the table. The negotiation process has remained dormant since then.
A United States federal judge ruled on Monday that a tweet by President Donald Trump did not inadvertently disclose a top-secret program by the Central Intelligence Agency to aid rebel groups in Syria. The lawsuit, brought by The New York Times, centered on news reports published in 2017 by 
A newly declassified report by the Inspector General of the United States Central Intelligence Agency reveals that the South Vietnamese generals who overthrew President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963 used CIA money “to reward opposition military who joined the coup”. Acknowledging that “the passing of these funds is obviously a very sensitive matter”, the CIA Inspector General’s report contradicts the sworn testimony of Lucien E. Conein, the CIA liaison with the South Vietnamese generals. In 1975, Conein told a United States Senate committee that the agency funds, approximately $70,000 or 3 million piasters, were used for food, medical supplies, and “death benefits” for the families of South Vietnamese soldiers killed in the coup.
For the past year, the Netherlands has had a new law governing its two secret services, the AIVD and the MIVD. The new Intelligence and Security Services Act (Wet op de inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten or Wiv) was and still is heavily criticized, especially because it allows untargeted access to cable-bound telephone and internet traffic. Under the previous law, which dates from 2002, the intelligence services were only allowed to conduct bulk interception of wireless transmissions, like satellite and radio communications —besides of course the traditional targeted telephone and internet taps aimed at individual targets.
On March 21, the Dutch public cast their vote about the new Intelligence and Security Services Act, in Dutch 
Since 2008, when we launched intelNews, it has been our 
04. Unprecedented security changes are taking place in Saudi Arabia. Analysts agree that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is undergoing its most important political changes in generations. On November 4, 2017, nearly 50 senior Saudi officials, including at least 11 princes, some of them among the world’s wealthiest people, were suddenly 
taking place in the intelligence infrastructure of South Korea, which are arguably as important as developments north of the 38th parallel. In June, the new center-left government of President Moon Jae-in 
assist policy-makers, including the president. So when the CIA and the FBI conclude that the Russian government launched an extensive and sophisticated campaign to undermine the 2016 US presidential election, one expects the president to take that advisement under serious consideration. However, the US leader has openly dismissed the conclusions of his own Intelligence Community and has 
Since 2008, when we launched intelNews, it has been our 
as a result of “acute poisoning from an undefined substance”, according to his doctors. Also in February, Kim Jong-nam, half-brother of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, was killed in an 
support for the rebels could backfire by causing the suddenly unemployed fighters to join jihadist organizations. In August, there were reports that US troops 
10. 
the alleged device may have been deployed by an intelligence service of a third country —possibly Russia— without the knowledge of the Cuban authorities. In October, the White House expelled 15 Cuban diplomats from the US in response to the incident. But the question of what harmed the health of at least 20 employees at the US embassy in Havana remains largely unanswered.
In an unusual step, German intelligence officials have issued a public warning about what they said are thousands of fake LinkedIn profiles created by Chinese spies to gather information about Western targets. On Sunday, Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) held a press conference in which it said that it had discovered a wide-ranging effort by spy agencies in China to establish links with Westerners. The agency said that it undertook a 9-month investigation, during which it identified 10,000 German citizens who were contacted by Chinese spy-run fake profiles on LinkedIn. Across Europe, the number of targets could be in the hundreds of thousands, 
The controversial Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, who was jailed for 18 years for revealing the existence of Israel’s nuclear program, has been invited to go to Norway to be reunited with his new wife. Vanunu was employed at Israel’s top-secret Negev Nuclear Research Center, located in the desert city of Dimona, which was used to develop the country’s nuclear arsenal. But he became a fervent supporter of nuclear disarmament and in 1986 fled to the United Kingdom, where he revealed the existence of the Israeli nuclear weapons program to the London-based newspaper The Times. His action was in direct violation of the non-disclosure agreement he had signed with the government of Israel; moreover, it directly challenged Israel’s official policy of ‘nuclear ambiguity’, which means that the country refuses to confirm or deny that it maintains a nuclear weapons program.
Officials in Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday that they foiled an elaborate suicide attack on the country’s defense ministry headquarters and infiltrated a foreign spy ring in the Kingdom, arresting its members. The near-simultaneous announcements were made by a member of the Presidency of State Security, an intelligence body founded only in July of this year, which is directly accountable to the county’s prime minister.
Emirati intelligence has to be seen in two disparate tiers: actual home-grown intelligence efforts, which usually revolve within the small policing and military forces of the United Arab Emirates (UAE); and more elaborate, highly secretive, outsourced activities that use the UAE as a facilitating conduit or go-between with a clear advantage to Emirati interests.
ultra-modern intelligence capabilities, and cooperates with international organizations, other countries, and policing agencies. In addition, the UAE leadership has taken initiatives recently to create a domestic level of intelligence scholarship and professionalization, namely in the form of the 
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Year in review: The biggest spy-related stories of 2018, part II
December 28, 2018 1 Comment
07. Russia accused of using ISIS hacker group as cover to launch cyber attacks. The group calling itself Cyber Caliphate first appeared in early 2014, purporting to operate as the online wing of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which later renamed itself Islamic State. Today the Cyber Caliphate boasts a virtual army of hackers from dozens of countries, who are ostensibly operating as the online arm of the Islamic State. Their known activities include a strong and often concentrated social-media presence, as well as computer hacking, primarily in the form of cyber-espionage and cyber-sabotage. But a report issued in October by Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre described the Cyber Caliphate and other similar hacker groups as “flags of convenience” for the Kremlin. The report echoed the conclusion of a German government report that was leaked to the media in June of 2016, which argued that the Cyber Caliphate is a fictitious front group created by Russia.
06. Outgoing CIA director said US killed ‘couple of hundred’ Russians in Syria. Sources from the US Pentagon, said that the armed confrontation took place on February 7, 2018, when a 500-strong Syrian government force, which allegedly included hundreds of contracted Russian soldiers crossed the Euphrates River and entered Kurdish-controlled territory in Syria’s northeastern Deir al-Zour region. US-supported Kurdish forces in the area, which include embedded American troops, responded with artillery fire, while US military aircraft also launched strikes on the Syrian government forces. The latter withdrew across the Euphrates after suffering heavy losses. The US side is said to have estimated at the time that over 100 attackers had been left dead, with another 200-300 injured. The toll later rose to nearly 400 dead. At a press conference held soon after the armed clash, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis refused to discuss the matter. But on April 12, the outgoing director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, appeared to acknowledge that US troops killed hundreds of Russians in Deir al-Zour. He was speaking before a committee of the US Senate during a hearing pertaining to his nomination to serve as the next US secretary of state. Pompeo said that: “in Syria, now, a handful of weeks ago the Russians met their match. A couple of hundred Russians were killed”.
05. Iran tried to bomb conference in France with over 30 senior US officials present. On June 30, members of Belgium’s Special Forces Group arrested a married Belgian couple of Iranian descent in Brussels. The couple were found to be carrying explosives and a detonator. On the following day, German police arrested an Iranian diplomat stationed in Iran’s embassy in Vienna, Austria. And on the same day, a fourth person was arrested by authorities in France, reportedly in connection with the three other arrests. All four individuals appear to have been charged with a foiled plot to bomb the annual conference of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) that took place on June 30 in Paris. The NCRI is led by Mujahedin-e Khalq, a militant group that was designated as a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States until 2009 and 2012 respectively. But it has since been reinstated in both Brussels and Washington, reportedly because it provides the West with a vehicle to subvert the Iranian government. NCRI conference participants included over 30 senior US officials, including US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who addressed the meeting. Stephen Harper, Canada’s former prime minister, also spoke at the conference.
This is part two in a three-part series; part one is available here. Part three is here.
► Authors: Joseph Fitsanakis and Ian Allen | Date: 28 December 2018 | Permalink
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