intelNews

Lost notebook reveals plans for New Zealand spy agency reshuffle

September 9, 2009 1 Comment

Nicky Hager

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Plans for a possible radical reshuffling of New Zealand’s intelligence infrastructure were revealed yesterday, with the discovery of a notebook belonging to a government official. The notebook was dropped on a busy Wellington street by an employee of New Zealand’s Treasury Department, who was returning from a classified presentation on the future of the country’s intelligence agencies. It was recovered by Julian Robins, a political correspondent for Radio New Zealand, who proceeded to reveal the notebook’s contents. According to Robins, the government appears to be seriously considering merging the three separate intelligence agencies, which currently operate on different missions, in order to improve synergy and save money. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with AUSCANZUKUS, EAB (New Zealand), External Assessments Bureau (New Zealand), GCSB (New Zealand), intelligence cooperation, intelligence reform, John Key, Julian Robins, New Zealand, New Zealand Department of Treasury, News, Nicky Hager, NZSIS (New Zealand), Radio New Zealand, UKUSA

News you may have missed #0100

September 8, 2009 Leave a comment

Iran says US is forging nuclear intelligence. Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, says the US government is using forged intelligence to make the case to the UN’s nuclear watchdog group that Iran is pursuing an atomic weapons program. What is arguably missing in the Iranian nuclear debacle is conclusive IAEA confirmation of the existence of Iran’s nuclear arms program, as in the case of Syria.
Pakistanis call for intelligence dialogue with India. Mahmud Ali Durrani, Pakistan’s former national security adviser, has called for a “frank dialogue” between Pakistani and Indian security services. As intelNews reported earlier this year, Durrani was fired for his dovish stance vis-à-vis India and for being “too pro-American”.
US official was investigated for espionage. Alberto Coll, a Cuban-American who lost a senior job at the Navy War College after he was convicted of lying about a 2004 trip to Havana, was also investigated for espionage, according to an FBI document.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Alberto Coll, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, counterintelligence, Cuba, espionage, FBI, IAEA, India, intelligence cooperation, intelligence failures, Iran, Iranian nuclear program, Mahmood Ali Durrani, News, news you may have missed, nuclear proliferation, Pakistan, Syria, United Nations, United States

CIA furious over UK-Libyan bomber release deal

September 8, 2009 1 Comment

Al-Megrahi

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The CIA has threatened to stop sharing intelligence with UK spy services in protest over the recent release from a Scottish prison of a Libyan intelligence agent convicted for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, according to a British newspaper. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who is now back home in Tripoli, was released by British authorities on August 19 on compassionate grounds, after medical tests allegedly showed he is suffering from terminal cancer. Many observers, including former CIA agent Robert Baer, voiced suspicion about the reasons behind al-Megrahi’s release, while several British newspapers, including The London Times, alleged that the release was part of a lucrative oil exploration deal between British Petroleum (BP) and the Libyan government. Now an article in British newspaper The News of the World claims that the CIA leadership has vowed to terminate intelligence cooperation with the UK over the Libyan’s release. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, Africa, Binyam Mohamed, BP, British Petroleum, CIA, Cuba, energy resources, Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp, intelligence cooperation, Libya, Lockerbie air disaster, News, Pan Am Flight 103, Robert Baer, Scotland, torture, UK, United States

Colombian ex-spy details coup plot against Venezuela

September 8, 2009 2 Comments

Rafael García

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The former director of information technology at Colombia’s Administrative Department of Security (Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad, or DAS) has revealed details of what he claims was a Colombian-assisted coup against the Venezuelan government. Speaking on Colombia’s Noticias Uno television station, former DAS official Rafael García said the Colombian government of Álvaro Uribe was the main supporter of a 2004 attempt to topple the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez. García, who was fired from DAS three years ago, after being caught taking bribes from right wing paramilitaries and drug barons, said Colombia recruited 120 Colombian paramilitary members of Northern Bloc, a militia unit of the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, which operates mostly along the Venezuelan-Colombian border. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Alvaro Uribe, CEDICE (Venezuela), Colombia, corruption, coup plots, DAS (Colombia), Fernando Londoño Hoyos, Hugo Chávez, News, Northern Bloc (Colombia), Rafael Alonso, Rafael García, Rodrigo Tovar Pupo, United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, Venezuela, war on drugs

News you may have missed #0099

September 7, 2009 Leave a comment

Who killed London Times reported David Holden, in 1977, and what was the involvement of American, British and Egyptian intelligence services in the mysterious case?
Iran denies bodyguard’s arrest on spying charges. Iranian authorities deny earlier reports that a man belonging to a “senior official security squad” was arrested on suspicion of “espionage and anti-security activities”.
Profile of South Africa’s next spy chief. Moe Shaik, former member of ANC’s intelligence wing and a close friend of South African President Jacob Zuma will most likely head the country’s spy services. During ANC’s underground period, he was involved in Operation VULA, which involved smuggling large quantities of weapons into South Africa. He will be heading the nation’s intelligence establishment during one of the most challenging periods in its history.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with ANC, assassinations, CIA, David Holden, Egypt, espionage, Iran, Moe Shaik, News, news you may have missed, Operation VULA, South Africa, UK

Australians investigate Chinese telecom over suspected spy links

September 7, 2009 2 Comments

Huawei HQ

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), has admitted it is investigating an Australian-based subsidiary of a Chinese telecommunications firm because of its rumored links to China’s intelligence establishment. Several intelligence insiders see Huawei Technologies, based in Shenzen, China, as a covert arm of Chinese military intelligence. The company, which has business concerns in several countries around the world, has attracted the attention of American, Indian and British counterintelligence agencies, among others. As intelNews reported last December, in 2005 the government of India cancelled an initial investment of $60 million on its telecommunications superhighway by the Chinese company. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 3Com, ASIO, Australia, China, Chinese People's Liberation Army, Communist Party of China, Huawei Technologies, India, Melbourne (Australia), News, Ren Zhengfei, Singtel Optus, Sydney (Australia), telecommunications, United States, US DoD

Ex-MI6 spy at center of Lockerbie prisoner release deal

September 7, 2009 Leave a comment

Sir Mark Allan

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A British former intelligence official has been identified as having had a major role in the recent release from a Scottish prison of a Libyan intelligence agent convicted for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who is now back home in Tripoli, was released by British authorities on August 19 on compassionate grounds, after medical tests allegedly showed he is suffering from terminal cancer. Many observers, including former CIA agent Robert Baer, voiced suspicion about the reasons behind al-Megrahi’s release, while several British newspapers, including The London Times, alleged that the release was part of a lucrative oil exploration deal between British Petroleum (BP) and the Libyan government. Now The Sunday Mail has identified Sir Mark Allen, a former senior intelligence official who works for BP, as “the driving force” behind al-Megrahi’s release. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, Africa, BP, British Petroleum, CIA, energy resources, Jack Straw, Libya, Libyan nuclear program, MI6, News, Sir Mark Allen, UK

News you may have missed #0098

September 6, 2009 Leave a comment

Australia prepares massive communications spying overhaul. The Australian government is planning a radical overhaul of telecommunications interception rules, which has some concerned it will force internet service providers to inspect customers’ online activities.
DHS cybersecurity programs full of holes, says new report. The US Department of Homeland Security cannot effectively defend the nation’s critical infrastructure, according to a report by the DHS inspector general.
Cyber-Scare: The exaggerated fears over digital warfare. Fear of a cyber-doom is severely exaggerated, says Evgeny Morozov, Fellow at the Open Society Institute. This article stands out in that it goes against accepted wisdom on cybersecurity.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Australia, communications interception, cybersecurity, Internet, News, news you may have missed, telecommunication service providers, US Department of Homeland Security

Software startup supplying CIA, FBI, DoD, with analytical tools

September 6, 2009 1 Comment

Palantir Tech

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
CIA and Pentagon insiders are crediting a virtually unknown software startup with having designed the most effective analytical tool to date. The Wall Street Journal reports that Palantir Technologies, headquartered in Silicon Valley, has created a new, user-friendly search engine whose name has not been disclosed. Allegedly, it has the ability to fuse countless separate data banks at once, thus making complex investigative connections in intelligence operations with a regional or global scope. The paper says the software is already in use at the CIA, FBI and Department of Defense, and has already “uncovered details of Syrian suicide bombing networks in Iraq” and “discovered a spy infiltration of an allied government”, among other things. The Wall Street Journal also says that rival software contractors are not happy about Palantir’s growth, dismiss it as “the new sexy thing”, and argue that it won’t be able to make it in the government contracting business.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with CIA, FBI, intelligence analysis, intelligence outsourcing, News, Palantir Tehnologies, United States, US DoD

News you may have missed #0097

September 6, 2009 Leave a comment

Assessing CIA role in detainee deaths will not be easy, because of bureaucratic barriers, say some intelligence insiders.
Polish ex-president denies he was communist spy. Aleksander Kwasniewski, President of Poland from 1995 to 2005, has denied allegations that he worked with Polish spy agencies during the country’s communist period. Lech Walesa faced similar claims earlier this year.
Are doctors involved in CIA waterboarding guilty of war crimes? A report by Physicians for Human Rights says doctors supervising CIA torture committed war crimes under the Geneva Convention.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Aleksander Kwasniewski, bureaucracy, CIA, Cold War, Lech Walesa, News, news you may have missed, Physicians for Human Rights, Poland, torture

News you may have missed #0096

September 5, 2009 Leave a comment

Iranian bodyguard detained for espionage. All Iranian authorities will say is that the man belonged to a “senior official security squad” and that he was arrested on suspicion of “espionage and anti-security activities”. No word yet as to which country or group he was allegedly spying for.
Secret US-Japanese nuke pact still valid, say sources. American military vessels and aircraft carrying nuclear weapons can enter Japanese territory as long as Japan is protected by the US nuclear umbrella, says a former high-ranking Japanese government official.
US ex-attorney general now says he doesn’t support CIA probe. Alberto Gonzales, who served as US Attorney General under the Bush Administration, now says the US press was wrong to suggest that he supports a rumored investigation into CIA practices after 9/11.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Alberto Gonzales, CIA, diplomacy, espionage, Iran, Japan, News, news you may have missed, nuclear proliferation, United States

Diplomat sees Pakistani spies behind Afghan intel chief’s killing

September 5, 2009 Leave a comment

Bhadrakumar

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
An Indian diplomat has authored an editorial suggesting that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) may be behind the recent assassination of an Afghan senior intelligence official. Abdullah Laghmani, who headed Afghanistan’s National Directorate for Security (NDS), appears to have been specifically targeted earlier this week in a suicide attack that killed 23 people in the town of Mehtarlam. The Taliban have formally assumed responsibility for the attack. But M.K. Bhadrakumar, a longtime Indian diplomat who has served as India’s ambassador to Afghanistan, suggests that Laghmani may have been targeted by the ISI. The diplomat says that the ISI, whose deep links with the Afghan Taliban have long been established, has been “stalking” Laghmani ever since the late 1990s, when he was active in Afghanistan’s anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Abdullah Laghmani, Afghanistan, assassinations, India, ISI, M.K. Bhadrakumar, Mehtarlam (Afghanistan), National Directorate for Security (Afghanistan), News, Northern Alliance (Afghanistan), Pakistan, suicide bombings, Taliban

US threatened Indonesia with war during 1999 East Timor crisis

September 5, 2009 4 Comments

William Cohen

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The Clinton Administration threatened to go to war with Indonesia in 1999, if Jakarta resisted an Australian-led plan to grant independence to what was then Indonesia’s province of East Timor. The revelations were made by former American and Australian military officials quoted in a new book titled The March of Patriots: The Struggle for Modern Australia. According to Pentagon official James Schear and Dr. Ashton Calvert, the late Director of the Australian Foreign Affairs Department, US Secretary of Defense William Cohen met with Indonesia’s President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie and Defense Minister General Wiranto, and told them that Washington would retaliate militarily if Jakarta contested the planned deployment of an Australian-led UN force in East Timor. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Ashton Calvert, Australia, Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie, Bill Clinton, diplomacy, East Timor, history, Indonesia, James Schear, John Howard, News, Southeast Asia, United Nations, United States, US DoD, William Cohen, Wiranto

News you may have missed #0095

September 5, 2009 Leave a comment

New revelations about Bulgarian domestic spying case. It appears that Operation GALLERY (a.k.a. Operation GALERIA), by the Bulgarian State Agency for National Security (DANS), was primarily aimed at the Bulgarian tabloid newspaper Weekend and journalist Dimitar Zlatkov. Journalist Ognyan Stefanov, who was nearly beaten to death after authoring an article implicating DANS officials in illicit trafficking activities (see previous intelNews coverage), appears to have been simply collateral damage.
Taliban use CIA-supplied mines against US-led forces in Afghanistan. Evidence from the US Defense Department, Canadian forces in Afghanistan and the Taliban itself suggest that the increased damage to NATO tanks by Taliban forces has come from anti-tank mines provided by the US to the jihadi movement in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Massive domestic spying revealed in Russia. From January to June this year, Russian intelligence agents surreptitiously opened 115,000 letters, listened in on 64,000 personal phone conversations, and broke into 11,000 private homes according to information from Russia’s Supreme Court.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Afghanistan, black bag operations, blowback, Bulgaria, CIA, Cold War, communications interception, DANS (Bulgaria), Dimitar Zlatkov, domestic intelligence, mail interception, NATO, News, news you may have missed, non-destructive entry, Ognyan Stefanov, Operation GALERIA, Operation GALLERY, Russia, Russian Supreme Court, surreptitious entry, Taliban

News you may have missed #0094

September 4, 2009 Leave a comment

Liberia arrests six Pakistanis with fake US passports. The country’s defense minister said the arrestees possibly intended to carry out an attack.
Belgian arms dealer arrested in US sting operation. The notorious Belgian arms merchant Jacques Monsieur was arrested by undercover US agents in New York, after he allegedly conspired to export US-built F-5 jet engines and other parts to Iran. Apparently, the US arrested Monsieur with the co-operation of Google, with which the Belgian had an email account.
Why are Emirates authorities expelling Lebanese citizens? United Arab Emirates have reportedly expelled over 45 Lebanese residents in recent weeks. Some say the expulsions are part of a US-led intelligence operation against Hezbollah activities in the country.