“Unprecedented” history of MI5 to be published in October

March 21, 2009 Leave a comment

Dr. Andrew

Dr. Andrew

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The MI5, Britain’s foremost counterintelligence organization, made headlines in 2002, when it appointed Cambridge University history Professor Christopher Andrew to produce an authorized account of its long history. Now book publishers Penguin Group have announced that the book, titled Defense of the Realm, is to be published by Allen Lane in October 2009, in time to mark the agency’s centennial. Professor Andrew is well known for his considerable contributions to intelligence history scholarship, which include Comrade Kryuchkov’s Instructions (1991, with Oleg Gordievsky), For The President’s Eyes Only (1995), and of course The Mitrokhin Archive (1991, with Vasili Mitrokhin). Penguin has described Defense of the Realm as “unprecedented” and claims that “no major intelligence organization in the world has ever let an independent historian into its archives in this way” (though James Bamford, author of Body of Secrets may object to this). Read more of this post

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US Pentagon report acknowledges Israel has the bomb!

March 20, 2009 Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Ever since the early 1970s, the United States and Israel have maintained what nuclear proliferation experts call “a policy of ambiguity” on Israel’s nuclear weapons program. Namely, American and Israeli officials will neither confirm nor deny that Israel has nuclear weapons. The reason for this pretended vagueness is the 1976 Symington Amendment, which prevents the US from providing any economic or military assistance to countries “that deliver or receive, acquire or transfer nuclear enrichment technology”. Now, however, a declassified report by the US Pentagon has been found to confirm that Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal. The US Joint Forces Command study (pdf), which was compiled last year by the US Army, includes Israel among the world’s nuclear powers. Read more of this post

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Israeli ex-spy barred from the US wants US visa

March 19, 2009 1 Comment

Uzi Arad

Uzi Arad

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
On March 9, I wrote about an interesting diplomatic incident in which the US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, met in Israel with Uzi Arad, a former Mossad agent who is currently barred from entering the US for his involvement as a co-conspirator in the Lawrence Franklin spy case. Lawrence Anthony Franklin was a US Defense Department analyst, who in 2006 was given a 12-year prison sentence for handing classified US military information to Israeli officials and two lobbyists of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). On Tuesday, The Washington Times finally discovered that Uzi Arad is barred from entering the United States. The paper even headlined its article “exclusive”; hmmm…they must not read intelNews, or Ha’aretz for that matter. What is new in The Times‘ piece is the somewhat predictable revelation that, for nearly two years, Israeli officials and pro-Israel Americans have been pressuring the US State Department to grant Uzi Arad a visa, so that he can once again enter the United States. Read more of this post

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Advisors tell Obama to expand covert war inside Pakistan

March 18, 2009 Leave a comment

Baluchistan

Baluchistan

By I. ALLEN and J. FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Reports are emerging today that the Obama White House is considering intensifying US covert operations and CIA drone airstrikes deep inside Pakistan. If carried out, these operations will be taking place in Pakistan’s vast Baluchistan province, and would represent a major escalation in the so-called “war on terrorism”. Until now, strikes by US unmanned drones, operated by the CIA, have been strictly limited to Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border. But The New York Times report that “at least two of the high-level reports on Pakistan and Afghanistan that have been forwarded to the White House in recent weeks have called for broadening the target area” to include Baluchistan. Additionally, the paper reports that several of the President’s advisors favor “conduct[ing] cross-border ground actions [deep inside Pakistan], using CIA and Special Operations commandos”. Read more of this post

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Ex-KGB officer’s wife, son, to remain in Canada

March 18, 2009 2 Comments

Lennikov

Lennikov

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
On March 2, we reported that the Canadian government had notified Mikhail Alexander Lennikov, a former KGB officer living in British Columbia, that he and his family were soon to be issued with deportation orders. Last week, however, the family received what Canadian media describe as “a partial reprieve”. Specifically, they were told that Lennikov’s wife, Irina, and son, Dmitri, will not be deported back to Russia. Lennikov, who spent five years working for the KGB in the 1980s, has been living in Canada with his wife and teenage son since 1992. Late last February, however, Canada’s Public Safety Ministry rejected Lennikov’s refugee claim and notified him that he “can be ordered deported from the country in as early as a few weeks”. Canadian authorities have refused to reveal the precise reason for the former KGB agent’s pending deportation. Read more of this post

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South African spy chief’s wife implicated in drugs arrest

March 17, 2009 1 Comment

Sheryl Cwele

Sheryl Cwele

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
The wife of Siyabonga C. Cwele, South Africa’s Minister of Intelligence, has been implicated by South African and Brazilian authorities in an international drugs trafficking case. Sheryl Cwele, whose husband has headed South Africa’s intelligence Ministry since last September, was found to have exchanged dozens of emails, letters and text messages with a woman arrested last June in Brazil, while secretly transporting over $300,000-worth of raw cocaine. The woman, Tessa Beetge, from Margate, a resort town in KwaZulu-Natal, traveled last summer from South Africa to Colombia and Peru, and from there to São Paulo, Brazil, where she was arrested on June 13, while transiting through on a flight to Johannesburg. Read more of this post

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EU official confirms Brussels espionage warnings

March 16, 2009 Leave a comment

Dale Kidd

Dale Kidd

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
Last February, intelNews reported on a leaked internal European Union (EU) memorandum warning EU officials that “the threat of espionage is increasing day by day” and that  an increasing number of “countries […] lobbyists, journalists [and] private agencies […] are continuing to seek sensitive and classified information” in Brussels. The memo appeared to echo concerns by Alain Winants, Director of Belgium’s State Security Service (SV/SE), who in late January 2009 requested expanded investigative powers to combat the increasing presence of foreign spies in the country, including “dozens” of spies who operate in Brussels under journalistic cover. After pressure, EU officials hesitantly confirmed the existence of the internal memorandum. Now a new article in Wave magazine adds yet another confirmation from an EU insider. It quotes European Commission press officer Dale Kidd, who says that the European Commission has in fact “sent [out a] note in which it warns […] of increased risk of espionage”. Read more of this post

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Ex-KGB agent, wanted for murder in Britain, to run for mayor

March 16, 2009 Leave a comment

Lugovoy

Lugovoy

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
Andrey Lugovoy, who is wanted in Britain for the 2006 murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, is poised to run for mayor in the Russian city of Sochi. British authorities believe that Lugovoy, who served in the KGB and in Russia’s Federal Protective Service (FSO) from 1987 to 1996, carried out the radioactive poisoning of Litvinenko, a former intelligence officer who had defected to the UK. Litvinenko, who was a vocal critic of former Russian President Vladimir Putin, came down with radioactive poisoning soon after meeting Lugovoy in a London restaurant. The latter is believed by British authorities to have acted “with the backing of the Russian state”. A victory by Lugovoy in next month’s mayoral race could potentially pose a diplomatic challenge for London, as Sochi will be hosting the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. If he wins, therefore, the prime murder suspect will be expected to lead local officials in “welcoming the British team to the Games”. Britain’s Daily Telegraph notes that such a possibility could ultimately “lead to the first ever British boycott of an Olympic Games”. Read more of this post

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CIA assassinations in Pakistan now almost routine

March 15, 2009 Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
The targeted assassinations by the CIA in Pakistan have become routine to the extent that the US media have now stopped covering them. Last Thursday, four more missiles fired by a CIA-operated unmanned aircraft hit an alleged “militant hideout and training camp” in Kurram Valley, a tribally administered Pakistani region on the border with Afghanistan. A Reuters news agency correspondent in Islamabad quotes an unnamed senior Pakistani government official in Kuram who alleges that the missiles “hit a militant hideout and training camp in the Barjo area”. Also cited in the Reuters report is Noor Islam, a villager from the Barjo area, who stated that “[t]he training camp was completely destroyed” and that “at least 14 people were killed”. After a similar strike in Afghanistan last month, the US Pentagon was eventually forced to admit  that it killed “13 Afghan civilians and only three militants”. Read more of this post

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US Pentagon to build revolutionary spy airship

March 15, 2009 Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
The US Department of Defense has announced that it is preparing to build a revolutionary surveillance airship that will remain constantly airborne for up to ten years. The 400 foot-long airship will be “a cross between a satellite and a spy plane” and will be powered by solar panels and fuel cells running on hydrogen. It will be able to spy on target planes, tanks and troop movements taking place within a 400-mile radius, while flying at the relatively safe altitude of 65,000 feet. Although Pentagon representatives hinted that the new airship would be primarily utilized along the Afghan-Pakistani border, they also noted it would be able to reach any global location within a fortnight. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Can US intelligence help with economic crisis?

March 14, 2009 1 Comment

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
Last month, US Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, warned that the ongoing global economic crisis should be Washington’s “primary near-term security concern”. Although it is unclear whether Blair’s statement represents a grass roots shift in the US intelligence community’s analytical and operational focus, his comments were seen as an attempt to raise economic intelligence to the top of Washington’s intelligence priorities. Observers have described such a potential transformation as “a sea change” and “a new prism” for analyzing global developments from an intelligence standpoint. But do Blair’s remarks represent a concrete change in US intelligence attitudes? Is the economic crisis really a more important intelligence concern than transnational terrorist networks? Read more of this post

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CIA veteran reveals agency’s operations in Tibet

March 14, 2009 1 Comment

Gyalo Thondup

Gyalo Thondup

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
A former CIA officer, who supervised the Agency’s covert operations in the Chinese region of Tibet, says he is working on a new book on the subject. John Kenneth Klaus, who, while stationed in India in the 1960s, directed the CIA’s support of Tibetan independence paramilitaries, has given a rare interview to Canadian newspaper The Toronto Star. In it, he admits that the CIA supplied weapons to Tibetan monks, who are widely known for their non-violent philosophy. According to 85-year-old Klaus, the origins of the CIA’s covert assistance to Tibetan monks date back to at least 1957, when Gyalo Thondup, older brother of the 14th (and current) Dalai Lama, sent the CIA five Tibetan recruits, whom the Agency trained in paramilitary tactics on the island of Saipan, in the Northern Marianas. Shortly afterwards the five men were covertly returned to Tibet “to assess and organize the resistance”. In the process, they recruited another 300 Tibetans who were secretly transported to Colorado and trained by Klaus and other US intelligence and military officers. Read more of this post

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Comment: Post-9/11 Intelligence Turf Wars Continue

March 13, 2009 1 Comment

Rod Beckstrom

Rod Beckstrom

By IAN ALLEN* | intelNews.org |
The stern assurances given to Americans after 9/11, that destructive turf wars between US intelligence agencies would stop, appear to be evaporating. Earlier this week, Rod Beckstrom, who headed the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) at the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), announced his resignation amidst a bitter row between the DHS and the National Security Agency (NSA) over the oversight of American cybersecurity. In a letter (.pdf) addressed to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, and carbon-copied to nearly every senior US intelligence and defense official, Beckstrom blasted the lack of “appropriate support [for NCSC] during the last administration”, as well as having to wrestle with “various roadblocks engineered within [DHS] by the Office of Management and Budget”. Most of all, Beckstrom, an industry entrepreneur who remained in his NCSC post for less than a year, accused the NSA of subverting NCSC’s cybersecurity role by trying to “subjugate” and “control” NCSC. 

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US officials step up warnings about missing Somali-Americans

March 13, 2009 Leave a comment

Shirwa Ahmed

Shirwa Ahmed

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
IntelNews has previously reported on the case of Shirwa Ahmed, a US citizen of Somali descent who last October became history’s first known US-born suicide bomber. On October 29, 2008, Ahmed was one of five bombers who carried out near-simultaneous suicide bombings in the Somali city of Hargeisa, targeting the Presidential palace, the consulate of Ethiopia and a UN complex. The bombings have been attributed to al-Shabaab (the Party of Youth), a militant youth faction of Somalia’s Islamic Courts Union (ICU). Members of the ICU went underground in late 2006, after Ethiopia launched a US-aided invasion of Somalia with the aim of curtailing the ICU’s grassroots support and preventing the solidification of the group’s rule in Somalia. Al-Shabaab represents the most militant of the ICU-led underground, and is said to be one of several groups in Somalia with significant al-Qaeda links. Read more of this post

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US-China naval standoff worst in years, US intel chief says

March 12, 2009 Leave a comment

Dennis Blair

Dennis Blair

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Last Sunday’s naval confrontation between a US Navy ship and five Chinese vessels was “the most serious” in seven years, according to US Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Admiral Dennis Blair. The last known serious intelligence row between the two nations occurred in 2001, when a Chinese Air Force plane collided with a US electronic surveillance aircraft over the South China Sea, killing the Chinese pilot and forcing the damaged US plane to perform an emergency landing on Chinese territory. Last Sunday’s incident also occurred in the South China Sea, approximately 75 miles off the Chinese island of Hainan. The US Pentagon initially claimed that its ship, the USNS Impeccable, was a “research vessel”, but it later admitted that it is used to “to hunt” foreign submarines. Read more of this post

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