Jordanian news agency claims Mossad involvement in helping alleged coup plotter
April 5, 2021 Leave a comment
A NEWS AGENCY IN Jordan has said that a man with alleged ties to Israeli intelligence offered protection to Hamzah bin Hussein, half-brother of Jordan’s King Abdullah II, who is reportedly under house arrest in Amman. Prince Hamzah is among at least 16 members of the Jordanian royal family and other senior officials, who were apparently arrested last week, with the government claiming soon afterwards that a coup to depose the country’s monarch had been averted.
Hours after his arrest, Prince Hamzah’s family leaked a video to the BBC, in which the King’s half-brother said he was under house arrest, and blamed the ruling family for corruption and for incompetence in dealing with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Hamzah was Jordan’s crown prince until 2004, when he was stripped of his title by his half-brother. King Abdullah II has ruled the Hashemite Kingdom since the 1999 passing of his father, King Hussein, who ruled the country for nearly 50 years.
Hamzah claimed in the leaked video that he was being punished for participating in meetings in which Jordan’s “ruling system” had been criticized. This emerging dispute is rare in Jordan, as the royal family is extremely private and the media are strongly discouraged from reporting about internal splits and other disagreements among senior royals. This development also points to potential sources of instability in one of the Middle East’s few stable political entities. Critics claim that Jordan’s stability is an apparition that masks growing social angst amidst a state-run system of censorship.
On Sunday, Jordan’s largest news agency, Ammon, cited an “informed source” in claiming that an Israeli businessman made contact with Hamzah’s family and offered to fly them out of Jordan using a private airplane. The report also claimed that the businessman, Roy Shaposhnik, had previously been associated with Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. Shaposhnik served as an adviser to Israel’s former Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, but is today primarily known for his company, RS Logistical Solutions, which is contracted for services by governments around the world.
In a subsequent media interview, Shaposhnik reportedly confirmed that he had offered to help Hamzah, because he was his “close personal friend”. But he denied ever having worked for the Mossad, saying he is simply “an Israeli living in Europe. I never served in any role in the Israeli intelligence services”. On Sunday, Israel’s Minister of Defense, Benny Gantz, said that the alleged coup plot was “an internal Jordanian issue”, but added that Israel was “prepared to assist Jordan as necessary” and cited the close security ties between Israel and Jordan.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 05 April 2021 | Permalink
A REMOTE BASE THAT houses an outpost of the United States Central Intelligence Agency in northeast Niger appears to have expanded in recent months, as Islamist groups continue to make their presence felt in Africa’s Sahel region. The base was built quietly in 2018 in Dirkou, a small oasis town and commune located 800 miles northeast of Niamey, Niger’s capital. The area where the CIA base is located is sparsely populated and arid, making it one of the world’s most inhospitable regions.
A GERMAN COURT HAS temporarily blocked an attempt by the country’s intelligence service to place a domestic far-right party under government surveillance for the first time since the Nazi era. The far-right party, Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD, was established in 2013. It shocked the German political establishment in 2017, when it received nearly 6 million votes, which amounted to 12.6% of the national vote. Since then, however, the AfD has been shunned by other political parties and the German media, for its alleged links with neo-Nazi groups and sympathizers.
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Cambridge spy ring member gave USSR British royals’ pro-Nazi letters
April 6, 2021 2 Comments
ANTHONY BLUNT, A MEMBER of the so-called Cambridge ring of communist spies, gave Soviet intelligence private letters written by members of the British royal family, which revealed “the depth of their Nazi sympathies”, according to a new television documentary. This revelation is included in “Queen Elizabeth and the Spy in the Palace”, the second of a three-part documentary series entitled Royals Declassified. The program was aired last week by Britain’s Channel 4 television station. According to the documentary, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the post-Soviet inheritor of the KGB’s external functions, may still be in possession of these controversial letters.
The Cambridge Spies were a group of British diplomats and intelligence officers who worked secretly for the Soviet Union from their student days in the 1930s until the 1960s. They included Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and H.A.R. “Kim” Philby, all of whom eventually defected to the Soviet Union. In 1964, Sir Anthony Blunt, an art historian and former British Security Service (MI5) agent, who in April of 1945 became Surveyor of the King’s Pictures and was knighted in 1954, admitted under interrogation by the British Security Service (MI5) that he had operated as the fourth member of the spy ring.
The Channel 4 documentary features an interview with Australian author and historian Roland Perry, who recounts his conversations with the late Soviet intelligence officer Yuri Ivanovich Modin. Modin handled the Cambridge Spies from 1948 to 1951 as an officer of the Ministry for State Security (MGB), the immediate forerunner of the KGB. According to what Modin told Perry, in 1945 Blunt was tasked with a secret mission by King George VI, father of Queen Elizabeth II, who is Britain’s current reigning monarch.
Blunt’s mission was to accompany the British royal family’s librarian, Sir Owen Morshead, on a trip to Germany’s Darmstadt region. By that time the Third Reich had collapsed and the Darmstadt region was under American military occupation. The purpose of the secret trip was to take ownership of nearly 4,000 personal letters sent by various British royals to their German relatives during the first four decades of the 20th century. According to Perry, among these letters were several items of correspondence written in the years immediately preceding World War II by two of George V’s sons, Princes Edward and George. Perry claims that the letters expressed strong support for German National Socialism and, according to media reports, “would have proved hugely embarrassing” for the British royal family, had they been made public. The potential fallout of these letters was deemed so critical that Blunt and Morshead’s secret mission was personally sanctioned, not only by George VI, but also by British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill.
The two men recovered the letters, the majority of which were held at Friedrichshof Castle, located 12 miles northwest of Frankfurt. But the Channel 4 documentary alleges that Blunt secretly took photographs of the letters and passed them on to the Soviets. Perry claims that Modin told him during one of their meetings that the letters were highly incriminating and that Soviet intelligence could have blackmailed the British royals, had it chosen to do so. But the Cambridge spy ring handler said that the KGB decided not to take action on the matter —most likely to protect Blunt.
Despite his allegedly full confession in 1964, Blunt was never seriously disciplined for his espionage activities against Britain. In return for revealing his spy activities and naming others who had assisted him, he was granted immunity from prosecution.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 06 April 2021 | Permalink
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Anthony Blunt, Cold War, Germany, history, KGB, News, Roland Perry, Yuri Modin