Canadian reporter says Chinese news agency asked him to spy

August 23, 2012 by Leave a comment

Mark BourrieBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A longtime Canadian journalist says he resigned his post at China’s state-run news agency after he was asked to use his press-pass privileges to spy on a prominent Tibetan separatist leader. Mark Bourrie, an Ottawa-based reporter and author of several books, told The Canadian Press news agency that he was first approached by Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua in 2009. The veteran journalist was allegedly told by Xinhua officials that the agency planned to expand its news coverage of Canada and wished to compete with other international news services active in North America. Bourrie said that, upon joining Xinhua, he began to cover “routine political subjects”; gradually, however, his superiors started making “some unusual requests”. In one characteristic case, he was asked to report on the identities and contact information of political activists who had participated in legal protests against the visit to Canada of Chinese President Hu Jintao in 2010. Bourrie says he rebuffed such requests, because they did not seem to him to have journalistic value. In April of this year, Xinhua’s bureau chief in Ottawa, Dacheng Zhang, allegedly asked Bourrie to attend a keynote speech by the 14th Dalai Lama at the Sixth World Parliamentarians’ Convention on Tibet, which was held at the Ottawa Conference Center. Based in India, the Dalai Lama is the most prominent international figure of the movement for the independence of the Tibet Autonomous Region, which has been ruled by the People’s Republic of China since 1951. Read more of this post

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Ex-CIA officer urges Bulgaria to probe alleged Hezbollah attack alone

August 22, 2012 by Leave a comment

Robert BaerBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A 22-year veteran of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, who spent over a decade in the Middle East, has urged Bulgaria to probe a recent suicide attack against Israeli tourists on its soil without relying on American or Israeli assistance. Robert Baer, who is considered a foremost intelligence expert on Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite group accused of orchestrating the attack, said that Bulgarian authorities should keep the investigation free of the “intelligence games” currently taking place between the US, Israel and Iran. He was speaking Sunday on Bulgaria’s bTV, in reference to the July 18 blast that hit a bus stationed outside the main airport building in the Black Sea resort town of Burgas. The suicide bomber, whose identity remains unknown, killed himself, the Bulgarian bus driver and five Israeli tourists. Soon after the attack, Israel announced that it had gathered “unquestionable intelligence” showing that Hezbollah, backed by Iran, was behind the suicide bombing. But according to Baer, who spent several years in Lebanon in the 1980s, Israeli and American intelligence investigators are too politicized to be able to provide objective evidence as to the culprits of the attack. The former CIA case officer told bTV that both Tel Aviv and Washington “want to lead a war in Iran” and that they will be tempted to point at Tehran as the main instigator of the suicide blast in Burgas. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #782 (history edition)

August 21, 2012 by Leave a comment

John A. McConeBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►Did US DCI McCone authorize CIA assassinations? By the CIA’s own admission, we do know the Agency was involved in attempts to kill or overthrow several Third World leaders during the Cold War. But the doctrine of plausible deniability meant there is no paper trail identifying those who ordered such operations. Evidence is reasonably clear that Allen W. Dulles, who served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) for nearly nine years, sanctioned them. But what about John A. McCone (pictured), whom Kennedy appointed as DCI in 1961? Is it possible that the CIA carried out assassination plots without his approval or even in the face of his disapproval? Newly discovered notes from a cryptic telephone call McCone made to Secretary of State Dean Rusk on August 21, 1962, support the claim that, while McCone opposed any open discussion of assassination proposals, he did not oppose the efforts as a matter of principle.
►►Ronald Reagan was FBI informant (Note: this is not new information, but it helps to refresh one’s memory from time to time). In the early stages of the Cold War, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover feared a ‘Kremlin-controlled conspiracy’ to infiltrate Hollywood and use the world’s largest producer of motion pictures to manipulate public opinion against America. In 1945, Ronald Reagan, then an actor, passed along some political gossip of special interest to Hoover. Eventually, Reagan served as an informer in the Bureau’s investigation of alleged communist infiltration of the radio and television industry. He was listed as “Confidential Informant T-36”. Agents described him as “reliable”.
►►Senior Black Panther member was FBI informant. Prominent 1960s Black Panther Party member Richard Masato Aoki, who gave the Black Panthers some of their first firearms and weapons training, was an undercover FBI informer in California, a former agent and FBI report reveal. Aoki’s role inside the Black Panthers was discovered by Seth Rosenfeld while researching his book Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power, which was published today by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Aoki’s life in the Black Panthers was documented in a 2009 film, Aoki and a 2012 biography titled Samurai Among Panthers. Neither mentioned his work with the FBI. Rosenfeld said Aoki had contended in a 2007 interview it wasn’t true he was an informant, but added: “people change. It is complex. Layer upon layer”.

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Missing section of Cold War spy tunnel unearthed in Germany

August 21, 2012 by 3 Comments

Part of the unearthed tunnelBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A missing section of a secret tunnel, constructed by British and American intelligence agencies to spy on Soviet and East German government communications during the Cold War has been unearthed in Germany. The tunnel, believed to be nearly half a kilometer (1/3 mile) long, was part of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Operation GOLD, also known as Operation STOPWATCH in Britain. It was based on an idea initially suggested to the Americans in the early 1950s by Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), which had carried out a similar scheme in Soviet-occupied Austria. The CIA adopted and funded the program at the cost of nearly $7 million. At its completion, the underground tunnel connected a secret entry-point in Rudow, West Berlin, to a location beneath Alt-Glienicke in East Berlin. The aim behind the project was to tap into underground telephone cables facilitating Soviet and East German military and civilian government communications. But the KGB, the Soviet Union’s foremost intelligence agency during the Cold War, was aware of the project almost from its infancy, thanks to George Blake, a British informant who was later convicted to 42 years in prison, but managed to escape to Moscow in 1966. Interestingly, the KGB did not reveal the tunnel’s existence to the Soviet and East German militaries, fearing that a sudden rerouting of communications cables would expose Blake as a Soviet mole. Instead, they allowed the tunnel to operate for nearly a year before publicly exposing its existence in 1956. At that time, Soviet and East German authorities dug up the eastern section of the tunnel and bussed in hundreds of international reporters, as well as tens of thousands of East Germans, to view the tunnel, in a massive propaganda campaign. In 1997, part of the tunnel that crossed West Berlin was excavated and transported to the Allied Museum in Berlin. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #781

August 20, 2012 by Leave a comment

Bahri ShaqirinBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►Syria denies Vice-President has defected. Syria denied reports over weekend that President Bashar al-Assad’s deputy had defected. Vice-President Farouq al-Shara “never thought for a moment about leaving the country”, said a statement from his office, broadcast on state television and issued in response to reports that the veteran Ba’ath Party loyalist had tried to defect to Jordan. Al-Sharaa’s office said the vice-president “supports get[ting] united support from the [United Nations] Security Council to carry out his mission without obstacles”.
►►What is inside the CIA’s Polish prison? A major political scandal erupted in Poland this year, over an alleged secret CIA ‘black site’ used to house high-ranking terrorism suspects. But exactly was in this prison? In this interview, aired yesterday on Washington DC-based National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition program, host Linda Wertheimer speaks to journalist and author Roy Gutman about his recent trip to Poland, to cover an investigation into the CIA interrogation facilities.
►►US ‘surprised’ after Albania replaces spy chief. Little more than a month after taking office, Albanian President Bujar Nishani has discharged the Director of the country’s State Security Agency, SHISH, Bahri Shaqirin. The move follows a request by Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha, who first proposed that Shaqirin should be removed. His replacement is Visho Ajazi Lika, currently Deputy Minister for Technology and Information. Some analysts note that Shaqirin enjoyed the support of the US Embassy in Tirana. One of its spokespersons said that “the US had not been informed about Shaqiri’s discharge and [Washington was] surprised by this fast and unexpected decision”.

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Germany, UK, share intelligence with Free Syrian Army [updated]

August 20, 2012 by Leave a comment

Regional map of SyriaBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Two newspapers alleged over the weekend that German and British spy services routinely share critical intelligence on Syrian government troops with rebel forces in the country. In a leading article, German newspaper Bild am Sonntag claimed yesterday that Germany’s intelligence activities in Syria were far broader than officially acknowledged. The paper quoted an unnamed official from Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND), who said that the country “can be proud of the significant contribution we are making to the fall of the Assad regime”. Also quoted in the article was an unidentified American intelligence official, who claimed that “no Western intelligence service has such good sources inside Syria as Germany’s BND”. According to Bild, the BND collects most of its intelligence on Syria through a number of ships, equipped with signals intelligence platforms, stationed in international waters off the Syrian coast. These ships can collect data on Syrian troop movements as far inland as 600 kilometers, or 400 miles. The collected data is then forwarded to BND officers stationed at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization base in Adana, Turkey, who are also tasked with intercepting radio messages and telephone exchanges between members of the Syrian government and/or military. The information is then passed on to members of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the primary armed force engaged in a fierce civil war against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. Also on Sunday, the London-based Times newspaper quoted an unnamed FSA official as saying that the rebel forces are routinely given intelligence by British spy agencies. The official told the paper that “the British are giving the information to the Turks and the Americans and we are getting it from the Turks”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #780

August 17, 2012 by Leave a comment

Syrian rebel video of downed dronesBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►Israeli Prime Minister rebukes President’s Iran comments. Aides to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a stinging rebuke to the country’s president, Shimon Peres, after he said that Israel should not act alone in launching military action against Iran’s nuclear program. In an interview on Israeli television, Peres said: “It is clear to us we cannot do it on our own. We can only delay [Iran’s progress]. Thus it’s clear to us that we need to go together with America”. Officials from Netanyahu’s office were quoted in the Israeli media as saying: “Shimon Peres forgets what the role of the president of Israel is”. The row is a stark example of the sharp differences at the heart of Israel’s political, military and intelligence establishment over the merits and dangers of an early unilateral military strike on Iran.
►►Russian embassy in UK alleges attack by Syrian activists. Russia’s embassy in London accused British police on Friday of taking no action to prevent an attack on its building by a group of activists protesting Moscow’s support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It made the accusation as about 40 protesters clad in balaclavas demonstrated outside the embassy, located in an upscale part of London, against the verdict in a trial of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot in Moscow. An embassy spokesman said a group of protesters chanting anti-Assad slogans attacked the building overnight, throwing stones and smashing windows.
►►Syrian rebels put captured Iranian drones on YouTube. The opposition to Bashar al-Assad says it’s captured spy drones made by Assad’s patron, Iran. And it’s put the evidence on YouTube. In the video, Syrian rebels show off three smallish, unarmed surveillance drones they say they downed. The two larger drones appear to be variants of Iran’s homemade Ababil, or Swallow, surveillance aircraft. All three show signs of damage, with the tiny drone’s nose cone looking to have taken the worst, and alongside the drones are pamphlets displaying the face of the dead Iranian ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. It’s yet more evidence that Iran considers Syria’s civil war to be a proxy contest with much at stake for their influence in the region.

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Colombian police ‘steal personal data’ of 31 million citizens

August 16, 2012 by Leave a comment

Anthony Cotrino SossaBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The National Police Force of Colombia have stolen the contents of an enormous electronic database containing the personal information of over 31 million Colombian citizens, according to news reports from Bogotá. News of the alleged theft surfaced following a formal complaint filed by the Colombian government’s National Registry on Tuesday. According to the complaint, authored by the Registry’s Director, Anthony Cotrino Sossa, two police officers visited the Registry’s offices late last week, saying they wished to access data relating to a specific investigation concerning “election irregularities” in Colombia’s western Cauca state. The two police officers were given access to the data after displaying the appropriate warrant. However, according to Sossa’s complaint, instead of simply accessing limited information relating directly to their investigation, the police officers proceeded to physically and illegally remove two hard-drives containing millions of citizens’ private data. The database stored in the hard-drives contains, among other things, general biographical information, fingerprint samples, as well as residential and other contact information on over 31 million Colombians. Sossa claims in his complaint that police officers transported the hard-drives to the headquarters of Colombia’s Cyber-Police Division, which allegedly failed to respond to repeated calls by National Registry for their prompt return. The hard-drives were eventually returned to the National Registry building on the following Monday without any explanation having been given for their removal. This is the latest in a long series of scandals concerning the activities of Colombia’s chronically corrupt and inefficient law enforcement and intelligence services. Read more of this post

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Interview with editors of H-INTEL, a new intelligence email list (Part II)

August 15, 2012 by Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Yesterday we posted an interview with Dr. Mark Stout, of Johns Hopkins University and the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, who in June of this year announced the creation of H-INTEL, a new scholarly discussion list. The list, which now has over 200 members, and is actively seeking more, is an ambitious project that aims to provide an online venue for the scholarly discussion of intelligence. In doing so, it brings together academics, researchers, journalists, practitioners, and others, with an active interest in intelligence studies and intelligence history, ranging from antiquity to our times. Today we post the second part of our exclusive interview on H-INTEL, this time with List Editor Damien Van Puyvelde, a PhD candidate at Aberystwyth University in the United Kingdom. Damien, who specializes in the intensification of public-private intelligence relations in the ‘global war on terrorism’, is also a member of the Centre for Intelligence and International Security Studies (CIISS) at Aberystwyth. Originally from France, Damien is currently H-INTEL’s primary List Editor. Read more of this post

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Interview with editors of H-INTEL, a new intelligence email list (Part I)

August 14, 2012 by Leave a comment

H-INTEL list-serv logoBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
In late June of this year, Dr. Mark Stout, of Johns Hopkins University and the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, announced the creation of H-INTEL, a new scholarly discussion list. H-INTEL is an ambitious project that aims to provide an online venue for the scholarly discussion of intelligence. In doing so, it brings together academics, researchers, journalists, practitioners, and others with an active interest in intelligence studies and intelligence history, ranging from the ancient times to today. The list, whose message logs are located on Michigan State University’s H-Net server in East Lansing, has already over 200 members from several countries —and it is actively seeking more. In an effort to spread the world about this worthwhile effort, intelNews spoke with two individuals spearheading this project: Advisory Board member and List Editor Mark Stout; and List Editor Damien Van Puyvelde, a PhD candidate and member of the Centre for Intelligence and International Security Studies at Aberystwyth University in the United Kingdom. Below is our interview with Mark. To read Damien’s interview, click here for Part II of this post. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #778 (analysis edition)

August 13, 2012 by 2 Comments

Lieutenant-General Zahir ul-IslamBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►Some rules restrain Mossad’s work in Iran. It is widely believed that at least four assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists in Tehran were carried out in recent years by Mossad operatives. The perpetrators were part of an elite unit within Israeli intelligence, called Kidon, founded in 1972 to avenge the killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, by any means necessary. But veteran Israeli intelligence correspondents Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman argue that the Kidon is not technically a ‘lawless’ organization; it has to comply with a set of “unwritten regulations” adopted by Israel’s secret agencies fifty years ago.
►►Are US and Pakistani spy agencies starting to get along? The relationship between the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has been at the core of Washington and Islamabad’s alliance for over a decade now. But over the past two years, as suspicions have grown, the two sides had become near adversaries. After months of relations languishing at an all-time low, Pakistan and the US may now be opening up a fresh phase of engagement. Following US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent apology for the loss of 24 Pakistani soldiers at a border checkpoint last November, NATO supplies are rumbling through again. Washington has also released funds for Pakistani military operations it had previously withheld. And, perhaps most crucially, the two fractious allies’ top spies are said to be talking again. New ISI Director Zahir ul-Islam (pictured) visited Washington for talks earlier this month.
►►Why the US isn’t arming Syria’s opposition –yet. Up until this point, the only thing the US has owned up to is providing humanitarian assistance and communications equipment to Syrian opposition groups. A report earlier this month revealed that US President Barack Obama signed a secret “finding” in July, which allows the CIA to take action in Syria, but does not include lethal support. In other words, the US won’t be sending in Seal Team Six to take down Assad any time soon, but it is training certain groups to handle and gather intelligence. Why is that?

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Comment: Why did US Government Take Blackwater to Court?

August 13, 2012 by 5 Comments

Blackwater/Academi headquartersBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Last week I gave a live television interview to the main news program of RT, about the company formerly known as Blackwater. As intelNews reported on August 8, the private military outfit, which rebranded itself to Academi in late 2011, agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle no fewer than 17 violations of United States federal laws, including several charges of illegal weapons exports. This was hardly the first time that the scandal-prone company made headlines for breaking the law. Last week’s settlement followed a separate $42 million settlement agreed in 2010 with the US Department of State. The latter had charged Blackwater/Academi with violating the US Arms Export Control and International Trafficking in Arms Regulations Acts. Those familiar with the murky world of private military contractors are aware that these companies are often hired by governments precisely because they are willing and able to break the law in pursuit of tactical directives. In fact, the main difference between Blackwater/Academi and other private military contractors is not its disregard for legal boundaries, but the lack of discretion with which it keeps breaking the law. This is precisely the reason why it regularly finds itself charged with a host of different criminal violations. Read more of this post

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Situation Report: Intel-on-Demand in a Web 2.0 World (Exclusive)

August 11, 2012 by 1 Comment

US President Barack Obama and his BlackBerry phoneBy TIMOTHY W. COLEMAN | intelNews.org |
In the United States, the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), “the highest-level intelligence analysis targeted at the key national security issues and concerns of the President”, is increasingly going digital. For that matter, so is much of the output produced by the US Intelligence Community at large. According to AOL Defense News, “The President and his top officials want and will get a single mobile device allowing them to access highly classified and unclassified data wherever they are”. The mobility feature is driven by a desire not to be tethered to a desk or a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF). In addition to the obvious benefits of mobility, the digitized PDB allows for a more in-depth and interactive reading of intelligence matters. In the example of the PDB, as the President reviews the nation’s most sensitive intelligence information on a specialized tablet, he can jump back and forth, click on links to take a deeper dive, see follow-up briefings, review background materials for greater context, view videos, photographs, maps and other visual aids. In fact, the PDB has gone from a static page to an interactive assessment of top intelligence concerns, landing it squarely in a quasi Web 2.0 world for the Intelligence Community. That is not to say that the President is checking Twitter, Facebook or the Rasmussen Report’s daily Presidential Tracking Poll numbers. Instead, reports indicate the digitized hardware has been scaled way down. For obvious reasons, specific details regarding the hardware’s composition and features remain classified. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #777

August 10, 2012 by Leave a comment

KH-9 HexagonBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►Egypt sacks spy chief after border attacks.  Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi sacked the Director of the General Intelligence Directorate, Murad Muwafi, two generals and the governor of north Sinai region on Wednesday, after gunmen killed 16 border guards there on Sunday before last. Mowafi was the most high-profile official who lost his job, forced into early retirement as Egypt’s intelligence agencies were criticized for missing or ignoring warnings about the attack.
►►Photos reveal CIA deep-sea rescue of a spy satellite. On July 10, 1971, America’s newest photo reconnaissance satellite, the KH-9 Hexagon, dropped a capsule loaded with film toward the Earth. Due to a technical error, the capsule sunk in the Pacific Ocean. Last week, the CIA declassified documents and photographs showing how it went 16,000 feet into the sea to recover the Hexagon capsule.
►►Pre-inquest review into death of ex-KGB officer Litvinenko. A British High Court judge will soon hold a pre-inquest review into the death of Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, officials have said. Litvinenko, who was working for MI6 following his defection from Russia, is believed to have been poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 in London, in November 2006. British prosecutors accuse former KGB operatives Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun for the murder. However, earlier this year Lugovoy reportedly passed a lie detector test on the subject of Litvinenko’s death, which was administered in Moscow by the British Polygraph Association.

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