Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying | intelNews.org

CIA expert claims Chávez rigged 2004 Venezuela vote

March 28, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Hugo Chávez

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
In a development that will undoubtedly worsen relations between Washington and Caracas, a CIA expert has accused Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez of rigging the 2004 recall referendum. Speaking before the US Election Assistance Commission in Orlando, Florida, CIA cybersecurity specialist Steve Stigall said that all networked election systems are inherently insecure, and gave the 2004 Venezuelan referendum as an example. Stigall claimed that president Chávez fixed the referendum results through the Venezuelan government’s control of the electronic ballot systems firm that oversaw the voting. He also pointed to a programming analysis of the voting systems by a group of anti-Chávez mathematicians, who allegedly discovered “a very subtle algorithm that appeared to adjust the vote in Chavez’s favor”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 2004 Venezuelan recall referendum, CIA, cybersecurity, electronic voting, Hugo Chávez, News, Steve Stigall, United States, US Election Assistance Commission

Analysis: Early Thoughts on Medhat’s Assassination

March 25, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Kamal Medhat

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Kamal Medhat, 58, was a senior Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) official. He was assassinated on March 23 by a roadside bomb that struck a PLO convoy outside the entrance to the Mieh Mieh refugee camp, located near Sidon in southern Lebanon. Since Medhat’s assassination, intelNews has received several emails from readers pointing the finger at Israel’s intelligence services. There is no doubt that Medhat’s assassination is a significant setback for the broader secular Palestinian movement, and especially for Fatah, of which Medhat was a senior member. A former aide to the late PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Medhat had previously served as Fatah’s director of intelligence in Lebanon, and was a key supporter of Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. To my knowledge, Medhat was the most senior Palestinian official (of any faction) assassinated in Lebanon in nearly 30 years. Nevertheless, although an Israeli role in his assassination should not be ruled out, it would be premature to conclude at this stage that Israeli intelligence services were behind the operation. Read article →

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 1969 Cairo Agreement, Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades, As-Safir (newspaper), assassinations, Fatah, Fatah al-Islam, Imad Mughniyah, Israel, Joseph Fitsanakis, Kamal Medhat, Lebanese Internal Security Forces, Lebanon, Mahmoud Abbas, Mieh Mieh refugee camp, Munir al-Maqdah, Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, Palestinian National Authority, PLO, Sidon, Syria, Tripoli, Yasser Arafat

Yemen Islamists sentenced for “illegal” Israel contacts

March 25, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

al-Haidari

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
On January 10, I reported on the arrests in Yemen of three individuals, who were accused by Yemen’s President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, of working for “an Islamist terrorist cell with links to Israeli intelligence”. Prosecutors told a Yemeni court that one of the arrestees, Bassam al-Haidari (a.k.a. Abu al-Ghaith), 26, communicated with Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert via email, offering to collaborate with Israeli authorities prior to the September 17, 2008, attack on the US Embassy in Yemen’s capital Sana’a. The intercepted emails allegedly show that al-Haidari wrote to Olmert “[w]e are the Organisation of Islamic Jihad and you are Jews, but you are honest, and we are ready to do anything”. The Yemeni government claims that Olmert (or, more likely, someone from Israeli intelligence who was forwarded al-Haidari’s message) actually wrote back telling al-Haidari “[w]e are ready to support you […] as an agent”. On Monday, a Yemeni court sentenced al-Haidari to death for “making illegal contact with the Zionist Jewish Israeli entity” (Yemen does not recognize Israel). Al-Haidari’s co-defendants, Imad al-Rimi, 23, and Ali al-Mahfal, 24, were given five-year and three-year prison terms. Speaking on behalf of Ehud Olmert, Mark Regev dismissed the Yemeni government’s allegations as “completely far-fetched”. However, as I explained last January, if true, Yemen’s accusations will not signify the first time that Israeli intelligence agencies have actively supported militant Islamist groups in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the three Yemeni defendants have vowed to appeal.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Ali Abdullah Saleh, Ali al-Mahfal, Bassam al-Haidari, Ehud Olmert, Imad al-Rimi, Islamic Jihad of Yemen, Israel, War on Terrorism, Yemen

German authorities arrest two on espionage charges

March 24, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
German federal authorities have announced the arrest of two men, one German and one Macedonian, who passed German classified information to the governments of Kosovo and Macedonia. Anton Robert K., 42, and Murat A., 28, were arrested in the German city of Stuttgart last Tuesday. Germany’s Federal Prosecution office alleges that German citizen “Anton Robert K.” regularly supplied “Murat A.” with sensitive German government documents during 2007 and 2008, while he served in Germany’s diplomatic mission in the Kosovar capital Pristina. “Murat A.” then allegedly gave the documents to organized crime syndicates as well as “state actors” in Kosovo and Macedonia. The Macedonian is alleged to have “intelligence ties” with both countries, but no other information about him has yet emerged. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with BND, espionage, Germany, Kosovo, Macedonia, News, Stuttgart

Analysis: The timeliness of the Alger Hiss case

March 23, 2009 by intelNews 2 Comments

Susan Jacoby

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Susan Jacoby, author of Alger Hiss and the Battle for History, has written a noteworthy opinion piece on the symbolism of the Alger Hiss spy case. The veteran reporter and author’s piece was published by The Los Angeles Times on March 22, 58 years to the day after Hiss began serving a 44-month prison sentence. Alger Hiss was a US State Department official and alleged former member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). He served as US President F.D. Roosevelt’s chief aide during the 1945 Yalta Conference, and at the 1945 San Francisco Conference that established the United Nations Charter. In 1948, former CPUSA member Whittaker Chambers alleged that Hiss had been a covert communist sympathizer who had used his State Department privileges to supply classified government documents to the Soviets. Hiss was convicted of perjury, not spying, and never admitted collaborating with the Soviets. Susan Jacoby, who says she is “95% certain that [Hiss] did pass on government documents”, considers the Hiss case to be symbolic of the politics McCarthyism, which continue to split America today. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 1945 San Francisco Conference, 1945 Yalta Conference, Alger Hiss, Analysis, Cold War, Communist Party USA, Franklin D. Roosevelt, history, McCarthyism, Susan Jacoby, United Nations, United States, Whittaker Chambers

FBI accused of infiltrating California mosques

March 23, 2009 by intelNews 1 Comment

Niazi in court

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Several American Muslim groups have said they are considering severing ties with the FBI, which they accuse of planting spies and informants in mosques and Islamic centers throughout California. In a statement issued last Tuesday, the American Muslim Task Force on Civil Rights and Elections accused the Bureau of employing “McCarthy-era tactics”, including sending “agents provocateur” to Muslim communities and blackmailing mosque members into becoming informants. The Task Force’s statement cites the case of Ahmadullah Niazi, a naturalized citizen of Afghan descent and a member of the Islamic Center of Irvine, who was arrested last February by federal agents. According to the statement, Niazi claimed he was arrested after refusing to work as an informant for FBI agents, who threatened to make his life “a living hell” if he failed to cooperate. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Ahmadullah Niazi, American Muslim Task Force on Civil Rights and Elections, American Muslims, California, FBI, Islamic Center of Irvine, John Miller, News, US Muslims

Analysis: Interesting interview with a CIA psychiatrist

March 22, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

David Charney

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Veteran national security correspondent Jeff Stein has published some interesting highlights of an interview with psychiatrist Dr. David L. Charney, who has worked for the US intelligence community for over 20 years. Charney is one of several medical professionals whom the CIA has appointed to assist its personnel in dealing with a variety of emotional issues. Additionally, he has previously been appointed to supervise the psychiatric assessment of a number of American double spies, including Robert Hanssen, the former FBI agent who spied for the Soviet Union and Russia for over two decades. In the interview, Charney identifies a number of psychological disorders that tend to burden CIA officers, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which often plagues agents who have survived “death-defying escapes after their covers were blown”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Analysis, attention deficit disorder, CIA, David L. Charney, ethics, FBI, interviews, post-traumatic stress disorder, psychiatry, Robert Hanssen

“Unprecedented” history of MI5 to be published in October

March 21, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

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

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with book news and reviews, Christopher Andrew, Gordon Thomas, history, Keith Jeffery, MI5, MI6, News, UK

US Pentagon report acknowledges Israel has the bomb!

March 20, 2009 by intelNews 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

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Israel, Israel's nuclear arsenal, News, nuclear proliferation, United States, US Army, US DoD, US Joint Forces Command

Israeli ex-spy barred from the US wants US visa

March 19, 2009 by intelNews 1 Comment

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

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with AIPAC, Benjamin Netanyahu, Hillary Clinton, Israel, Lawrence Anthony Franklin, Likud, News, United States, US Department of State, Uzi Arad

Advisors tell Obama to expand covert war inside Pakistan

March 18, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

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

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Afghanistan, assassinations, Baluchistan (Pakistan), Barack Obama, CIA, covert operations, Mullah Mohammad Omar, News, Pakistan, Predator drones, Supreme Council of Afghanistan, Taliban, United States, War on Terrorism

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

March 18, 2009 by intelNews 2 Comments

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

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Canada, deportations, Givi Abramishvili, KGB, Mikhail Alexander Lennikov, News, Public Safety Canada

South African spy chief’s wife implicated in drugs arrest

March 17, 2009 by intelNews 1 Comment

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

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Brazil, Colombia, KwaZulu-Natal, Margate (South Africa), narcotics trade, News, Peru, São Paulo (Brazil), Sheryl Cwele, Siyabonga C. Cwele, South Africa, South African Ministry of Intelligence, Tessa Beetge

EU official confirms Brussels espionage warnings

March 16, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

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

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Alain Winants, Belgium, Brussels, Dale Kidd, espionage, European Council, European Union, intelligence covers, Marjory van den Broeke, News, SV/SE (Belgium)

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

March 16, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

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