German parliament may sue government to access British spy files

June 19, 2015 by Leave a comment

Angela Merkel and David CameronA German parliamentary committee investigating spying operations may take the German government to court in order to force it to give up secret documents on Berlin’s intelligence cooperation with Britain. The Committee of Inquiry into Intelligence Operations was set up in 2014, after files leaked by American defector Edward Snowden revealed 1 that the United States had been spying on the telephone communications of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. But the scope of the committee expanded earlier this year, when it emerged that, while being spied upon by the US and Britain, Germany also collaborated 2 with American and British intelligence agencies in order to spy on France and other European countries.

Last week, the German Office of the Federal Prosecutor concluded 3 its criminal investigation into alleged espionage operations by the US National Security Agency against Chancellor Merkel. German officials said they had to drop the probe because of the unwillingness of US government officials to share information on the subject. But the parliamentary committee continues the inquiry on the related subject of Germany’s intelligence cooperation with the Britain and the US. The committee’s chairman, Dr. Patrick Sensburg, said on Thursday that his team of investigators would consider “going to court” in order to force the German government to release all relevant documents. Speaking 4 to the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, Dr. Sensburg said that the parliamentary inquiry had a right to investigate intelligence cooperation between Berlin and London.

However, as intelNews reported 5 in February, the British government is said to have warned Germany that all intelligence cooperation between the two countries will be terminated should classified information about British intelligence operations be shared with an inquiry. Dr. Sensburg was asked by The Telegraph whether reports of the British warnings were true, but he responded that he was unable to comment on the matter.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 19 June 2015 | Permalink: https://intelnews.org/2015/06/18/01-1718/

  1. J. FITSANAKIS “US surveillance or Merkel’s phone prompts angry German reaction” intelNews [24oct2013] ↩
  2. J. FITSANAKIS “Airbus to sue Germany for helping US spy on its operations” intelNews [01may2015] ↩
  3. T. SCHLEIFER “Germany drops probe into U.S. spying on Merkel” cnn [13jun2015] ↩
  4. J. HUGGLER “German spy inquiry could demand access to British secrets” The Daily Telegraph [18jun2015] ↩
  5. J. FITSANAKIS “Britain threatens to stop intelligence cooperation with Germany” intelNews [13feb2015] ↩

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Informant ‘got $47m reward’ for clues on MH17 downing over Ukraine

June 18, 2015 by 1 Comment

MH17 crashA German investigator, who is probing the downing of a civilian airliner over Ukraine nearly a year ago, says that an informant has claimed a multimillion reward for information pointing to those responsible for the attack. The investigator, Josef Resch, of Lübeck, Germany, says that a binding non-disclosure agreement does not allow him to reveal his client, who offered the $47 million reward. But he told German business magazine Capital that he is hopeful his client will soon reveal the details, since “people who pay that kind of money in exchange for information do not keep it for themselves”. However, he also hinted that his client may be an intelligence agency, who may decide to “deal with the matter without fanfare”.

Resch was speaking in reference to the murder of 295 people in July 2014, who died when the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200 they were on was shot down 1 near the Ukrainian city of Donetsk. The city has a large Russian population and constitutes a major front in the current War in Donbass, which is being fought between the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian Ukrainians. For that reason, the downing of MH17 has become politically contentious: the United States claims 2 that it was shot down by Russian-supported rebels, while Russia accuses 3 the Ukrainian Air Force of deliberately firing on the airliner in order to blame the rebels.

If Resch’s claim is accurate, it would mean that someone with inside knowledge about the identity of the shooters has has come forward with crucial information about the killing of nearly 300 civilians over Donetsk. The size of the award also implies that those offering it are prepared to take some form of action in response to the information. Capital notes 4 that the multimillion award is higher than the amount offered in the past by the government of the United States for information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden.

Resch told Capital that he is not certain whether the anonymous informant was able to claim the entire reward amount, or just part of it. He also said that he never came in direct contact with the informant, as the latter was represented “by a Swiss middleman” throughout the negotiations.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 18 June 2015 | Permalink: https://intelnews.org/2015/06/18/01-1717/

  1. J. FITSANAKIS “Ukraine rebels ‘admit downing Malaysia plane’ in phone intercepts” intelNews [18jul2014] ↩
  2. I. ALLEN “US spies say incriminating flight MA17 recordings are genuine” intelNews [24jul2014] ↩
  3. I. ALLEN “Russia says it traced Ukraine fighter jet near downed Malaysia plane” intelNews [22jul2014 ↩
  4. J. BRAMBUSCH “Informant zu MH 17 packt aus” Capital [15jun2015] ↩

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Australian spies use paid informants abroad to stop human smuggling

June 17, 2015 by 3 Comments

ASISAustralian law enforcement and intelligence agencies routinely use paid informants in Indonesia and Pakistan as part of a decade-old covert war against human traffickers in the Indian Ocean. This information has been revealed by The Australian newspaper in response to reports 1 last week that Australian authorities paid traffickers to turn around a boat transporting asylum-seekers to the country. After the reports came out, many members of the opposition Australian Labor Party blasted the government for bribing human traffickers, and calling the practice “disgraceful” and “unsustainable”. But new information published on Monday shows that, when the Labor Party was in government, it instructed the country’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies to recruit and pay informants from within the human-trafficking networks abroad.

According 2 to The Australian, the use of paid informants is part of a wider secret war between the Australian intelligence and security agencies and the trafficking networks, which began in 2001. This “covert war”, said the paper, is meant to identify the structure and operations of human-trafficking syndicates and stop the constant flow of tens of thousands of asylum-seekers to Australia. According to the paper, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) was the first Australian government agency to begin the practice. It was followed in 2005 by the Australian Federal Police, which also began stationing officers abroad and tasking them with running networks of informants. In 2009, ASIS received $21 million (US$16.5 million) from the Australian government to develop networks of agents in several countries where large human-smuggling cartels are known to operate. The agency used the funds to station officers in several Indonesian cities, as well as in Pakistani capital Islamabad, where it operates in coordination with the Federal Investigations Agency of Pakistan’s Ministry of the Interior.

The Australian quoted an unnamed Australian intelligence official who had access to the intelligence reports from the ASIS anti-smuggling operations. He told the paper that the use of informants who are members of smuggling gangs was the only effective way of eventually “collapsing these networks”. Meanwhile, the government of Australia has refused comment on the allegations of bribing human smugglers.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 17 June 2015 | Permalink: https://intelnews.org/2015/06/17/01-1716/

  1. B. LAGAN “Australia accused of bribing smugglers to take refugees away” The Times [13jun2015] ↩
  2. C. STEWART “Spies, police have paid Indonesian informers for years” The Australian [16jun2015] ↩

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Murder suspect to give evidence on death of ex-KGB spy in London

June 16, 2015 by Leave a comment

Alexander LitvinenkoA Russian former intelligence officer, who is accused by the British government of having killed a former KGB spy in London, has agreed to testify at a public inquiry to be held in the British capital next month. British government prosecutors believe Russian businessman Dmitri Kovtun, who worked for the KGB during the Cold War, poisoned his former colleague in the KGB, Alexander Litvinenko, in 2006. Litvinenko was an officer in the Soviet KGB and one of its successor organizations, the FSB, until 2000, when he defected with his family to the United Kingdom. He soon became known as a vocal critic of the administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2006, Litvinenko came down with radioactive poisoning soon after meeting Kovtun and another former KGB officer, Andrey Lugovoy, at a London restaurant. He was dead less than two weeks later.

In July of 2007, after establishing the cause of Litvinenko’s death, which is attributed to the highly radioactive substance Polonium-210, the British government officially charged 1 Kovtun and Lugovoy with murder and issued international arrest warrants for their arrest. Soon afterwards, Whitehall announced the expulsion of four Russian diplomats from London. The episode, which was the first public expulsion of Russian envoys from Britain since end of the Cold War, is often cited as marking the beginning of the worsening of relations between the West and post-Soviet Russia.

Since 2007, when they were officially charged with murder, Kovtun and Lugovoy deny the British government’s accusations, and claim that Litvinenko poisoned himself by accident while trading in illegal nuclear substances. The administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to extradite the two former KGB officers to London, and has denounced the British public inquiry into Litvinenko’s death as “a sham”. However, last March Kovtun unexpectedly wrote to the presiding judge at the inquiry, Sir Robert Owen, offering to testify via a live video link from Moscow. On Monday, Sir Robert issued a statement 2 saying an agreement had been struck between Kovtun and the inquiry, and that the Russian businessman would testify from Moscow, “most likely towards the end of next month”. Kovtun is expected to confirm that he met Litvinenko in London on the day the former KGB spy fell ill, but to insist that he had no role in poisoning him.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 16 June 2015 | Permalink: https://intelnews.org/2015/06/16/01-1715/

  1. J. FITSANAKIS “Coroner’s report sees Russian state behind ex-KGB spy’s death” intelNews [23jan2014] ↩
  2. ANON. “Litvinenko inquiry: Key suspect Kovtun to give evidence” BBC [15jun2015] ↩

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In surprise move, US Congress may slash funding for CIA ops in Syria

June 15, 2015 by Leave a comment

CIAAmerican Congressional lawmakers have voted to cut funding for the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret operations in Syria, in a surprise move that indicates growing concern on Capitol Hill with Washington’s strategy on the Syrian Civil War. The CIA’s involvement in the Syrian Civil War began in 2012, when US President Barack Obama issued 1 a classified presidential finding that authorized Langley to arm and train opposition militias. The clandestine program was initially based in training camps in Jordan, before eventually expanding to at least one location in Qatar. Currently, the CIA’s secret involvement in the Syrian conflict is said 2 to be among the Agency’s most extensive covert operations in the world, and comes at an annual cost that is nearing $1 billion.

But this amount may be cut by as much as 20 percent if the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the US House of Representatives has its way. According to The Washington Post 3, the Committee recently voted to reduce the Agency’s classified funds for the Syria operation as a way of expressing its “concern with [US] strategy in Syria”. It is perhaps indicative of the displeasure on Capitol Hill with Washington’s current policy on Syria that the Committee voted unanimously to slash the CIA’s funding. The Post even quoted the ranking Democrat on the Committee, Adam B. Schiff (CA), who said there was “growing pessimism” among Committee members, who felt that the US would not be in a position to “help shape the aftermath” of the conflict in Syria.

The surprise move by the Congressional intelligence panel will need to be ratified by the House, which will vote on a preliminary intelligence-spending bill this week. The Post said that the measure “provoked concern” in the White House, while CIA officials warned that slashing the CIA’s funding for its Syria operations could seriously hurt rebel groups that are being backed by the US. One unnamed US intelligence official told the paper that Russia and China would continue to fund the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, even as Congress decided to defund the CIA’s operations in the war-torn Middle Eastern country. The White House declined to respond to questions about the vote.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 15 June 2015 | Permalink: https://intelnews.org/2015/06/15/01-1714/

  1. J. Fitsanakis “Obama authorizes CIA to conduct ‘non-lethal covert action’ in Syria“intelNews [03aug2012] ↩
  2. G. Miller and K. DeYoung “Secret CIA effort in Syria faces large funding cut” The Washington Post [12Jun2015] ↩
  3. G. Miller and K. DeYoung “Secret CIA effort in Syria faces large funding cut” The Washington Post [12Jun2015] ↩

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Israel denies using computer virus to spy on Iran nuclear deal

June 11, 2015 by Leave a comment

Duqu 2.0The Israeli government rejected reports yesterday that its spy agencies were behind a virus found on the computers of three European hotels, which hosted American and other diplomats during secret negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program. Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab said on Wednesday that it first discovered the malware, which it dubbed “Duqu 2.0”, in its own systems. The Moscow-based firm said the sophisticated and highly aggressive virus had been designed to spy on its internal research-related processes. Once they detected the malicious software in their own systems, Kaspersky technicians set out to map Duqu’s other targets. They found that the virus had infected computers in several Western countries, in the Middle East, as well as in Asia. According to Kaspersky, the malware was also used in a cyberattack in 2011 that resembled Stuxnet, the elaborate virus that was found to have sabotaged parts of Iran’s nuclear program in 2010.

However, Kaspersky said that among the more recent targets of the virus were “three luxury European hotels”, which appear to have been carefully selected among the thousands of prestigious hotels in Europe. The three appear to have only one thing in common: all had been patronized by diplomats engaged in the ongoing secret negotiations with Iran over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. Kaspersky was referring to the so-called P5+1 nations, namely the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany, who lead ‘the Geneva pact’. Israel has condemned the negotiations and has repeatedly expressed anger at reports that the Geneva pact is about to strike an agreement with Tehran over its nuclear program.

However, Israel’s deputy foreign minister flatly rejected Kaspersky’s allegations on Wednesday, calling them “pure nonsense”. Speaking on Israel Radio, Eli Ben-Dahan said Israel had “many far more effective ways” of gathering foreign intelligence and that it did not need to resort to computer hacking in order to meet its intelligence quotas. Israeli government spokespeople refused to comment on the allegations when asked late Wednesday.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 11 June 2015 | Permalink: https://intelnews.org/2015/06/11/01-1713/

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CIA chief paid secret visit to Israel ahead of Iran nuclear deal

June 10, 2015 by Leave a comment

John BrennanThe director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency visited Israel in secret last week to discuss the Jewish state’s refusal to endorse an emerging deal with Iran over its nuclear program. Citing “two senior Israeli officials”, the Tel Aviv-based Israeli newspaper Haaretz said on Tuesday that CIA Director John Brennan arrived in Israel last Thursday. Although he was officially hosted by Tamir Pardo, director of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, Brennan used the opportunity to hold secret meetings with several senior Israeli officials, said Haaretz. Among them were Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, National Security Adviser Yossi Cohen, as well as Major General Hartzl Halevi, who heads Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate.

According to Haaretz, Brennan’s visit to Israel had been planned “long ahead of time”, and should not be interpreted as a sudden diplomatic move from Washington. However, it came just weeks ahead of a deadline for a far-reaching settlement next month between Iran and six world powers over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. If successful, the much-heralded deal will mark the conclusion of ongoing negotiations between the Islamic Republic and a group of nations that have come to be known as P5+1, representing the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany. Israel, however, has strongly criticized the negotiations, referred to as ‘the Geneva pact’. Last year, the Israeli Prime Minister called the pact a “historic mistake” that would enable “the most dangerous regime in the world” to get closer to “attaining the most dangerous weapon in the world”.

It is not known whether Brennan brought with him a message from US President Barack Obama addressed to the Israeli Prime Minister, said Haaretz. On Monday, just 72 hours after Brennan’s departure, another senior American official landed in Tel Aviv —openly this time. It was General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was hosted by his Israeli counterpart, General Gadi Eisenkot. Like Brennan before him, General Dempsey met with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Moshe Yaalon. Haaretz contacted the CIA about Brennan’s secret visit to Israel, but an Agency spokesperson refused to comment.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 10 June 2015 | Permalink: https://intelnews.org/2015/06/10/01-1712/

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Swiss reject contract bid by UK-owned internet firm over spy fears

June 9, 2015 by Leave a comment

UPC CablecomThe Swiss federal government has rejected a multi-million dollar contract bid by one of the world’s largest broadband Internet service providers, saying it is foreign-owned and could serve as “a gateway for foreign spies”. The company, UPC Cablecom, is headquartered in Zurich, is subject to Swiss law, and is currently the largest broadband cable operator in Switzerland. However, in 2005 it became a subsidiary of the UPC Broadband division of Liberty Global Europe, an international telecommunications and television company based in London, England. It is therefore technically considered a foreign company according to Swiss law. In 2013, UPC Cablecom submitted a bid for a competitive contract to provide broadband Internet services to Swiss government agencies. But in January 2014, the company was informed by Swiss officials that such a contract could not be awarded to a foreign-owned telecommunications service provider such as UPC Cablecom.

Until last week, it had been generally assumed that the decision to exclude UPC Cablecom’s bid on the basis of the company’s foreign ownership had been taken by the officials in charge of evaluating the contract. However, on Friday of last week, the Swiss daily Berner Zeitung reported that the decision to drop UPC Cablecom’s bid had been taken by no other than the Swiss Federal Council. Consisting of seven members representing various cantons and political parties, the Federal Council serves as Switzerland’s collective head of government and effectively operates as the country’s head of state. It was the Federal Council, said Berner Zeitung, that intervened in the contract evaluation proceedings and instructed the Swiss Federal Department of Finance to exclude bids by foreign-owned companies. The argument was that such companies could serve as “potential gateways for foreign intelligence constituencies”, said the paper. It added that the decision had been taken in light of information revealed by American former intelligence operative Edward Snowden, who is currently living in Russia.

The ruling by the Federal Council meant that Swisscom became the sole bidder for the government contract, which is worth 230 million Swiss francs (US $378 million). Meanwhile, UPC Cablecom has filed a complaint with Switzerland’s Federal Administrative Court, claiming that the Federal Council abused its power by intervening in the service contract. The Court’s decision is not expected for several months.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 9 June 2015 | Permalink: https://intelnews.org/2015/06/09/01-1711/

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Belgium launches official probe into alleged German-US espionage

June 8, 2015 by 2 Comments

BelgacomThe Belgian government has announced the start of an official investigation into allegations that the country’s tele- communications networks were spied on by a consortium of German and American intelligence agencies. A press release issued Friday by the Belgian Ministry of Justice said the minister, Koen Geens, had authorized an examination of claims of espionage by the United States National Security Agency and Germany’s Bundesnach-richtendienst (BND). The statement was referring to EIKONAL, an alleged collaboration between the NSA and the BND, which was revealed last month by Austrian politician Peter Pilz. Pilz told a press conference in Bern, Switzerland, that EIKONAL had targeted European telecommunications carriers for at least four years, from 2005 to 2008. The governments of Switzerland and the Netherlands have already launched their own investigations into EIKONAL.

After speaking with Pilz, Belgian politician Stefaan Van Hecke told Belgian media last month that the BND-NSA consortium had penetrated the network of Proximus, the mobile subsidiary of Belgacom, Belgium’s national telecommunications carrier. Speaking anonymously about the investigation, a Belgian official told the country’s largest French-language newspaper, Sud Presse, that if the alleged espionage is confirmed, it would have “not only legal implications, but will also affect relations between Belgium, Germany and the US”. A Justice Ministry spokeswoman said on Friday that if the allegations of espionage were confirmed “the government would take appropriate action”, but she refused to elaborate.

IntelNews regulars will remember the last time Belgacom surfaced in the news: in 2013, we reported that the company’s technicians had detected an “unidentified virus” that had infected several dozen mainframe computers. The virus specifically targeted telecommunications traffic carried by Belgacom’s international subsidiaries in Africa and the Middle East. Belgium’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office said at the time that the malware’s complexity, coupled with its grand scale, “pointed towards international state-sponsored cyber espionage”.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 8 June 2015 | Permalink: https://intelnews.org/2015/06/08/01-1710/

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Israel, Saudi Arabia, acknowledge holding secret talks on Iran

June 5, 2015 by Leave a comment

Dore Gold and Anwar Majed EshkiRepresentatives from Israel and Saudi Arabia have publicly admitted for the first time that they met secretly to discuss their common foe Iran, even though Saudi Arabia does not officially acknowledge Israel’s existence. The admission was made at a symposium held on Thursday at the Council on Foreign Relations, a foreign-policy think tank based in Washington, DC.

According to Bloomberg’s Eli Lake, who covered the event, it featured speeches by Saudi General (ret.) Anwar Majed Eshki, and Israeli career diplomat Dore Gold. Eskhi is a former adviser to Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. Gold is Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations, and is currently seen as a strong candidate to lead Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Lake notes that Eshki gave his speech in Arabic, Gold gave his in English, and that no questions were taken from the audience.

At least five meetings appear to have taken place between senior Israeli and Saudi officials since early 2014, in secret venues located in Italy, India and the Czech Republic. The main purpose of the clandestine meetings was to discuss what Tel Aviv and Riyadh see as Iran’s increasingly powerful role in Middle Eastern affairs, and to explore ways of stopping Tehran from building nuclear weapons.

The admission of the secret meetings between Israeli and Saudi diplomats will not come as a surprise to seasoned Middle East observers. Many have suspected that the two countries, who have historically been bitter enemies, have sought to collaborate behind the scenes against Iran. However, as Lake correctly points out, this week’s acknowledgement is the first time that this collaboration has been openly admitted by the two sides. He quotes one participant at Thursday’s symposium, Israeli General (ret.) Shimon Shapira, who says that Tel Aviv and Riyadh have also discussed “political and economic” means of thwarting Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

This admission, however, does not mean that the Saudis are about to recognize Israel, or that the Israelis are any closer to accepting the Saudis’ 2002 Arab-Israeli peace plan, which Tel Aviv has flatly rejected, says Lake. Admittedly, the rising power of Iran can only do so much to bring Israelis and Arabs closer.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 05 June 2015 | Permalink: https://intelnews.org/2015/06/05/01-1709/

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Colombia’s ex-spy chief on trial for 1989 killing of election candidate

June 3, 2015 by Leave a comment

Luis Carlos GalánThe former director of Colombia’s intelligence service returned to court this week to face charges of complicity in the assassination of a leading presidential hopeful, who was gunned down in 1989 by a powerful drug cartel. Luis Carlos Galán, a senator and former minister, was tipped to win the 1990 presidential election in which he stood on the Liberal Party ticket. His popularity with the electorate is largely attributed to his uncompromising stance against Colombia’s powerful drug cartels. He had vowed to arrest leading drug lords and send them to the United States to face criminal charges. He would do so, he said, after signing a mutual extradition treaty with Washington. However, Galán was assassinated on August 18, 1989, during a campaign rally in Soacha, a working-class suburb of Colombia’s capital, Bogotá. The assassination took place before thousands of spectators who were present at the rally, and is considered one of the highest-profile political killings in the history of Colombia.

A notorious hitman for the Colombian mafia, John Jairo Velázquez, was convicted of Galán’s killing. Velázquez admitted in court that had been ordered to kill the Liberal Party senator by Pablo Escobar and Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez, the two most senior leaders of the powerful Medellín Cartel. In 2007, a former justice minister and presidential hopeful, Alberto Santofimio, was convicted of helping organize Galán’s murder. He is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for the killing.

On Monday, another senior government figure, General Miguel Maza Márquez, was taken to court to face charges of complicity in Galán’s assassination. Maza headed Colombia’s highly disreputable Administrative Department for Security (DAS) in the late 1980s, and he has been in jail since 2013, awaiting trial for the murder. The prosecution alleges that Maza appointed a DAS officer who had known links to the Medellín Cartel as the head of security for Galán, and that he did so to “help the hitmen carry out the assassination”. This is the second time Maza is standing trial for Galán’s murder. He faced the same charges in 2012, after surrendering himself to justice in 2009, following two years in hiding. He denies all charges against him.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 03 June 2015 | Permalink: https://intelnews.org/2015/06/03/01-1708/

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Mossad allegedly behind arrest of ‘Hezbollah bomber’ in Cyprus

June 2, 2015 by 1 Comment

Larnaca police stationA team of officers from Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency were heading to Cyprus late yesterday to be briefed on the arrest of a dual Lebanese-Canadian citizen, who was found to be in possession of 67 thousand packages of ammonium nitrate. It is not yet clear whether the passports held by the 26-year-old man are genuine. Cypriot police said he used his Canadian passport to enter the Mediterranean island about a week ago. But he was arrested on Wednesday, after police found 420 boxes of ammonium nitrate in the house where he was staying. The boxes amount to nearly 2 tons of the highly flammable fertilizer. They were discovered in the basement of a house in a residential neighborhood of the city of Larnaca, on the southern coast of Cyprus.

On Monday, Kuwaiti daily Al-Jarida said the Lebanese-Canadian man was arrested after Cypriot police were tipped off by the Mossad. The Kuwaiti newspaper, cited “exclusive sources from Israel” in saying that the 26-year-old is thought to be an operative of the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah. Al-Jarida added that the man is thought to have contacted several Hezbollah operatives in recent months, and that he has even met Hezbollah’s reclusive leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. Cypriot police are working on the assumption that the ammonium nitrate was going to be used to blow up the Israeli embassy on the island, or to attack Israeli tourists holidaying there. But he was stopped because the Israelis were able to monitor his phone calls to other Hezbollah operatives, said Al-Jarida.

The Kuwaiti newspaper’s claims appeared to be confirmed on Monday morning, as the alleged Hezbollah operative was brought under heavy police protection to the Larnaka District Court. The authorities then promptly admitted a request by the prosecutor to conduct the proceedings behind closed doors, due to “concerns pertaining to the national security of the state”. Meanwhile, a local Cypriot newspaper, the Famagusta Gazette, said a team of Mossad officers were on their way to the island to be briefed by the police and possibly speak to the detainee. Speaking to reporters on Monday, Israel’s Minister of Defense, Moshe Yaalon, said the house in Larnaka was a “Hezbollah hideout” that served as a safe house for the Shiite group’s “international terrorism network”.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 02 June 2015 | Permalink: https://intelnews.org/2015/06/02/01-1707/

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Army colonel who joined ISIS was trained in the United States

June 1, 2015 by 3 Comments

Gulmurod KhalimovA former army colonel and police commander in Tajikistan, who features in a new Islamic State propaganda video, was trained in counterterrorism by the United States government, according to officials. Until earlier this year, Colonel Gulmurod Khalimov was a commander in Tajikistan’s Special Purpose Mobile Units. Known commonly as OMON, these elite units are a cross between anti-riot corps and counterterrorism forces. They date from the Soviet era and are common features of the law enforcement architecture of most former Soviet republics, including Tajikistan, whose population is 98 percent Muslim.

The government of Tajikistan launched an extensive search campaign in April of this year, following the mysterious disappearance of Colonel Khalimov. But the police commander reappeared on Wednesday in a video published online by the militant group Islamic State, which also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). In the video, Khalimov is seen wearing a black ISIS combat uniform and brandishing a sniper rifle. Speaking in Russian, he warns Russian and American citizens that ISIS will “find your towns, we will come to your homes and we will kill you, God willing”. He also states in the video that he participated in a number of counterterrorist training programs on American soil between 2003 and 2007. At least one of these programs, which were presumably funded by Washington, took place in the US state of Louisiana. Khalimov adds —without providing details— that it was the things he experienced during these training programs that led him to join ISIS.

On Saturday, a spokeswoman for the US Department of State told CNN that Khalimov was indeed among an elite group of Tajik counterterrorism operatives who took part in five training courses funded by the US government. The funding was reportedly provided under the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security and Anti-Terrorism Assistance program, which is designed to “train candidates in the latest counterterrorism tactics”. Ironically, these tactics are meant to be employed against groups like ISIS, which Khalimov appears to have joined. A report on CNN notes that counterterrorism experts are now concerned that Khalimov’s defection to ISIS will give the group invaluable insider’s knowledge of counterterrorism techniques, as taught by US instructors.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 01 June 2015 | Permalink: https://intelnews.org/2015/06/01/01-1706/

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Switzerland to probe claims it was spied on by US, German agencies

May 28, 2015 by 3 Comments

SwisscomThe office of the Swiss Federal Prosecutor has launched an investigation into claims that the country’s largest telecommunications provider was spied on by a consortium of German and American intelligence agencies. The spy project was reportedly a secret collaboration between Germany’s BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) and America’s National Security Agency (NSA). According to Austrian politician Peter Pilz, who made the allegations on Wednesday, the BND-NSA collaboration was codenamed EIKONAL and was active from 2005 to 2008. Speaking during a press conference in Bern, Switzerland, Pilz said many European phone carriers and Internet service providers were targeted by the two agencies.

Among EIKONAL’s targets, said Pilz, was Swisscom AG, Switzerland’s largest telecommunications provider and one of the successor companies to the country’s national carrier, the PTT (short for Post, Telegraph, Telephone). The government of Switzerland still retains a majority of Swisscom shares, which makes the Bern-based company the closest thing Switzerland has to a national telecommunications carrier. Under the EIKONAL agreement, the BND accessed Swisscom traffic through an interception center based in Frankfurt, Germany. From there, said Pilz, the intercepted data was transferred to a BND facility in Bad Aibling to be entered into NSA’s systems. Pilz shared numerous documents at the press conference, among them a list of key transmission lines that included nine Swisscom lines originating from Zurich and Geneva.

Switzerland’s Office of the Federal Prosecutor said on Wednesday that a criminal investigation was already underway into Peter Pilz’s claims, and that the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service was in contact with Swisscom and other actors targeted by EIKONAL. Meanwhile, Pilz refused to answer questions about where he got the documents about the alleged spy operation. He said, however, that he did not think Swisscom was aware of the BND-NSA actions against it. The company issued a statement on Wednesday saying it had “no agreements with the NSA, the BND, or any other foreign intelligence agency that permit eavesdropping” on company lines.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 28 May 2015 | Permalink: https://intelnews.org/2015/05/28/01-1705/

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Analysis: Having taken Ramadi and Palmyra, ISIS is now unstoppable

May 27, 2015 by 11 Comments

ISIS forces in RamadiThe capture by Islamic State forces of the Iraqi city of Ramadi, on May 17, has given the organization a fortified urban base less than an hour’s drive from Baghdad. Its near-simultaneous takeover of the central Syrian city of Palmyra, points to the organization’s permanence and demonstrates its widening operational span, which now ranges from Western Libya to the Iranian border. Without an all-out war effort by outside forces, such as Iran, or the United States, it is difficult to see how the Islamic State could be stopped from permanently establishing itself as a major actor in the region, especially since no outside force appears willing to confront it directly.

On Tuesday, Iraqi government forces launched a major offensive to recapture Ramadi from the Islamic State —which is widely referred to in the West as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. Such an effort, however, will be extremely difficult and costly, both in terms of lives and material requirements. Ramadi is a sizable city of over 900,000 people —although several thousand civilians have left— and presents an attacker with an urban-warfare setting that can be extremely arduous to operate in. Moreover, Ramadi is a solidly Sunni city, with strong ties to the pre-2003 Iraqi military establishment that date back to the early days of Saddam Hussein’s rule. Even if they do not necessarily see eye-to-eye with ISIS, Ramadi’s Sunni inhabitants are bound to fight doggedly against the Iraqi army, which is currently dominated by Shiites. Thus, if ISIS decides to hold on to Ramadi for reasons of strategy, or to defend its prestige, it will be very surprising if the Iraqi army manages to recapture it. Even if ISIS is driven out of the city, most likely with significant Iranian and American assistance, there is no guarantee that the local population will be Q Quotepacified. Iraqi government forces will almost certainly face a protracted armed campaign by a mixture of heavily armed groups in the city. Some of these groups are led by ISIS, some are inspired by al-Qaeda, while others are motivated by a broader anti-Shiite sentiment, which is currently the predominant political ideology in Anbar Province.

On May 20, ISIS forces also captured the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra. The choice of target was neither spontaneous nor unexpected. Located right in the center of Syria, Palmyra forms one of two major land routes used by the government of Iran to transport military materiel to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Hezbollah, which, like Iran, supports the Syrian government in Damascus, also acquires Iranian weapons through that route. The second main route, which passes through Deir el-Zor, and Raqqah, is already controlled by ISIS. Therefore, the Syrian regime, which depends largely on Iranian support for its survival, simply has to retake Palmyra if it wants to win its war against ISIS. The Islamists know this, however, and they will persistently resist any attempt by the Syrian troops to regain control of the city. As is typical in these situations, time will be crucial here. The more time ISIS has on its hands, the better it will be able to fortify and defend Palmyra. The Syrian military will most likely resort to bombing the city from the air, but this is not as easy as it used to be, because ISIS now has formidable antiaircraft capabilities. Moreover, at some point land forces will have to be used, and that is precisely where ISIS has the upper hand in Syria.

On Sunday, United States Secretary of Defense Ash Carter told CNN that, in his view, Ramadi fell to ISIS because “the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight”. Carter was right, except when he used the term “Iraqi forces”, he really meant Iraqi Shiites. There are currently almost no Sunnis left in the Iraqi Armed Forces. Most are unwilling to offer allegiance to a state that is dominated by Iran, which they see as not representing them, or indeed threatening their very existence. For that same reason, many Sunnis are now actively fighting in support of ISIS, or for Sunni tribes that Q Quoteare aligned to it. Iraqi Sunnis believe that if they lose the fight against the Iraqi military they will be extinct as a people, which explains why they are fighting with more zeal and determination than their Shiite compatriots.

Meanwhile the international anti-ISIS alliance is plagued by too many disagreements and political bad blood to be effective. The United States wants ISIS to lose, but no American president would consider sending large numbers of US troops back in the Middle East, after the fiasco in Iraq. Additionally, Washington does not want to be seen to cooperate with what is perhaps ISIS’ most formidable adversary, namely Iran. Saudi Arabia is nominally against ISIS, but it also knows that if ISIS loses in their war against the Iranians, the latter will simply dominate the region, and nobody in Riyadh wants this. Like Saudi Arabia, Turkey is ostensibly against ISIS, but it is also against the Kurds, who are currently being assisted by Iran to fight ISIS. It is therefore not assisting the war effort as much as it could.

This fragmentation within the anti-ISIS front will continue. It seems that everyone in the region is waiting for a new administration to emerge in Washington after the 2016 national elections, in the hope that the US will engage more directly in the war effort. However, unless ISIS directly attacks the US in a 9/11-type attack, it is difficult to see Washington taking a more active stance in this chaotic and unpredictable war. It is difficult to see this amidst the bloody suffering of the local people, but this war is in essence a multifaceted chess game, in which there are no genuine alliances. Every actor involved appears to be trying to promote their own narrowly defined national interests.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 26 May 2015 | Permalink: https://intelnews.org/2015/05/27/01-1704/

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