Analysis: Arab revolutions cause blind spot for US spies

June 15, 2011 by Leave a comment

Christopher Dickey

Dickey

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
An unusually blunt piece published in Newsweek magazine describes the Arab democratic revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere as serious detriments to US intelligence collection in the Muslim world. Written by Newsweek’s Middle East Regional Editor Christopher Dickey, the lengthy article argues that the ongoing political changes in several Arab countries make US counterterrorism professionals long for the days “when thuggish tyrants, however ugly, were at least predictable”. It even quotes an unnamed senior intelligence officer who denounces the celebration of democracy in the Arab world as “just bullshit”, and sees “disaster […] lurking” in the region. The reason for such vehement reaction is plain: US intelligence professionals are witnessing an elaborate network of informants across the Arab world, which they painstakingly built and cultivated since the late 1960s, crumble before their very eyes. These informants, who had senior government positions in secularist Arab dictatorships, “are either gone or going”, says Christopher Boucek, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #519

June 14, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • Australian ex-spy wins right to compensation. The former spy, known only as FXWZ, worked for the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation for almost 15 years before leaving it in 1979. Now at 67, he has won the right to compensation claiming that his work for ASIO induced a mental disorder.
  • Eritrea releases UK citizens detained for espionage. The four British men, two of whom are former Royal Marines, were arrested in Eritrea last December on suspicion of espionage, after they were caught in possession of arms including 18 different types of snipers, ammunition and night vision equipment. They have been released after a months-long diplomatic row between Eritrea and Britain.
  • Pakistan to deport US national suspected of spying. Twenty-seven year-old Matthew Craig Barrett has been arrested for allegedly scouting nuclear facilities near the Pakistani capital Islamabad, and is expected to be deported soon.

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Massive IMF cyberattack ‘was state-backed’, say sources

June 13, 2011 by Leave a comment

International Monetary Fund seal

IMF seal

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
A massive and sophisticated cyberattack that targeted the computer systems of the International Monetary Fund last month was “linked to a foreign government”, according to sources familiar with the incident. The IMF, an international institution which oversees financial crises around the world, revealed the security breach in an internal email sent last week, but has yet to make a public announcement about the incident. Although the cyberattack was not publicly announced, it was revealed last weekend by The New York Times, which cited a “security expert […] familiar with the incident”. The paper notes that IMF’s computer databases function as “a repository of highly confidential information about the fiscal condition of many nations”, and that they contain “potentially market-moving information”. British daily The Independent adds that “internal political opponents and foreign intelligence services could […] find [in the IMF databases] explosive information about government dealings with the fund”. Intriguingly, the attack occurred in the weeks prior to the arrest of the Fund’s Director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was detained on American soil on charges of sexually assaulting a female worker at his luxury New York hotel. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #518

June 10, 2011 by 2 Comments

  • Pakistan to intensify intel collaboration with China. Pakistan has assured China of full co-operation in providing intelligence about the activities of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which aims to separate Xinjiang, an autonomous region, from China.
  • US spy community launches ‘Analytical Olympics’. This new competition for analysts to see who makes the best predictions, was outlined in a recent report by the US National Research Council, which suggests practical ways to apply insights from the behavioral and social sciences to the intelligence community.
  • UAE mercenaries say they have no Blackwater contacts. Michael Roumi, president of Reflex Responses, a company training foreign mercenary troops for the United Arab Emirates, has told the US State Department and members of Congress that Erik Prince, the former head of the security firm Blackwater Worldwide, plays no role in operating the business.

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News you may have missed #517

June 9, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • New Zealand to launch new cybersecurity agency. The new National Cyber Security Centre will protect high-risk government agencies from attacks by cyber spies and criminals. It will also take on the functions of the Centre for Critical Infrastructure Protection, which helps protect critical national infrastructure such as the computer networks of banks and power companies.
  • New book on China-US spy wars. An extensive review by Joseph Goulden (author of SpySpeak: The Dictionary of Intelligence) of David Wise‘s new book, Tiger Trap: America’s Secret Spy War with China, which has been published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
  • Over 1,000 cyber attacks against UK MoD last year. Criminals and foreign spy agencies launched more than 1,000 cyber attacks on Britain’s Ministry of Defence last year in an effort to steal secrets and disrupt services, Britain’s Defence Secretary Liam Fox has revealed.

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One in four US hackers is FBI informant, says report

June 8, 2011 by Leave a comment

2600 magazine

2600 magazine

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
Experienced observers with strong links in the American computer hacker community estimate that around 25 percent of its members are working as informants for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other US government agencies. This according to an investigative report published in British quality broadsheet The Guardian, which claims that the large numbers of government operatives have spread unprecedented “paranoia and mistrust” inside the US computer hacker underground. According to the report, the authorities have made significant inroads, not by training their officers in hacking skills, but by employing the threat of lengthy prison sentences as a means of convincing captured hackers to turn into government informants. This technique is largely responsible for the creation of an “army of informants” operating “deep inside the hacking community” in the US. An example provided in the report is the infiltration of online forums used by the cybercriminal community as marketplaces for credit card, bank account, and other stolen identity information, which are often traded in bulk around the world. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #516

June 7, 2011 by 1 Comment

  • UK government will continue to spy on Muslims says official. Britain’s Home Secretary, Theresa May, says she does not see “anything wrong with identifying people who are vulnerable to being taken down a certain route”.
  • UK government outed IRA double agent. Senior Irish Provisional Army volunteer Denis Donaldson, who spied for the British government, was deliberately outed by the government to send a message to the IRA that he was expendable, and that it had another, more valuable informant within the IRA leadership ranks. The revelation is contained in a leaked US diplomatic document published by whistleblower website WikiLeaks. Donaldson was shot dead shortly after his role as an MI5 informant was revealed.
  • Legendary CIA airline now in danger of crashing. There was a time, not so long ago, that CIA-linked contractor Evergreen International Aviation was doing quite well for itself. Today, the venerable intelligence-helpers have fallen on hard times. The other day, it had to unload its 200 million square foot maintenance facility in southern Arizona in order to help pay off its debts.

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Former Mossad chief calls Israeli leadership ‘reckless’

June 6, 2011 by 1 Comment

Meir Dagan

Meir Dagan

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
The man who headed for eight years Israel’s most powerful spy agency has launched a new round of serious criticisms against the country’s political leadership. Meir Dagan, who led the Mossad from 2002 until January of this year, told Israeli newspapers that Israel’s current government is led by “reckless and irresponsible” people, who will not hesitate to engage in military adventurism abroad to ensure their political primacy at home. Israeli commentators interpret these comments as a reference to a reputed military attack by Tel Aviv against Iran’s nuclear energy program installations. Dagan’s comments follow similar criticisms he leveled against the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month. Speaking at a conference held at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, he warned that any military action against Iran would be “patently illegal under international law” and that it would probably not achieve its goals, since Iranian nuclear installations are deliberately dispersed in locations across that vast country. Consequently, the widespread nature of the attack could lead to a prolonged war, “the kind of thing where we know how it starts, but not how it will end”, he told conference participants. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #515

June 1, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • US spies tracked suspected terrorists in Sweden. US intelligence agents have staked out suspected terrorists in Sweden without the authorization of the government there, Svenska Daglbadet newspaper has reported. Last November, Norway, Sweden and Denmark launched official investigations into reports that US embassies there operated illegal intelligence-gathering networks.
  • Aussie spy agency reported on WikiLeaks. Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s department has revealed that WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, were the subject of Australian intelligence reporting last year, as the government anticipated the whistleblower website would spill “highly sensitive and politically embarrassing” secrets.
  • Former Taiwanese general accused of spying. Taiwanese government prosecutors are seeking a life sentence for Major General Lo Hsien-che, the most senior Taiwanese official to be arrested on espionage charges in the country since the early 1960s.

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News you may have missed #514

May 31, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • The spy kid. Multipart series by The Oregonian‘s Bryan Denson, on Nathaniel James Nicholson, son of CIA double agent Harold James Nicholson, who was convicted for spying on the US for Russia. Nathaniel was convicted in 2009 for maintaining contacts with his father’s Russian handlers.
  • Listening bug found in NZ MP’s home. Sources close to New Zealand’s Government Communication Security Bureau (GCSB) have said that at least one clandestine listening device has been found after a sweep of senior government officials’ homes.
  • Israel sells spy camera to Turkey despite concerns. Israel’s defense establishment has approved the sale to Turkey of the Long-Range Oblique Photography pod, a sophisticated intelligence system considered the pinnacle in Israeli military technology, despite worsening relations between the two countries.

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US SEALs ‘pocket guide’ left behind in bin Laden hideout

May 30, 2011 by Leave a comment

Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A document provided to members of the US Navy SEALs who assassinated Osama bin Laden, was left behind in bin Laden’s compound by mistake, and has reportedly been accessed by The London Times. It contains remarkably detailed descriptions of the compound’s occupants and frequent visitors, including their ages and legal names, all the way down to bin Laden’s wives, children and grandchildren. It also details the approximate timing of the arrival of each of the compound’s residents, as well as the precise location of their bedrooms and living quarters. Furthermore, the guidebook discusses the possibility that bin Laden’s youngest wife, Amal Ahmed Abdel-Fatah al-Sada, who also lived in the compound, may have given birth to twins in recent years. Remarkably, the pocket guide, which must have been carried by every member of the SEALs team that attacked the al-Qaeda founder’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, earlier this month, describes even bin Laden’s usual clothing preferences. It states that he “[a]lways wears light-colored shawal kameez with a dark vest” and that he “occasionally wears light-colored prayer cap”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #513 (Pakistan edition)

May 27, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • Pakistan spy chief tells US to end drone strikes. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the outgoing director of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has reportedly told CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell that Pakistan “will be forced to respond” if the US does not stop its drone strikes in the country.
  • CIA-ISI back in business. Overall, however, the meeting between Pasha and Morell was focused on mending CIA-ISI relations, according to Pakistan’s leading newspaper The Nation.
  • Leaked cables reveal joint US-Pakistan missions. US Special Forces were embedded with Pakistani troops on intelligence-gathering missions by 2009, confidential American diplomatic cables showed, a revelation that could hurt the Pakistani military’s public image. The Pakistani government has denied the reports.

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Spy defectors claim Iran had foreknowledge of 9/11

May 26, 2011 by 4 Comments

9/11 attack

9/11 attack

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A new filing in a nine-year court case in Manhattan contains testimony by two defectors from Iran’s intelligence service, who claim that Tehran had “foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks”. According to The New York Times, the two unnamed defectors also claimed that the Iranian intelligence services helped al-Qaeda in planning the attacks, and that operatives of the Iranian government funded and helped train the 9/11 hijackers. The filing also claims that Hezbollah, the Iranian-linked militant group that controls large parts of Lebanon, helped shelter al-Qaeda members in the months and years following the American invasion of Afghanistan. The filing was submitted to a US federal court on last week, in support of a lawsuit seeking damages from the government of Iran for its alleged “direct support for, and sponsorship of, the most deadly act of terrorism in American history”. The lawsuit was initiated 2002 on behalf of families of people who died in the 9/11 attacks. But neither the names of the Iranian defectors nor the precise content of their testimony has been revealed to the public, as their assertions were submitted to the presiding judge under seal. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #512

May 25, 2011 by Leave a comment

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Expelled Israeli spy was after Russian-Arab arms deals, says FSB

May 24, 2011 by 1 Comment

Vadim Leiderman

Vadim Leiderman

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The military attaché at the Israeli embassy in Moscow, who was unceremoniously expelled by the Russian government last week, was allegedly gathering intelligence on Russian arms exports to the Arab world. The FSB, Russia’s foremost counterintelligence agency, said Soviet-born Vadim Leiderman, a colonel in the Israeli army, was “caught red-handed” during a sting operation in Moscow, which is said to have occurred on May 12. His arrest led to the first expulsion of an Israeli diplomat from Russia in over two decades. Commenting on the case, a spokesperson from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the Kremlin had intended to conceal Leiderman’s expulsion from the media, as a “gesture of goodwill” to Israel. But its effort to keep the operation secret collapsed after Russia’s RBC TV aired a surveillance video of Leiderman’s arrest by a group of FSB officers, as the seemingly unsuspecting Israeli diplomat was dining with another man at an exclusive Moscow restaurant. Read more of this post

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