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Comment: Defector’s Wish to Return to Iran Not Unusual

July 14, 2010 by intelNews 5 Comments

Shahram Amiri

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
This website has covered extensively the case of Dr. Shahram Amiri, a scientific researcher employed in Iran’s nuclear program, who disappeared during a religious pilgrimage to Mecca in May or June of 2009. Tehran maintains that Dr. Amiri was abducted by CIA agents. However, most intelligence observers, including this writer, believe that the Iranian researcher willfully defected to the West, following a long, carefully planned intelligence operation involving the CIA, as well as French and German intelligence agencies.

News you may have missed #391 (Russia-US spy swap edition II)

July 13, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

Expelled spies to experience life in changed Russia. Like those before them, the sleeper spies who were deported to Russia last week in one of the biggest espionage exchanges in decades will probably miss the United States, picket fences and all. But what perhaps most distinguishes this affair from its cold war precursors is what awaits these Russians in their motherland.
Past Russian spies have found post-swap life gets a bit sticky. While life in Moscow may be duller than New York, Boston, New Jersey, Seattle and Washington, DC, where the 11 Russians charged last week allegedly lived as long-term, deep-penetration agents, it won’t be too bad, either, if their predecessors’ experience is any guide.
Life a nightmare for spies returning to Russia, says Soviet dissident. Vladimir Bukovsky, 67, a Soviet dissident exiled to Europe in a 1976 prisoner swap, says the Russian spies expelled from America to Russia last week “will go from living affluent lives with real freedom, to living under constant surveillance by the Russian secret services”.

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Russia-US spy swap plan was almost shelved, say Russian media

July 13, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Igor Sutyagin

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The unprecedented spy exchange between Russia and the United States nearly failed, after American and Russian planners came across several unforeseen problems during the run-up to the swap. Moscow-based daily newspaper Moskovsky Komzomolez cited a confidential source in Russian intelligence, who said that Washington almost cancelled the exchange deal in the early hours of July 9. This was after Russian media published the names of the four jailed Russian citizens who were to be given up by Moscow, in exchange for the ten Russian deep-cover spies arrested by the FBI in several US cities in June. The agreement almost came to a standstill again a few hours later, after Russian nuclear weapons expert Igor Sutyagin refused to officially admit guilt, a step that was required for the planned exchange to take place. The Russian scientist, who chaired a division in the Russian Academy of Sciences’ USA and Canada Institute, was serving a 15-year sentence for allegedly passing state secrets to a foreign company that was a front for the CIA. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #390 (Russia-US spy swap edition I)

July 12, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

In spy swap, agents were pawns in a practiced game. The US arrests were not made to facilitate a swap, said a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Rather, they were precipitated, at least partly, by the plans of several of the Russians to leave this country this summer.
Russian spies get tepid reception in Moscow. The 10 spies who pleaded guilty to acting as foreign agents in the United States, including one Peruvian, were given a tepid, uneasy reception in Russia on Friday. State-controlled national television channels reported their return briefly, with no patriotic fervor. No national TV channels carried live coverage of the plane’s landing, even though it was available from international news agencies.
Russian, US spies start new lives but mystery swirls. The 14 spies swapped by Moscow and Washington were starting new lives in Russia and the West last weekend, but mystery shrouded their precise whereabouts. In one case, Igor Sutyagin, a Russian nuclear arms expert who allegedly spied for the US, found himself at a hotel somewhere in Britain, without a visa and still wearing his Russian prison clothes.

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Dead defector not connected to Russian spies, insists friend

July 12, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

Sergei Tretyakov

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
On July 2, based on an excellent analysis by Stratfor of the 10 Russian deep-cover agents arrested in the US in June, we entertained the possibility that Sergei Tretyakov, a senior Russian SVR agent who defected to the US in 2000, may have helped the FBI identify the Russian spy ring. Last Friday, it emerged that 53-year-old Tretyakov had died at his home in Florida. When he defected to the US, along with his wife and daughter, Tretyakov was second-in-command at the SVR (Russian external intelligence) station operating out of Russia’s United Nations mission in New York. This is the same outfit that coordinated the 10 Russian deep-cover agents arrested by the FBI in June. Tretyakov’s death was announced by the late Russian spy’s friend and confidante Pete Earley, who in 2008 wrote a book about the defector. It is worth noting that Tretyakov actually died on June 13, but his wife, Helen Tretyakov, requested that his death not be publicly announced until the precise cause of death was determined. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #389

July 10, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

Secrecy over attack on Syrian nuclear plant unjustified, says ex-CIA chief. The secrecy surrounding the Israeli attack on the nuclear plant in eastern Syria in September 2007 was justified only for the period immediately after the operation, according to the CIA head at the time, Gen. Michael Hayden. That secrecy had been meant to save Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from embarrassment that could have provoked him to retaliate, argues Hayden in an authorized scholarly journal article.
No proof yet of Colombian spying, says Ecuador. Ecuadorean Security Minister Miguel Carvajal said Thursday that allegations that Colombian security agency DAS spied on Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa and other officials is “so far just a newspaper story”. Late last month, the Ecuadorean government threatened to break off diplomatic ties with Colombia over the media revelations.
GCHQ releases Stalin-era Soviet intercepts. A series of newly released telegrams and telephone conversations, intercepted by the UK’s General Communications Headquarters, paint a picture of Joseph Stalin’s regime in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.

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Russia, US, in largest spy swap since World War II

July 9, 2010 by intelNews 3 Comments

Igor Sutyagin

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The Russian and American governments have agreed to conduct one of history’s largest spy exchanges, as ten Russian agents captured in the US last month have been swapped for four Russian citizens imprisoned by Moscow for spying for the US and Britain. The ten Russians arrested by the FBI in June were non-official-cover (NOC) operatives, otherwise known as ‘illegals’, a term used to identify deep-cover intelligence operatives not associated with a country’s diplomatic representation. According to reports, they were all instructed by the SVR, Russia’s equivalent of MI6, which is responsible for all foreign intelligence operations abroad, to plead guilty to “acting as unregistered foreign agents” a charge not equivalent to espionage in either seriousness or repercussions. They were then legally forbidden from ever returning to the United States and summarily expelled. They were taken from the courtroom directly to the airport, where they boarded a plane to Vienna, Austria. In return, Russian government sources have confirmed that four Russian citizens, arrested in recent years for spying on behalf of the US or Britain, will be released from prison and delivered to US authorities. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #388

July 8, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Political policing rising in US, ACLU report warns. A new report by the American Civil Liberties Union chronicles government spying and what it describes as the detention of groups and individuals “for doing little more than peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights”.
Mistrust still marks ISI-CIA ties, say US officials. John Tierney, chairman of the US House Armed Services Committee, told a Pakistani delegation that there is mistrust between the CIA and ISI, according to a report by the Pakistan Senate’s Standing Committee on Defence. Regular intelNews readers should not be surprised.
Britain releases secret document at heart of UKUSA agreement. Authorities in the UK have released a six-page document dating from 1946, which describes the “British-US Communication Intelligence Agreement”, known as BRUSA, later UKUSA. The deal has tied the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand into a worldwide network of electronic listening posts.

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Ex-Panama dictator Noriega describes ‘friendly ties’ with CIA

July 7, 2010 by intelNews 2 Comments

Manuel Noriega

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Panama’s notorious former dictator, Manuel Noriega, has described what he called his “long, friendly relationship” with the CIA in court testimony in France where he is defending charges of money laundering. Speaking on the second day of his trial in Paris, Noriega argued that millions of dollars he deposited in several French bank accounts were CIA payments for his services, not income from illicit drug sales. Panama’s former strongman described in his testimony how he gained power with the help of the CIA in the small but strategically important Central American nation, in 1983. He also listed the services he provided to the CIA during the closing stages of the Cold War, in relation to Cuba, Nicaragua and Iran. But Noriega, who was deposed during the 1989 US invasion of Panama, said the US leadership and the CIA turned against him after he repeatedly refused to take part in a series of covert operations against the leftist Sandinistas government in neighboring Nicaragua. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #387

July 6, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Blackwater to ‘abandon US government market’. Erik Prince, occasional CIA operative and CEO of Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, has said in an interview that he is tired of Congressional oversight regulations and plans to abandon US government business forever. Meanwhile, there are reports that Xe has just won a $100 million contract to guard CIA facilities in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Congress won’t back down on CIA oversight battle. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is battling a veto threat by US President Barack Obama, as well as against the CIA and powerful House and Senate Democrats and Republicans, over Congressional oversight of US intelligence services.
Mossad chief to step down after eight years. Mossad Director Meir Dagan’s request to extend his term by another year has been denied, and he will step down in three months’ time, according to Israeli media reports. The chief of Dubai Police, which exposed a January 2010 Mossad assassination of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, said Dagan’s ousting is related to the botched operation.

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Retired US colonel charged with smuggling weapons to Somalia

July 6, 2010 by intelNews 5 Comments

Somalia

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A retired US Air Force colonel, who was charged with weapons smuggling during the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s, has been indicted again, this time for trying to smuggle automatic weapons into Somalia. US federal authorities accuse Joseph O’Toole, now 79, of conspiring with Israeli citizen Chanoch Miller, formerly an aeronautics engineer with Israeli defense firm Radom Aviation, to transport nearly 2,000 AK-47s from Bosnia to Banderal, Somalia. The smuggling operation, which employed forged end-user certificates issued in Chad, violated US weapons export control regulations, which are in compliance with a United Nations weapons embargo to war-ravaged Somalia. This is the second time O’Toole has been indicted with conspiring to smuggle weapons. In 1989, he was charged of working with fellow-American Richard St. Francis and Israeli alleged ex-Mossad operative Ari Ben-Menashe, to sell several US C-130 cargo airplanes to the Iranian government. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #386 (Israel edition)

July 5, 2010 by intelNews 4 Comments

IDF soldier suspected of spying for Hezbollah. A career Israel Defense Forces soldier is among several civilians suspected of spying for the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, Israeli authorities revealed on Wednesday.
Israeli, Turkish ministers hold secret meeting. The Israeli Foreign Minister has reacted furiously to reports that Benjamin Ben Eliezer, a Labor Party Knesset member, met secretly with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Switzerland.
Top Hamas spy set for asylum in US. Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of a Hamas co-founder and spy for Israel was set to be granted asylum after the US government withdrew its opposition to his request to remain in the country on Wednesday.

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Austrian probe finds Chechen president behind Vienna killing

July 5, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

Ramzan Kadyrov

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A report by Austrian government officials has found that the Moscow-appointed President of Chechnya ordered the 2009 assassination in Vienna of a Chechen dissident, who had been given political asylum by Austrian authorities. In 2009, Umar Israilov, who was once a bodyguard of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, alleged in Vienna and in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg that Kadyrov had “personally participated in the torture of detainees”. But on January 13, 2009, Israilov was shot dead by two men in broad daylight outside a grocery store located less than two miles from Vienna’s historic city center. Now the Vienna Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism has said in a detailed report that Israilov’s murder was a political assassination ordered personally by Chechen President Kadyrov, who is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #385

July 4, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

Indian, Pakistani spy chiefs meet in Islamabad. The meeting between the Director of India’s General Intelligence Bureau, Rajiv Mathur, and his Pakistani counterpart Javed Noor, took place in the aftermath of the arrest of Madhuri Gupta, second secretary at the Indian high commission in Islamabad, Pakistan, who is accused of passing on secrets to Pakistan’s ISI spy agency.
CIA releases documents on Korean War. The US Central Intelligence Agency has released a document collection that includes more than 1,300 redacted files consisting of national estimates, intelligence memos, daily updates, and summaries of foreign media concerning developments on the Korean Peninsula from 1947 until 1954.
Lebanon to probe top government officials in Israeli spy ring case. The arrest of a senior Lebanese phone firm manager, who is accused of spying for Israel, has prompted prosecutors to ask that several senior government officials be stripped of their immunity so that they can be investigated in relation to a nationwide crackdown on alleged Israeli spy rings in the country.

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News you may have missed #384

July 3, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

India arrests Russian woman in connection with alleged German spy. Police in the Indian state of Punjab have arrested Olga Timoshik, a Russian woman accused of assisting Thomas Kuehn, a suspected German spy who was arrested in Punjab in early June.
UK Prime Minister raises ex-spy’s death with Russian President. British leader David Cameron raised the contentious issue of the 2006 assassination of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko in London, in his first meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last weekend. Litvinenko’s death triggered the worst dispute between the UK and Russia in recent years.
BP hires ex-CIA counsel as lobbyist. Stanley Sporkin, who was General Counsel for the CIA for five years under William Casey during the Iran-Contra years, has been hired by British Petroleum as ombudsman “to hear worker complaints from Alaska and elsewhere in the US”.