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US threatened Indonesia with war during 1999 East Timor crisis

September 5, 2009 by intelNews 4 Comments

William Cohen

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The Clinton Administration threatened to go to war with Indonesia in 1999, if Jakarta resisted an Australian-led plan to grant independence to what was then Indonesia’s province of East Timor. The revelations were made by former American and Australian military officials quoted in a new book titled The March of Patriots: The Struggle for Modern Australia. According to Pentagon official James Schear and Dr. Ashton Calvert, the late Director of the Australian Foreign Affairs Department, US Secretary of Defense William Cohen met with Indonesia’s President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie and Defense Minister General Wiranto, and told them that Washington would retaliate militarily if Jakarta contested the planned deployment of an Australian-led UN force in East Timor. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Ashton Calvert, Australia, Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie, Bill Clinton, diplomacy, East Timor, history, Indonesia, James Schear, John Howard, News, Southeast Asia, United Nations, United States, US DoD, William Cohen, Wiranto

News you may have missed #0095

September 5, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

New revelations about Bulgarian domestic spying case. It appears that Operation GALLERY (a.k.a. Operation GALERIA), by the Bulgarian State Agency for National Security (DANS), was primarily aimed at the Bulgarian tabloid newspaper Weekend and journalist Dimitar Zlatkov. Journalist Ognyan Stefanov, who was nearly beaten to death after authoring an article implicating DANS officials in illicit trafficking activities (see previous intelNews coverage), appears to have been simply collateral damage.
Taliban use CIA-supplied mines against US-led forces in Afghanistan. Evidence from the US Defense Department, Canadian forces in Afghanistan and the Taliban itself suggest that the increased damage to NATO tanks by Taliban forces has come from anti-tank mines provided by the US to the jihadi movement in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Massive domestic spying revealed in Russia. From January to June this year, Russian intelligence agents surreptitiously opened 115,000 letters, listened in on 64,000 personal phone conversations, and broke into 11,000 private homes according to information from Russia’s Supreme Court.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Afghanistan, black bag operations, blowback, Bulgaria, CIA, Cold War, communications interception, DANS (Bulgaria), Dimitar Zlatkov, domestic intelligence, mail interception, NATO, News, news you may have missed, non-destructive entry, Ognyan Stefanov, Operation GALERIA, Operation GALLERY, Russia, Russian Supreme Court, surreptitious entry, Taliban

News you may have missed #0094

September 4, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Liberia arrests six Pakistanis with fake US passports. The country’s defense minister said the arrestees possibly intended to carry out an attack.
Belgian arms dealer arrested in US sting operation. The notorious Belgian arms merchant Jacques Monsieur was arrested by undercover US agents in New York, after he allegedly conspired to export US-built F-5 jet engines and other parts to Iran. Apparently, the US arrested Monsieur with the co-operation of Google, with which the Belgian had an email account.
Why are Emirates authorities expelling Lebanese citizens? United Arab Emirates have reportedly expelled over 45 Lebanese residents in recent weeks. Some say the expulsions are part of a US-led intelligence operation against Hezbollah activities in the country.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Africa, Belgium, deportations, Google, Hezbollah, Internet, Iran, Jacuqes Monsieur, Lebanon, Liberia, New York, News, news you may have missed, Northrop F-5 fighter aircraft, Pakistan, sting operations, travel documentation, United Arab Emirates, United States, weapons smuggling, weapons trade

Latest developments in ongoing Kazakh intelligence war

September 4, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Alnur Musaev

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
In September of 2008, a Kazakh spy, identified by Austrian authorities only as “Ildar A.”, tried to kidnap from Austria former Kazakh National Security Committee (KNB) chief Alnur Musaev (photo), who has lived in self-imposed exile in Vienna since 2007. Apparently, Musaev, who has fallen out with the Kazakh dictatorship, knows too many secrets about corrupt Kazakh rulers. One can see why the latter consider him a national security threat: last week, Musaev gave an interview to Washington-owned Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), in which he said that Rakhat Aliyev, also former KNB director and former son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev, might have been involved in the kidnapping of two high-ranking bankers in Kazakhstan. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Alnur Musaev, Austria, corruption, energy resources, Ildar A., Kazakhstan, KNB (Kazakhstan), MI5, News, Nursultan Nazarbayev, Rakhat Aliyev, renegade spies, Vienna

CIA deployed agents disguised as journalists, says ex-NSA analyst

September 4, 2009 by intelNews 1 Comment

Wayne Madsen

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Former NSA analyst and US Navy intelligence officer Wayne Madsen has said that the CIA deployed at least two operatives posing as journalists in several world hotspots after 9/11. The two operatives, both US Special Forces veterans, were subcontracted to the CIA by private mercenary company Blackwater, and were accredited as journalists by Korean-owned United Press International (UPI). Madsen, who authors the daily Wayne Madsen Report, says the two operatives were active in Uzbekistan shortly after 9/11. One of them secured a travel visa to enter Iran in 2003, where he allegedly “engaged in target analysis and spotting for a planned US attack on Iran” (this was presumably before Washington decided to axe the rumored plan to launch a direct military attack on Iran in favor of an intensive plan of covert sabotage, as detailed by The New York Times last January). Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Afghanistan, Blackwater, CIA, intelligence covers, intelligence outsourcing, Iran, Iraq, News, North-West Frontier Province (Pakistan), Pakistan, South Korea, United Press International, United States, US Special Forces, Uzbekistan, Wayne Madsen

Colombian security agency intensifies illegal wiretaps, intimidation

September 4, 2009 by intelNews 1 Comment

Semana cover

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
You would think that right after the most extensive purge in its modern history, Colombia’s Administrative Department of Security (DAS) would scale down its illegal activities. But, according to the country’s leading weekly publication, Semana, illegal intelligence activities by DAS agents have intensified in recent months. In its lead article this week, the magazine says it has in its possession recordings that prove DAS continues to monitor the communications of politicians, journalists, human rights activists, union officials, and even Supreme Court Judges. Earlier this year, the Colombian government was forced to fire 33 DAS agents for illegally wiretapping the phones of several public figures, including the chief of the Colombian National Police, minister of defense Juan Manuel Santos, former President Cesar Gaviria, supreme court judges, prominent journalists, union leaders and human rights campaigners. It this week’s report, Semana says that DAS operatives are now being used by the government to intimidate members of Congress, who may have to vote in a possible referendum to permit President Alvaro Uribe to run for a third term, which is currently unconstitutional. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Alvaro Uribe, Colombia, communications interception, DAS (Colombia), News, United States, warrantless communications interception

News you may have missed #0093

September 3, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Did 29th US President have an affair with a German spy? New book claims that Warren G. Harding, US President from 1921 to 1923, had a 15-year love affair with Carrie Phillips, a German sympathizer, who may have been a German spy.
Poland shares blame for WWII outbreak, claim Russian spies. Major General Lev Sotskov, senior official of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), has displayed documents allegedly showing that Poland was considering joining the Axis powers prior to being invaded by both Germany and Russia, in 1939.
The things retired CIA agents do to relax! Gardening and farming have always been popular pastimes among CIA agents, but paper-soldier collecting is apparently gaining ground.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Axis Powers, Carrie Phillips, CIA, espionage, Germany, Lev Sotskov, News, news you may have missed, Poland, SVR (Russia), United States, USSR, Warren G. Harding, World War I, World War II

Panetta not about to resign, says US Senate intel panel head

September 3, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Leon Panetta

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Insider rumors have been circulating for at least a month now, that CIA Director Leon Panetta is frustrated and is considering resigning in February, after just one year at the post. On Tuesday, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, issued a bizarre statement saying that she spoke to Panetta on Monday, and that the Obama Administration appointee “has no intention of resigning, nor should he. I believe he has an important role to play”, added the Congresswoman. The CIA and the White House have both denied reports that Panetta, who last month publicly came out against a planned probe into CIA torture practices by the US Department of Justice, threatened to resign over the investigation. What is certain is that Senator Feinstein’s statement about his future will fuel, not squelch, whispers of Panetta’s impending departure, which are in fact getting stronger.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with CIA, Dianne Feinstein, Leon Panetta, News, Obama Administration, United States, US Department of Justice, US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Former spy chief reveals CIA operations against Pakistani nuclear program

September 3, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Imtiaz Ahmad

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
This news is currently making headlines all over the Arabic and Muslim world, but is not reported on any US news site: retired Pakistani ISI officer and former Intelligence Bureau (IB) director, Imtiaz Ahmad (a.s. Ahmed), has said he was personally involved in foiling two CIA operations targeting Pakistan’s nuclear program. Speaking on Tuesday to Pakistan’s News International, Imtiaz revealed details about the ISI’s operation RISING SUN (1979), which involved the alleged unmasking of Rafiq Munshi, a US-trained Pakistani nuclear scientist, who Ahmed says was a CIA agent. The operation also resulted in the exposure of several undercover CIA agents, posing as diplomats, stationed in the US embassy in Islamabad and the consulate in Karachi. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with CIA, espionage, Imtiaz Ahmad, Imtiaz Ahmed, Intelligence Bureau (Pakistan), ISI, News, operation RISING SUN, Pakistan, Pakistani nuclear program, Rafiq Munshi, Reagan Administration, United States, US consulate in Karachi, US embassy in Pakistan

News you may have missed #0092

September 3, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Pakistan to build own unmanned drones. But until it does, it will have to rely on the CIA’s Predator drones.
Cuba protests US denial of visa to wife of jailed spy. Obama is too much like Bush, say the Cubans. Jailed spy Gerardo Hernandez is one of the Cuban Five, who Cuba has offered to exchange for political dissidents held on the island.
Israeli spies allegedly diverted Lebanese Internet traffic. Lebanese militant group Hezbollah says two Israeli spies, Jerry Orenstein and Ronen Neuhaus, used their telecommunications expertise to divert Lebanese Internet network traffic through Cyprus to Israel’s Haifa exchange center, where it could be intercepted by Israeli authorities. This blog has written extensively about the telecommunications wars currently taking place in the Middle East.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with CIA, communications interception, Cuba, Cuban Five, espionage, Hezbollah, information security, Internet, Israel, Jerry Orenstein, Lebanon, News, news you may have missed, Pakistan, Predator drones, Ronen Neuhaus

US spy agencies still lack foreign language experts

September 2, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Urdu script

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A US media outlet has finally followed up on the warnings, made by the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last July, about the lack of trained foreign-language speakers in the US intelligence community. Following similar warnings by the US House intelligence panel in June, the Senate Intelligence Committee used the opportunity of its authorization (.pdf) of the 2010 intelligence budget to draw attention to “the continuing lack of critical language-capable personnel in the Intelligence Community, and the need to address this shortage”. According to The Washington Times, which noticed the Senate Committee’s brief but critical alert, US intelligence agencies remain “woefully short” of foreign-language speakers, let alone experts. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Arabic, Canada, Dari, Hindi, intelligence outsourcing, Kurdish, languages, News, Pashto, UK, United States, Urdu, US House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, War on Terrorism

News you may have missed #0091

September 2, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

McCain denies private agreement with CIA torture tactic. A recently released memo suggests that Republican US Senator John McCain, famous for his stance against torture, privately agreed with a CIA six-day sleep-deprivation technique.
CIA rejects further declassifications on torture-related material. The CIA said on Monday that it would release no more documents related to the Bush administration’s torture and detention policies, because disclosing the information “will threaten national security”. The ACLU called this an affront to the Obama Administration’s policies.
Taliban kill Afghan intelligence chief. Abdullah Laghmani, who headed the National Directorate for Security (NDS) was among at least 23 people, including a number of senior officials, killed in the suicide attack. This was one of the few times that the Taliban specifically targeted intelligence officials.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Abdullah Laghmani, ACLU, Afghanistan, assassinations, CIA, declassification, John McCain, National Directorate for Security (Afghanistan), News, news you may have missed, Obama Administration, sleep deprivation, suicide bombings, Taliban, torture, United States

Document release offers new clues on MI5 activities

September 2, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

S. Wanamaker

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A batch of intelligence documents from the immediate post-World War II period released this week by Britain’s National Archives offer glimpses into previously unknown activities by MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence service. One set of documents shows that the MI5 closely monitored liberal Americans who escaped McCarthyism by emigrating to the isles in the 1940s and 1950s. Among such targets was Sam Wanamaker, father of actor Zoe Wanamaker, who played in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone among other films. Her father left the US shortly before being called to testify in Senator Joe McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee. He became an important figure in British theater, but was monitored by MI5, who at one point considered including him in a list of domestic radicals to be “interned” during a possible military confrontation with the USSR. Another set of documents shows that British spies spent years looking for Martin Bormann, Hitler’s private secretary, in places such as Switzerland, Italy and Brazil. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Adolf Hitler, declassification, domestic intelligence, espionage, Germany, House Un-American Activities Committee, Iceland, Joe McCarthy, Martin Bormann, McCarthyism, MI5, News, Sam Wanamaker, UK, World War II, Zoe Wanamaker

Ex-CIA agent says Cheney “damaged the CIA more than anybody has”

September 2, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Robert Baer

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Robert Baer, the retired CIA field officer whose bestselling memoir, See No Evil, formed the basis of the 2005 motion picture Syriana, has said that former Vice President’ Dick Cheney “damaged the CIA more than anybody has, including the press or the Department of Justice”. Speaking on PBS’ The Tavis Smiley Show, Baer claimed that Cheney was the leading proponent of the CIA’s torture program, which the Bush Administration “invented as we went along”, and which never provided any critical intelligence. Baer said that in some cases FBI interrogators resorting to torture tactics extracted false leads from detainees. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Afghanistan, Afghanistan War, Bush Administration, CIA, Dick Cheney, Iraq, Iraq War, News, Robert Baer, torture, United States, War on Terrorism

News you may have missed #0090

September 1, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

CIA’s black sites, illuminated. The Los Angeles Times‘ Greg Miller provides a summary account of the descriptions of CIA secret prisons provided in the recently declassified CIA documents.
Russian agents try to influence Czech politicians, says intelligence report. BIS, the Czech counterintelligence service, has declassified a 2008 report stating that Russian intelligence agents in the country, such as the ones expelled earlier this month, “try to establish contacts with members of [the Czech] parliament, their assistants and employees of political parties’ foreign relations departments”.
South Korean arrested for collaborating with North Korean spy. The man, identified only as Kim, supplied travel documents, maps, and other information to a North Korean operative in Indonesia. South Korean intelligence sources may have leaked this case in order to sabotage the current thaw in North-South relations.