Shin Bet arrests Israeli allegedly spying for Iran

January 16, 2009 by 1 Comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A spokesperson for Shin Bet, Israel’s General Security Service, announced yesterday the capture of an Israeli-Argentinean citizen, living in Buenos Aires, for offering to spy against Israel on behalf of Iran. The man, Mauricio Segel, was arrested by Shin Bet and Israeli police officers on December 22, while attempting to enter Israel. He is accused of having contacted the Iranian embassy in the Argentinean capital and offered to sell Israeli government documents to Iranian diplomatic officials. Israeli intelligence sources claim Segel first contacted the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires in 2006 and gained the Iranians’ trust by giving them access to copies of his Israeli national passport and identification card. Read more of this post

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Obama said to be backing down in rift with CIA

January 15, 2009 by Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
This author has been reporting on the continuing rift between the incoming Democratic Administration and many in ledership positions at the CIA. The latter openly warned the President Elect last month that he “may have difficulty finding a candidate who can be embraced by both veteran officials at the agency and the left flank of the Democratic Party”. As I explained on January 6, Obama’s nomination of Leon Panetta to head the CIA should be expected to spark further protests by the troubled agency. It now appears that, having nominated Panetta, the Obama team is slowly backing away from its dispute with the country’s intelligence leadership. The New York Times reports that there is “a growing sense” among observers that the incoming President is “not inclined” to pursue any broad inquiries on warrantless eavesdropping (Operation STELLAR WIND) or the use of torture against CIA detainees in the “global war on terrorism”. Read more of this post

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Bulgarian intelligence service found to have wiretapped “all national media”

January 14, 2009 by Leave a comment

Stefanov

Stefanov

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
In 2008, the Bulgarian government announced the establishment of the State Agency for National Security (DANS). The Agency, which began work with the blessings of the US government, was said to be the Bulgarian version of America’s FBI, combining counterespionage and criminal intelligence operations. However, it appears that DANS has been distracted from its initial mission. Early last September, the Agency verified that investigative journalist Ognyan Stefanov was behind Opasnite Novini (Dangerous News) an anonymous blog specializing in investigative reports on Bulgaria’s government establishment. The blog had apparently attracted the attention of DANS after publishing a shocking exposé implicating DANS officials in illicit trafficking activities. On September 22, Stefanov was hospitalized in critical condition after being severely beaten by persons unknown, who used hammers and iron bars to thrash the journalist. Read more of this post

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Comment: Israel Intensifies Information War

January 14, 2009 by 2 Comments

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
John Minto is well known in New Zealand’s political circles. In 2005, a documentary on the country’s most influential public figures positioned him firmly within the top 100. Earlier today, Minto accused Israeli military and security agencies of orchestrating cyber-attacks on New Zealand websites, including his own, that are critical of Israel’s ongoing incursion in Gaza. He also said that websites in Britain and elsewhere have had “similar experiences”, which he blamed on “a dedicated unit within the Israeli military which monitors and does its best to close down sites which are effective in organizing opposition to Israeli policies”. Read more of this post

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New revelations of CIA sabotage program in Iran

January 13, 2009 by 2 Comments

Ahmedinejad

Ahmadinejad

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The New York Times has published a front-page exposé of an ongoing CIA operation to sabotage Iranian nuclear laboratories and installations. Citing “interviews over the past 15 months with current and former American officials, outside experts, international nuclear inspectors and European and Israeli officials” the paper reveals that President Bush authorized the CIA operation in early 2008, and will “hand [it] off to President-elect Barack Obama”. Bush reportedly has had to defend the covert program on at least one occasion against Israel’s insistence to launch air attacks on known Iranian nuclear sites. The CIA program is aimed at –among other things– “computer systems and other networks on which Iran relies”. Read more of this post

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Unprotected Wi-Fi now seen as security threat in India

January 13, 2009 by Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
IntelNews has been reporting on the interesting technical intelligence details of the November 2008 attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai. On January 7, we explained that the organizers of the attacks used a virtual number, 1-201-253-1824, set up by a California-based VOIP (voice-over-Internet protocol) telecommunications provider, to communicate with the assailants on the ground in real-time. Now the Mumbai Police have said they will start monitoring the city’s neighborhoods for unprotected Wi-Fi networks, and instructing their owners to secure them on the spot. This is because militant groups have apparently been logging on to unprotected wireless networks to sent emails claiming responsibility for several attacks in the country. Last November it emerged that the email claiming responsibility for the Mumbai attacks was sent by an individual with “technical expertise and their knowledge of sophisticated [anonymizing] software”.

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Speculation about NSA vetting of Obama’s wireless gadgets

January 13, 2009 by Leave a comment

Obama calling

Obama calling

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Longtime technology correspondent Declan McCullagh has published a lengthy article speculating about the wireless communications options for incoming US President Barack Obama. He suggests that Obama’s heavy use of Blackberry distinctly raises “the possibility of eavesdropping [on wireless Presidential communications] by hackers and other digital snoops” and reminds that the President-Elect’s cell phone records with Verizon “were improperly accessed last year” by unauthorized company technicians. McCullagh speculates that the incoming President will be separated from his Blackberry and will be given instead a National Security Agency (NSA)-approved PDA phone designed under the US Pentagon’s SME-PED project, which stands for Secure Mobile Environment Portable Electronic Device. SME-PED communications are said to be user-friendly Blackberry replacements for high-level US government officials. McCullagh contacted the NSA for his article. The Agency, of course, declined to comment.

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Newspaper claims CIA had say in 1958 literature Nobel award

January 13, 2009 by 2 Comments

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Back in 1958, literary circles were surprised by the Swedish Academy’s decision to award that year’s Nobel Award for Literature to Soviet writer Boris Pasternak. This was because the author of Doctor Zhivago was considered an outsider, his literary stature overshadowed by those of Italy’s Alberto Moravia and Denmark’s Karen Blixen, who were strongly favored to win the prestigious prize. Furthermore, Pasternak’s novels were at that time considered obscure and had not yet been published in Swedish. His Doctor Zhivago, which was banned in the USSR, was first published in Italian, after the novel’s manuscript was secretly smuggled out of the Soviet Union. It was therefore a big surprise when Pasternak’s candidacy unexpectedly received the support of Anders Esterling, the influential Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy. Now Italian newspaper La Stampa claims it has uncovered information pointing to a CIA role in the Academy’s surprise decision. Specifically, the newspaper alleges that “a CIA lobby operating in the Swedish Academy” pressured its voting members to offer the award to the Soviet writer after learning that his works had been banned in the USSR. Pasternak was eventually prevented from receiving the award by the Soviet authorities. He was rehabilitated in the USSR following Stalin’s death. Intelligence (and literary) historians will be interested to know whether the CIA played a role in the initial smuggling of Pasternak’s novel out of the Soviet Union.

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Peru wiretapping scandal involves Norwegian oil company

January 12, 2009 by 1 Comment

Alan Garcia

Alan Garcia

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Last October, a television station in Peru aired intercepted telephone conversations in which high-level politicians were heard accepting payments by lobbyists in return for awarding state oil contracts to a Discover Petroleum, a small Norwegian oil company. The revelation caused one of the worst crises in modern Peruvian political history, prompting the entire cabinet of President Alan Garcia to resign. Now the country’s Department of Justice is investigating charges of corruption against the president of Discover Petroleum, several lobbyists, numerous government oil executives, and three former government ministers. Meanwhile, the Peruvian police is targeting the people responsible for…intercepting the revelatory telephone calls. Six people were arrested late last week for illegally recording the telephone discussions on behalf of Business Track SAC, a private security company. Interestingly, five of the six are either retired or active counterintelligence officers of the Peruvian Navy. Read more of this post

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Indians arrest second alleged Pakistani spy in Uttar Pradesh

January 12, 2009 by Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Less than a month after India’s Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) arrested Abdul Jabbar, an alleged Pakistani Military Intelligence agent operating in Lucknow, Indian authorities have announced the capture of a second alleged operative in Meerut, a city 400 kilometers from Lucknow, in the region of Uttar Pradesh. Like Jabbar, who was said to possess “secret information regarding [Indian] Central command”, the second arrestee, Ameer Ahmad, was found to possess “[m]aps of [Indian] army units in Meerut and Dehradun”. On December 17, we speculated that Jabbar’s arrest was “part of an elaborate counterintelligence sting, possibly involving Indian moles inside Pakistani Military Intelligence”. Speculation aside, it would be logical to infer at this stage that Ahmad’s capture is directly related to Jabbar, who appears to be talking to his Indian interrogators.

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CIA officer behind “Syriana” comes out in favor of Panetta

January 11, 2009 by 2 Comments

Robert Baer

Robert Baer

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Robert Baer, the former CIA field officer whose memoir, See No Evil, formed the basis of the 2005 motion picture Syriana, has publicly endorsed Leon Panetta, US President Elect Barack Obama’s nominee to head the CIA. In an article published on Friday in The New Republic, Baer describes Panetta as an experienced political operator who “knows his way around the Oval Office” and will thus have “the stature to stroll into the [White House] and tell the president, ‘no'”. More importantly, Baer seconds this author’s assessment, expressed here on January 6, that Panetta’s nomination by the incoming US President is part of a broader effort to “demilitarize[e] the CIA [by] reaffirming the Agency’s operational independence from the Pentagon”. Baer notes that “[t]he Pentagon is [currently] firmly on top of the intelligence heap” by controlling “80 percent of the intelligence budget” while trying to “take the rest”. Baer further notes, as I indicated on January 8, that “Panetta will be faced with an armature of wariness, mistrust, and anxiety as soon as he walks through the [CIA’s] front door”.

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Hamas map discovery shows advanced preparations for ground war

January 11, 2009 by 2 Comments

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The increasingly sophisticated deception and propaganda operations by all sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been extensively detailed in the relevant specialized literature. But if the recent revelation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of a Hamas urban warfare map is indeed genuine, it signifies well-timed anticipation by the Palestinian faction of Israel’s current offensive in the Gaza Strip. The map, which was allegedly discovered by IDF paratroopers in Beit Lahia, north of Gaza, is said to portray a detailed diagram of the al-Atatra neighborhood, with locations of booby traps. The latter include the use of dolls to lure IDF soldiers, with the intention of killing or –more beneficially from Hamas’ strategic viewpoint– kidnapping them. Read more of this post

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Comment: Carter confirms IDF broke June 2008 truce

January 10, 2009 by 2 Comments

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
On December 29, I explained the fact –well-known within Israel– that it was the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), not Hamas, which broke the June 2008 truce brokered by Egypt. Specifically, I mentioned the November 4, 2008, illegal incursion into Gaza by a sizeable IDF team, reportedly to take out a “strip tunnel intended for terror attack”, which unilaterally broke the truce. Israel has offered no proof for its justification of the incursion, either domestically or internationally. The Israeli press has long recognized that it was after this unilateral breaking of the ceasefire by the IDF that “[t]he fragile five-month truce began to unravel”. On November 13, Ha’aretz noted that it was in response to this action that Hamas forces resumed their rocket fire against Israeli settlements. It has now come to my attention that a January 8, 2009, article in The Washington Post by former US President Jimmy Carter has also pointed out this fact. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Why is Yemen Accusing Israel of Ties to Islamist Groups?

January 10, 2009 by Leave a comment

There is admittedly nothing new about the discovery of yet another Islamic militant cell in Yemen. Significant al-Qaeda presence has long been detected in that country. Eyebrows are bound to be raised, however, at news of a recent formal accusation by the Yemeni government that Israel offered to assist Islamist militants who had “prepared […] car bombs to attack governmental buildings and embassies”. Bizarrely, three Islamist militants arrested last week have been accused by Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh of working for “a terrorist cell with links to Israeli intelligence, [which] ha[s] been dismantled”. On January 10, a Yemeni court heard that one of the accused militants communicated with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert via email, offering to collaborate with Israeli authorities in 2008. These allegations may seem ludicrous, to say the least. However, if true, they will not signify the first time that Israeli intelligence agencies have actively supported militant Islamist groups in the Middle East. Surprised? Joseph Fitsanakis explains.

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Analysis: Former GCHQ director co-authors paper on training analysts

January 10, 2009 by Leave a comment

Sir Omand

Sir Omand

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
It is not often that a former Director of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Britain’s primary signals intelligence agency, publicly expresses his or her views on intelligence analysis. Yet this is precisely what Sir David B. Omand, GCB –GCHQ Director from 1996 to 1997– has done, by co-authoring a paper for the latest issue of the CIA’s partly declassified journal, Studies in Intelligence. The paper, which Sir Omand co-wrote with King College’s Dr. Michael Goodman, is titled “What Analysts Need to Understand”. It details the ongoing “innovative” revisions currently being implemented in the training of British intelligence analysts, following the 2003 fiasco over Iraq’s purported “weapons of mass destruction”. The analysis, which, among other things, quotes Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (!), focuses on the difficulty of teaching methods to develop the analysts’ “strong professional instincts”. It further points to intelligence analyst trainees’ “exposure to a variety of critical views, including the unorthodox”. The article doesn’t explain whether such “unorthodox” and “critical views” include those of Katharine T. Gun, the former GCHQ employee who in 2003 voluntarily exposed GCHQ’s collaboration with its US counterpart, the National Security Agency, to illegally bug the United Nations offices of Angola, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, and Pakistan. By diabolical coincidence, the UN representations of the above six countries had failed to be won over by American and British arguments in support of the invasion of Iraq. Gun was summarily fired by GCHQ and charged under the UK Official Secrets Act (charges were eventually dropped after she threatened to reveal even more information about the case). So much for exposure to “unorthodox views” over at GCHQ.

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