Reports of arrests of purported ‘coup plotters’ in Iraq

December 18, 2008 by Leave a comment

The New York Times is reporting that dozens of officials in Iraq’s Interior Ministry have been arrested while “in the early stages of planning a coup”. The arrestees, four of whom have the rank of General, have been detained during the past three days by “an elite counterterrorism force” controlled directly by the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. The paper cites “senior security officials in Baghdad” in claiming that many of those arrested were affiliated with Al Awda (The Return) an underground secular paramilitary group composed mostly of former Ba’ath members. This might explain why the arrested officials were “a mix of Sunnis and Shiites”, according to several sources, who also claimed that “huge amounts of money” had been confiscated during the raids. [IA]

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North Korea accuses South of assassination plot against Kim Jong Il

December 18, 2008 by Leave a comment

The Ministry of State Security of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) has issued a statement reporting the arrest of a North Korean citizen allegedly tasked with assassinating the country’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Il. The statement accuses the Republic of Korea (South Korea) of supplying the alleged assassin, whose last name is Ri, with sophisticated “speech and acoustic sensing and pursuit devices for tracking the movement of the top leader and even violent poison in the end”. It said that Ri was arrested while “gathering information about [Kim Jong Il’s] movements”. The government of the Republic of Korea has not commented on the allegations. The National Intelligence Service, South Korea’s primary intelligence organization, has said “it [is] checking the claim”. [IA]

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Convicted Norwegian operative refused new hearing

December 18, 2008 by Leave a comment

The spy baby pram used by the Norwegian security police against Treholt in 1983

The spy baby pram used by the Norwegian security police against Treholt in 1983

Norwegian former Defense Ministry official, Arne Treholt, who was convicted in 1985 for espionage on behalf of the Russian KGB and the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS), has been denied a new hearing by a Norwegian review committee. This was the fourth time Treholt had applied to be considered by the Norwegian Criminal Cases Review Commission, in an attempt “to clear his name”. In 1984, Norway’s Politiets Sikkerhetstjeneste (Police Security Agency, or PST) arrested Treholt at an Oslo’s Fornebu airport while the official was on his way to meet a Soviet KGB agent in Vienna, Austria. The PST recently revealed some details of the counterintelligence operation against Treholt, which included surveillance activity in Helsinki, Finland. Read more of this post

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FSB official discusses foreign spying on Russian research projects

December 18, 2008 by Leave a comment

The chief of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) directorate for the Saratov region of Russia has held a news conference discussing alleged spying by foreign intelligence operatives. Major-General Valeriy Beklenishchev, who heads the Saratov branch of Russia’s foremost domestic intelligence agency, said nanotechnology research projects conducted at the region’s universities are prime espionage targets of foreign operatives. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Former NSA analyst talks about secret US role in Congo

December 18, 2008 by Leave a comment

Wayne Madsen, former NSA analyst and US Navy intelligence officer, has spoken to The Real News Network about the worsening political violence and instability in Congo. Madsen, who authors the daily Wayne Madsen Report, explains the US role in the regional destabilization of central Africa “via its proxies in Rwanda and Uganda”. He also accuses the US of “supplying arms, stoking ethnic divisions as well providing covert military and intelligence support systems to rebel groups”. The former NSA analyst has testified on the situation in Congo before the US Congress. His Congressional testimony is available here. The first part of Madsen’s interview with The Real News Network is available here. The second part is here. [IA]

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Bulgarian investigation reveals radio personalities worked for secret services

December 18, 2008 by Leave a comment

A Bulgarian commission examining files from the nation’s communist period has revealed the names of 66 employees of state-owned Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), who worked for the country’s secret services before 1989. The individuals, who previously worked as operatives or officers for Bulgaria’s Committee for State Security (CSS), include a former BNR deputy general secretary, as well as a former general secretary and numerous media celebrities. Prominent among numerous controversial allegations of CCS operations during the Cold War is the 1978 assassination in London of exiled Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov, with the aid of a poisoned pellet shot from a modified umbrella. CSS has also been accused of complicity in the 1981 assassination attempt against the late Pope John Paul II. [JF]

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Australians suspect Chinese networking firm of intelligence ties

December 18, 2008 by Leave a comment

Several months ago, Chinese networking investor Singtel Optus placed a very competitive bid on the Australian government’s $15 billion project to build the country’s first unified national broadband network. Now the Australians say they are suspicious of the company, because of its ties to China’s Huawei Technologies. Huawei is described as a “shadowy company based in Shenzen and founded by former People’s Liberation Army officer and Communist Party member Ren Zhengfei”. Read more of this post

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Journalist talks about revealing NSA program whistleblower

December 18, 2008 by Leave a comment

Michael Isikoff, the Newsweek investigative correspondent who authored the recent article about Thomas Tamm, the whistleblower of NSA’s domestic spying program, has given an interview to Democracy Now. Isikoff, who wrote the article with Tamm’s consent, states in the interview that “Tamm’s lawyers have been told that US Department of Justice officials [are going to leave] the decision on whether to prosecute [Tamm] to the Obama Justice Department”. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Speculation rife about NSA’s STELLAR WIND project

December 17, 2008 by 3 Comments

Tamm on the cover of Newsweek

Tamm on the cover of Newsweek

The recent voluntary coming forth of Thomas M. Tamm as the whistleblower behind NSA’s warrantless wiretapping scheme has considerably revived speculation about the Agency’s STELLAR WIND project, which appears to have both oral communications and data surveillance components. A superb analysis published in Ars Technica yesterday reasons that the data surveillance component of project STELLAR WIND, which was first revealed in 2006, is in fact far broader and potentially far more controversial than its wireless wiretapping aspect. The article reminds that, in the past, STELLAR WIND has been referred to in public as the Terrorist Surveillance Program, though “that seems to have been invented after the fact to allow officials to testify before Congress on the aspects of STELLAR WIND that had been exposed without admitting to any of the activities that hadn’t yet come to light”. Read more of this post

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Indians arrest alleged Pakistani military intelligence agent

December 17, 2008 by Leave a comment

The Uttar Pradesh police force announced earlier today that its Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) has arrested an alleged Pakistani Military Intelligence operative in Lucknow. The ATS has released the alias (Sikandar) of the alleged operative, whose name is Abdul Jabbar, which prompts observers to speculate that Jabbar’s arrest was part of an elaborate counterintelligence sting, possibly involving Indian moles inside Pakistani Military Intelligence. Read more of this post

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Scotland Yard urged to drop advisor with terrorist ties

December 16, 2008 by Leave a comment

Harrath

Harrath

For four years, the Scotland Yard, headquarters of the London Metropolitan Police Service, has employed Mohamed Ali Harrath as an “anti-terrorism advisor” while funding his London-based Muslim television station with tens of thousands of pounds. Last week The London Times discovered that Harrath is wanted by the Tunisian authorities and by Interpol “because of his links to an alleged terror organization”. The organization, known as the Tunisian Islamic Front (FIT), is said to advocate “an Islamic state by means of armed revolutionary violence”. The Tunisian government is not known for its democratic credentials, but British intelligence organizations seem to agree with its assessment of FIT. In 2003 an MI5 witness implicated “FIT [in] terrorism activities in France” before Britain’s Special Immigration Appeals Commission. Read more of this post

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Israel pressuring Russia on sale of S-300 missiles to Iran

December 16, 2008 by Leave a comment

Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reports that Israel’s government is preparing to send Major General Amos Gilad, a senior Defense Ministry official, to Moscow, to pressure the Russians not to sell an advanced antiaircraft system to Iran. Gilad’s visit, which will include meetings with Russian senior defense and intelligence officials, is aimed at preventing the planned sale of Russia’s advanced S-300 surface-to-air missile system to Tehran. Military experts have warned Israel that, by purchasing and installing the S-300 system, Iran will effectively “rule out an Israeli war against Iran” by eliminating the possibility of a surprise Israeli air attack. Read more of this post

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Tallinn government surveillance cameras reveal black bag operation

December 16, 2008 by 1 Comment

A surveillance camera monitoring the City Government building in Estonian capital Tallinn has recorded nighttime images of what appears to be a black bag operation by either Kaitsepolitseiamet (KPol), the country’s  Security Police, or by Russian intelligence. Black bag operations refer to covert, surreptitious entries into structures in the course of human intelligence missions. Responding to allegations by Tallinn mayor, Edgar Savisaar, the country’s public prosecutor disclosed that KPol officers had surreptitiously entered the building to “remove secret microphones” from the office of Ivo Parbus, an adviser to the city’s deputy mayor, who has been arrested in connection with a bribing scandal. However, Tallinn’s mayor says that he does not believe the break-in to have been authorized by KPol, and that “he has information that one [of the] person[s seen] entering the building is a former spy of the Russian army”. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Who is giving Obama advice on national security?

December 16, 2008 by Leave a comment

On Monday, US President-Elect Barack Obama chaired the first official meeting of the national security team he assembled earlier this month. But according to an article published today in The International Herald Tribune, an extended list of national security advisers to the President-Elect includes several conservatives, such as Brent Scowcroft, George Shultz and even Richard Armitage (!), whom he has contacted seeking counsel. Why does Barack Obama continue to court such Reaganite and neoconservative figures? Is he simply contacting them as a standard procedural duty, wishing perhaps to ensure some kind of managerial continuum between the current and incoming administrations? But if this is the case, then why do his senior advisers insist on releasing these names to the press in connection with the very first official meeting of Obama’s national security team? Read Article →

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Russian government amends treason and spying definitions

December 16, 2008 by Leave a comment

Last week Russia’s State Duma passed a law abolishing the use of juries in terrorism trials, and replacing them with three-judge panels. This week the government has submitted yet another bill significantly revising legal definitions of spying and treason. Current Russian law defines spying and treason as “hostile” actions threatening “the foreign security of the Russian Federation”. The new bill, if enacted, will revise the definition to “[actions] against the security of the Russian Federation, including its constitutional order, sovereignty, territorial and state integrity”. Read more of this post

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