News you may have missed #900

May 30, 2020 by Leave a comment

Marco Rubio• China may set up Hong Kong spy agency under new law. China’s new national security legislation may be used to establish a domestic intelligence agency in Hong Kong similar to the British colonial-era’s Special Branch, according the territory’s former leader Leung Chun Ying. Leung’s comments could give weight to concern among some Hong Kongers and Western governments that national security legislation will herald a new era of political surveillance and law enforcement controlled from the mainland.
• Islamic State is back and this time the west is ill-prepared to take it on. Hassan Hassan, of the Center for Global Policy, and co-author of ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, argues that “the current trends seem more favourable to the Islamic State than to local forces in Iraq”. Additionally, “tensions between the US and Iraqi forces also make it harder for the two partners to work in harmony as they did during the fight against Isis in places like Mosul”.
• New Senate intelligence committee director warns against virus conspiracies. Senator Marco Rubio (pictured), the new Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has warned that foreign actors will seek to amplify conspiracy theories about the coronavirus and find new ways to interfere in the 2020 presidential election. The Florida Republican said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday that one possibility could be an effort to convince people that a new vaccine against the virus, once created, would be more harmful than helpful.

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As ISIS goes online due to COVID-19, it publishes a new cybersecurity magazine

May 29, 2020 by Leave a comment

Islamic StateAs the Islamic State continues to transfer its activities online due to the coronavirus pandemic, the group has published the first issue of a new cybersecurity magazine, aimed at helping its members evade surveillance. The Islamic State, known previously as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, has always been active online. But the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted it to augment the volume and intensity of its online work, for two reasons: first, to protect its members from the virus; second, to recruit young people who are spending more time online as a result of lockdowns taking place across the world.

Amidst this shift to the online environment, the Islamic State has published the first issue of what appears to be a new cybersecurity magazine. Veteran reporter Bridget Johnson, currently the managing editor for Homeland Security Today, said earlier this week that the 24-page magazine is titled The Supporter’s Security and is published in two versions, one in the Arabic and one in the English language.

Johnson reports that the new magazine is produced by the Electronic Horizons Foundation (EHF), the Islamic State’s information technology wing. Since its appearance in 2016, the EHF has taken it upon itself to operate “as an IT help desk of sorts” to assist Islamic State supporters avoid online tracking and surveillance by state agencies, says Johnson. It its inaugural proclamation, the EHF called on Islamic State supporters to “face the electronic surveillance” and educate themselves about “the dangers of the Internet” so that “they don’t commit security mistakes that can lead to their bombardment and killing”. Read more of this post

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Russia flew unmarked military aircraft to Libya to evacuate mercenaries, US claims

May 28, 2020 by 3 Comments

Libyan National Army LibyaThe United States has alleged that the Russian military flew over a dozen unmarked aircraft to Libya, in an attempt to provide air support for Russian mercenaries who are fighting in Tripoli. If true, this development marks a major escalation of Russia’s military intervention in the Libyan civil war.

The war has been raging in Libya since 2011, when a popular uprising backed by the West and its allies led to the demise of the country’s dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. Much of the east of the country is controlled by the United States-backed Tobruk-led Government, which is affiliated with the Libyan National Army (LNA) and its commander, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. Russia also backs the LNA and is vying with the United States for influence among Haftar’s commanders and troops. The LNA is fighting against the United Nations-recognized Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA), which is supported by Qatar and Turkey.

On Tuesday, the Africa Command of the United States Department of Defense alleged that Russian pilots had flown military planes to Jufra, an LNA stronghold. The Americans claimed that the jets had been repainted in Syria to hide their Russian Federation insignia, before being flown first to Tobruk, in Libya’s east, and from there to Jufra. According to the Pentagon, the Russian planes were flown to Libya in order to provide air support to over 1,000 Russian mercenaries who are fighting alongside the LNA.

The mercenaries reportedly belong to the PMC Wagner (also known as the Wagner Group), a Russian security contractor with presence on the ground in Syria, eastern Ukraine, the Central African Republic, and elsewhere. Western officials allege that Russian private contractor firms like Wagner could not operate without permission from the Kremlin. According to recent reports, Wagner personnel have been participating in the LNA’s year-long effort to take Tripoli from the hands of the GNA and by doing so put an end to the Libyan civil war. But the offensive has not been going well in recent days, and Wagner forces were reportedly pushed back by Turkish- and Qatari-supported GNA troops.

The US Pentagon alleged that Moscow sent the Russian military aircraft to Libya in order to “provide close air support and offensive fires for the Wagner Group PMC that is supporting the LNA’s fight”. Other commentators have argued that the main purpose of the mission was to reach the outskirts of Tripoli and airlift the Russian mercenaries to safety. But Ahmed Mismari, a spokesman for the LNA, rejected reports of the arrival of Russian military aircraft to Libya as “media rumors and lies”. He said that all aircraft used by the LNA were “repaired […] old Libyan jets”. The Russian military has not commented on the allegations by the US Pentagon.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 28 May 2020 | Permalink

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Exiled former intelligence official says Saudi government abducted his children

May 27, 2020 by 3 Comments

Muhammad bin NayefA Saudi government official, who served as a senior advisor to the oil kingdom’s former Crown Prince, has accused the Saudi monarchy of abducting his children in order to force him to end his self-exile in Canada. With a doctorate in artificial intelligence from the University of Edinburgh, Dr. Saad al-Jabri was until 2015 a rare example of a highly educated government administrator among Saudi Arabia’s ruling elite. Dr. al-Jabri rose in the ranks of the Saudi aristocracy in the 1990s under the tutelage of his patron, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef (pictured). Prince bin Nayef is the grandson of Saudi Arabia’s founding monarch, King Abdulaziz, and until 2015 was destined to succeed King Abdullah and occupy the kingdom’s throne. Eventually, bin Nayef appointed Dr. al-Jabri as Minister of State and made him his most senior and trusted adviser on matters of security and intelligence.

Western intelligence officials credit Dr. al-Jabri with transforming the Saudi security establishment in the 2000s, by introducing scientific methods in investigations, associated with digital forensics, data mining and other advanced techniques. Thanks to his British upbringing and education, Dr. al-Jabri operated with ease and comfort in Western capitals. He soon became the primary link between Saudi Arabia and the so-called “Five Eyes Alliance” —a longstanding intelligence-sharing agreement between the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Read more of this post

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Israeli prime minister publicly thanks Mossad chief for help with COVID-19

May 26, 2020 by 1 Comment

Yossi Cohen MossadThe embattled Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, met publicly with the Director of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen, and thanked him for leading the country’s procurement efforts during the COVID-19 crisis. The meeting was a rare public acknowledgement of the central role that the secretive spy agency played during the pandemic.

Early on during the COVID-19 outbreak, it was reported that the intelligence agencies of Israel were playing an increasingly important role in the Jewish state’s effort to combat the effects of the coronavirus in its territory. In an uncharacteristic move, the government went out of its way to advertise the participation of its secretive spy agencies in the national effort to limit the spread of the virus.

In a television interview, an unnamed official for Israel’s external intelligence agency, the Mossad, said the agency had managed to secure 100,000 coronavirus testing kits, 25,000 N-95 masks and 100 ventilators. The material had been acquired “from unnamed countries” by Mossad officers, he said. The officers had to “race to [foreign] factories” and secure these critical supplies after they had been “ordered by other countries”, he added. The agents then had to coordinate secret airlifts so that the medical material could be transported to Israel in time.

But many of the coronavirus testing kits procured by the Mossad turned out to be incomplete. According to local media reports, when the kits arrived in Israel from “an unidentified Gulf state”, scientists realized that they were useless. That was because they arrived without the chemical reagents that were required to carry out complete tests on subjects. These reagents were eventually procured from South Korea and arrived in Israel nearly a month later, when demand for them was far less urgent. The Mossad was heavily criticized for this operation.

But last weekend, Prime Minister Netanyahu publicly thanked the Mossad director for leading the nation’s Joint Procurement Command Center during the COVID-19 pandemic. He told Director Cohen that he had carried out his tasks “exceptionally well [and] the results speak for themselves”. The meeting took place to mark the return of the procurement centers’ command to the Ministry of Health. But the Mossad may be asked to step in again, said Netanyahu: “we are currently passing the torch”, said the prime minister. However, “we do not know what the next day, or the next month, will bring. Since you have acquired the experience, remember it, we may need it again”, he told Cohen.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 26 May 2020 | Permalink

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US threatens to end intelligence sharing if Australian state joins Chinese venture

May 25, 2020 by 1 Comment

Belt and Road InitiativeThe United States has warned that it might be forced to stop sharing intelligence with Australia if the country’s second most populous state enters into a much-heralded investment agreement with China. The Australian state of Victoria has said it intends to join Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, a worldwide investment venture that was announced with much fanfare by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013.

The initial goal of the venture was to encourage economic cooperation between China and countries of the Eurasian region. Eventually, the project’s scope expanded to include agreements with countries in Asia, Africa and Europe, mostly through the Chinese-led construction of telecommunications and transportation networks, which trace the trading routes of the Silk Road of ancient times.

Although Australia is not a participant in the Belt and Road Initiative, the Australian state of Victoria announced its decision to join the project in late 2019. The decision has been criticized by senior Australian federal officials, including Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. These officials argue that any interference by China in the Australian national telecommunications network could compromise the national security of the country as a whole.

On Sunday, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Australia that Washington would look “incredibly closely” at aspects of the Belt and Road Initiative affecting telecommunications. Pompeo, who was Director of the Central Intelligence Agency before his current post, told Sky News that some aspects of the project were designed to “build up the capacity of the Chinese Communist Party to do harm” around the world.

In his interview, Pompeo referred to the so-called “Five Eyes” alliance (also known as “UKUSA”), which is a longstanding intelligence-sharing agreement between the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. He added that the US government was concerned that the Victoria state government’s decision to participate in the Chinese venture project could “have an adverse impact on our ability to protect telecommunications from our private citizens, or security networks for our defense and intelligence communities”.

If that were to happen, said Pompeo, then the US would “not take any risks to our telecommunications infrastructure, [or] any risk to the national security elements of what we need to do with our Five Eyes partners”. In the US government determined that these risks were real, “we simply disconnect, we will simply separate”, Pompeo concluded.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 25 May 2020 | Permalink

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News you may have missed #899

May 24, 2020 by Leave a comment

Kevin Rudd• Dutch spies helped Britain break Argentine crypto during Falklands War. Flowing from revelations made earlier this year that Swiss cipher machine company Crypto AG was owned by the CIA and its German counterpart the BND during most of the Cold War, an academic paper has described the Maximator alliance which grew from the Crypto AG compromise. Authored by Professor Bart Jacobs of Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, the article argues that Dutch spies operating as a part of the Maximator alliance helped Britain’s GCHQ break Argentinian codes during the Falklands War.
• The Pandemic’s Geopolitical Aftershocks Are Coming. With most European countries confident that they are past the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, their attention is turning to the chance of its resurgence once society returns to some semblance of normal. But beyond the epidemiological challenges lies a slowly amassing threat that is not pathological in nature, but economic, political, and military. This is the geopolitical second wave, and its power is already starting to concern Western leaders.
• The coming post-COVID anarchy. The former prime minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd (pictured), argues in this article that “China and the United States are both likely to emerge from this crisis significantly diminished […]. Both powers will be weakened, at home and abroad”, he opines. And he goes on to suggest that “the result will be a continued slow but steady drift toward international anarchy across everything from international security to trade to pandemic management […]. The chaotic nature of national and global responses to the pandemic thus stands as a warning of what could come on an even broader scale”.

Author: Ian Allen | Date: 24 May 2020 | Permalink

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News you may have missed #898

May 23, 2020 by Leave a comment

Félicien Kabuga• Major suspect in Rwanda genocide arrested in France using fake identity. Félicien Kabuga (pictured), one of the most wanted suspects of the Rwandan genocide, was arrested last week in a dawn raid in Asnières-sur-Seine, near Paris, where he had been living under a false identity. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda accuses him of having been the main financier of the ethnic Hutu extremists who slaughtered 800,000 people in 1994. The United States had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest.
• US and Afghan officials disagree over whether Taliban or ISIS was behind hospital massacre. Afghan officials on Friday blamed the Taliban for a bloody attack on a maternity hospital in the capital, Kabul, this week, rejecting a US assertion that it was carried out by ISIS militants. The Taliban, who struck a deal with the United States in February clearing the way for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and the end of America’s longest war, denied responsibility.
• Thousands defer plans to leave the US military during coronavirus crisis. Across the US military, uncertainty about future jobs or college opportunities is driving more service members to re-enlist or at least postpone their scheduled departures. As unemployment, layoffs and a historic economic downturn grip the nation, the military —with its job security, steady paycheck and benefits— is looking much more appealing. The influx of people re-enlisting will offset any shortfalls in recruiting, which has been hampered by the outbreak. And that will help the services meet their total required troop levels for the end of the year.

Author: Ian Allen | Date: 23 May 2020 | Permalink

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Palestinians announce end of intelligence cooperation with US and Israel

May 22, 2020 by Leave a comment

Palestinian National Security ForcesThe Palestinian Authority has announced an immediate cessation to all intelligence and security ties with Israel and the United States. The announcement, made on Thursday by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, marks the strongest response so far by the Fatah-dominated administration to the Israeli government’s plan to annex large parts of the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, runs two intelligence agencies, the Palestinian Preventive Security (also known as the Preventive Security Service) and the General Intelligence Service. Both agencies are largely trained and funded by the United States and Israel. The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has long assisted the two agencies, and has often benefited by intelligence-sharing aimed at a common adversary, Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. In the past decade, American and Israeli intelligence agencies have worked closely with their Palestinian Authority counterparts to neutralize Hamas’ support in the West Bank.

But the Palestinian Authority has been threatening to terminate that longstanding security and intelligence cooperation, in response to an American-backed plan by Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to annex large parts of the occupied territories in the West Bank. The annexed land contains illegal Israeli settlements, which the United States has condemned in the past. But the administration of President Donald Trump has reversed course and in May of 2018 even transferred its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, effectively recognizing the divided city as the capital of Israel. That move prompted the Palestinian Authority to cut all relations with Washington.

However, despite the political rift between the two sides, President Abbas had instructed the Palestinian Authority’s intelligence and security services to continue their cooperation with their Israeli and American counterparts. That ended on Thursday, as President Abbas announced that his administration would cease all intelligence and security cooperation with Israeli and American government agencies, effective immediately. Following Abbas’ announcement, the veteran Palestinian diplomat Saeb Erekat told reporters that direct cooperation with Israeli and American intelligence agencies had “stopped at the end of the president’s speech”. Erekat, who serves as secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization and is the Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator with Israel, did not explain the extent of the cessation in cooperation. When asked, he responded that “the whole system is about to shut down […] in its entirety”.

In February it was reported that CIA director Gina Haspel had secretly visited Majed Faraj, director of the Preventive Security Organization, with the aim of convincing him not to terminate ties with her agency and other American intelligence bodies. The meeting reportedly took place in Ramallah, which is considered the seat of the Palestinian government in the West Bank. It appears, however, that Haspel’s efforts did not bear fruit, as all intelligence contacts between the two former partners have now been severed.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 22 May 2020 | Permalink

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Popular beer app used to trace movements of military and intelligence personnel

May 21, 2020 by 2 Comments

Untappd appResearchers have been able to uncover the identities and track the movements of military and intelligence personnel by using visual and geo-locational information found on a popular smartphone application for beer aficionados. The information uncovered included the home addresses of United States government personnel, some of whom were found to be working at a secret Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) facility.

The application, or “app” in question is Untappd, which is arguably the most popular social media platform for beer aficionados in the United States and much of Western Europe. The app is believed to have over 8 million users worldwide, with many of whom serving in the armed forces or intelligence agencies. Untappd users are able to rate beers, share reviews of breweries and bars, post photographs, and discuss their findings with other users.

Earlier this week, a team of researchers working for the investigative website Bellingcat said that visual and geo-locational information collected from Untappd users compromised the movements and whereabouts of military and intelligence personnel who used the app.

Much of the information was collected by monitoring the activity of app users at bars or breweries located near known facilities belonging to intelligence agencies or the military —including the Pentagon. In one case, the movements of an individual user were traced all the way from his home to the Armed Forces Experimental Training Activity (AFETA). Known as Camp Peary, AFETA is a United States Department of Defense facility that is believed to be home to the CIA’s training grounds.

In other instances, photographs of beers posted by Untappd users contained snippets of US government employee badges, sensitive or classified documents, and even credit card and other personal information. Used collectively, the data extracted from the app could be utilized to build travel and habit profiles of users, including the work and home locations of military and intelligence personnel, said Bellingcat.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 21 May 2020 | Permalink

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German court stops spy agencies from conducting mass surveillance of foreigners

May 20, 2020 by 3 Comments

BND GermanyGermany’s Federal Court of Justice has ruled that the country’s intelligence agencies are not entitled to spy en masse on the telecommunications exchanges of foreign citizens. The ruling comes in response to a lawsuit filed by several journalist groups, including the German chapter of Reporters Without Borders. The groups partnered with the German-based Society for Civil Rights and argued in their lawsuit that existing law did not prevent German spy agencies from spying at will on the communications of journalists. This could potentially allow the intelligence agencies to identify trusted sources that journalists use in their work, and even share that information with intelligence agencies of other countries, they argued.

Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, is uniquely positioned with access to a vast volume of telecommunications data and content. This is because Germany hosts some of the busiest and highest-capacity Internet exchange points in the world. The country’s extensive telecommunications infrastructure includes the so-called DE-CIX exchange in Frankfurt, believed to be the world’s second-busiest Internet node. It is believed that the DE-CIX Internet exchange alone carries over a trillion messages per day to and from Western Europe, Russia, the Middle East and North Africa.

The BND is not allowed to spy on the communications of German nationals. However, according to German media reports, the agency had until now assumed that Internet messages sent by foreigners, which passed through German-based exchanges, were fair game for interception and analysis. This was because, according to the BND, foreign nationals were not protected under Germany’s Basic Law —a term that refers to the German Constitution— which means they and their communications had no privacy protections under German law.

But this assumption was dispelled on Tuesday by the Federal Court of Justice, which is Germany’s highest court. The court ruled that telecommunications surveillance against foreigners is subject to Article 10 of Germany’s Basic Law, which affords German citizens the right to privacy. In other words, the law also protects the telecommunications of foreigners, according to the court, which means that surveillance of foreign communications should be carried out only in a targeted fashion, in response to specific cases or to target specific individuals. The court challenged the mass-surveillance —as opposed to a targeted surveillance— model of the BND’s data collection, and said that it the spy agency’s activities required more stringent oversight, especially in relation to the communications of reporters and lawyers. Finally, the court agreed with the plaintiffs that the constitutional safeguards against the BND’s ability to share its intercepted data with foreign spy agencies were insufficient.

In its ruling, the court gave the German government until December of 2021 to propose a new law governing telecommunications surveillance against foreigners, which will be compliant with the German Constitution.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 20 May 2020 | Permalink

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UAE arming Libyan warlord using covert flights, United Nations panel concludes

May 19, 2020 by 2 Comments

Libyan National Army LNAThe United Arab Emirates is behind a “covert air bridge” to supply weapons to Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar, according to a leaked report by a United Nations investigative panel. A war has been raging in Libya since 2011, when a popular uprising backed by the West and its allies led to the demise of the country’s dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. Much of the east of the country is controlled by the United States-backed Tobruk-led Government, which is affiliated with the Libyan National Army (LNA) and its commander, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar (pictured). The LNA is fighting against the UN-recognized Libyan Government of National Accord.

In February of 2011, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1970, which —among other things— forbids the export of war materiel to Libya. The resolution was further-strengthened in 2014 and remains in place today. But weapons keep flowing into Libya. In 2017, it was disclosed that the LNA was receiving secret military assistance from the UAE and Saudi Arabia, in violation of the embargo. Now another report alleges that much of the military assistance to the LNA arrives in Libya via a “covert air bridge” operated by the UAE. According to the Bloomberg news agency, the information comes from a leaked report by a UN panel, excerpts of which were presented to the US Security Council earlier in May.

The report is said to allege that there has been a substantial increase in “secret flights” from airports in the UAE and from the Gulf country’s military airbase in Eritrea. In early January alone, at least 37 of these secret flights landed at Libyan airfields in areas under the control of the LNA, said the report. These secret deliveries were operated by “a complex network for companies”, which were registered in the UAE, the British Virgin Islands and Kazakhstan, according to the UN panel.

Bloomberg contacted the ambassador of the UAE to the UN, Lana Nusseibeh, who blasted the claims as “false” and said that the government of the UAE denied them “in their entirety”. She added that UAE officials would continue to work with UN panels investigating alleged violations of UN Resolution 1970. Bloomberg said it also contacted LNA officials with questions about the alleged secret UAE flights, but received no response.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 19 May 2020 | Permalink

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Malta protests French media claims that its Brussels embassy is bugged by China

May 18, 2020 by 2 Comments

25 Rue ArchimedeThe Maltese government has strongly denied allegations, made by a leading French newspaper, that the island nation’s embassy in Brussels is being used by China to spy on European Union institutions. The allegations concern a nine-story building located at 25 Rue Archimede, in one of downtown Brussels’ most desirable areas. The building houses the Embassy of Malta in Belgium, as well as Malta’s Permanent Representation to the European Union. It is conveniently located across the street from Le Berlaymont —the headquarters of the European Commission, which is the European Union’s executive branch. It is also around the corner from the headquarters of the European Council, which operates as the collective presidency of the European Union.

Last Friday, leading French newspaper Le Monde, alleged that China had installed concealed surveillance equipment throughout the building at 25 Rue Archimede. The paper claimed that the Chinese had supplied the funds to buy and refurbish the building as a gift to Malta, a country with which Beijing has had traditionally warm relations since 1972, when Malta became the world’s first nation to formally recognize the People’s Republic of China. The paper also alleged that Belgium’s state security services had long suspected that the building “harbored technical [surveillance] equipment” planted by Chinese intelligence with the aim of spying on nearby European Union facilities located nearby. The report added that the Belgians had previously been initially alerted by British intelligence about the use of 25 Rue Archimede as a “spy tower” by the Chinese.

According to Le Monde, this information had been relayed to the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs by Alain Winants, when he served as Director of Belgium’s State Security Service (SV/SE). However, both Winants and his successor, Jaak Raes, declined to comment when asked by Le Monde. The paper said that the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs also declined an opportunity to comment, saying that “such affairs relate to the state affairs of Belgium”.

Over the weekend, the Maltese government issued a formal statement denying the clams by Le Monde, and protesting the “incorrect allegations” in the paper’s report. Additionally, Maltese officials told local media that the building in question had undergone successive “internal and external audits” by the Maltese Security Service and the European Council, and had been found to be clear of bugs every time. Another Maltese government source said that 80% of the building’s furniture had been “disposed of” in the past two years and replaced with “new furniture procured from Malta”.

Other sources told Maltese media that the allegations in Le Monde could be a form of retaliation against the government of Malta for seeking to withdraw from Operation IRINI, a European Union naval operation aimed at enforcing an international weapons embargo imposed on Libya. According to these claims, the embargo is preventing weapons from Turkey from reaching the United Nations-recognized Libyan Government of National Accord. If the embargo were to be lifted, or not thoroughly implemented, it could potentially strengthen the Libyan government, and thus hamper the efforts of Libyan warlord General Khalifa Haftar. Haftar is backed by France, among other Western powers.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 18 May 2020 | Permalink

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News you may have missed #897

May 16, 2020 by Leave a comment

• Coronavirus not slowing Russian, Chinese space activities, US general says. Lt. Gen. David Thompson (pictured), the US Space Force vice commander, said this week that Russia and China continue to launch military rockets and test space weapons amid the coronavirus pandemic. Russia tested a satellite-killing missile last month, drawing scorn from US military leaders. Meanwhile in April, a Chinese rocket carrying an Indonesian satellite failed to reach orbit, according to sources.
• US security clearances become more lucrative amid pandemic. Security clearances will almost certainly become an even more valuable credential as the US economy transforms amid the COVID-19 pandemic. While well over 30 million Americans have filed initial unemployment claims since mid-March, those employed in jobs that require a security clearance remain largely insulated from the economic volatility caused by the pandemic. The ever-increasing desirability of a security clearance has raised the stakes for those looking to gain or maintain a clearance in these economically uncertain times.
• Michigan cancels legislative session to avoid armed protests. Michigan closed down its capitol in Lansing on Thursday and canceled its legislative session rather than face the possibility of an armed protest and death threats against Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer. The gathering, meant to advocate opening the state for business despite the coronavirus pandemic, followed one April 30 that resulted in pictures of protesters clad in military-style gear and carrying long guns crowding the statehouse. They confronted police and taunted lawmakers. The debate grew more tense in recent days as some lawmakers read about threats to the governor’s life on social media, which were published in the Detroit Metro Times.

Author: Ian Allen | Date: 16 May 2020 | Permalink

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Iran’s coronavirus crisis exacerbates internal struggle between government and IRGC

May 15, 2020 by Leave a comment

IRGC IranA tense struggle is unfolding in Iran between the country’s civilian leaders and the parallel state of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The two entities are fighting about who will control the national response to COVID-19, according to sources. The outbreak of the pandemic in Iran followed closely that of China. Today the Iranian government claims the disease has infected no more than 115,000 people and killed fewer than 7,000. But these numbers seem low for a country of 82 million, and many observers dispute them.

The secrecy with which the government is treating the coronavirus epidemic may be masking an increasingly tense turf war between Iran’s civilian leaders, led by President Hassan Rouhani, and the IRGC. The latter is controlled by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Iran watchers describe the IRGC as a ‘praetorian guard’ whose members possess immense power and often wealth. Today the IRGC is a military force with a command structure that is distinct from that of Iran’s regular Armed Forces. It maintains its own army, navy and air force, has its own paramilitary and political protection units, and is in charge of Iran’s nuclear program.

The IRGC has seen its income fall drastically in the past two years, partly due to the continuing economic pressure that Iran is facing from strict sanctions imposed on it by the United States. The effects of the dramatic reduction in the value of Iran’s currency —down nearly 2/3 since 2018— have only been exacerbated by the monumental drop in global oil prices, which has practically decimated Tehran’s main source of foreign income.

According to sources, Khamenei and the IRGC forced the country’s civilian leadership to re-open the economy last month, fearing an absolute economic collapse. But this only resulted in a dramatic uptick in COVID-19 cases in nearly every region of the country. The IRGC is now reportedly trying to take control of Iran’s civilian healthcare system, in an effort to prevent the government from disclosing the extent of the re-emergence of the virus throughout the country.

Meanwhile, the IRGC’s prestige has suffered greatly this year, following the accidental shoot-down of a Ukrainian civilian airliner over Tehran in January, which killed nearly 180 people, most of them Iranians. Last week, the IRGC was believed to behind a missile test that went terribly wrong, resulting in the destruction of an Iranian navy ship that killed as many as 31 sailors. These fatal errors are for the time being giving President Rouhani the right to question the IRGC’s competence and resist giving away his administration’s control of the national response to COVID-19. The turf war continues to intensify, however, and it is difficult to forecast which side will prevail.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 15 May 2020 | Permalink

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