Poland frees on bail former intelligence officer arrested for spying for China

July 10, 2019 by 2 Comments

Orange PolskaThe Polish government has authorized the release on bail of a former counterintelligence officer who was charged in January of this year with spying for China. The man has been identified in media reports as Piotr Durbajlo and is believed to have served as deputy director of the Internal Security Agency, Poland’s domestic counterintelligence service. A cyber security expert, Durbajlo also served in Poland’s Office of Electronic Communications with a top security clearance and unrestricted access to classified systems of Poland and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, of which Poland is a member.

However, at the time of his arrest on January 10, Durbajlo had left government service and was a mid-level executive at Orange Polska. The company operates as the Polish branch of a French multinational telecommunications carrier with sister companies in several European Union countries. Along with Durbajlo, Polish authorities arrested Wang Weijing, a Chinese national who worked for the Chinese telecommunications manufacturer Huawei. Orange Polska is Huawei’s main domestic partner in Poland. Wang reportedly learned Polish at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. In 2006 he was posted by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the Chinese consulate in Gdansk, Poland’s largest Baltic Sea port. In 2011 he left the Foreign Service and joined the Polish office of Huawei. Following his arrest on January 10, he was charged with espionage. Huawei denied it had any role in espionage against the Polish state, but fired Wang nonetheless. Both Wang and Durbajlo have been in pretrial detention since their arrest in January.

On Friday, July 5, Durbajlo’s legal team announced that he would be set free on July 7, on a $31,500 bail that must be paid within 30 days to secure his release. His lawyers explained that the charges against him had not been dropped, but did not explain why he was being released. It is worth noting that Durbajlo’s release on bail was announced during a visit to Poland by a high-level Chinese delegation, aimed at discussing economic and political ties between Warsaw and Beijing. Late on Tuesday it was announced that Wang would remain in pretrial detention for at least three more months.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 10 July 2019 | Permalink

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Attack by Chinese hacker group targeted high-profile individuals around the world

July 9, 2019 by 2 Comments

Operation SOFTCELLA hacker attack of impressive magnitude targeted specific individuals of interest to the Chinese government as they moved around the world, in what appears to be the first such operation in the history of cyberespionage. The attack was revealed late last month by Cybereason, an American cybersecurity firm based in Boston, Massachusetts. Company experts described the scope and length of the attack, dubbed Operation SOFTCELL, as a new phenomenon in state-sponsored cyberespionage. Cybereason said SOFTCELL has been in operation since at least 2017, and identified the culprit as APT10, a hacker group that is believed to operate on behalf of China’s Ministry of State Security.

The operation is thought to have compromised close to a dozen major global telecommunications carriers in four continents —the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Africa. According to Cybereason, the hackers launched persistent multi-wave attacks on their targets, which gave them “complete takeover” of the networks. However, they did not appear to be interested in financial gain, but instead focused their attention on the call detail records (CDRs) of just 20 network users. With the help of the CDRs, the hackers were able to track their targets’ movements around the world and map their contacts based on their telephone activity. According to The Wall Street Journal, which reported on Cybereason’s findings, the 20 targets consisted of senior business executives and government officials. Others were Chinese dissidents, military leaders, as well as law enforcement and intelligence officials.

An especially impressive feature of SOFTCELL was that the hackers attacked new telecommunications carriers as their targets moved around the world and made use of new service providers. The attacks thus followed the movements of specific targets around the world. Although this is not a new phenomenon in the world of cyberespionage, the geographical scope and persistence of the attacks are unprecedented, said The Wall Street Journal. Speaking last week at the 9th Annual International Cybersecurity Conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, Lior Div, Cybereason’s chief executive officer and co-founder, said SOFTCELL attacks occurred in waves over the course of several months. The hackers used a collection of techniques that are commonly associated with identified Chinese hacker groups. If detected and repelled, the hackers would retreat for a few weeks or months before returning and employing new methods. The Cybereason security experts said that they were unable to name the targeted telecommunications carriers and users “due to multiple and various limitations”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 09 July 2019 | Permalink

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Son of South Korean foreign minister defects to North Korea

July 8, 2019 by 1 Comment

Choe In-gukThe son of a South Korean former cabinet minister has defected to North Korea, marking a rare instance of a citizen of South Korea switching his allegiance to the North. It is even rarer for such high-profile South Korean citizens to defect to North Korea. The defector is Choe In-guk, son of Choe Deok-sin, who served as South Korea’s minister of foreign affairs in the 1970s under the South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee. Choe was an American-trained army officer who served under United States command in the Korean War. He then served as a member of the cabinet and as South Korea’s ambassador to West Germany.

But by 1980, Choe had fallen out with the South Korean military government and was subsequently pushed out of the ruling Democratic Republican Party of Korea. He moved to the United States with his wife, Ryu Mi-yong, from where in 1986 the couple defected to North Korea. Soon after his defection, Choe was appointed director of North Korea’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland under the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK). Until her death in 2012, Ryu served as chairwoman of the Chondoist Chongu Party, a nationalist North Korean political party that supports the policies of the ruling WPK.

North Korean media reported that Choe and Ryu’s son, Choe In-guk, arrived at the Pyongyang Sunan International Airport on July 6. The North Korean state-run news website Uriminzokkiri published several photographs of the 73-year-old Choe being greeted by a welcoming committee of North Korean government officials holding flowers and gifts. Choe is reported to have given a brief speech upon his arrival in Pyongyang, praising North Korea’s leader and lamenting not having defected earlier in his life. The defector added that he intended to devote the remainder of his life to continue the work of his parents and to push for the reunification of the two Koreas.

On Sunday, South Korean Ministry of Unification confirmed that Choe had defected to North Korea from the United States. The Ministry also said that Choe had not obtained permission to travel to North Korea, which is required of all South Korean citizens who wish to cross the border between the two countries. It appears that Choe first traveled to the United States and for there to a third country —possibly China— before entering North Korea. South Korean officials announced that an investigation into his defection has been launched.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 08 July 2019 | Permalink

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US Intelligence Community insiders express frustration with restructuring process

July 5, 2019 by Leave a comment

ODNI NCTCA private management consulting firm that was hired to streamline the United States Intelligence Community’s communication and decision-making process has made these practices worse, according to insiders. The news website Politico, which published the story on Tuesday, identified the management consulting firm in question as McKinsey and Co. Established in 1926, the company is one of the world’s industry leaders, with over 100 offices around the globe. It has a long history of working with the US government and is reported to have secured nearly $1 billion in US government sector contracts since 2010 alone. Among those contracts is a $10 million project to improve the communication and decision-making processes of the US Intelligence Community, which began in 2015.

But the effort has not been successful, according to Politico, which cited “nearly a dozen current and former officials” in several different agencies of the US Intelligence Community. These officials “either witnessed the restructuring firsthand or are familiar with the project”, said Politico. They described the results of the restructuring as “a coordination nightmare”, which complicated long-established linear chains of command and ended up “slowing down projects and turnaround time”. They accuse McKinsey of applying formulaic communication models to agency directorates and units with very unique cultures and methods of operation, effectively hindering decision-making processes at agencies such as the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. In one example, CIA analysts and operations officers, who have traditionally worked without regular face-to-face interaction, were placed side-by-side in so-called mission centers. This move “made missions more muddled” and generated “frustration” on both sides, said Politico. The resulting mayhem has left many intelligence employees “dismayed […], demoralized and less effective”, said the officials. They also warned that bureaucratic changes that delay response times may negatively affect intelligence collection and counterintelligence, and might even cost lives.

Spokespersons and some former officials from several intelligence agencies did not appear to share the criticisms of McKinsey’s work, said Politico. They argued that it was “too early to judge the results” of the restructuring and downplayed the role that the firm played in the process. In most cases, the latter was led by senior officials from within the intelligence agencies, they said. They added that the restructuring is “a work in progress” and that senior administration have in fact observed “a number of positive early returns” resulting from the restructuring process. Politico said it contacted McKinsey, but was told that the company has a policy of not discussing publicly its contractual obligations or performance.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 05 July 2019 | Permalink

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Tunisia suspects espionage after Belarusians are caught with several passports

July 4, 2019 by 1 Comment

Sfax TunisiaTunisian authorities are investigating two Belarusian men who were found to be in possession of several forged passports and electronic surveillance equipment. The two men were reportedly arrested on Tuesday in Sfax, Tunisia’s second most populous city, which is located on the Mediterranean coast. It is worth noting that Sfax was also the home of Mohamed Zaouari, the 49-year-old Hamas avition engineer who was shot dead in December 2016 by a group of assailants using gun silencers. Hamas claims that he was Zaouari was killed by Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.

Tunis Afrique Presse, a private news agency headquartered in Tunis, said on Monday that the two Belarusians arrived in Sfax in early June, and checked into a hotel using Belarusian passports. They reportedly attracted the attention of the hotel staff, because Sfax is not a noted tourist destination and attracts few of the foreigners who visit the North African country. Hotel staff alerted the authorities after the two Belarusians forbade anyone, including hotel cleaning staff, to enter their room. Tunisian security officers then monitored the two Belarusians for two weeks before entering their room and searching their belongings, after receiving permission from their superiors. The search reportedly produced several forged passports from Ukraine, the Maldives and Poland, as well as SIM cards and electronic surveillance equipment. At a press conference in Sfax on Monday, Mourad Turki, a court official, said that the Tunisian Prosecutor’s Office decided to issue an arrest warrant for the two Belarusians. An investigation has been launched, he said.

Tunisia and Belarus do not have active diplomatic relations. There have been several high-level meetings between Tunisian and Belarusian officials in recent years, but diplomatic relations between the two countries have remained stagnant. Belsat TV, a Belarusian news network based in Poland, contacted the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs but a spokesman refused to comment on the cases of the two men. The United States-based Radio Free Europe was told by a government official in Minsk that the Belarusian government is looking into the matter.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 04 July 2019 | Permalink

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ISIS militant was first-ever Filipino suicide bomber, say police officials

July 3, 2019 by Leave a comment

Jolo PhilippinesAn Islamic State militant who blew himself up in the Philippines last week was probably history’s first-ever Filipino suicide bomber, according to police officials. The man was one of two militants who detonated suicide vests in Indanan, a town in the southern Philippines island of Sulu, on Friday. The twin blasts killed six people, in addition to the two suicide bombers. The target of the attack was a military base that houses the 1st Brigade Combat team of the Philippine Army. The 1,500-strong brigade is leading the counterinsurgency campaign in the country’s heavily Muslim southern regions. Three of the victims were 1st Brigade Combat team soldiers, while three civilians who happened to be walking nearby were also killed.

The Islamic State —known also as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)— claimed responsibility for the attack, leading many to speculate that the suicide bombers were not Filipinos, but other Arab nationals. That would fit the pattern of the two previous suicide bombings that have taken place in the history of the Philippines. In July of 2018, a Moroccan ISIS follower drove a van laden with explosives at an army checkpoint on the island of Basilan, killing ten people. And in January of this year, two Indonesian suicide bombers attacked a Roman Catholic congregation on Jolo Island, killing 23 and injuring over 100 churchgoers. All three suicide bombers were members of Abu Sayyaf, a Filipino Salafi jihadist group that pledged allegiance to ISIS in 2014. Moreover, none of the three suicide bombers were native Filipinos; rather they had traveled to the island country in order to carry out terrorist attacks.

This pattern may have changed as of last Friday, however. According to local military officials, a Filipino woman identified the remains of one of the two suicide bombers as belonging to her son. The woman reportedly told authorities that her son was named Norman Lasuca and was 23 years old. She also said that he, like his father, belonged to the Tausūg, a million-strong predominantly Muslim ethnic group that includes many recent converts to Islam.

On Tuesday, several Philippine Army commanders gave a press conference in Sulu, where they discussed the latest information regarding last week’s suicide attacks. One of the speakers, Brigadier-General Edgard Arevalo, said that the purported mother of the suicide bomber had provided DNA samples to the authorities, in order to help positively identify the body. If the DNA tests are positive “then […] we can say conclusively that the person is Filipino”, which will be a first, said Arevalo. A positive result would suggest that the ideology of ISIS may be more appealing to local Filipino youth than has generally been assumed by counterterrorism officials, Arevalo concluded.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 03 July 2019 | Permalink

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Mossad chief sees historic shift of alliances as Arab states side with Israel against Iran

July 2, 2019 by 2 Comments

Yossi CohenIn a rare public appearance, the director of the Mossad spy agency said that the Middle East is witnessing a historic shift of alliances as many Arab states are forming tacit pacts with Israel against Iran and its proxies. Yosef “Yossi” Cohen spoke on Monday morning at the Herzliya Conference, a security-themed event organized by the Interdisciplinary Center, a university in Herzliya, just north of Tel Aviv.

In his 40-minute speech Cohen said that the Mossad had identified the present time as “a rare opportunity —perhaps the first in the history of the Middle East— to reach a regional understanding that would lead to an inclusive regional peace agreement” between Israel and most of the Arab states. He justified his reasoning by claiming that many Arab states are siding with Israel to pursue “common interests [such as] the fight against rivals like Iran and jihadist terrorism”. This historic shift in alliances is happening as Israel is enjoying “close relations with the White House” and keeping open “channels of communication with the Kremlin”, said the spy chief. These factors “combine to create what might be a one-time window of opportunity” for Israel to form a strategic alliance with the majority of its Arab neighbors, said Cohen.

The Mossad chief went on to allege that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) were behind the recent bombings of commercial oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. He told the conference that he could “say with certainty that Iran was behind these attacks” and that they were “approved by the Iranian leadership and carried out by the [IRGC]”. Cohen cited “the best sources of Israeli and Western intelligence” but did not provide specific evidence to support his allegation, which Iran denies. Later in his speech, Cohen said that the IRGC and Iranian intelligence agencies had carried out assassinations throughout Europe and had discussed further plans to attack Jewish and Israeli targets in Denmark, Azerbaijan and the North America. “And that is only the tip of the iceberg”, said Cohen, and went on to claim that the IRGC had set up a network of 300 agents in the African continent and was heavily present in Syria, mainly through its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah.

At the conclusion of his speech, the Mossad chief repeated prior warnings by Israeli officials that the Jewish state would never allow the development of an Iranian nuclear arsenal. “Mossad and the State of Israel have not signed the nuclear deal and will do all to ensure Iran will never possess a nuclear arsenal”, said Cohen.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 02 July 2019 | Permalink

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Spy services seeking access to Angela Merkel’s medical file, reports claim

July 1, 2019 by Leave a comment

Angela MerkelForeign intelligence agencies are allegedly trying to acquire the medical file of German Chancellor Angela Merkel after she was seen trembling uncontrollably in public twice in as many weeks. Reports about foreign spy interest in Merkel’s health emerged in German and British newspapers last weekend, after the German chancellor was seen trembling during high-level meetings earlier this month. The first incident took place during an official meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on June 18. The German Chancellery said Merkel had suffered from dehydration and “felt like herself again after drinking a few cups of water”. But the tremors were back again on June 27 during the German leader’s visit to Japan for the G20 Summit. Reports stated that the chancellor was seen “clutching her arms in a failed attempt to prevent herself shaking” during the ceremonial part of the proceedings. At a press conference afterwards, Merkel told reporters that the trembling had been caused by “psychological stress” and that she was convinced it would “disappear just like it appeared”. But she avoided answering questions about whether she had sought medical attention about the trembling.

On June 30, British newspaper The Sunday Times said that foreign spies were showing interest in finding out Merkel’s medical state. The paper added that “one Western intelligence agency believed that the German leader was suffering from a ‘neurological problem’”, but did not specify the agency or the alleged condition. Two days earlier, on June 28, the German tabloid Bild claimed that foreign intelligence agencies had been detected attempting to gain access to the German leader’s private medical file. The paper said that foreign governments in Europe and beyond were suspicious of Merkel’s health state following her refusal to speak openly about it to the media. Several intelligence agencies were therefore “trying to get their hands on Merkel’s medical records” in an attempt to verify whether her trembling was caused by stress and dehydration, or whether it may denote a deeper neurological cause, it said. The paper added that the German leader’s medical records were kept “in a secure military facility” somewhere in Germany.

There has been intense speculation in the German media in the past four days about whether Chancellor Merkel will be able to stay in power until the end of her final term as leader of the country. In October 2018, the German leader announced that she would not seek reelection as Chancellor once her current term expires in 2021. She is scheduled to be replaced by Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who last year also replaced her as leader of the Christian Democratic Union Party.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 01 July 2019 | Permalink

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Western spies used ‘crown jewel’ of espionage tools to hack into Russia’s Google

June 28, 2019 by Leave a comment

Yandex RussiaHackers used a malware described by experts as the “crown jewel” of cyber-espionage tools to hack into Russia’s version of Google, in an effort to breach user accounts, according to the Reuters news agency. The hackers targeted Yandex (Яндекс), a Moscow-headquartered company that operates as the Russian version of Google. Yandex is the largest technology venture company in the Russian Federation and the fifth most popular search engine in the world. It also provides services such as mapping and email in Russia and several other countries in Central Asia and the Middle East. It claims that it serves more than 150 million monthly users worldwide.

On Thursday, Reuters cited “four people with knowledge on the matter […] in Russia and elsewhere”, who said that Yandex was targeted by a sophisticated hacking operation between October and November of 2018. The news agency said that three of its sources had direct knowledge of the details of the cyber-espionage operation against Yandex. According to the unnamed sources, the hackers appeared to be primarily interested in breaching the accounts of specific employees in Yandex’s research and development unit. Their purpose was to acquire technical information about how Yandex authenticates user accounts. That information could potentially enable them to impersonate Yandex users and access private information, including email messages, geolocation information, and other sensitive private data. Reuters said that the hackers attempted to breach Yandex for purposes of espionage, not sabotage or disruption, or stealing intellectual property for commercial purposes.

Moreover, the hackers used Regin, a highly sophisticated malware that a technical expert from the Symantec Corporation described as “the crown jewel of attack frameworks used for espionage”. Regin was identified as a malware employed by intelligence services of the so-called Five Eyes intelligence alliance between spy agencies of the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United States. It was identified as a Western cyber-espionage tool in 2014, based on revelations made by Edward Snowden, the American former employee of the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency who defected to Russia. The same malware was used in 2013 to access about a dozen mainframe computers of Belgacom, Belgium’s largest telecommunications service provider, which is partly state-owned. The attack was widely attributed to a consortium of Western intelligence services led by the NSA.

According to Reuters, the hackers were able to penetrate Yandex’s networks for several weeks or longer, without being noticed by the company’s cyber-security monitors. When the penetration was detected, Yandex hired a cyber-security team from the Russian anti-virus firm Kaspersky. The Kaspersky team identified Regin and, according to Reuters, concluded that the hackers behind the cyber-espionage operation were tied to Western intelligence agencies. Kaspersky, the Russian government, and intelligence agencies from the Five Eyes alliance declined requests by Reuters to comment on the story. Yandex confirmed the cyber-espionage attack in a statement to Reuters, but said that its cyber-security experts had been able to detect and “fully neutralize [it] before any damage was done”. Consequently, said Yandex, “no user data was compromised in the attack”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 28 June 2019 | Permalink

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ISIS could make bigger comeback than 2014 in Iraq and Syria, warns new report

June 27, 2019 by 1 Comment

ISIS meetingThe Islamic State is capable of make a sudden comeback in the Middle East that could be “faster and even more devastating” than 2014, when the group quickly conquered territory the size of Britain, according to a new report from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). The Washington-based think-tank’s report is based on the most recent data about the presence in the Middle East of the militant Islamist group, which is also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. The 76-page report (.pdf) is titled ISIS’s Second Comeback: Assessing the Next ISIS Insurgency, and is written by ISW’s researchers Jennifer Cafarella, Brandon Wallace and Jason Zhou.

The authors claim that the Islamic State moved its forces undercover during the multinational military campaign that eventually sacked its self-proclaimed caliphate. They go on to explain that by “deliberately withdrawing and relocating may of its fighters and their families”, the group managed to preserve a large part of its fighting forces, which are “now dispersed across [Iraq and Syria] and are waging a capable insurgency”. The latter is funded through ISIS’ global finance network and armed with weapons and other war materiel that the group managed to hide in tunnel systems and other hidden facilities. Islamic State insurgents have thus been engaged in a broad and largely successful campaign to assassinate village and town elders across Iraq, and have even reestablished a sharia-based taxation system in some of Iraq’s predominantly Sunni areas. The group also retains a significant presence in Syria, where it continues to battle the Syrian regime, US-supported Kurdish forces, and other Sunni militant groups, including al-Qaeda, according to the report.

Through its widening insurgency, the Islamic State has managed to subvert Iraqi and Syrian government efforts to reintroduce a semblance of stability and safety in areas previously conquered by the militant group. In fact, not only are government forces finding it “increasingly difficult to establish durable and legitimate security and political structures” in those areas, but they should be worried about the possibility of ISIS actually reconquering territory in both countries, the report warns. The report’s authors place much of the blame for ISIS’ resurgence at Washington’s door, describing America’s hasty military withdrawal from Iraq and Syria as “a critical mistake”. In its recommendations section, the report calls on the United States to develop and implement a long-term counter-terrorism strategy against ISIS, which will combine military and community-building measures. “Another limited [military] intervention will not be sufficient” to eliminate the threat, the report’s authors claim.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 27 June 2019 | Permalink

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Sister of N. Korean leader promoted to #2 position, says S. Korean spy agency

June 26, 2019 by Leave a comment

Kim Yo-jongThe younger sister of North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un appears to have been promoted to the number two position in the country’s ruling apparatus, according to a South Korean intelligence assessment. Until recently, Kim Yo-jong (pictured), 30, was Director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK). She also served as an alternate member of the Political Bureau, which is the highest decision-making body within the WPK.

Recently, however, she was spotted attending public festivities in Pyongyang, sitting in a prominent position next to General Kim Yong-chol, vice chairman of the WPK’s Central Committee. The festivities, which were televised nationwide, were held on the occasion of the Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to North Korea. The seating of North Korean officials in such high-profile events is carefully arranged to reflect their precise status within North Korea’s governing structure. Kim’s seating placement may signify a major government reshuffle, through which she has been elevated to one of the two or three most powerful posts in North Korea.

This assessment was delivered to South Korean lawmakers on Tuesday in a closed-door presentation by the National Intelligence Service (NIS), South Korea’s primary external spy agency. A summary of the presentation was shared with the media by Lee Hye-hoon, chairman of the Intelligence Committee at the South Korean National Assembly. According to Lee, the NIS’s assessment was that Kim’s authority appeared to be “enhanced due to an adjustment of roles” and that she seemed to have been promoted to the leader level”.

At the same time, the leadership status of North Korea’s other high-profile female official, Kim Song-hye, appears to have diminished. As intelNews reported earlier this month, there were rumors in Seoul that the North Korean nuclear negotiator had been stripped of her government post and sent to a labor camp. She was reportedly charged with having been “swayed by American imperialists to betray the Supreme Leader”. However, she reappeared on June 9, when she was seen attending a mass gymnastics ceremony in the North Korean capital. However, her public role appears notably muted in recent weeks.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 26 June 2019 | Permalink

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Iran announces arrest of 16 oil ministry officials for spying for CIA

June 25, 2019 by 1 Comment

Iran Petroleum Oil MinistryIranian state media announced on Sunday the arrest of 16 officials in the country’s Ministry of Petroleum, allegedly for sabotaging Iranian energy policy. It is not known whether these arrests are in any way connected with Tehran’s announcement last week that it had dismantled “one of the most complicated” espionage operations by the United States Central Intelligence Agency in several countries. According to the state-owned Fars News Agency, the 16 officials were arrested over the weekend in synchronized pre-dawn raids. All of them had managerial positions in Iran’s oil industry —including in the areas of exploration, production and distribution of Iran’s oil and petrochemical products inside the country as well as abroad.

The report about the latest arrests cited Hossein Ali Haji Deligani, a senior legislator representing the most conservative political wing in the Iranian parliament. Deligani said that the ministry employees “operated under a woman”, whom he did not name. Working in concert, the employees had been “able to influence […] the oil ministry to put off important decisions” and to “make wrong decisions”. These decisions were “in line with the enemies’ goals and against Iran’s national interest”, and ultimately delivered “a blow to the country in the United States economic war against Iran”, said Deligani. He did not elaborate on the topic and did not discuss whether the arrests were linked to the dismantling of an alleged CIA cyber espionage operation, which Iran announced last week.

Sunday’s announcement by the Fars News Agency comes two days after the execution of Jalal Haji Zavar, an employee of Iran’s Aerospace Industries Organization, which operates under the Iranian a unit of the Ministry of Defense. Zavar was executed on Friday after a military court found him guilty of having committed espionage against Iran on behalf of the CIA. Media reports said that unspecified incriminating documents and “spying equipment” were found in Zavar’s home.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 25 June 2019 | Permalink

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No evidence Islamic State had foreknowledge of Sri Lanka bombings, says official

June 24, 2019 by Leave a comment

Sri Lanka Easter bombingsIt is not at all clear that the Islamic State and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who claimed responsibility of the Sri Lanka bombings in April, had foreknowledge of the attacks, according to a top official. The militant Sunni group claimed it was behind the nine suicide blasts that targeted Catholic churches and five-star hotels in Sri Lanka’s western and eastern coastal regions on April 21. The near-simultaneous bombings killed 258 people and injured over 500. They are believed to constitute the bloodiest terrorist attack in the country’s history. Interestingly, many questioned the authenticity of the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility, which came a full two days following the deadly blasts. The group typically issues statements immediately following attacks by its followers around the world. The 48-hour delay in the case of the Sri Lanka bombings, therefore, was deemed “uncharacteristic” by some experts.

Now The Hindu, India’s most-circulated English-language daily, has claimed that the Islamic State probably became aware of the Sri Lanka attacks after they happened. The Islamic State’s news agency, Amaq, issued a statement of responsibility, accompanied by a video showing the suicide bombers pledging allegiance to al-Baghdadi. But The Hindu has quoted “a senior official […] familiar with the probe” into the attacks, who claims that the militant group was contacted by its followers in Sri Lanka only after the attacks made international news headlines. A local Salafi jihadist communicated with the Islamic State on behalf of the National Thowheeth Jama’ath (NTJ), the local group that carried out the bombings. The Islamic State then secured the video of the suicide bombers “through a third party”, said the senior official. Sri Lankan Salafi jihadists eventually convinced the militant group to issue a statement endorsing the attacks in order to “honor those who sacrificed their lives” for the Islamic State’s cause, said the source. It follows, said the official, that the local suicide bombers “were all sympathizers of the Islamic State. But it remains unclear how they maintained links with the Islamic State, if in fact they did”, he added.

The deadly attacks continue to dominate the headlines in Sri Lanka, despite the passage of more than two months since they occurred. Three separate investigations have been launched by the government —one by former Supreme Court judges appointed by the president; one by the Sri Lankan parliament; and one by the country’s police and security services. None of these probes have uncovered evidence that the NTJ militants were in contact with the Islamic State before they launched their wave of suicide attacks on April 21, said The Hindu.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 24 June 2019 | Permalink

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Israeli officials announce arrest of alleged deep-cover spy for Iran

June 21, 2019 by 2 Comments

Thaer Sha'afutIsraeli authorities announced on Thursday the arrest of a deep-cover intelligence operative who allegedly attempted to establish a base for Iranian intelligence in Israel and the West Bank, according to news reports from Israel. Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security and counterintelligence agency, said it arrested Thaer Sha’afut (pictured), a Jordanian national, on espionage charges. The arrest reportedly occurred in April, but was only announced this week. According to Shin Bet officials, Sha’afut was an accredited deep-cover intelligence operative for the Iranian spy services. He was allegedly was commissioned “to carry out missions that were meant to establish a network in Israel and the West Bank, which would be used for covert operations by the Iranians”.

Israeli officials said Sha’afut received instructions from his Iranian handlers to enter Israeli territory between July and August of 2018. After entering Israel, his goal was “to form business ties” in the West Bank and in Israel proper. He planned to do that, said the Shin Bet, by hiring Shiite Muslims to staff a new factory in Jordan and then use the new venture “as an anchor for future Iranian activities in Israel and the West Bank”. These activities included the eventual recruitment of “spies who would help collect intelligence for Iranian interests”, according to court documents. The Shin Bet said that Sha’afut’s handlers were two Arabic-speaking Iranian intelligence officers based in Lebanon and Syria, who went by the names Abu Sadek and Abu Jaffar. They allegedly provided Shafut with “an encrypted communication device”, which he used to arrange clandestine meetings with them throughout 2018 and 2019.

Sha’afut’s Iranian handlers allegedly planned to use him as a conduit for transferring funds to spies in the West Bank and Israel. They had told Sha’afut that Iranian intelligence would make an initial investment of $500,000 in his factory venture in Jordan and to an import-export business, in order to sustain his base of operations, with more funds to follow. Once the factory was set up, Sha’afut was expected to travel clandestinely to Iran in order to complete his training as a deep-cover case officer. Israeli daily Haaretz said on Thursday that Sha’afut was indicted earlier this month by military prosecutors in Jerusalem for “contact with an enemy country, contact with a hostile organization, and conspiracy to funnel money from an enemy entity”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 21 June 2019 | Permalink

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Indian officials admit for first time Islamic State militants are present in Kashmir

June 19, 2019 by Leave a comment

Islamic State India KashmirIndian counterterrorism officials have alleged in court that four members of the Islamic State in Indian-administered Kashmir were guided by a handler from Pakistan. The court case involves four young men from Jammu and Kashmir who were arrested last November on terrorism charges. Court documents filed recently identify the four as members of the Islamic State. This development is significant because Indian officials have until recently dismissed as overstated claims that the Islamic State is present in Kashmir. The unfurling of Islamic State banners by anti-government rioters is a regular phenomenon in Indian Kashmir. But government officials dismiss those who wave such banners as impressionable youth who have no access to weaponry or logistical support from the Islamic State. Last November’s arrests, however, highlighted the fact that the Islamic State does in fact have an armed presence on the ground in India.

The four young men have been named as Haris Mushtaq Khan, Tahir Ahmad Khan, Asif Suhail Nadaf and Asif Majid. They were apprehended in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir’s largest city, following the arrest in September of 2018 of two other men who were allegedly affiliated with a group calling itself the Islamic State in Jammu and Kashmir (ISJK). The group has since renamed itself to Islamic State – Khorasan Province, while recently it proclaimed an overseas province in the region, which it calls “wilayah al-Hind” (province of Hind). Three of the four men have been charged with attacking a tourist visitor center in the area with hand grenades. In their official indictment against the four men, officers of India’s National Investigation Agency accuse them of being “confirmed terrorists of the Islamic State”, which amounts to the first confirmation in Indian government documents of the presence of Islamic State militants in India. The 28-page indictment states that the four men were among several locals who “acted as ground workers and […] provided logistics to the ISJK cadres”.

Additionally, two of the men, Haris and Tahir, are accused of having been in contact online with a man identified as Abu Huzefa, an Islamic State recruiter based in Afghanistan. According to the court documents Huzefa is a Pakistani national and “an active cadre of the Islamic State based in Afghanistan”. He was allegedly in regular contact with the two Indian men and provided them with Islamic State literature and other propaganda material. In their indictment the NIA officers also admit that the arrests of the four men point to “a larger conspiracy of these terrorist elements propagating pan-Islamic ideology of IS by recruiting and radicalizing Kashmiri youth towards jihad and targeting security forces”.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 20 June 2019 | Permalink

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