Authorities in Eastern Europe warn about rise of heavily armed paramilitary groups
September 6, 2018 1 Comment
Security agencies in Eastern Europe have voiced concern about the rise of far-right paramilitary groups whose members have access to heavy weaponry, including in some cases armored vehicles and tanks. The most recent warning came on Sunday, when the Czech daily newspaper Mlada Fronta Dnes published excerpts of a leaked security report on the subject. The report was authored by analysts in the Security Information Service (BIS), the country’s primary domestic intelligence agency. It detailed the recent activities of a group calling itself the National Home Guard, a far-right, anti-immigrant militia that some experts say consists of around 2,000 members throughout the Czech Republic. Although this is officially denied, the group is believed to be the armed wing of National Democracy, a far-right nationalist political party that received 36,000 votes in the 2017 legislative election.
The BIS report states that the National Home Guard has 90 branches across the nation and is now in possession of significant quantities of weapons, some of which have been smuggled into the Czech Republic from Libya. Many of the organization’s largest branches, in the cities of Prague, Ostrava, and elsewhere, organize regular weapons training sessions in secret locations. In some smaller cities around the country, where police presence is limited, National Home Guard is now holding regular armed patrols, in which immigrants —especially those from predominantly Muslim countries— are targeted. Additionally, the group has recently started to recruit heavily from the ranks of the police and the Czech Armed Forces, according to the BIS report.
The Mlada Fronta Dnes revelation comes only a month after a report by the BBC said that two far-right militias in Slovakia had begun training at a paramilitary base that contains armored personnel carriers and tanks. The base belongs to the Night Wolves, a biker gang that is known for its anti-immigrant and anti-European Union stance. Recently, however, the Night Wolves have been training in paramilitary tactics in coordination with two other groups, the Slovak Levies and NV Europe, said the BBC. Located in the village of Dolna Krupa, 45 miles north of the Slovakian capital Bratislava, the base contains several tanks and other armored vehicles. The Night Wolves claim that the facility hosts a World War II museum, which explains the presence of the military vehicles. But the BBC said that the group is suspected of using the base to train pro-Russia Ukrainian separatists and other Eastern European paramilitary groups. The BIS report states that far-right paramilitary groups in Czech and Slovakia —which until 1993 were regions of unified Czechoslovakia— maintain regular contact with each other.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 06 September 2018 | Permalink | Research credit: J.R.
► IntelNews thanks J.J. for helping to ensure the factual accuracy of this report
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Poisoned Russian spy advised Spanish intelligence, say officials
September 7, 2018 by Joseph Fitsanakis 2 Comments
The attempt to kill Skripal surprised some intelligence observers due to the fact that the Russian government had officially pardoned the double agent prior to exchanging him with Russian spies who had been caught in the West. As intelNews wrote in May, “typically a spy who has been pardoned as part of an authorized spy-swap will not need to worry about being targeted by the agency that he betrayed. If it indeed tried to kill Skripal, the Russian government may therefore have broken the unwritten rules of the espionage game”. Eventually, however, it was revealed that, instead of retiring after his defection to the UK, Skripal traveled extensively in Eastern Europe, where he advised local intelligence agencies on how to defend against Russian espionage. The double agent participated in MI6-sponsored events in which he briefed intelligence practitioners in at least two countries, Estonia and the Czech Republic. These activities may have convinced the Kremlin that Skripal had broken the unwritten conditions of his release, namely that he would not participate in any intelligence-related activities against Russia.
Now The New York Times has claimed that, in addition to consulting for Czech and Estonian spies, Skripal also visited Spain, where he met with officers from the country’s National Intelligence Center (CNI). Citing an unnamed Spanish former police chief and Fernando Rueda, a Spanish intelligence expert, The Times said that Skripal advised the CNI about the activities of Russian organized crime in Spain and the alleged connections between Russian mobsters and the Kremlin. When he traveled to Spain under MI6 protection, said the paper, Skripal was effectively returning to the place where he had been initially recruited to spy for the British. Skripal spent several years in Spain, said The Times, serving as a military attaché at the Russian embassy in Madrid. It was there that he began to work secretly for MI6. However, the precise timing of Skripal’s return trips to Spain after 2010, as well as the content of his discussions with Spanish intelligence officials, remain unknown, according to The Times.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 07 September 2018 | Permalink
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with intelligence cooperation, MI6, National Intelligence Center (Spain), News, Russia, Sergei Skripal, Spain, UK