India arrests commando instructor who fell for Pakistani honey trap on Facebook

February 9, 2018 by 4 Comments

Garud Commando ForceIndian authorities have arrested an Indian Air Force officer for allegedly giving classified documents to two Pakistani spies on Facebook, who posed as women interested in him. The officer has been named as Arun Marwaha, a wing commander stationed at the Indian Air Force headquarters in Delhi. Marwaha, 51, is a para-jumping instructor who trains members of India’s Garud Commando Force —the Special Forces unit of the Indian Air Force. He was reportedly due to retire in 2019.

According to Indian government investigators, several months ago Marwaha was befriended by two Facebook users who claimed to be Indian women. He began chatting regularly with them on Facebook and eventually on the popular cell phone messenger service WhatsApp. Within weeks, Marwaha’s WhatsApp exchanges with the women had become intimate in nature. Before long, the Indian Air Force instructor was providing the women with classified documents in return for intimate photos of themselves. Media reports state that the classified documents related to special operations, some involving cyberwarfare, and space reconnaissance. Government investigators claim that Marwaha’s Facebook contacts were in fact male officers of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), who targeted Marwaha in a carefully planned honey trap operation.

According to reports, the breach caused by Marwaha was discovered last month, at which time the internal security branch of the Indian Air Force launched an investigation. Marwaha was questioned for over a week before turning over his case to Delhi Police, who arrested him on Thursday. He has reportedly been charged under India’s Official Secrets Act and is facing a jail sentence of up to 14 years. Meanwhile, the Indian Air Force is investigating whether other officers have fallen victims to similar honey trap operations by Pakistan’s ISI on Facebook.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 09 January 2018 | Permalink

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US immigration and customs agency seeks to join Intelligence Community

February 8, 2018 by Leave a comment

Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICEThe United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reportedly seeking to join the Intelligence Community, which includes the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence-focused arms of the federal government. Currently, ICE is a federal law enforcement that operates under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security. It consists of two components: Homeland Security Investigations, which probes cross-border criminal activity, including drugs and weapons trafficking, money laundering and cybercrime; and Enforcement and Removal Operations, whose mission is to find and capture undocumented aliens.

But some senior ICE officials have been exploring the possibility of joining the US Intelligence Community. According to The Daily Beast, which reported the alleged plans, the officials believe that by joining the Intelligence Community, ICE will become privy to intelligence that will assist in its mission. They also claim that membership in the Intelligence Community would afford ICE “greater prestige, credibility and authority” within the federal government. The Daily Beast reports that ICE’s effort to join the Intelligence Community began during the administration of US President Barack Obama. However, it has picked up steam following the election of President Donald Trump. Some believe that President Trump would be willing to sign an executive order that would incorporate ICE in the Intelligence Community.

Some civil liberties watchdogs, however, are weary of such plans. They claim that ICE is a domestic law enforcement agency and should not have access to practices and techniques used by spy agencies like the CIA or the National Security Agency. The latter frequently break the laws of foreign countries in pursuit of their mission, which is to steal foreign intelligence. These agencies are characterized by a different culture, say critics, which is not respectful of legal constraints. But supporters of ICE’s proposed inclusion into the Intelligence Community argue that there are several law enforcement agencies that are already members of the Intelligence Community. Notably, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration —both law enforcement agencies— belong to the Intelligence Community.

The Daily Beast said it contacted ICE but a spokesperson refused to comment on the story. The Department of Homeland Security did not return emails and phone calls about the proposal to include ICE in the Intelligence Community.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 08 February 2018 | Permalink

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Ex-spy chief claims Palestinian officials worked with CIA to wiretap opponents

February 7, 2018 by 1 Comment

Telephones PalestineThe former head of the Palestinian Authority’s spy agency claims that the Palestinian government in the West Bank worked with the United States Central Intelligence Agency to wiretap thousands without court authorization. Tawfiq Tirawi, who headed the Palestinian General Intelligence from its founding in 1994 to 2008, has filed an official complaint against the Palestinian Authority and is calling for a criminal investigation into the alleged wiretaps. The complaint has also been signed by Jawad Obeidat, who is the president of the West Bank’s Bar Association. It is based on a leaked 37-page document that surfaced last month on the social networking application WhatsApp. The document was leaked by an anonymous individual who claims to have worked for a surveillance unit in the Palestinian Preventive Security Service, the Palestinian Authority’s domestic security service.

The leaked document appears to show that the Palestinian Preventive Security Service reached out to the CIA in 2013 asking for assistance with installing a communications surveillance system in the West Bank. The CIA agreed to provide the system in exchange for access to the intercepted data. The two agencies installed the interception system in the summer of 2014 and initiated what appears to have been a large-scale operation that included thousands of telephone subscribers. Initial targets of the operation included members of Hamas —the Palestinian group that controls the Gaza Strip— as well as members of the Iran-supported Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine. But, according to the Associated Press, over time the targets of the program expanded to include “thousands of Palestinians, from senior figures in militant groups to judges, lawyers, civic leaders and political allies of Abbas”. The list of targets included Tirawi and Obeidat, who filed the official complaint on Tuesday.

The anonymous leaker of the document said he decided to quit his job and reveal the information about the intercepts after US President Donald Trump shifted Washington’s policy on Israel’s capital, by officially recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state. Earlier in February, the Palestinian Authority dismissed the leaked document as “nonsense” and said it was part of a large conspiracy that sought to harm Palestinian interests. The CIA refused to comment on the allegations.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 07 February 2018 | Permalink

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Swiss trying to change image as Europe’s spy hub, say officials

February 6, 2018 by 4 Comments

Federal Intelligence Service SwitzerlandOfficials in Switzerland say new laws enacted in recent months will help them change their country’s image as one of Europe’s most active spy venues. For decades, the small alpine country has been a destination of choice for intelligence officers from all over the world, who use it as a place to meet assets from third countries. For example, a case officer from Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) will travel to Switzerland to meet her Algerian agent. She will exchange money and documents with him before she returns to Britain and he to Algeria, presumably after depositing his earnings into a Swiss bank account.

There are multiple reasons that explain Switzerland’s preferred status as a meeting place for spies and their handlers. The country is suitably located in the center of Europe and is a member of the European Union’s Schengen Treaty, which means that a passport is not required to enter it when arriving there from European Union member-states. Additionally, the country features an efficient transportation and telecommunication infrastructure, and its stable political system offers predictability and security, despite the limited size and strength of its law enforcement and security agencies. Perhaps most important of all, the Swiss have learned not to ask questions of visitors, many of whom flock to the country to entrust their cash to its privacy-conscious banking sector.

But, according to the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service (FIS), foreign spies and their handlers should find another venue to meet in secret. Speaking to the Sunday edition of Switzerland’s NZZ newspaper, FIS spokeswoman Isabelle Graber said she and her colleagues were aware that their country is a venue for meetings between intelligence operatives from third countries. Such meetings have “continued to rise in the last few years” and include “everyone from security agency employees to freelancers”, as “the market in trading secrets has exploded”, she said. That trend, added Graber, has led to a corresponding rise in meetings aimed at exchanging information for money. Many such meetings take place throughout Switzerland, she noted, and are “in violation of Swiss sovereignty and can lead to operations against the interests of the nation”.

In the past, said Graber, FIS was unable to prevent such activities on Swiss soil, due to pro-privacy legislation, which meant that the agency’s ability to combat foreign espionage in Switzerland was “far more limited than in other countries”. However, said the intelligence agency spokeswoman, the law recently changed to permit FIS to break into homes and hotels, hack into computers, wiretap phones, and implement surveillance on individuals believed to be spies or intelligence officers of foreign countries. Armed with the new legislation, the FIS is now “working hard to clear up third-country meetings [and] to prevent these from happening or at least disrupt them”, said Graber. Several times this year alone, FIS had forward information about “third-country meetings” to judicial authorities in Switzerland, she said.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 06 February 2018 | Permalink

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North Korea used Berlin embassy to acquire nuclear tech, says German spy chief

February 5, 2018 by 1 Comment

North Korean embassy in BerlinNorth Korea used its embassy in Berlin to acquire technologies that were almost certainly used to advance its missile and nuclear weapons programs, according to the head of Germany’s counterintelligence agency. For many decades, Pyongyang has used a sophisticated international system of procurement to acquire technologies and material for its conventional and nuclear weapons programs. These secret methods have enabled the country to evade sanctions placed on it by the international community, which wants to foil North Korea’s nuclear aspirations.

But according to Hans-Georg Maassen, director of Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), at least some of the technologies used by North Korea to advance its nuclear program were acquired through its embassy in Berlin. Maassen admitted this during an interview on ARD television, part of Germany’s national broadcasting service. The interview will be aired on Monday evening, but selected excerpts were published on Saturday on the website of NDR, Germany’s national radio broadcaster. Maassen was vague about the nature of the technology that the North Koreans acquired through their embassy in Berlin. But he said that North Korean diplomats and intelligence officers with diplomatic credentials engaged in acquiring so-called “dual use” technologies, which have both civilian and military uses. These, said Maassen, were acquired “with a view to [North Korea’s] missile program and sometimes also for the nuclear program”.

Maassen noted that the BfV had evidence of North Korean diplomats in Berlin attempting to procure dual use technologies as late as 2016 and 2017. “When we notice such actions, we prevent them”, said the BfV director, adding that in 2014 his agency prevented a North Korean diplomat from acquiring equipment that could have been used to develop chemical weapons. However, “we simply cannot guarantee that we are able to detect and block each and every attempt”, said Maassen.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 05 February 2018 | Permalink

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Espionage threat is greater now than in Cold War, Australian agency warns

February 1, 2018 by Leave a comment

ASIO AustraliaForeign intelligence collection and espionage threats against Australia are greater today than at any time during the Cold War, according to a senior Australian intelligence official. The claim was made on Wednesday by Peter Vickery, deputy director general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the country’s primary counterintelligence agency. He was speaking before a parliamentary committee that is considering aspects of a proposed bill, which aims to combat foreign influence on Australian political and economic life. If enacted, the bill would require anyone who is professionally advocating or campaigning in favor of “foreign entities” to register with the government. Several opposition parties and groups, including the Catholic Church, have expressed concern, saying that the bill is too broad and could curtail the political and religious freedoms of Australians.

But ASIO has come out strongly in favor of the proposed bill. Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, Vickery warned that Australia is today facing more threats from espionage than during the Cold War. “Whilst [the Cold War] was obviously a very busy time” for ASIO, said Vickery, his agency’s assessment is that Cold War espionage was “not on the scale we are experiencing today” in Australia. During the Cold War, ASIO was cognizant and aware of the major adversaries, he added. But today, the espionage landscape features “a raft of unknown players”, many of whom operate on behalf of non-state actors, said Vickery. The phenomenon of globalization further-complicates counterintelligence efforts, he added, because foreign espionage can be conducted from afar with little effort. Vickery noted that espionage and foreign influence in Australia “is not something that we think might happen, or possibly could happen. It is happening now against Australian interests in Australia and Australian interests abroad”. He also warned that the public knows little about the extent of espionage and foreign-influence operations taking place “at a local, state and federal level” throughout the country.

Earlier this week, the Catholic Church of Australia came out in opposition to the proposed legislation, which it sees as too broad. The religious denomination, which represents approximately 20 percent of the country’s population, said that the bill was too broad and could force Australian Catholics to register as agents of a foreign power. Technically, the Catholic Church is headquartered at the Vatican, which would make the organization a foreign entity under the proposed bill, the Church said in a statement.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 01 February 2018 | Permalink

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Taliban pose open threat to 70% of Afghanistan, BBC study finds

January 31, 2018 by Leave a comment

TalibanThe Taliban have an open and constant presence in 70 percent of Afghanistan, according to an extensive study undertaken by the BBC, which was conducted over several months in every corner of the country. The report comes nearly 17 years after a military coalition led by the United States invaded Afghanistan in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001. Since then, Western forces, most of them members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, have spent countless lives and billions of dollars in an effort to defeat the Pashtun-led insurgency of the Taliban. American forces in the country, which at the end of 2009 numbered close to 100,000 troops, were reduced to a force of fewer than 8,000 by 2014, when US President Barack Obama declared the war over.

But the BBC study has found that the Taliban have grown in strength since the US military withdrawal, and are now more powerful than at any time in the past decade. The BBC said that it carried out the study between August and November of 2017, with the help of a large network of reporters who spoke to more than 1,200 local sources. Thousands of interviews were conducted either in person or by telephone with Afghans across the country, and every report of a Taliban-related violent incident was cross-referenced with as many as six other sources, said the BBC. The interviews covered every one of Afghanistan’s 399 districts, using a representative sample from both urban and rural areas.

The findings were described by one expert, Kate Clark, co-director of the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network, as “shocking”. They show that more than half of Afghanistan’s population resides in areas that are either mostly controlled by the Taliban, or where Taliban forces are openly and regularly active. The group is now in complete control of 14 Afghan districts, which represent 4 percent of the country’s territory. But they maintain an open armed presence in another 263 districts, which represent a further 66 percent of Afghan territory. No open Taliban presence was reported in 122 districts (30 percent of Afghanistan), but the BBC cautioned that many attacks by the Taliban are not reported by the locals. The statistics published in the study show that the Taliban have managed to establish strongholds far beyond their traditional strongholds of southeastern Afghanistan. They are now openly active in much of central, western, and even northern Afghanistan, where their power had been limited in the past.

The BBC reported that the Afghan government dismissed the findings of the study, arguing that its forces are in control of most areas in the country. The US government has not commented on the BBC study. US President Donald Trump said last week that his representatives would not hold talks with the Taliban, and announced that 1,000 more American troops would be sent to the country.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 31 January 2018 | Permalink

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China hacked African Union computer servers for five years, report claims

January 30, 2018 by 2 Comments

African UnionChinese spies hacked the computer servers of the African Union headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, which the Chinese government funded and built as a gift to the organization, a French newspaper has claimed. Beijing donated $200 million toward the project and hired the state-owned China State Construction Engineering Corporation to build the tower, which was completed in 2012. Since then, the impressive 330 feet, 19-storey skyscraper, with its reflective glass and brown stone exterior, has become the most recognizable feature of Addis Ababa’s skyline. The majority of the building material used to construct the tower was brought to Ethiopia from China. Beijing even paid for the cost of the furniture used in the impressive-looking building.

However, according to the Paris-based Le Monde Afrique newspaper, African Union technical staff found that the computer servers housed in the organization’s headquarters were secretly communicating with a server facility in Shanghai, China. The secret communications reportedly took place at the same time every night, namely between midnight and 2 in the morning. According to Le Monde Afrique, the African Union servers forwarded data to the servers in Shanghai from 2012, when the building opened its doors, until early 2017.

Interestingly, even though the organization was allegedly notified about the breach by its technical staff in January of 2017, there has been no public reaction on record. However, according to Le Monde Afrique, African Union officials took immediate steps to terminate the breach. These included replacing the Chinese-made servers with new servers purchased with African Union funds, without Beijing’s mediation. Additionally, new encryption was installed on the servers, and a service contract with Ethio Telecom, Ethiopia’s state-owned telecommu- nications service provider, which uses Chinese hardware, has been terminated.

On Monday, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs dismissed the French newspaper’s allegations as “baseless” and “complete nonsense”. A statement issued by the ministry said that Beijing would “in no way interfere with the internal policies of African countries or do anything that would hurt their interests”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 30 January 2018 | Permalink

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Dutch spies identified Russian hackers who meddled in 2016 US election

January 29, 2018 by 1 Comment

Cozy BearDutch spies identified a notorious Russian hacker group that compromised computer servers belonging to the Democratic Party of the United States and notified American authorities of the attack, according to reports. In 2016, US intelligence agencies determined that a Russian hacker group known as Cozy Bear, or APT29, led a concerted effort to interfere in the US presidential election. The effort, which according to US intelligence agencies was sponsored by the Russian government, involved cyber-attacks against computer systems in the White House and the Department of State, among other targets. It also involved the theft of thousands of emails from computer servers belonging to the Democratic National Committee, which is the governing body of the Democratic Party. The stolen emails were eventually leaked to WikiLeaks, DCLeaks, and other online outlets. Prior descriptions of the Russian hacking in the media have hinted that US intelligence agencies were notified of the Russian cyber-attacks by foreign spy agencies. But there was no mention of where the initial clues came from.

Last Thursday, the Dutch current affairs program Nieuwsuur, which airs daily on Holland’s NPO 2 television, said that the initial tipoff originated from the AIVD, Holland’s General Intelligence and Security Service. On the same day, the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant published a detailed account of what it described as AIVD’s successful penetration of Cozy Bear. According to these reports, AIVD was able to penetrate Cozy Bear in mid-2014, before the hacker group intensified its campaign against political targets in the US. Citing “six American and Dutch sources who are familiar with the material, but wish to remain anonymous”, De Volkskrant said that the AIVD was able to detect the physical base of the Cozy Bear hackers. The latter appeared to be working out of an academic facility that was adjacent to Moscow’s Red Square. The AIVD team was then able to remotely take control of security camera networks located around the facility. Eventually, the Dutch team hacked into another security camera network located inside the buildings in which the hackers worked. They soon began to collect pictures and footage of Cozy Bear members, which they then compared with photos of “known Russian spies”, according to De Volkskrant.

The paper said that the AIVD team continued to monitor Cozy Bear’s activities until at least 2017, while sharing intelligence with the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency in the US. The intelligence was allegedly instrumental in alerting US spy agencies about Russian government-sponsored efforts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election. Several newspapers, including The Washington Post in the US and The Independent in Britain, contacted the AIVD and the MIVD —Holland’s military intelligence agency— over the weekend. But the two agencies said they would not comment on reports concerning Cozy Bear.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 29 January 2018 | Research credit: E.J. & E.K. | Permalink

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News you may have missed #894: Economic warfare edition

January 26, 2018 by 2 Comments

Ali bin Smaikh al-Marri►►This website has covered extensively the ongoing diplomatic war between Qatar, widely seen as an Iranian ally, and a coalition of Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia. In July of last year, the Saudi-led coalition —namely the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain— broke relations with Qatar and imposed a commercial embargo on the small oil kingdom, which they accuse of supporting Iran and Iranian-backed militant groups in the region. On January 8, the National Human Rights Committee of Qatar accused Saudi Arabia and its allies of carrying out a “unilateral, abusive, arbitrary” and illegal economic blockade. The head of the committee, Ali bin Smaikh al-Marri, said that the Saudi-led blockade amounted to “economic warfare”. Does he have a point? Does economic warfare constitute a tangible part of the arsenal of modern nations, or is it a fantastical concept with little relation to reality?

►►Giuseppe Gagliano, director of the Centro Studi Strategici Carlo De Cristoforis in Italy, argues that economic warfare has been practiced for centuries. While examining the concept of economic intelligence in contemporary French strategic thinking, Professor Gagliano, explains that the concept of economic warfare has deep historical roots. He argues that, in its contemporary form, economic warfare originates in the period immediately after the end of World War II. Traditionally, it has defensive and offensive applications: Nations strive to limit outsourcing in order to preserve their industrial resources; at the same time, they seek to conquer international markets and, when able, resources. Although outsourcing has played a major role in economic warfare, the financial crisis of 2008 significantly upped the stakes and renewed the central role of the state in economic warfare theory and practice, argues Gagliano.

►►It should perhaps be noted that economic warfare does not operate simply an appendage to traditional warfare. In fact, it often takes place in the absence of traditional warfare, or indeed between wars. David Katz, senior analyst at the United States Special Operations Command and a career Foreign Service Officer, argues that economic warfare can, if used substantially and effectively, deter proxy warfare. In an article [pdf] published last year in Parameters, the quarterly journal of the United States Army War College, Katz suggests that the principles of economic warfare could be used “independently and within campaigns” by state actors. He also argues that the US should not hesitate to employ economic warfare to preempt the non-traditional warfare capabilities of its adversaries.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 26 January 2018 | Permalink

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Britain to set up intelligence unit to combat ‘fake news’ by foreign states

January 25, 2018 by 1 Comment

Theresa MayThe British government has announced that it will form a new intelligence unit tasked with preventing the spread of so-called “fake news” by foreign states, including Russia. The decision was revealed earlier this week in London by a government spokesman, who said that the new unit will be named “National Security Communications Unit”. The spokesman added that the unit will be responsible for “combating disinformation by state actors and others”. When asked by reporters whether the effort was meant as a response to the phenomenon often described as “fake news”, the spokesman said that it was.

According to The Times newspaper, the proposal for a National Security Communications Unit was presented during a scheduled meeting of the country’s National Security Council earlier this week. It was put forward by its strongest proponent, Sir Mark Sedwill, Britain’s former ambassador to Afghanistan and current national security adviser to the government. The unit will be directly accountable to the Cabinet Office, the government department that is responsible for providing support to the Prime Minister and her Cabinet. It will be staffed with professionals from Britain’s intelligence and security agencies, but will also rely on contributions from external experts in cybersecurity, communications and public relations. The unit will also include a “rapid response unit” that will be tasked with countering “fake news” in real time, according to The Times.

The move follows a similar development in the United States. In December of 2016, the then President Barack Obama signed a new law that designated $160 million to set up a government center for “countering foreign propaganda and disinformation”. The law, entitled “Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act”, authorized the departments of State and Defense to work with other federal agencies in establishing the new body. According to a statement by the White House, the goal of the Center would be to collect and analyze “foreign government information warfare efforts” and to “expose and counter foreign information operations” directed against “US national security interests”.

On Wednesday it was announced in London that the British Secretary of Defense, Gavin Williamson, will be providing further details about the National Security Communications Unit in a speech to the House of Commons “within the next few days”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 25 January 2018 | Permalink

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Bulgarian ex-spy director jailed for embezzling millions from public coffers

January 23, 2018 by 1 Comment

Kircho KirovA former director of Bulgaria’s intelligence service, who headed the agency for nearly a decade, has been jailed for embezzling millions of dollars from public funds. General Kircho Kirov, 67, was director of the Bulgarian National Intelligence Service (NIS) from February 2003 until January 2012. After stepping down from his post he was appointed national security advisor to Bulgaria’s Prime Minister, Boiko Borissov. But he soon fell out with Borrisov and was fired after just two months on the job. Now Borissov’s administration has jailed Kircho for 15 years, accusing him of misappropriating funds intended for NIS operations.

Government prosecutors said that during his tenure as NIS director, General Kircho conspired with a subordinate NIS employee, Dimitar Lidarev, to siphon NIS funds to a private account. They told a court in Bulgarian capital Sofia that General Kircho and Lidarev falsified documents to allow them to divert nearly $3.2 million to private accounts for their personal use. Most of the funds were stolen between 2007 and 2011, according to court documents. On Tuesday, the court handed General Kircho a 15 year jail sentence and ordered the confiscation of 50 percent of his personal assets. Lidarev, who was General Kircho’s co-defendant at his trial, was sentenced to three years in prison with another five years’ probation, for aiding and abetting General Kircho’s embezzlement by forging documents. The court decision quashed General Kircho’s appeal against an earlier sentence, delivered in 2015, that jailed him for 10 years for embezzling nearly $4 million of state funds between 2007 and 2011.

Throughout his latest trial, General Kircho insisted he was innocent and accused government prosecutors of carrying out a politically motivated campaign against him, directed by his former ally, Prime Minister Borissov. The former spy director added that he was targeted as part of a deliberate effort to convince the European Union that Bulgaria is targeting financial corruption. Next week, Prime Minister Borissov’s government will be facing a no-confidence vote in parliament, over claims that corruption remains rife in the Balkan country of 7 million people.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 23 January 2018 | Permalink

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Lebanese media accuses Mossad of assassination attempt in Sidon

January 22, 2018 by 2 Comments

Mohammad HamdanMedia reports from Lebanon claim that Israel was behind a bomb explosion that injured an official of the Palestinian group Hamas in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon eight days ago. The official, Mohammad Abu Hamza Hamdan, who is originally from the Gaza Strip, suffered light wounds when his parked car blew up on January 14. Television footage posted online by Lebanon24 from the site of the alleged attack shows smoke coming out of a white BMW car, parked on the courtyard of Hamdan’s home. Reporters at the site said the car belonged to Hamdan and that it had been booby-trapped by unknown assailants. Hamdan was reportedly transported to a nearby hospital, where he received treatment for light wounds.

Reports quoted Lebanese officials who pointed to the fact that the booby-trapped car was parked inside the enclosed courtyard of Hamdan’s home as evidence that the attack was specifically targeted at Hamdan. Others said that the attackers may have originally planned to kill Hamdan’s brother, Osama Hamdan, also from the Gaza Strip, who has served as Hamas’ Lebanon representative for 30 years. Now a new article published by Lebanon’s Al Akhbar newspaper has accused Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency of having orchestrated the assassination attempt. The paper also said that Lebanese security officials had managed to identify the Mossad operatives that carried out the attack. It said they were headed by Ahmed Battiya, a Dutch-born Lebanese man who was recruited by the Mossad in Holland and has participated in prior assassination operations perpetrated by the Israeli spy agency. Al Akhbar said that Battiya had traveled extensively inside Lebanon on behalf of the Mossad, in order to identify Hamas officials and track their movements. The article was published hours after Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Shiite paramilitary group Hezbollah, also accused Israel of attempting to kill Hamdan.

In Israel, however, government officials appeared to reject claims that the Mossad was behind the attack on Hamdan. The country’s Minister of Defense, Avigdor Liberman, told reporters that the Lebanese media blames Israel for everything that happens in Lebanon, and warned Hamas not to open a “new front against Israel from Lebanon”. Yisrael Katz, Israel’s Minister for Intelligence, said that, if Israel had been involved in the attack against Hamdan, “this wouldn’t have ended with him lightly wounded”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 22 January 2018 | Permalink

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Lebanese spy agency used Android app to spy on thousands, say researchers

January 19, 2018 by Leave a comment

GDGS EFF LookoutThe spy agency of Lebanon used a virus designed for the Android mobile operating system to compromise the cell phones of thousands of people in at least 20 countries, according to a new mobile security report. The 50-page report was published on Thursday by a team of researchers from Lookout, a mobile security company, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation in Washington, DC. In an accompanying press release, the researchers said that the virus, which they named Dark Caracal, has been in existence for at least six years. They added that it was traced to a building in Beirut belonging to the General Directorate of General Security (GDGS), Lebanon’s primary external intelligence agency.

According to the Lookout/EFF research team, the trojanized phone application was camouflaged as a secure messaging service, resembling popular applications like Signal or WhatsApp. However, once an Android user downloaded it, it gave remote users access to the compromised phone’s cameras and microphone, thus turning it into a bugging device. The virus also stole email and text messages, pins and passwords, lists of contacts, call logs, photographs, as well as video and audio recordings stored on the compromised device. The report states that compromised devices were found in over 20 countries, including Lebanon, France, Canada, the United States and Germany. The majority of those targeted by the virus were civilian and military officials of foreign governments, defense contractors, and employees of manufacturing companies, financial institutions and utility providers.

On Thursday, Reuters contacted Major General Abbas Ibrahim, who serves as director general of GDGS. He insisted that the GDGS is known for collecting intelligence using human sources, not cyber technologies. “General Security does not have these type[s] of capabilities. We wish we had these capabilities”, General Ibrahim told the news agency.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 19 January 2018 | Permalink

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Ex-CIA case officer was arrested after being lured back to US at least once

January 18, 2018 by 2 Comments

FBIA former case officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, who was arrested this week for violating the United States Espionage Act, was lured back to America from Hong Kong at least once by counterintelligence investigators, according to reports. Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 53, served in the CIA from 1994 to 2007. He was arrested by Federal Bureau of Investigation officers on Monday, as soon as he arrived in the US from Hong Kong. He is accused of carrying with him top-secret information about CIA agents and operations, which he was not authorized to possess. It now appears that the FBI had been investigating Lee since 2010, and that he was lured to the US in 2012 so that he could be investigated. It is also possible that he was lured back to the US from his home in Hong Kong on Monday, so that he could be arrested by the FBI.

The New York Times said on Wednesday that a consortium of FBI agents and CIA officers identified Lee as a suspect in a counterintelligence case involving the loss of over a dozen CIA assets in China between 2010 and 2012. By that time, Lee had left his job as a case officer —essentially a spy handler— in the CIA and was living in Hong Kong. According to NBC, the FBI decided to lure Lee back to American soil by creating a job for him in the nation’s capital. That was the reason why Lee traveled with his family back to the US in August of 2012. The family stopped in Hawaii, where, according to court documents, the FBI surreptitiously searched Lee’s possessions in a Honolulu hotel. FBI officers also searched Lee’s belongings in a hotel in Virginia a few days later. Lee was found to have with him two notebooks containing “operational notes from asset meetings”, “operational phone numbers” and even “the addresses of CIA covert facilities” —safe houses where CIA case officers meet their assets in privacy.

According to The Times, the FBI confronted Lee five times in subsequent months, but did not inform him that his belongings had been surreptitiously searched or that he had been found to possess classified information without authorization. But the FBI did not press charges against Lee, nor did it prevent him from returning to Hong Kong with his family in the summer of 2013. Instead, it focused on establishing a connection between Lee and the catastrophic loss of CIA assets in China. It was only this week, when Lee returned to the US, that authorities decided to arrest him. The reason why Lee decided to return to the US remains unknown. The possibility that he may have been lured back to the US by the FBI, just as he was in 2012, should not be excluded.

It appears that investigators have not at this point connected Lee with the more serious charge of conveying the classified information to foreign agents. Instead, the former CIA officer is charged simply with possessing top-secret information, but not with communicating it. The charge is believed to be “the same single charge that could have been brought years ago”, namely when Lee was found to be carrying classified information with him in Hawaii.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 18 January 2018 | Permalink

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