Western ex-spooks flock to Emirates to set up new agency modeled after CIA

December 25, 2017 by 2 Comments

Abu Dhabi, United Arab EmiratesDozens of Western former spies, most of them Americans, are being hired by the United Arab Emirates, whose ruling family is trying to create a new spy service modeled after the United States Central Intelligence Agency. According to Foreign Policy magazine’s intelligence reporter, Jenna McLaughlin, Western contractors are paid $1000 a day for their services. They also reside for free in five-star hotels in Abu Dhabi, while helping the UAE “create its own spy empire”. The lucrative compensation makes it difficult for former spooks to turn down invitations to join a handful of Western consulting companies, who are leading the effort to create the UAE’s “professional intelligence cadre modeled after the West’s”, says McLaughlin.

Western instructors provide courses daily at two different locations in Abu Dhabi. In-class instruction takes place at a luxurious villa located in Mina Zayed, a port in the northern outskirts of Abu Dhabi. Field training is conducted at a secret facility located about 45 miles from the UAE capital. The facility is referred to as “The Academy” and is highly reminiscent of Camp Peary, a 10,000-acre US Department of Defense training base that is used to train CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency operations officers. Just like Camp Peary (known informally as “the Farm”), the UAE’s “Academy” features driving course instruction areas, military-style barracks, and gun ranges, among other training elements.

Foreign Policy says it spoke to “six sources with knowledge of the matter” who said that the effort to create a CIA-like agency in the UAE is spearheaded by CAGN Global Ltd., a consultancy company based in Baltimore, MD. The company’s president is Larry Sanchez, a former CIA operations officer, who struck a personal relationship with the UAE’s ruling royal family while working on counterterrorism for the US government in the early 2000s. He has reportedly been living in the UAE for the past six years, helping to build the UAE intelligence services “from the ground up”, says Foreign Policy. At times he has been joined by other high-profile American former ex-spooks, such as Blackwater founder Erik Prince and Richard A. Clarke, who served as National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter-terrorism under Presidents George Bush, Sr, and Bill Clinton.

According to McLaughlin, the work of CAGN Global Ltd. came under scrutiny last year, as several US government agencies, including the State Department and the CIA, became concerned that the training of Emirati intelligence recruits was too closely modeled after the training provided at the Farm. But a review of the company’s instructional provision in the UAE concluded in its favor and the issue seems to have been resolved said McLaughlin. In researching its story, Foreign Policy reached out to Sanchez, the CIA, the Department of State, and the UAE embassy in Washington, DC, but received no responses.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 25 December 2017 | Permalink

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Ukraine arrests prime minister’s interpreter, accuses him of spying for Russia

December 22, 2017 by 2 Comments

Stanislav YezhovUkraine’s counterintelligence agency has arrested the principal translator of the country’s prime minister, accusing him of spying for Russia. The translator has been identified as Stanislav Yezhov, who has served as a translator for two consecutive Ukrainian prime ministers. As part of his job, Yezhov has been present at nearly all high-level meetings between Ukraine’s Prime Minister, Volodymyr Groysman, and foreign leaders since 2016, when Groysman assumed his executive post. In the last year alone, Yezhov accompanied the Ukrainian prime minister during official trips to Washington, London and Berlin. Before translating for Groysman, Yezhov is thought to have served as an interpreter for Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s former President. Yanukovych, a pro-Russian politician, occupied that office from 2010 until his ousting from power in 2014, as a result of the 2014 Ukrainian revolution.

On Wednesday, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the country’s main counterintelligence agency, released a statement announcing that “an official” in the Ukrainian state had been arrested in the capital Kiev on Saturday, December 16. The SBU statement said that the official had “access to sensitive government information” and that he had operated in the service “of an adversary state for a long period”. The statement then identified the “adversary state” as Russia. Yezhov’s name and profession were not included in the SBU statement. But Ukrainian government officials later revealed it. According to subsequent local media reports, Yezhov was recruited by Russian intelligence in 2014, when he was posted at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington, DC. Prior to that post, Yezhov is believed to have served at the Ukrainian embassy in Slovenia.

The Russians allegedly trained him and provided him with specially designed collection technology, which he then used to gather intelligence and communicate it to his Russian handlers. Speaking on Ukrainian television, Anton Gerashchenko, advisor to Arsen Avakov, the country’s Minister of Internal Affairs, said that Yezhov had worked for Russian intelligence “for at least two years, possibly longer”. Yezhov is now reportedly facing charges of treason. The government of Russia has not issued any statements about Yezhov’s arrest.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 22 December 2017 | Permalink

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US military intelligence staff allege ‘toxic’ work environment, lack of oversight

December 21, 2017 by Leave a comment

Defense Intelligence Agency DIACurrent and former employees of the United States’ primary military intelligence agency have publicly accused the agency’s senior watchdog of not doing her job and sabotaging the careers of her subordinates. According to Foreign Policy, which interviewed the disgruntled employees, “no one is policing” the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at the moment. The DIA is one of the largest institutions in the US Intelligence Community. It collects, analyzes and disseminates foreign military-related intelligence, and has active personnel stationed in over 140 countries. As is the case with every agency in the US Intelligence Community, the DIA’s activities are monitored by an internal office of the Inspector General. The office is tasked with investigating allegations of illegality, mismanagement, fraud, waste and abuse inside the DIA.

However, two former employees allege that the DIA Inspector General’s office has effectively been disbanded, with most of its personnel having been fired, reassigned or pressured to leave in recent years. They also claim that the current dysfunctional state of the office is due to the “toxic” leadership style of the Inspector General herself, Kristi Waschull. Foreign Policy named the two former employees as David Steele, who has nearly 40 years’ experience in military intelligence, and Ron Foster, who until recently was head of investigations at the DIA’s office of the Inspector General. The two men claim that they were “fired or involuntarily reassigned” overnight “with no warning”, because they challenged Waschull’s leadership style and decisions. They told Foreign Policy that they could not discuss the details of specific cases, because they are classified. But they claimed that Waschull repeatedly sought to soften the language of inspection reports about problems in the DIA, and that she “retaliated against them and their colleagues” when they resisted her efforts.

In 2016, a Congressional investigation was carried out into allegations by as many as 50 DIA analysts that their reports about the Islamic State were being deliberately tweaked by officials at the US Central Command, the Pentagon body that directs and coordinates American military operations in Egypt, the Middle East and Central Asia. The Foreign Policy article did not mention whether the analysts’ allegations are included in the complaints launched against Waschull by Steele and Foster. The publication said that the two men filed complaints against the Inspector General in 2015, and that they are still awaiting resolution. The DIA refused to comment on the allegations, but denied that any wrongdoing had taken place in the office of the Inspector General.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 21 December 2017 | Permalink

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Russia announces detention of Norwegian citizen on espionage charges

December 20, 2017 by Leave a comment

Frode BergAuthorities in Russia have announced the arrest of a Norwegian citizen, whom they accuse of receiving classified information relating to Russia’s Armed Forces. The detainee has been named as Frode Berg, 62, from Kirkenes, a small town in Norway’s far north, located 100 miles from the Russian city of Murmansk. According to articles in the Russian press, Berg is a 24-year veteran of the Office of the Norwegian Border Commissioner, an obscure government agency that operates under Norway’s Ministry of Justice and Public Security. Among other tasks, the Office of the Norwegian Border Commissioner is responsible for enforcing and monitoring bilateral compliance with the Soviet (now Russian)-Norwegian Border Agreement of 1949. Berg, who worked closely with Norway’s National Police Directorate as part of his job, retired from the Office in 2014.

According to reports in the Russian media, Berg was arrested two weeks ago by officers of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the agency responsible for domestic security and counterintelligence. He is now in detention and is accused of receiving classified information relating to the Russian Navy. It is believed that Berg received the classified documents from an unnamed Russian national, who was arrested by the FSB in early December and now faces charges of high treason. No further information has been made public about Berg’s arrest. Relations between Norway and Russia have been tense in recent years, partly due to attempts by the two nations to assert control over undersea territories in the arctic region, which are becoming accessible due to global warming. In 2015, Norway’s state broadcaster accused the FSB of pressuring a Norwegian newspaper, The Barents Observer, to fire one of its journalists who covered fossil fuel exploration in the Arctic Ocean. But the Russian government denied that it has played any role in the journalist’s firing.

Norway’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday that it had established contact with a Norwegian national who was behind bars in Russia, but did not give the person’s name or further details. Berg’s family in Norway said the last time they had news from him was two weeks ago, when he was holidaying in Moscow. The Russian state prosecutor’s office said that Berg’s lawyers had filed an appeal against his detention, but that the Norwegian would remain in jail until his appeal is heard in court.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 20 December 2017 | Permalink

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Finnish reporter destroys computer with hammer to protect spy source

December 19, 2017 by 3 Comments

Helsingin SanomatAn investigative journalist in Finland, who recently co-authored an exposé of a Finnish intelligence program targeting Russia, destroyed her computer with a hammer, prompting police to enter her house on Sunday. The journalist, Laura Halminen, co-wrote the exposé with her colleague, Tuomo Pietiläinen. Titled “The Secret Behind the Cliff”, the article appeared in the Saturday edition of the Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s highest-circulation newspaper. It reveals the existence of a sophisticated electronic interception station in the northern suburbs of Jyväskylä, a city of about 140,000 people that is located in central Finland. Based on classified documents dating as far back as 1999, the article claims that the Finnish intelligence services have operated the top-secret program in Jyväskylä for years. It focuses on monitoring the maneuvers of Russian military units stationed around the St. Petersburg area, allegedly by tracking electromagnetic radiation emissions.

Over the weekend, the Finnish government reacted angrily to the Helsingin Sanomat report, accusing the newspaper of “revealing the content of highly classified documents” that are “critical to the [country’s] security and may cause grave damage to it”. The government, however, argues that the newspaper revealed without proper authorization the contents of classified military documents that were marked TOP SECRET, which is a crime under Finnish law. But the newspaper’s editors argue that the public has a right to know about the surveillance project. The dispute between the newspaper and the government reached new heights on Sunday evening, when a team of police officers arrived at the home of Helsingin Sanomat journalist Laura Halminen. The newspaper claims that the police raided Halminen’s house in connection with the Jyväskylä revelations. According to the Helsingin Sanomat the reporter said she destroyed her computer in order to safeguard information relating to future articles. However, there are some who believe that she destroyed the computer in order to safeguard the identity of the source of the information that led to Saturday’s exposé. However, argues that they intervened only after Halminen destroyed her home computer with a hammer, creating a fire and prompting an emergency response by the fire brigade. Police officers who arrived with the fire brigade called for reinforcements after they began to suspect that Halminen may have been trying to destroy evidence connected with a criminal investigation.

Helsingin Sanomat editors claim that police left Halminen’s house after confiscating the remains of her damaged computer, several mobile phones, an iPad, and over a dozen USB flash drives. The newspaper’s editors said that the raid on the reporter’s home was “uniquely exceptional” in the history of journalism in Finland, and claimed that the police did not present Halminen with a search warrant prior to raiding the premises. But Police authorities argue that Finnish law allows them to conduct warrantless searches for national-security-related cases, and that their actions were observed by an appointed lawyer. The lawyer took possession of all evidence removed from Halminen’s house, to ensure compliance with Finnish law. The government has since said that it will launch a criminal probe to find out the source of the leak to the newspaper.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 19 December 2017 | Permalink
► IntelNews thanks AiT, N.H. and A.S. for their help in ensuring the factual accuracy of this report

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Poland arrests military intelligence chiefs for ties to Russian spies

December 18, 2017 by 3 Comments

PytelAuthorities in Poland have charged three high-level military intelligence officials with acting in the interests of Russia. The three include two former directors of Polish military intelligence and are facing sentences of up to 10 years in prison. The news broke on December 6, when Polish authorities announced the arrest of Piotr Pytel, who was director of Poland’s Military Counterintelligence Service (SKW) from 2014 to 2015. It soon emerged that two more arrests had taken place, that of Pytel’s predecessor, Janusz Nosek, and Krzysztof Dusza, Pytel’s chief of staff during his tenure as SKW director.

According to the newsmagazine Gazeta Polska, which provides extensive coverage of the arrests in its latest issue, the SKW officials are accused of having had unauthorized contacts with Russian intelligence personnel and of “operating on behalf of a foreign intelligence service”. The court indictment reportedly states that the Polish officials “cooperated, without seeking the necessary authorization, with members of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB)”. The indictment also notes that “the mission of the FSB conflicts with that of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization”, of which Poland is a full member.

According to reports in the Polish media, the three men are accused of having held several undisclosed meetings with FSB officers in Poland. One such meeting allegedly took place in the village of Ułowo, in north-central Poland. The village is located just a few miles from Poland’s border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, which lies between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea. During the meeting, which included dinner and “heavy consumption of alcohol”, the SKW officials allegedly met with the FSB’s senior representative in Poland, identified in court documents only as “W.J.”, as well as with several other Russian intelligence officers. Following that meeting, Pytel and Dusza allegedly helped falsify the application data of an unnamed representative of the FSB in Poland, who was stationed at Russia’s embassy in Warsaw. This allegedly allowed the Russian intelligence officer to evade diplomatic restrictions on travel and to gain access to information about Poland’s military that he otherwise would not have.

Speaking on Polish state-owned television, Poland’s Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz said last week that he was aware of the seriousness of the accusation against the three SKW officials. He told the Telewizja Polska station that the three officials face “very serious allegations” that point to “fully conscious and illegal cooperation with Russian spies”. That, said Macierewicz, was the “worst kind of betrayal that can be committed by a Pole”. The three defendants claim that they were not working in the interests of the FSB and that it was their job to meet regularly with Russian intelligence representatives in Poland.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 18 December 2017 | Permalink

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Russian hacker claims he was hired by Kremlin to target US Democratic Party

December 15, 2017 by 3 Comments

Konstantin KozlovskyA member of a prolific Russian hacker group reportedly stated in court that he was hired by the Russian government to break into the computer systems of the Democratic Party in the United States. The hacker, Konstantin Kozlovsky, operated online as a member of Lurk, a notorious hacker group whose members are believed to have stolen in excess of $45 million from hundreds of companies since 2011. Most of the group’s members were apprehended in a wave of 50 arrests that took place throughout Russia in the summer of 2016. The group’s nine most senior members, Kozlovsky being one of them, were put on trial earlier this year.

Last Monday, Russian website The Bell reported that Kozlovsky said during his court testimony in August of this year that he was hired by the Kremlin to hack into the computers of the Democratic Party in the US. The website claimed that he and his fellow Lurk hackers regularly worked for the FSB, Russia’s Federal Security Service. For nearly a decade, said Kozlovsky, he and other hackers “performed different tasks on assignments by FSB officers”. In his testimony of August 15, Kozlovsky reportedly said that some of the tasks performed by Lurk on behalf of the FSB included hacking into the computers of the Democratic National Committee, which is the governing body for the Democratic Party in the US. He also claimed that he and his fellow hackers stole emails belonging to the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

The Bell published Kozlovsky’s claims on its website in both Russian and English. According to to The Times of London, the website also posted minutes from the court hearing, as well as a recording of Kozlovsky’s testimony, on its page on Facebook. Kozlovsky also claimed that the FSB recruited him in 2008, when he was 16 years old, and that he worked under the supervision of Dmitry Dokuchaev, a notorious criminal hacker known as ‘Forb’, who was arrested and subsequently recruited by the FSB. Kozlovsky added that he participated in “very serious military enterprises of the United States and other organizations” under Dokuchaev’s supervision.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 15 December 2017 | Permalink

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Luxembourg to further-probe Jean-Claude Juncker’s role in spy scandal

December 13, 2017 by 1 Comment

Jean-Claude JunckerA judge in Luxembourg has launched a criminal investigation into whether officials working for the country’s former Prime Minister and current European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, tried to conceal his role in a spy scandal. Until he stepped down from his post in 2013, Juncker, a member of Luxembourg’s Christian Social People’s Party, was Europe’s longest-serving elected leader, having served as Prime Minister since 1995. His resignation from his post came after a parliamentary inquiry found that the country’s State Intelligence Service (SREL) had engaged in serious criminal activity.

The investigation was launched in 2012, after a local newspaper alleged that SREL’s Director, Marco Mille, employed a surreptitious recording device disguised as a watch to record a private conversation with Juncker. This led to revelations that the SREL had carried out countless illegal wiretaps around the country and that it maintained extensive secret files on over 13,000 citizens and residents of Luxembourg. The report also alleged that SREL set up a front company in order to facilitate the transfer of $10 million from a corrupt Russian businessman to a Spanish intelligence operative, as a personal favor to the Russian. The probe also examined, but did not confirm, allegations that the Grand Duke of Luxembourg had been a trusted informant of MI6, Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. The release of the report prompted calls for Juncker to resign, because, according to Luxembourg law, the Prime Minister is directly responsible for the conduct of the country’s intelligence services, including SREL.

Now Judge Eric Schammo has launched a new criminal investigation into whether government officials working for Mr. Juncker deliberately falsified crucial evidence during the 2012 parliamentary investigation and the subsequent judicial investigation. Government prosecutors believe that a small group of officials falsified evidence in order to protect Mr. Juncker and shield him from any political fallout caused by the scandal. According to reports, former SREL Director Mille, who is currently on trial over his role in the spy affair, has in its possession a recording of a private conversation with Juncker. It is said that the recorded conversation shows that Juncker was aware of and approved the wiretap operation. This evidence was allegedly shared with members of the parliamentary inquiry in 2012. However, according to reports, pro-Juncker officials deleted it from the committee’s files. Juncker denies having had any knowledge of, or having authorized, SREL’s illegal activities.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 13 December 2017 | Permalink

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Russian court sentences Estonian aircraft executive to 12 years for espionage

December 12, 2017 by 1 Comment

Raivo SusiA Russian court has sentenced an Estonian aircraft business executive to 12 years at a maximum security prison, allegedly for having spied on Russia a decade ago. Little is known about the case of Raivo Susi, who co-owns two companies that are involved in the sale and maintenance of non-commercial aircraft. The Estonian businessman’s activities include the partial ownership of Aerohooldus OU, which provides training jet aircraft for use by the Air Force of Estonia –a member state of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Russian media have stated that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) began investigating Susi in January of 2016. By that time, the Estonian businessman was not actively engaging in espionage against Russia, but he was still in touch with his spy handlers, according to the Russians. A group of FSB officers arrested Susi at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport in February of 2016, as the Estonian businessman was preparing to board a flight from Moscow to the Tajik capital Dushanbe. Since that time, Susi has been held in prison awaiting trial. According to his Russian lawyer, Aleksei Toplygin, Susi faced charges of engaging in espionage against the Russian state from 2004 until 2007. No further information was released about Susi’s activities. His trial, which concluded on Monday in Moscow, was held behind closed doors. It is believed that Susi consistently denied having spied on Russia throughout his trial.

Susi’s espionage case is the latest in a string of spy affairs that have rocked Russian-Estonian relations during the past decade. In 2008, Estonian authorities arrested Herman Simm, a high-level official at the Estonian defense ministry, on charges of spying on behalf of Russian intelligence for nearly 30 years. In 2014, Eston Kohver, a counterintelligence officer in the Estonian Internal Security Service, was allegedly abducted by Russian troops near the Estonian-Russian border. Later that year, the Estonians arrested two Russian citizens, said to be former employees of the Soviet-era KGB, who allegedly crossed into Estonian territory without a permit. In 2015, the Russians exchanged Kohver for Aleksei Dressen, a former Estonian intelligence officer who was jailed in 2012 along with his wife, Viktoria Dressen, for allegedly spying for Russia.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 12 December 2017 | Permalink

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German intelligence warns European officials of fake Chinese LinkedIn profiles

December 11, 2017 by Leave a comment

BfV GermanyIn an unusual step, German intelligence officials have issued a public warning about what they said are thousands of fake LinkedIn profiles created by Chinese spies to gather information about Western targets. On Sunday, Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) held a press conference in which it said that it had discovered a wide-ranging effort by spy agencies in China to establish links with Westerners. The agency said that it undertook a 9-month investigation, during which it identified 10,000 German citizens who were contacted by Chinese spy-run fake profiles on LinkedIn. Across Europe, the number of targets could be in the hundreds of thousands, according to the BfV.

The main targets of the operation appear to be members of the German and European Union parliaments. Also targeted are members of the armed forces, lobbyists and researchers in private think tanks and foundations in Germany and across Europe. These individuals were all targeted as part of “a broad attempt to infiltrate Parliaments, ministries and administrations”, said BfV Director Hans-Georg Maassen. He added that the fake LinkedIn profiles are of people who claim to be scholars, consultants, recruiters for non-existent firms, or members of think tanks. Their profile photographs are usually visually appealing and are often taken from fashion catalogs or modeling websites. During the press conference BfV officials showed examples of what they said were fake LinkedIn accounts under the names “Rachel Li” and “Alex Li”. The two identified themselves as a headhunter for a company called RiseHR and a project manager at the Center for Sino-Europe Development Studies, respectively. The information on these accounts was purely fictitious, said the BfV officials.

Individuals who have been targeted by the Chinese include European politicians and senior diplomats, according to the Germans. Many were invited to all-expenses-paid conferences or fact-finding trips to China by their LinkedIn contacts, presumably in attempts to recruit them for Chinese intelligence. At the closing of the press conference, the BfV urged European officials to refrain from posting private information on social media, including LinkedIn, because foreign intelligence operatives are actively collecting data on users’ online and offline habits, political affiliations, personal hobbies and other interests. In a statement issued on Monday, the Chinese government dismissed the German allegations, saying that the BfV’s investigation was based on “complete hearsay” and was thus “groundless”. Beijing also urged German intelligence officials to “speak and act more responsibly”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 11 December 2017 | Permalink

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Defector claims US agreed to let thousands of Islamic State fighters leave Raqqa

December 8, 2017 by Leave a comment

Islamic State convoy in SyriaA senior former commander of one of Syria’s largest Kurdish rebel groups, who recently defected to Turkey, has accused the United States of agreeing to let thousands of heavily armed Islamic State fighters escape from Raqqa in exchange for conquering the city without a fight. The Syrian city served as the de facto capital of the Islamic State from early 2014 until October of this year, when it was captured by a coalition of forces supported by the United States and other Western powers. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a predominantly Kurdish militia, was among the groups that captured Raqqa. One of its spokesmen, Talal Silo, told Western media correspondents back in October that the Western-backed coalition had allowed fewer than 300 hardline fighters of the Islamic State to leave the war-ravaged city during the final stages of the battle.

But several news agencies reported at the time that a large convoy of vehicles was seen leaving Raqqa, composed of dozens of trucks, buses and over a hundred cars. The BBC reported on November 13 that the convoy was 4 miles long and was seen heading toward Deir ez-Sor, an Islamic State stronghold located two hours’ drive southeast of Raqqa. Coalition partners, including the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and France, denied that such a convoy existed. But the BBC’s claims have now been corroborated by Silo, the same SDF spokesman who last October rejected them as fictional. In October, Silo, who is a Syrian Turkoman, defected to Turkey and is now living in Ankara under heavy security protection. He told the Reuters news agency in a recent  interview that the BBC’s claims were correct, and that the number of Islamic State militants who were allowed to leave Raqqa with their weapons were in their thousands, not 300 as the SDF had originally claimed.

According to Silo, a secret agreement was reached between the Western-backed coalition and the Islamic State for the evacuation of “about 4,000 people” from Raqqa. Of those fewer than 500 were unarmed civilians, said Silo. He added that the convoy went to Deir ez-Sor, which at the time was still under the control of Islamic State. The SDF defector also told Reuters that the deal struck with the Islamic State was kept secret from media correspondents. The latter were told that they were not allowed to approach Raqqa due to heavy fighting, when the real goal was to prevent them from witnessing the peaceful departure of the Islamic State convoys. According to Silo, the deal was approved by all members of the Western-backed coalition, including the United States.

On Thursday, the SDF denied that Silo’s allegations were true and claimed that he was being pressured to make them by Turkey. The Turkish government accuses the SDF of being a Syrian branch of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), with which it is at war. American military officials also denied Silo’s claims, calling them “false and contrived”. The officials said that the US “does not make deals with terrorists”.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 08 December 2017 | Permalink

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Polish counterintelligence chief questioned over alleged deal with Russia

December 6, 2017 by 3 Comments

General Piotr PytelThe former director of Poland’s military counterintelligence agency has been questioned by the country’s military police, over allegedly illegal cooperation with Russian intelligence. From 2006 to 2012, General Piotr Pytel was head of Poland’s Military Counterintelligence Service (MCS), which is responsible for domestic security and for ensuring the war-readiness of Poland’s armed forces. According to government prosecutors, General Pytel struck an illegal agreement with the Russian Federal Security Service, the FSB, in 2010. The alleged agreement concerned the return to Poland of troops who had been sent to serve in Afghanistan with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Several hundred Polish troops participated in ISAF, a NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan, established by the United Nations Security Council in 2001.

General Pytel’s critics claim that he reached out to the FSB without authorization, and struck an agreement allowing for the passage of Polish troops through Russian soil on their way back to Poland from Central Asia. Some in the Polish government claim that the passage of Polish troops through Russia allowed the Russian spy services to collect intelligence on the Polish armed forces and thus weakened the Polish military vis-à-vis Russia. Polish authorities also accuse Genera Pytel’s predecessor at the helm of the MCS, General Janusz Nosek, of striking similar agreements with Moscow. These agreements were not authorized by NATO or the Polish high command and thus exceeded the prerogative of the MCS directors, according to prosecutors. The same prosecutors also questioned Donald Tusk, the current President of the European Council, who was Prime Minister of Poland in 2010. Mr. Tusk is also suspected of colluding with the Russian FSB, according to some reports.

But Mr. Tusk, and Generals Pytel and Nosek, deny that they engaged in illegal dealings with Russia and accuse the Polish prosecutor’s office of engaging in a political witch-hunt. All three of the accused belong to the Civil Platform, a liberal political party that is now in opposition but was the ruling party in the country from 2007 to 2015. Members of the Civil Platform have accused the Minister of Defense, Antoni Macierewicz, a member of the ruling conservative Law and Justice party (PiS), of politically persecuting his opponents. In statements made on social media on Wednesday, Mr. Tusk said he was proud to have worked with the two MCS former directors, whom he described “shining example[s] of responsibility, patriotism and honor”. He also called for Minister of Defense Macierewicz to resign.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 6 December 2017 | Permalink

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Turkey issues warrant for ex-CIA officer over alleged role in 2016 coup

December 4, 2017 by 2 Comments

Recep Tayyip ErdoğanThe Turkish government has issued a warrant for the arrest of a former officer in the United States Central Intelligence Agency, which Ankara claims was instrumental in the failed July 2016 attempt to topple the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The move comes amidst heightened tensions in relations between Ankara and Washington. The two NATO allies have partially revoked entry visas for each other’s citizens, while it is alleged that Michael Flynn, US President Donald Trump’s former national security advisor, had an illegal agreement with Turkey to help abduct a Turkish dissident cleric living in Pennsylvania and help transport him to Turkey.

The warrant was issued on December 1 by the Office of the Chief Public Prosecutor in Istanbul. It seeks the arrest of Graham Fuller, an 80-year-old former analyst in the CIA, who lives in Canada. The warrant identifies Fuller as a “former CIA official” and claims that he attempted to “overthrow the government of the Republic of Turkey” and obstruct “the missions” of the Turkish government. The reference here is to the July 2016 coup, which the Turkish government claims was carried out by the so-called Gülen movement. The Gülen movement consists of supporters of Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, who runs a global network of schools, charities and businesses from his home in the United States. The government of Turkey has designated Gülen’s group a terrorist organization and claims that its members have stealthily infiltrated Turkish state institutions since the 1980s. Ever since the failed coup, Ankara has engaged in a controversial campaign to remove so-called Gülenists from prominent posts in government and the private sector. More than 50,000 people have been arrested on terrorism charges and are awaiting trial. Another 150,000 public and private sector employees have been summarily fired from their job.

Many in Turkey accuse the CIA of having colluded with Gülenists to topple Erdoğan’s pro-Islamist government. Fuller is accused of having strong links with Gülen and of having been instrumental in helping the exiled cleric receive permanent residency in the US. Some Turkish media claim that Fuller acted as a “CIA handler” of Gülen, who is accused of being a CIA agent. Fuller’s CIA career involved a tour in Turkey in the 1960s. He concluded his career as a member of the US National Intelligence Council, a body that helps coordinate the US Intelligence Community’s broad and long-term strategic planning. In 1988, Fuller joined the RAND Corporation, a research think-tank with close links to the US Department of Defense. After 2006, he taught history at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, where he lives today.

Fuller emailed a statement to major news agencies on Friday, rejecting the Turkish government’s allegations and saying that Ankara was using him as “a choice target”. The former CIA officer said he had not been to Turkey in over five years, and that he had only met Gülen once in 2002 in Istanbul. At that time, said Fuller in his statement, he had been out of the CIA for 15 years. Further on in his statement, Fuller said that he understood why some Turks accused the CIA of having planned the 2016 coup, given the agency’s history of meddling in domestic Turkish politics. However, he said he had nothing to do with the coup attempt, which he described as “pathetic, ill-conceived and amateurish”. The CIA has not commented on Ankara’s allegations.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 04 December 2017 | Permalink

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Trump administration allegedly considering plan to privatize CIA operations

December 1, 2017 by 6 Comments

Trump CIAThe United States Central Intelligence Agency and the White House are considering several proposals to hire private companies to carry out covert operations abroad, according to a report. BuzzFeed News said on Thursday that the proposals were communicated to the White House in the summer. The news site, which described the proposed plans as “highly unusual”, quoted “three sources who have been briefed on or have direct knowledge of the proposals”. The sources told BuzzFeed that, if approved, the plans would include the establishment of large intelligence networks in so-called “denied areas” —namely foreign environments deemed hostile. The networks would recruit and handle local agents, carry out psychological operations, capture terrorism suspects and rendition them to the US or third countries. “Islamic extremism” is mentioned as the primary target of the proposals.

According to BuzzFeed, one of the proposals involves Amyntor Group, a private company headquartered in the remote town of Whitefish, in northwestern Montana. The company is staffed by former members of the US Intelligence Community who have security clearances. It specializes in intelligence training and risk assessment. But it also collects and analyzes intelligence and provides counterintelligence services for government agencies in America and what it calls “friendly foreign governments” abroad. The company has reportedly been holding discussions with senior officials in the administration of President Donald Trump in recent weeks, according to two of BuzzFeed’s sources. The same sources say that the move toward privatization of some intelligence operations is being led by a feeling in the Trump administration that the CIA has a negative view of the White House. They claim that the CIA is not prepared to go along with the Trump administration’s efforts to make the agency’s operations more aggressive and, in the words of its new director, Mike Pompeo, “much more vicious”. They therefore see privatization as a way to bypass the resistance and skepticism of the CIA’s upper management.

BuzzFeed said it contacted the CIA about the Amyntor Group proposal, but the agency preferred not to comment. A press officer for the National Security Council, which is chaired by President Trump, said that its members were not aware of the privatization proposals. Amyntor Group commented through one of its lawyers, who told BuzzFeed that any contract signed between the company and the US government would be directed and controlled “by the proper government authority”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 01 December 2017 | Permalink

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Senior Chinese Army general accused of corruption found dead

November 29, 2017 by Leave a comment

Zhang YangA senior Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) military official, who was seen as a close ally of President Xi Jinping, has allegedly committed suicide, according to Chinese state media. Zhang Yang was one of the most high-profile generals in the Chinese PLA. His rise to power after Xi became president of China was meteoric. He was appointed member of the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the Communist Party of China, which exercises political supervision of the Chinese armed forces. In addition to his role in the CMC, Zhang directed the General Political Department of the PLA’s Ground Force, which made him the top political commissar in the army.

However, in August of this year Zhang suddenly stopped making public appearances. An article soon appeared in Sing Tao, a pro-Beijing newspaper in Hong Kong, alleging that the general had been questioned by anti-corruption investigators as part of President Xi’s nationwide campaign against sleaze. At around the same time, Hong Kong media said that President Xi would soon announce sweeping changes in the makeup of the CMC. It was also announced that General Zhang would step down from his director’s role in the army’s General Political Department. But media in Beijing reported nothing about Zhang, and there was speculation that he may have been imprisoned or even executed. The rumors intensified after September 1, when a front-page article in Sing Tao claimed that he had been dishonorably discharged from the PLA and imprisoned on charges of “serious violations of [Chinese Communist] Party discipline”.

Media in Beijing remained silent until Tuesday of this week, when a report issued by Xinhua News Agency, China’s government-run news agency, said that the former general had been found dead in his home in Beijing. According to the report, Zhang was found dead by a relative on Thursday, November 23. The brief report also mentioned that Zhang had been questioned by authorities in recent months in connection with “bribery and large-scale property crimes”. The Chinese Communist Party has not commented on Zhang’s death.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 29 November 2017 | Permalink

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