Afghanistan | intelNews.org

News you may have missed #437

October 1, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Huge demand for spy balloons in Afghan war. The hottest US weapon in Afghanistan lacks a lethal capability, floats thousands of feet in the air and doesn’t carry troops. It’s a spy balloon. Similar contraptions have been making appearances at the Lebanese-Israeli border.
One, two, many WikiLeaks. Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a defector from the WikiLeaks website has said he has decided to jump ship and is thinking of creating a competitor site to Julian Assange’s whistleblower platform.
Is publication of classified info a criminal act? When WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of classified US military records concerning the war in Afghanistan last July, did it commit a criminal act under US law? A US Congressional Research Service report argues that it did not.

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Lawsuit claims CIA uses pirate software in drone assassinations

September 28, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

Predator drone

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The Central Intelligence Agency is using stolen software code in its covert Predator drone assassination program in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to a lawsuit filed by a software company in the US state of Massachusetts. The software company, Intelligent Integration Systems, Inc. (IISi), which is based in Boston, accuses the CIA of unlawfully using proprietary coding, purchased through Netezza Corporation, a former partner of IISi. The latter claims Netezza sold the CIA a software application called Spatial, which the CIA uses to perform targeted killings through its unmanned drone program. But IISi alleges that Spatial contains stolen coding initially developed by its programmers. What is more, the company claims that the pirated coding is in fact defective, and that the CIA runs the risk of its unmanned Predator drone strikes “being off by about 40 feet”. Read more of this post

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US Pentagon to ban book by DIA intelligence officer

September 14, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

Op. Dark Heart

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
American military officials are in negotiations with a major publishing firm to prevent the distribution of a new book on the Afghanistan War by a US intelligence officer, even though thousands of copies of the book have already been printed. Written by US Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer, the book, Operation Dark Heart, is a personal memoir of the author’s five-month tour in Afghanistan in 2003, as an officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The Pentagon has admitted that its censors did send Shaffer an official clearance letter, authorizing him to forward the manuscript to a publisher –which he did. But it was only after the book had gone into print, that the Defense Department realized that it had neglected to forward a copy of the manuscript to the DIA, as required by regulations, which stipulate that all US government agencies mentioned in the manuscript must approve it prior to publication. Read more of this post

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Taliban operate ‘very extensive’ spy network in British Afghan bases

September 1, 2010 by intelNews 4 Comments

Richard Kemp

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The former head of British troops in Afghanistan has warned that the Taliban are gathering intelligence from a “very, very extensive network of intelligence” operating inside British military bases in the Central Asian country. Colonel Richard J. Kemp, who was Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan in 2003, said the spy network includes “sources in many places” throughout the country, such as NATO military bases and Afghan security forces outposts. He also told Britain’s Daily Telegraph that the network is so effective that it tends to possess more information about the itineraries of foreign officials visiting Afghanistan than Western diplomats, NATO or Afghan military commanders realize. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #421 (‘not news’ edition)

August 30, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

Not news: Senior Afghan officials on CIA payroll. The New York Times‘ Mark Mazzetti and Dexter Filkins are right to air this story, but the real news here is the media industry’s collective gasp of fake shock and horror. Really?
Not news: Pentagon breached by foreign hacker. US Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn has disclosed that an undisclosed foreign spy agency carried out a serious cyberattack on US military networks with the help of a tainted flash drive that was inserted into a laptop in the Middle East. Ah, the old memory-stick gift trick…
Not news: Sex-obsessed coverage of Russian espionage continues. Russian and US media keep avoiding serious analysis of post-Cold-War Russian intelligence operations by focusing on Anna Chapman. This is no surprise, since pursuing the real story behind Russian deep-cover espionage in the United States takes hard work.>response to Le Carre’s comments.

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Police see ‘professional job’ in British spy’s death

August 30, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

Gareth Williams

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
As authorities investigate the recent death of British spy Dr. Gareth Williams, the country’s notorious tabloid media industry is having a field day disorienting interested observers. It is thus easy to miss important news breakthroughs in the cacophony of sensationalized headlines about Williams, whose body was discovered a week ago, stuffed in a sports duffle bag in the bath of his London apartment. One such breakthrough was yesterday’s report by Britain’s widely respected Channel 4, which said that law enforcement investigators described Williams’ death as “a neat job”, a term used to refer to professional killings. The Channel 4 report was preceded by strong official denials by police that Williams’ murder was sex-related, as had been previously reported. Some investigators now believe that Williams was killed by a foreign agent, who then deliberately “planted a trail of clues” pointing to a homosexual link to the death. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #407

August 5, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

US should dump Karzai, says ex-head of CIA Afghan Task Force. Jack Devine, who headed the CIA’s Afghan Task Force during the Afghan-Soviet War, says US efforts in the Central Asian country are “alarmingly similar to those of the Russians”, and urges Washington to dump the corrupt US-funded government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
FBI releases mug shots of 10 captured Russian spies. American authorities have released the arrest mug shots of the deep-cover Russian agents arrested in several US cities in June.
Russian accused spy held in India is released on bail. A Russian Judge has granted bail to Russian national Olga Timoshik, who was arrested for being an accomplice of German alleged spy Thomas Kuehn. The two are accused of espionage by Indian authorities.

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Pakistanis question validity, timing, of Wikileaks files

July 27, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

Hamid Gul

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Senior Pakistani government and intelligence officials have reacted angrily to leaked reports, which suggest that Pakistani spy agencies are secretly working with the Taliban to oppose US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan. The accusations have emerged as part of the largest document leak in US military history, which was made public on Sunday by anti-secrecy activist website Wikileaks. Among the nearly 92,000 intelligence and military files disclosed by Wikileaks are several reports suggesting that General Hamid Gul, who headed Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate in the late 1980s, is among a number of high-profile Pakistanis who regularly help the Taliban organize strikes against US-led coalition troops and their supporters in Afghanistan. But on Monday General Gul, who is a well-known critic of the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan, vehemently rejected the leaked reports, calling them “a pack of lies” and “utterly wrong”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #400 (Wikileaks Afghan War Diary edition)

July 26, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Roundtable discussion on Wikileaks Afghan war files. Democracy Now hosts a freely-available hour-long discussion on the recent Wikileaks exposure of nearly 92,000 classified military reports on the Afghan war, with independent British journalist Stephen Grey; Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg; former State Department official in Afghanistan Matthew Hoh; independent journalist Rick Rowley; and investigative historian Gareth Porter.
Are the Wikileaks war docs overhyped old news? This appears to be the view of Danger Room‘s Spencer Ackerman, who suggests that “so far, there’s no My Lai, no No Gun Ri, no smoking gun linking al-Qaeda to the Boston Red Sox. And some of the heavy-breathing accounts surrounding the documents don’t really match what the logs say”.
Pentagon investigating source of leak. The investigation into the biggest leak in US military history centers on Bradley Manning, a US Army intelligence analyst, who allegedly boasted online that he was going to reveal “the truth” about the war in Afghanistan.

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Largest leak in US military history reveals Afghan war details

July 26, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

WikiLeaks

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
American, British and German military planners are scrambling to contain the political impact of a massive cache of classified reports from Afghanistan, which has been leaked by an anti-secrecy activist group. It has now become known that, several weeks ago, the group Wikileaks.org handed over a total of 91,731 classified incident and intelligence reports from the US-led occupation force in Afghanistan to American newspaper The New York Times, British broadsheet The Guardian, and German newsmagazine Der Spiegel. All three outlets agreed to examine the material, abiding by Wikileaks’ condition that they would wait until Sunday, July 25, to release it. All three news media published news of the leak almost simultaneously on Sunday night, (see here, here and here), and posted several of the files, which provide an unprecedented six-year archive (from 2004 to 2009) of day-to-day US-led military operations in Afghanistan. This unprecedented disclosure is believed to represent the largest public leak of classified material in US military history. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #392

July 14, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Soviet spy stood ready to poison DC’s water, says Ex-KGB general. A Soviet deep-cover agent, who was in the United States from around 1963 to 1965, had orders to poison Washington DC’s water and to sabotage its power supply if war with the United States became imminent, according to Oleg Kalugin, former chief of KGB operations in North America.
Two interesting interviews. George Kenney, of Electric Politics, has aired two interesting interviews, one with Dr. Thomas Fingar, former US Deputy Director of National Intelligence, touching on a variety of issues, and one with Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, who comments on the CIA drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Lawyers who won NSA spy case want $2.63 million. Eight lawyers, who managed to prove that Saudi charity al-Haramain was illegally wiretapped by the US National Security Agency (see here for previous intelNews coverage), are demanding millions of dollars in damages from the US government.

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News you may have missed #374

June 15, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

South Korean general arrested for spying for North. South Korea’s military is investigating an army general, identified only as Major-Gen. Kim, suspected of leaking secrets to a former spy for Seoul who then sold the information to North Korea. The leaked information is reportedly related to Operational Plan 5027, formulated by the Korea-US Combined Forces Command (CFC) in preparation for a possible war on the Korean Peninsula.
A shared glimpse of CIA officer’s secret life. The family of the late Darren James LaBonte, who was among the seven CIA officers killed in Khost, Afghanistan, last December, decided recently to acknowledge that he was among the dead, and to tell the world a bit about the man behind the name. Meanwhile, the CIA has announced that 12 new stars will be added to the wall in the lobby of the agency’s headquarters building –the most in one year since the agency’s founding.

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News you may have missed #372

June 10, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Afghan interior minister and spy chief removed. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has removed interior minister Hanif Atmar and national security director Amrullah Saleh, after accusing them of failing to prevent last week’s Taliban attack on the country’s parliament. It is worth noting that both officials have close ties to Washington.
Analysis: Fight looms over new US intelligence chief. Warring opinions are emerging about James R. Clapper, after US President Barack Obama announced his intention to nominate the Pentagon’s current intelligence chief to serve as director of national intelligence.
Analysis: The dangers of turning spies into generals. The CIA’s controversial Predator-drone targeted killings program blends Title 10 of the US code, which governs the military, and Title 50, which covers intelligence operations. This unnerves a number of scholars, who recall that the last time this was done on such a large scale was in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.

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Private US spy network still operating in Pakistan

May 17, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

US Pentagon

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Senior US Pentagon officials continue to rely almost daily on reports from a network of contracted spies operating deep inside Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to The New York Times. Last March, when the paper revealed the existence of the network, several senior US military sources expressed serious concerns about the operation, which some say borders on illegality, and is currently under investigation by the US government. Although The Times is apparently “withholding some information about the contractor network, including some of the names of [its] agents”, it appears that the network is staffed by former CIA and Special Forces operatives. The entire operation appears to be an attempt to evade some of the stringent oversight rules under which the CIA and the US Pentagon are required to operate. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #344

May 6, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

CIA base in Afghanistan hit again. A suicide car bomber killed one civilian and wounded two security guards at the entrance to the CIA’s Forward Operating Base Chapman, in Afghanistan’s Khost province. It is the same base where Jordanian suicide bomber Humam Khalil al-Balawi killed seven CIA officers in December of 2009.
Fiji to set up new spy agency. The government of Fiji plans to re-establish its intelligence agency, ten years after it was disbanded by Labour Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry. The new organization will be called the National Intelligence Agency of Fiji.
MI5 and MI6 must release Guantánamo records, says judge. MI5 and MI6 have been told by a British judge that they cannot use secret evidence to defend themselves from civil damages claims brought by six former detainees in the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, including Binyam Mohamed.