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Al-Qaeda book warns West is winning spy war

July 16, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Abu al-Libi

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A guidance report authored by an al-Qaeda field commander in Afghanistan says that Western-handled spies have infiltrated the organization’s networks and are sabotaging is activities. As intelNews pointed out on July 12, the report, penned by Abu Yahya al-Libi, also contains an illustrated essay on the CIA’s use of SIM cards planted on al-Qaeda militants’ cell phones to direct unmanned drone strikes. But most of the circular, entitled Guidance on the Ruling of the Muslim Spy, is devoted to cautionary advice on the “swarms of locusts” of Western-aligned spies, who have even penetrated “the military and financial supply roads of the mujaheddin, which are far from the enemy’s surveillance”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Abu Yahya al-Libi, Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, DNI, espionage, human intelligence, HUMINT, News, US DNI Open Source Center, War on Terrorism

French intelligence agents posing as journalists abducted in Somalia

July 15, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Hotel Sahafi

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Foreign correspondents in Somalia have joined Reporters Without Borders (RWB) in condemning the alleged journalistic cover of two French intelligence agents, who were kidnapped on Tuesday in Somali capital Mogadishu. RWB director, Jean-Francois Julliard, said that if the allegations that the two French intelligence agents had pretended to be journalists are confirmed, it would be “shocking, because these are official agents on a mission for the French government, who have used the title of journalist as a cover”. In a telling move, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs has refused to identify the two abductees, and has rejected calls to reveal the precise branch of the French government that sent them to Somalia. But the Ministry did admit today that the two Frenchmen were in the African country on “an official mission” to advise President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed’s crumbling Western-backed government in “security matters”. Speaking anonymously to the Agence France Presse news agency, a senior Somali government official revealed that the two abductees arrived in Mogadishu nine days ago in order to train “their counterparts in Somali intelligence agencies”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with abductions, Africa, al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, France, French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hezb-ul Islam, Hizbul Islam, intelligence covers, Islamic Courts Union, Islamic Party (Somalia), Jean-Francois Julliard, Mogadishu (Somalia), Mohamed Abdi Gandi, News, Reporters Without Borders, Sahafi Hotel International, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, Somali Defense Ministry, Somali Ministry of the Interior, Somalia, The Party of Youth (Somalia)

Analysis: Al-Qaeda dumps phones, making interception impossible

July 7, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Secret Sentry

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
In his brief but perceptive review of Matthew M. Aid’s new book, The Secret Sentry: The Untold Story of the National Security Agency, Craig Seligman, critic for Bloomberg News, refers to an argument made in the book, which in my opinion deserves attention. Namely, in discussing the NSA’s activities in the so-called “war on terrorism”, Aid points out that, not only are Iran and North Korea increasingly converting their analog communications networks into fiber-optic cables, thus making their internal communications virtually impossible to intercept, but al-Qaeda and other militant groups are now “practically cut[ing] out the use of telephones and radios”. All of this is gradually turning the NSA, an agency that receives over $9 billion a year in US taxpayers’ money, into a gargantuan organization whose daily tasks are becoming “maddeningly difficult” –indeed, almost irrelevant. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with al-Qaeda, book news and reviews, communications interception, domestic intelligence, Iran, Matthew M. Aid, News, North Korea, NSA, operation STELLAR WIND, telecommunications, Terrorist Surveillance Program (STELLAR WIND), War on Terrorism

News you may have missed #0003

June 17, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

CIA declassifies 1960 estimate report on Israeli nukes. The report, which is still heavily redacted, suggests a nuclear Israel would “be less inclined than ever to make concessions and would press its interests in the area more vigorously”. According to recent estimates, Israel has approximately 200 nuclear bombs and warheads.
Accused spies were planning to flee US, says Bureau. FBI prosecutors say the couple’s sailboat and maps of Cuban waters are evidence they planned to flee to Cuba. An entry on a personal calendar found at the couple’s home shows they planned to go sailing in the Caribbean in November, with no return date.
CIA defends Panetta’s remarks on Cheney. Director didn’t say that former US Vice-President Dick Cheney would like to see the US attacked, says Agency spokesperson Paul Gimigliano.
Senior al-Qaeda figure says he lied under CIA torture. Alleged al-Qaeda senior leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed says pain he suffered under torture forced him to “make up stories” and falsely admit he was behind “nearly 30 terror plots”. Meanwhile, the CIA has released more torture transcripts after a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with ACLU, al-Qaeda, CIA, Cuba, declassification, Dick Cheney, FBI, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers, Israel's nuclear arsenal, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, News, news you may have missed, Paul Gimigliano, Walter Kendall Myers

CIA assassinations in Pakistan now almost routine

March 15, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
The targeted assassinations by the CIA in Pakistan have become routine to the extent that the US media have now stopped covering them. Last Thursday, four more missiles fired by a CIA-operated unmanned aircraft hit an alleged “militant hideout and training camp” in Kurram Valley, a tribally administered Pakistani region on the border with Afghanistan. A Reuters news agency correspondent in Islamabad quotes an unnamed senior Pakistani government official in Kuram who alleges that the missiles “hit a militant hideout and training camp in the Barjo area”. Also cited in the Reuters report is Noor Islam, a villager from the Barjo area, who stated that “[t]he training camp was completely destroyed” and that “at least 14 people were killed”. After a similar strike in Afghanistan last month, the US Pentagon was eventually forced to admit that it killed “13 Afghan civilians and only three militants”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with al-Qaeda, assassinations, Barjo (Pakistan), CIA, Kurram Valley (Pakistan), News, Pakistan, Taliban, United States, War on Terrorism

US officials step up warnings about missing Somali-Americans

March 13, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Shirwa Ahmed

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
IntelNews has previously reported on the case of Shirwa Ahmed, a US citizen of Somali descent who last October became history’s first known US-born suicide bomber. On October 29, 2008, Ahmed was one of five bombers who carried out near-simultaneous suicide bombings in the Somali city of Hargeisa, targeting the Presidential palace, the consulate of Ethiopia and a UN complex. The bombings have been attributed to al-Shabaab (the Party of Youth), a militant youth faction of Somalia’s Islamic Courts Union (ICU). Members of the ICU went underground in late 2006, after Ethiopia launched a US-aided invasion of Somalia with the aim of curtailing the ICU’s grassroots support and preventing the solidification of the group’s rule in Somalia. Al-Shabaab represents the most militant of the ICU-led underground, and is said to be one of several groups in Somalia with significant al-Qaeda links. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Africa, al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab, Andrew Liepman, assassinations, Ethiopia, FBI, Islamic Courts Union, J. Philip Mudd, Minneapolis, Minnesota, News, Shirwa Ahmed, Somalia, The Party of Youth (Somalia), United States, US National Counterterrorism Center, War on Terrorism

US Special Forces already stationed in Pakistan, article reveals

February 26, 2009 by intelNews 1 Comment

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
American and Pakistani military officials have disclosed to The New York Times what defense and intelligence analysts have suspected for quite some time: namely that US military forces are already secretly operating in Pakistan. The officials, who spoke “on condition of anonymity”, confirmed [article reprinted in The International Herald Tribune] that more than 70 US “military advisers […] and technical specialists” are helping Pakistan’s armed forces fight the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the remote areas bordering Afghanistan. Predictably, the US advisers, who have been stationed in Pakistan since the summer of 2008, include “communications experts and other specialists”. The latter allegedly do not participate in ground combat, but routinely provide Pakistani commandos and specialist units with intelligence data. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, assassinations, CIA, News, Owais Ahmed Ghani, Pakistan, Taliban, US Special Forces, War on Terrorism, Zabi al-Taifi

Analysis: Ex-CIA Agent Involved in Arms Scandal

February 23, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Imants Liepiņš

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has heard allegations that a retired agent of the CIA was instrumental in facilitating a vast diamonds-for-arms smuggling operation on behalf of Liberian warlord Charles Taylor. Taylor, who headed the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), became the country’s President in 1997. He is currently held by the United Nations in The Hague, pending trial for crimes against humanity. Roger D’Onofrio Ruggiero, an Italian-American 40-year veteran of the CIA, worked with Charles Taylor and others to channel diamonds into Europe through a number of front-companies. According to the allegations, D’Onofrio helped organize the smuggling operation with Ibrahim Bah, a Senegalese with Libyan connections, who was connected with D’Onofrio in the 1970s, when the former was funded by the CIA to join the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan in the war against the Soviet Red Army. In the early 1990s, Bah, who by then had established al-Qaeda connections, became Charles Taylor’s “Minister for Mineral Resources”, a post that enabled him to handle the majority of NPFL’s diamonds-for-arms deals. Read article →

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Africa, al-Qaeda, Australia, Bulgaria, Charles Taylor, CIA, diamonds smuggling, First Liberian Civil War, former Yugoslavia, Ibrahim Bah, Imants Liepiņš, International Business Consultant Ltd, Joseph Fitsanakis, Kintex, Kosovo, Liberia, Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Nicolas Oman, Nill Taylor, NPFL (Liberia), Public Investigation Bureau (Latvia), Roger D’Onofrio Ruggiero, Rudolf Meroni, RUF (Liberia), Slovenia, weapons smuggling

Analysis: Rare film on National Security Agency aired

February 5, 2009 by intelNews 1 Comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The Nova documentary series on PBS has aired a rare look at the National Security Agency (NSA), America’s signals intelligence and cryptological organization that rarely releases information to outsiders. The ultra-secret Agency is said to be the world’s largest intelligence institution, employing tens of thousands of technicians, analysts and mathematicians. The PBS film, titled The Spy Factory, features veteran author James Bamford, who has authored books on NSA for nearly 30 years. The primary focus of the documentary is on NSA’s share of the intelligence failure in detecting and preventing the 9/11 attacks. The film also examines NSA’s STELLAR WIND program, a warrantless eavesdropping scheme targeting communications of American citizens, which the Bush Administration authorized shortly after 9/11. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 9/11, al-Qaeda, Analysis, CIA, CIA Counterterrorism Center, communications interception, FBI, James Bamford, Mark Rossini, NSA, operation STELLAR WIND, Osama bin Laden, Terrorist Surveillance Program (STELLAR WIND), warrantless communications interception

Al-Qaeda unconventional weapons experiment goes awry

January 21, 2009 by intelNews 2 Comments

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
An anonymous senior US intelligence official has confirmed rumors in the British press that a biological or chemical weapons experiment by an al-Qaeda affiliated group in Algeria has gone wrong, forcing the group to abandon one of its camps in the country. The official said that an urgent message from the Algerian group to the al-Qaeda leadership in the Pakistan-Afghan border, which referred to the base closure, was intercepted by Western intelligence agencies in early January. However, he dismissed as unfounded earlier reports in the British press that 40 militants had died after being infected when the experiment went awry. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda Organization in Islamic Maghreb, Algeria, AQIM, biological weapons, chemical weapons, News, unconventional weapons, War on Terrorism

US Treasury intelligence division after bin Laden’s son

January 18, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews |
The US Treasury Department’s Division of Financial Intelligence has announced it intends to freeze all US assets of four individuals allegedly connected with al-Qaeda’s presence in Iran and Egypt. The four include Mustafa Hamid, who is said to be al-Qaeda’s semi-official envoy to the Iranian government, and Egyptian Islamic Jihad member Muhammad al-Bahtiyti. They also include Yemeni Ali Saleh Husain and Saad bin Laden, one of Osama bin Laden’s sons, who is said to be in Iran. US intelligence agencies have been monitoring Saad’s movements ever since he left Sudan, along with his father, in 1996. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with al-Qaeda, Ali Saleh Husain, economic espionage, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Iran, Muhammad al-Bahtiyti, Mustafa Hamid, News, Omar bin Laden, Osama bin Laden, Saad bin Laden, US Department of the Treasury

Analysis: Why is Yemen Accusing Israel of Ties to Islamist Groups?

January 10, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

There is admittedly nothing new about the discovery of yet another Islamic militant cell in Yemen. Significant al-Qaeda presence has long been detected in that country. Eyebrows are bound to be raised, however, at news of a recent formal accusation by the Yemeni government that Israel offered to assist Islamist militants who had “prepared […] car bombs to attack governmental buildings and embassies”. Bizarrely, three Islamist militants arrested last week have been accused by Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh of working for “a terrorist cell with links to Israeli intelligence, [which] ha[s] been dismantled”. On January 10, a Yemeni court heard that one of the accused militants communicated with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert via email, offering to collaborate with Israeli authorities in 2008. These allegations may seem ludicrous, to say the least. However, if true, they will not signify the first time that Israeli intelligence agencies have actively supported militant Islamist groups in the Middle East. Surprised? Joseph Fitsanakis explains.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with al-Qaeda, Ali Abdullah Saleh, Ali al-Mahfal, Anthony H. Cordesman, Avram Dar, Bassam al-Haidari, David Ben-Gurion, Ehud Olmert, Fatah, Hamas, Imad al-Rimi, Iran, Iran-Contra Scandal, Islamic Jihad of Yemen, Israel, Joseph Fitsanakis, Lavon Affair, Marcelle Ninio, Moshe Katzav, Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt), Operation Susannah, Palestine, Pinhas Lavon, PLO, Richard Sale, Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Yassin, War on Terrorism, Yemen

MI5 Director in rare public interview

January 8, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The head of MI5, Britain’s foremost counterintelligence agency, has given the first public interview of an MI5 serving Director General in the organization’s 100-year history. Jonathan Evans, who became Director General of MI5 last April, answered questions in a face-to-face interview, on January 6, with a carefully selected group of security correspondents representing a handful of British media outlets. Among other things, Evans confirmed that al-Qaeda’s Pakistan-based leaders are actively trying to recruit British-born Muslims to stage attacks inside the UK. He estimated at “around 2,000” the number of individuals in Britain who are actively involved in such efforts, with many more involved in “fundraising, helping people to travel to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia. Sometimes they provide equipment, support and propaganda”, he said. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with al-Qaeda, British Muslims, economic espionage, Jonathan Evans, MI5, News, UK, War on Terrorism

Analysis: Former CIA clandestine officer paints bleak picture of Agency

December 15, 2008 by intelNews Leave a comment

In a brutally honest exposé, a 25-year veteran of the CIA has publicly described the Agency as an organization mired in failure, mediocrity and incompetence. Art Brown, who headed the Asia division of the CIA’s Clandestine Service from 2003 to 2005, has called the Agency’s seven-year, multi-billion operation to find Osama bin Laden a “failure” that “no amount of ‘rendition’ of bin Laden lieutenants can mask”. Writing in The New York Times, the CIA veteran has revealed that Syria’s alleged construction of a nuclear reactor in the country’s eastern desert came “as a surprise” to the Agency. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with al-Qaeda, Analysis, Art Brown, Barack Obama, CIA, Osama bin Laden, Syria, United States

Pakistan warns of moving troops away from Afghan border

December 1, 2008 by intelNews Leave a comment

Yesterday we reported on the plausible theory that the small army that recently attacked selected targets in Mumbai has been part of a calculated ploy with a twofold operational mission: (a) “to provoke a crisis, or even a war, between the India and Pakistan”; and by doing so (b) to divert Pakistan’s attention from its Afghan to its Indian border, thus “relieving pressure on al-Qaeda, Taleban and other militants based there”. It is now being reported that “Pakistan has warned that it will divert troops fighting the Taliban and al-Qaida on its western border with Afghanistan to its eastern frontier with India”. An unnamed Pakistani security official has stated that Pakistan has “made [it] very clear to the Americans and the British that if a situation arises on our eastern borders, our priority would be our eastern border”. [IA]