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Analysis: Europe Offers Different Counterterrorism Approach

May 13, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Counterterrorism

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
I have in the past posed the intriguing question of whether US intelligence agencies should learn from the French approach to counterterrorism. This issue has now come up again in an interesting Washington Post essay, which examines the different approaches to Islamic militancy by American and European intelligence organizations. Some of these differences are undoubtedly contextual: there are no First Amendment rights in Europe, and European law enforcement and intelligence organizations enjoy a somewhat wider legal latitude in which to operate domestically. Moreover, the Europeans, especially the French and the British, have a longer experience than the Americans in dealing with armed insurgencies. But there are also critical differences in tactics. Importantly, the European approach to Islamic militancy has not only been more pro-active than the American, but also a lot more discreet and clandestine. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Analysis, civil liberties, counterterrorism, ELINT, France, human intelligence, HUMINT, informants, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, terrorism, UK, United States

News you may have missed #343

May 5, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Taliban leader H. Mehsud reportedly not dead. Last February US and Pakistani officials claimed a CIA airstrike had killed Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the largest faction of the Pakistani Taliban. But it now appears that Mehsud is alive and well.
Analysis: Operation MINCEMEAT and the ethics of spying. The New Yorker‘s Malcolm Gladwell on operation MINCEMEAT, a World War II British deception plan, which helped convince the German high command that the Allies planned to invade Greece and Sardinia in 1943, instead of Sicily.
US DoJ announces FISA court appointment. Judge Martin L.C. Feldman, of the Eastern District of Louisiana, has been appointed to a seven-year term on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) Court, which reviews (and invariably approves) government applications for counterintelligence surveillance and physical search under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

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Analysis: Experts question legality of CIA drone strikes

May 4, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Predator drone

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A number of prominent American legal scholars have voiced concerns about the legality of the targeted killings by the CIA of suspected Taliban leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Speaking last week before the National Security and Foreign Affairs subcommittee of the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, some of the experts warned that the killings may constitute war crimes. Among them was Loyola Law School Professor David Glazier, who reminded subcommittee members that the CIA remotely navigated drone pilots are not legally considered combatants, and thus employing them to carry out armed attacks “fall[s] outside the scope of permissible conduct”. He also warned that “under the legal theories adopted by our government in prosecuting Guantánamo detainees, these CIA officers as well as any higher-level government officials who have authorized or directed their attacks are committing war crimes”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #334

April 21, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Analysis: Split up the CIA, says veteran officer. A 15-year CIA veteran, who goes by the pseudonym Ishmael Jones, reveals in a new book that the Agency now has only “a handful” of non-official-cover officers, i.e. spies not affiliated with a US diplomatic mission abroad. In The Human Factor: Inside the CIA’s Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture, Jones argues the CIA should be broken up and its pieces absorbed by other US intelligence agencies.
Turkey appoints new intelligence director. It is expected that Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) will soon be headed by Dr. Hakan Fidan, who will replace Emre Taner. MİT’s reputation has recently been severely hit by the involvement of some of its personnel in the notorious Ergenekon affair.

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Analysis: Inside the US-Israeli intelligence relationship

April 13, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

US embassy, Israel

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv, authors of Friends in Deed: Inside the US-Israel Alliance, have produced a lengthy, well-researched and up-to-date essay on US-Israeli intelligence relations. The essay, which appears in the latest issue of Tablet, carefully examines the highly complex subject of the CIA’s associations with the Mossad and Shin Bet. The fact is that, despite their unquestionable alliance Israel and the US have for years been among each other’s primary intelligence targets. Melman and Raviv correctly remind us that, by as early as 1954, US officials at the US embassy in Tel Aviv had already discovered several microphones in the office of the ambassador. Two years later, US counter-surveillance experts uncovered electronic bugs at the Tel Aviv residence of a US military attaché. Since then, the use of bribes and even women by the Shin Bet to lure US embassy guards has been frequent –and mostly unsuccessful. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Analysis, CIA, Dan Raviv, Egypt, intelligence cooperation, Israel, Jeff O’Connell, Jordan, Mossad, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Robert Baer, Shin Bet, Stan Moskowitz, Tel Aviv, United States, US embassy in Israel, Yossi Melman

News you may have missed #328 (breaking)

April 12, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

Breaking: Real IRA admits NI MI5 base bomb. The Real IRA has admitted it was behind a car bomb which exploded shortly after midnight local hour, outside the Palace Barracks army base, in Holywood, County Down, which houses MI5’s Northern Ireland headquarters. Police said no warning was given.
Venezuela releases 4 of 8 alleged spies. Four of the eight Colombians arrested by Venezuela on espionage charges last week have been released, after a judge found there was not enough evidence to take them to trial. Meanwhile Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has said that the alleged spy ring used “secret or semi-secret codes”.
Analysis: Security services will determine fate of Kyrgyz uprising. Unlike the 2005 so-called Tulip Revolution, this time the anti-government protesters in Kyrgyzstan are armed. But the real question may be whether they have the support of (and control over) the Internal Security Services and the military.

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Analysis: Canada becoming a heaven for spies claims ex-CSIS agent

April 9, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Juneau-Katsuya

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Canada is today one of the world’s safest and most attractive environments for international spies, according to a former officer in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Michel Juneau-Katsuya, who last September co-authored Nest of Spies with Montreal-based journalist Fabrice de Pierrebourg, says that Canada is doing little to combat increasing espionage activity within its borders by agents of friendly and adversary nations alike, including China, Iran, Israel, the United States, and France. Juneau-Katsuya suggests that international spying within Canada is encouraged by the country’s prosperity, its multicultural urban environment, advanced telecommunications infrastructure, as well as by its political or geographical proximity to major world powers, such as Russia and the United States. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Analysis, Canada, China, counterintelligence, economic espionage, espionage, Fabrice de Pierrebourg, France, Iran, Israel, Michel Juneau-Katsuya, United States

Analysis: Can the CIA sabotage the Iranian nuclear weapons program?

April 7, 2010 by intelNews 2 Comments

Shahram Amiri

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
There is no doubt that the CIA has been actively trying to sabotage Iran’s nuclear weapons program since at least February of 2008, when US President George W. Bush authorized Langley to intensify its covert efforts against Tehran. It is also true that the US was able to partially sabotage Iran’s nuclear program by eliminating the A.Q. Khan nuclear proliferation network, and by employing scientific front companies and c ooperative suppliers, who gave the Iranians faulty hardware. The defection to Washington of senior Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri provides recent evidence of the existence of a covert US project to “decapitate” the Iranian nuclear weapons program, by luring away leading Iranian researchers. On the other hand, it is worth wondering why the CIA chose to remove Amiri from the Iranian nuclear program, instead of asking him to remain an agent-in-place, which would have been far more beneficial for Langley. Read more of this post

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Analysis: The limits of Israeli espionage

March 30, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

Ronen Bergman

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
Israeli investigative journalist Ronen Bergman (The Secret War with Iran) has written an editorial in Yedioth Ahronoth, in which he argues that Israel’s espionage successes in recent years have failed to bring about significant changes on the strategic level. Bergman briefly recounts the significant post-9/11 reforms in Israeli intelligence, most notably the appointment of Meir Dagan as the director of the Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency. Dagan has “created a new Mossad”, argues Bergman, one that is more narrowly focused in its operations, and more collaborative with foreign intelligence agencies –notably American, Jordanian, Turkish and Indian. This shift in focus and tactics has undeniably helped Israel score some significant espionage victories, including the 2008 assassination of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyah in Beirut, Lebanon; the seizure of several ships carrying Iranian and Syrian weapons to Hezbollah; as well as the more recent assassination of Hamas military official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. Read more of this post

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Analysis: US commentator argues in favor of breaking up NSA

March 27, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

NSA HQ

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
The US National Security Agency (NSA) is a gigantic intelligence organization –the world’s largest– which is tasked by the US government with worldwide communications surveillance, as well as communications security. But Wired magazine’s Noah Shachtman explains that the NSA’s two-fold mission forces two essentially distinct agencies to coexist under one roof. There’s the signals-intelligence directorate, the Big Brothers who, it is said, can tap into any electronic communication. And there’s the information-assurance directorate, the cybersecurity nerds whose job is to make sure the US government’s computers and telecommunications systems are hacker- and eavesdropper-free. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Analysis, communications interception, information security, intelligence reform, NSA, United States

News you may have missed #315

March 25, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Nuclear bunker spy comes out of hiding. A British retiree named Mike Lesser has revealed he was one of the so-called “spies for peace”, a group of peace activists who in the 1960s helped uncover Britain’s secret network of underground bunkers built to protect the government in case of nuclear war.
Aussie spy agency spied on little girls. Secret files kept by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation reveal spooks tailed the teenage children of suspected socialists and communist sympathizers during the late 1960s, and anyone with whom they associated, including school friends and boyfriends.
Analysis: Under Panetta, a more aggressive CIA. Expectations among CIA hardliners were low when Leon Panetta arrived at the Agency’s headquarters in February 2009. But almost from the first week, Panetta positioned himself as a strong advocate for the CIA, to the extent that critics worry that Panetta has become a captive of the agency he leads.

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News you may have missed #310

March 17, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Analysis: Outsourcing Intelligence. David Ignatius points out that the latest rogue operation of the US Defense Department, revealed last weekend by The New York Times, points to the increasing irrelevance of the CIA in the so-called “global war on terrorism”: “by using contractors who operate ‘outside the wire’ in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the [US] military has gotten information that is sometimes better than what the CIA is offering”, says Ignatius.
White House threatens veto on intelligence bill. The White House has renewed its threat to veto the fiscal 2010 intelligence authorization bill over a provision that would force the administration to widen the circle of US lawmakers who are informed about covert operations and other sensitive activities.
CIA’s Kiriakou authors new book. John Kiriakou, who spent 14 years working for the CIA, and has made headlines in the past for defending the practice of waterboarding in interrogations, while recognizing it is torture, has a new book out, entitled The Reluctant Spy.

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Analysis: Forged Irish passports have long history

March 12, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

Passports

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
At least six of the nearly 30 Mossad assassins who killed Hamas military official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh last January in Dubai, used forged Irish passports to enter and leave the United Arab Emirates. This upset the Irish government, but did not surprise intelligence observers familiar with the long history of forged Irish passports in the international espionage and smuggling worlds. The Mossad and the CIA are among several intelligence agencies known to routinely rely on cloned Irish passports to enable their agents to move around the world undetected. In 1986, several Iran-Contra affair insiders, including US National Security Council member Oliver North, covertly traveled to Iran using forged Irish passports. The Provisional Irish Republican Army is also known to possess significant quantities of false Irish passports, which it uses to enable its senior members to network with supporters abroad. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Iranian spymaster a major player in Iraq

March 8, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Qassem Suleimani

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Newsweek’s Chris Dickey has penned an accurate analysis on Qassem Suleimani, leader of the mighty Quds Force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) unit tasked with exporting the Iranian Revolution abroad. Relatively little is known about Suleimani, a soft-spoken intelligence operative who oversees Iran’s links with Shiite movements in the Middle East and beyond. His influence inside Iraq has grown in recent years. Although the Quds Force intelligence network in Iraq was solid before the 2003 US invasion, the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime turned Suleimani’s agency to what is probably the most powerful organized intelligence force in the country. Indeed, Suleimani’s links with the Kurdish north and with the Shiite paramilitary groups in Iraq is so encompassing that, as Dickey correctly notes, “this 53-year-old Iranian general could pull the strings that make or break the new government in Baghdad”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 1979 Iranian Revolution, Analysis, Iran, Iraq, Iraq War, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Kurdistan, Qassem Suleimani, Quds Force, Saddam Hussein, Shia Islam, United States

News you may have missed #297

February 25, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Australia to use spy agency to combat human smuggling. The Australian government is preparing to afford increased powers to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), in order to direct its resources against human smuggling. Among the changes are proposals to alter the official government definition of “foreign intelligence”, so as to cover human smuggling practices.
Three Lebanese charged with spying for Israel. Lebanon’s military prosecutor indicted three Lebanese with spying for Israel on Wednesday, as part of a broader espionage investigation lasting nearly a year, in which at least 27 suspects have so far been detained.
Analysis: CIA and Pakistan work together, but do so warily. The CIA and its Pakistani counterpart, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, have a long and often tormented relationship. And even now, they are moving warily toward conflicting goals, with each maneuvering to protect its influence after the shooting stops in Afghanistan.