Secret CIA program involved assassinations of suspects

July 13, 2009 by 3 Comments

CIA HQ

CIA HQ

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Quoting “three former intelligence officials” The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that the secret CIA program, which recently alarmed Congress, involved summary killings and assassinations of al-Qaeda operatives. Although the plan’s details remain highly classified, it appears that the CIA sought to set up specialized assassination squads, staffed with US Special Forces personnel, in an attempt to copy the Israeli Mossad Operation Wrath of God (also known as Operation Bayonet) of the 1970s. Wrath of God, which involved targeted assassinations of individuals allegedly behind the 1972 Munich massacre, was described by Canadian journalist George Jonas in his 1984 book Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team, which also formed the basis for Steven Spielberg’s 2005 film Munich. The Wall Street Journal quotes an anonymous former US intelligence official who describes the CIA plan as coming “straight out of the movies […]. It was like: Let’s kill them all”. Read more of this post

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New book examines KGB poison lab

June 16, 2009 by 1 Comment

Lugovoy

Lugovoy

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Former Soviet military intelligence officer Boris Volodarsky has given an extensive interview to Radio Svoboda (RFE/RL’s Russian language service) about his newest book, KGB Poison Factory: From Lenin to Litvinenko. At the heart of his book is the 2006 murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB intelligence officer who had defected and was living with his family to the UK, until he came down with a fatal dose of polonium 210. Volodarsky agrees with most intelligence experts that Litvinenko’s murder carries with it all the marks of a KGB assassination operation. But the former intelligence officer, who now lives in Vienna and London, believes Litvinenko’s poisoning was not carried out by Andrey Lugovoy, as is claimed by British authorities, but by an unknown member of the KGB’s mysterious “C” directorate. Lugovoy, who is wanted in Britain for Litvinenko’s murder, served in the KGB and in Russia’s Federal Protective Service (FSO) from 1987 to 1996, and is currently a member of the Russian Duma. Volodarsky’s interview is available in Russian here.

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International mercenary cell uncovered in Bolivia

April 20, 2009 by 5 Comments

Eduardo Flores

Eduardo Flores

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Last month, the Bolivian government expelled a senior “diplomat” from the US embassy in La Paz, whom it accused of covertly supporting efforts to depose the country’s leftist president, Evo Morales. This past week, Bolivian authorities announced they had foiled operations by a major international anti-government mercenary group operating out of the city of Santa Cruz, a hotbed of anti-government activity in the country’s wealthy eastern provinces. Three of the unit’s members, a Bolivian of Croatian descent, an Irishman and a Romanian, were killed by Bolivian security forces; two others, a Hungarian and another Bolivian of Croatian descent, were captured and are now in custody. What were the plans of the covert unit, and who is behind it? Read article →

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Dubai police say Russian parliamentarian ordered murder

April 6, 2009 by 1 Comment

Yamadayev

Yamadayev

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Police officials in the United Arab Emirates said last weekend that Chechnya’s ex-Prime Minister and “close ally of the Chechen president” was behind the March 31 assassination of a former Chechen separatist living in Dubai. Speaking to reporters, Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan bin Tamim, chief of Dubai’s police, said Adam S. Delimkhanov, who is currently a Member of Parliament in Russia, “is the man behind the assassination of Sulim B. Yamadayev”. Yamadayev was a Chechen rebel commander who fought against Moscow in the 1990s, but in 1999 switched sides and headed an elite pro-Moscow paramilitary squad that targeted the separatists. Last spring, however, after Yamadayev fell out with pro-Moscow Chechen President Ramzan A. Kadyrov, Moscow issued an arrest warrant against him for the 1998 abduction of a Chechen entrepreneur. Shortly after one of his brothers was shot dead in Moscow, Yamadayev moved to the United Arab Emirates. On March 31, however, less than four months after his relocation to Dubai, Yamadayev was shot several times in the head outside the Jumeirah Beach apartment complex in which he lived. He thus became the latest target in a recent wave of assassinations of former Chechen commanders by mysterious assailants, who many suspect are commissioned by the Russian intelligence services.  Read more of this post

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Analysis: Strange Case of Philippine Spy in US Gets Stranger

April 3, 2009 by Leave a comment

Aquino

Aquino

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A Philippine former intelligence officer, who was arrested in New York for passing classified US documents to his Philippine contacts, has had his sentence reduced by a US court. Michael Ray Aquino was apprehended in 2005 and charged with collaborating with an FBI intelligence analyst who spied on the US. Aquino’s recent history is complicated. For several years, he worked for the (now defunct) Philippines National Police Intelligence Group (NPIG), where he quickly rose to the post of Deputy Director, under the Presidency of Joseph Estrada. In 2001, however, when Estrada was ousted from the Presidency amidst extensive corruption allegations, Aquino was one of several military and intelligence officials who were removed by the new government of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Soon afterwards, Aquino was among several suspects charged with the politically motivated murder of Salvador “Bubby” Dacer, a well-known public relations manager who had helped oust Estrada. The ousted intelligence officer escaped justice by fleeing with his family to the US, in 2001. Read article →

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Analysis: Early Thoughts on Medhat’s Assassination

March 25, 2009 by Leave a comment

Kamal Medhat

Kamal Medhat

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Kamal Medhat, 58, was a senior Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) official. He was assassinated on March 23 by a roadside bomb that struck a PLO convoy outside the entrance to the Mieh Mieh refugee camp, located near Sidon in southern Lebanon. Since Medhat’s assassination, intelNews has received several emails from readers pointing the finger at Israel’s intelligence services. There is no doubt that Medhat’s assassination is a significant setback for the broader secular Palestinian movement, and especially for Fatah, of which Medhat was a senior member. A former aide to the late PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Medhat had previously served as Fatah’s director of intelligence in Lebanon, and was a key supporter of Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. To my knowledge, Medhat was the most senior Palestinian official (of any faction) assassinated in Lebanon in nearly 30 years. Nevertheless, although an Israeli role in his assassination should not be ruled out, it would be premature to conclude at this stage that Israeli intelligence services were behind the operation. Read article →

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Advisors tell Obama to expand covert war inside Pakistan

March 18, 2009 by Leave a comment

Baluchistan

Baluchistan

By I. ALLEN and J. FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Reports are emerging today that the Obama White House is considering intensifying US covert operations and CIA drone airstrikes deep inside Pakistan. If carried out, these operations will be taking place in Pakistan’s vast Baluchistan province, and would represent a major escalation in the so-called “war on terrorism”. Until now, strikes by US unmanned drones, operated by the CIA, have been strictly limited to Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border. But The New York Times report that “at least two of the high-level reports on Pakistan and Afghanistan that have been forwarded to the White House in recent weeks have called for broadening the target area” to include Baluchistan. Additionally, the paper reports that several of the President’s advisors favor “conduct[ing] cross-border ground actions [deep inside Pakistan], using CIA and Special Operations commandos”. Read more of this post

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Ex-KGB agent, wanted for murder in Britain, to run for mayor

March 16, 2009 by Leave a comment

Lugovoy

Lugovoy

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
Andrey Lugovoy, who is wanted in Britain for the 2006 murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, is poised to run for mayor in the Russian city of Sochi. British authorities believe that Lugovoy, who served in the KGB and in Russia’s Federal Protective Service (FSO) from 1987 to 1996, carried out the radioactive poisoning of Litvinenko, a former intelligence officer who had defected to the UK. Litvinenko, who was a vocal critic of former Russian President Vladimir Putin, came down with radioactive poisoning soon after meeting Lugovoy in a London restaurant. The latter is believed by British authorities to have acted “with the backing of the Russian state”. A victory by Lugovoy in next month’s mayoral race could potentially pose a diplomatic challenge for London, as Sochi will be hosting the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. If he wins, therefore, the prime murder suspect will be expected to lead local officials in “welcoming the British team to the Games”. Britain’s Daily Telegraph notes that such a possibility could ultimately “lead to the first ever British boycott of an Olympic Games”. Read more of this post

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CIA assassinations in Pakistan now almost routine

March 15, 2009 by 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

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US officials step up warnings about missing Somali-Americans

March 13, 2009 by Leave a comment

Shirwa Ahmed

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

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Video alleges Moscow policy of assassinating Chechen expats

March 9, 2009 by 3 Comments

Khadirov

Khadirov

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Just days after the latest mysterious assassination of a former Chechen commander in Turkey, a video has surfaced on YouTube in which a Chechen man reveals how he was tasked by pro-Moscow authorities in Chechnya with killing a pro-independence Chechen leader in Norway. The two-minute video features Ruslan Khalidov, who claims he is a nephew of Shaa Turlayev, a prominent former bodyguard of the late Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov. Maskhadov was assassinated by Russian FSB agents in 2005. Khalidov states that he was repeatedly tortured by Chechen authorities operating under the instructions of pro-Moscow Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. He was then blackmailed into agreeing to perform a series of covert tasks in Norway, including providing Norwegian authorities with disinformation on Chechen expats in Norway, and assassinating Magomed Ocherhadji, a vocal pro-independence Chechen community leader based in the Scandinavian country. Read more of this post

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Russian intelligence suspected in new killing of Chechen in Turkey

March 4, 2009 by 2 Comments

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Another assassination of a former Chechen insurgent living in Turkey has been reported. This time it was Musa Atayev (also known as Ali Osaev), 48, who was killed in Zeytinburnu, Istanbul, with three shots to the head from a gun equipped with a silencer. Atayev’s assassination was the third such killing in five months. In September of 2008, Gazhi Edilsutanov was also shot in the head in Istanbul’s Başakşehir suburb, while last December Islam Dzhanibekov was shot and killed in front of his home in the Turkish commercial capital’s Ümraniye district. Notably, all three Chechens were reportedly shot from a close range with a single action 7.62 MSP pistol. This type of weapon has been traditionally favored by the KGB and its successor agencies since the early 1970s, mainly due to its small size and relatively silent operation. Read more of this post

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US Special Forces already stationed in Pakistan, article reveals

February 26, 2009 by 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

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Lebanese-Israeli spy war is intensifying

February 26, 2009 by Leave a comment

Mughniyah

Mughniyah

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
On February 19, intelNews reported on the arrest in Nabatiyeh of Kamal Faqih, a Lebanese citizen who was allegedly recruited by Israeli intelligence while living in France in the mid-1990s. Faqih, who was initially arrested by Hezbollah, the Shia Islamic political and paramilitary organization that controls large parts of Lebanon, was subsequently surrendered to the Lebanese authorities. However, late last week, Lebanese newspapers revealed that, several days before Faqih’s arrest, another Lebanese man suspected of espionage was detained in Beirut. That was Yussef Sader, a Middle East Airlines employee, who witnesses say was kidnapped in the morning of February 14, while on his way to Beirut’s Rafiq Hariri International Airport. Read more of this post

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Israel’s covert war on Iranian nuclear program intensifies

February 21, 2009 by Leave a comment

Ahmedinejad

Ahmadinejad

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
Citing unnamed “US intelligence sources”, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph has revealed what it calls a covert “decapitation program” by Israeli intelligence, targeting Iran’s nuclear program. The program has also been confirmed by Reva Bhalla, a senior analyst with Stratfor. Israel’s program is part of an international intelligence effort to hamper Iran’s nuclear program. As intelNews has reported before, this effort includes an extensive CIA operation approved by President George W. Bush in early 2008 and “hand[ed] off to President […] Barack Obama”.  The Israeli program, however, appears to be much more extensive than America’s, and includes assassinations, bribing, “front companies and double agents”, according to The Daily Telegraph. The most aggressive part of the scheme centers on “the planned assassination of top figures involved in Iran’s atomic operations”, according to Ms. Bhalla. Read more of this post

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