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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Polish priest claims Soviets tried to kill Pope in 1987

February 19, 2009 by 4 Comments

Zdzisław Król

Zdzisław Król

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
A Polish Catholic priest, who accompanied Pope John Paul II during his 1987 trip to Poland, has said he helped foil a Soviet attempt to assassinate the Pontiff. Zdzisław Król, who today heads the Warsaw Metropolitan Curia, Poland’s largest Catholic institute, claims that the Soviet Union’s foreign military intelligence directorate (GRU) had planned to assassinate the Pope during his speech at Pauline monastery of Jasna Góra, in the city of Częstochowa. The monastery houses the Black Madonna painting, a popular shrine to the Virgin Mary. Zdzisław Król, claims that GRU had supplied a Bulgarian operative living in Poland with precise information on the Pope’s travel itinerary, which had not been publicized for security reasons, as well as train tickets to Częstochowa. Read more of this post

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Feinstein causes furor as CIA assassinations continue

February 17, 2009 by Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
Thirty more people were killed this past weekend in Pakistan by US missiles fired from unmanned CIA drone planes, in the second such strike on Barack Obama’s watch. In late January, two more missiles killed at least 20 people, according to international news agencies. That these drone attacks by the CIA are authorized by the US and Pakistani governments has been well known and well reported for some time. IntelNews is among several news outlets that have reported on a high-level US-Pakistani agreement by which “the US government refuses to publicly acknowledge the [US missile] attacks [on Pakistani soil] while Pakistan’s government continues to complain noisily about the politically sensitive strikes”. This website has repeatedly questioned the legality of these extrajudicial assassinations, which apparently is an issue that does not concern the Obama administration or most US intelligence experts. The more important question in the minds of intelligence observers appears to be why the US is unable to hold its side of their bargain. Read more of this post

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Suspicious FSB inquiries preceded Politkovskaya assassination

February 6, 2009 by 2 Comments

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) filed several inquiries about journalist Anna Politkovskaya’s place of residence in the days before she was gunned down in the elevator of her apartment block, a Moscow district court heard yesterday. The allegation, made several days ago by former FSB officer Lt. Col. Pavel Ryaguzov, appeared to corroborate information discovered in an archived written request by the FSB to Russia’s Federal Migration Service, inquiring as to Mrs. Politkovskaya’s residence address in Moscow. The FSB request, dated September 18, 2006, 19 days prior to the journalist’s assassination, sought to clarify an apparent discrepancy between Mrs. Politkovskaya’s registered address and actual residence in the Russian capital. Read more of this post

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French intelligence operatives’ trial resumes in Belgrade

January 30, 2009 by 3 Comments

Petrušić

Petrušić

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The trial of a three-member group of French intelligence operatives arrested in Yugoslavia in 1999, on charges of planning to assassinate Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, has resumed for a fourth time in the Serb capital Belgrade. The sensational charges against the three are not unique. Although the intelligence history of NATO’s 1999-2000 war in Yugoslavia has yet to be written, the limited information currently available points to significant intelligence and espionage activity by several European nations in the former Yugoslavia. Most notably, in August 2000, the Yugoslav army captured a covert group of two British (Adrian Pragnell and John Yore) and two Canadian (Shaun Going and Liam Hall) operatives who were captured on Yugoslav soil reportedly without visas and in possession of materials for making sophisticated explosives. All four were eventually released by the post-Slobodan Milosevic Yugoslav government. In another case, a team of four Dutch undercover commandos was intercepted while attempting to cross into Serbia from Montenegro.  Read more of this post

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Comment: Obama Should Address CIA Assassinations

January 24, 2009 by Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Just hours after issuing executive orders for the abolition of the use of torture against terrorism detainees and the closure of the Guantánamo detention facility, US President Barack Obama was already being praised as acting “in a manner consistent with our nation’s values, consistent with our Constitution and consistent with the rule of law”. One jubilant pundit publicly opined that the US has now “reclaimed its place among nations that respect the rule of law and human dignity”. Not so fast. Blinded by the glare of triumphant statements about reclaiming America’s lost moral ground, observers overlooked two US missile strikes that hit Pakistan on Friday afternoon, killing at least 20 people, according to international news agencies. Keep Reading–>

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FBI probed Obama inauguration threats by Somali militant group

January 21, 2009 by Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
In late 2006, the US approved and assisted Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia in what is in fact America’s most recent covert war. The operational aim of the invasion was to terminate the local grass roots leadership of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and prevent the solidification of its rule in the country. Soon after the Ethiopian invasion, which also received Kenyan support, rank-and-file members of the ICU went underground in an attempt to organize a guerilla war against the Ethiopian troops. The most militant segment of the new underground movement is arguably al-Shabaab (The Party of Youth), which used to be the youth organization of the pre-invasion ICU. Al-Shabaab shares the ICU’s mission of turning Somalia into an Islamic khalifat. Read more of this post

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US rewarding Colombia despite knowledge of military abuses, declassified records show

January 8, 2009 by Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Earlier this year, the US government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation nominated Colombia as a leading candidate for economic assistance under the Millennium Challenge Act. The Act provides financial rewards to US allies “that enter into compacts with the United States to support policies and programs that advance the progress of such countries [toward] demonstrated commitment to just and democratic governance”. However, internal US government documents published yesterday by researchers at The National Security Archive, show that Colombia’s favored treatment by the US comes despite knowledge of serious and systematic abuses by the Colombian military and security establishment. According to the declassified documents, the CIA and senior US diplomats in Bogotá have known since at least 1994 that the country’s security forces (largely trained and backed by the US) systematically engage in “death squad tactics”, and collaborate with drug running cartels. Read more of this post

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Analysis: A good primer on FSB contract killings

December 27, 2008 by Leave a comment

Forbes magazine, whose motto is “the capitalist tool”, is not known for its investigative journalism. However, it has a personal reason for closely following the ongoing trial of the alleged assassins of Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. Namely, Forbes editors suspect that the same syndicates who killed Politkovskaya in October 2006 were behind the murder of Forbes‘ Russian edition reporter Paul Klebnikov, who was shot to death in 2004. Interestingly, all three of Politkovskaya’s accused assassins were employed by, or have strong links to, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB). Read more of this post

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US, Soviet intelligence murdered General Patton, new book alleges

December 21, 2008 by Leave a comment

Target PattonOn December 9, 1945, a chauffeur-driven US military vehicle carrying US Army General George S. Patton was involved in what appeared to be a minor collision with another US military vehicle. The collision fatally injured General Patton a day before he was scheduled to leave US-occupied Germany and return to the United States. On December 21, 1945, Patton mysteriously died from his injuries, even though he appeared to be recovering. Now a new book by military historian Robert Wilcox claims that General Patton was assassinated in a combined operation by the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS, forerunner of the CIA) and the NKVD (forerunner of the Soviet KGB). Read more of this post

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North Korea accuses South of assassination plot against Kim Jong Il

December 18, 2008 by Leave a comment

The Ministry of State Security of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) has issued a statement reporting the arrest of a North Korean citizen allegedly tasked with assassinating the country’s supreme leader, Kim Jong Il. The statement accuses the Republic of Korea (South Korea) of supplying the alleged assassin, whose last name is Ri, with sophisticated “speech and acoustic sensing and pursuit devices for tracking the movement of the top leader and even violent poison in the end”. It said that Ri was arrested while “gathering information about [Kim Jong Il’s] movements”. The government of the Republic of Korea has not commented on the allegations. The National Intelligence Service, South Korea’s primary intelligence organization, has said “it [is] checking the claim”. [IA]

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Israeli Attorney-General asked to investigate extrajudicial assassinations

December 13, 2008 by Leave a comment

Two Israeli attorneys representing the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel have sent a letter to Israel’s Attorney General, Menachem Mazuz, demanding that he launches a criminal investigation into extrajudicial killings of Palestinians by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Shin Bet. In their letter, the attorneys, Avigdor Feldmand and Michael Sfard, request from Mazuz “to clearly and unconditionally prohibit assassinations when detention is an alternative and to prohibit giving advance approval to harming innocent bystanders”. The letter follows an investigation published last month in Israel’s most prominent newspaper, Ha’aretz, revealing that the IDF routinely assassinate wanted Palestinians in the West bank, even when detention “appears to be a viable alternative”. Read more of this post

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Russian intelligence suspected in Chechen commander’s assassination in Turkey

December 12, 2008 by Leave a comment

Another Chechen former commander has been assassinated abroad and the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) is once again suspected of having carried out the assassination. This time it was Islam Dzhanibekov (Canibekof, in Turkish), who had lived in Istanbul, Turkey, since 2002. Dzhanibekov, who was killed on December 9, was 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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