US Army intel analyst arrested over Wikileaks probe

June 9, 2010 by 3 Comments

Bradley Manning

Bradley Manning

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Speaking last Thursday at the annual Personal Democracy Conference in New York, Daniel Ellsberg said he was amazed that the US National Security Agency “can’t crack” Wikileaks. The former Pentagon employee, who in 1971 leaked the Pentagon Papers, was referring to the activist website that anonymously publishes secret governmental and corporate documents from around the world. But Ellsberg may have been talking too soon. On Sunday, Wired magazine’s Threat Level blog revealed that a US Army intelligence analyst had been detained for allegedly giving Wikileaks secret video footage and “hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records”. Specialist Bradley Manning, 22, was reportedly detained two weeks ago by the US Army’s Criminal Investigation Division while stationed in Forward Operating Base Hammer, near Baghdad, Iraq. Read more of this post

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Did Blackwater bribe Iraqi officials after 2007 shooting?

February 3, 2010 by Leave a comment

Blackwater logo

Blackwater logo

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The US-based private security company Blackwater is under investigation by the US State Department, which suspects the corporation of having bribed Iraqi officials, in order to gain permission to continue to operate in Iraq, after the 2007 Nisour Square massacre. The company’s license to operate in Iraq was revoked by the Iraqi government on September 17, 2007, a day after trigger-happy Blackwater guards indiscriminately opened fire in Baghdad’s Nisour Square, killing 17 civilians, including women and children. But information obtained by The New York Times shows that the company hired well-connected Iraqi lawyers, and may have tried to buy off Iraqi lawmakers, in order to regain the right to operate on Iraqi soil. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0082

August 27, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • The spy who prayed. Profile of As’ad Said Ali, deputy chief of Indonesia’s National Intelligence Agency, who is actively involved in Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization.
  • Shadowy Turkish group used journalists as spies. Ergenekon, a shadowy ultranationalist network with strong links to the Turkish armed forces, which planned to topple the Turkish government, used journalists to spy on its high-profile targets, according to court documents.
  • CIA sacked Baghdad station chief after deaths. The CIA removed its station chief in Iraq and reorganized its operations there in late 2003, following “potentially very serious leadership lapses” that included the deaths of detainees in US custody.

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News you may have missed #0078

August 25, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • Indian police claims busting of Pakistani spy ring. Punjab Police claims to have arrested a member of a spy ring allegedly handled by Pakistani intelligence (ISI). The arrestee was reportedly trying to leave India for Pakistan at the time of his arrest.
  • Iraq intelligence chief retired before major blasts. Mohammed al-Shehwani, the head of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service, went into retirement days before huge bombings in Baghdad killed almost 100 people in the deadliest day of violence this year.
  • Backlash over plan to spy on Indonesian mosques. Indonesian religious leaders are warning that the Indonesian National Police’s plan to monitor religious sermons during Ramadan will offend and anger Muslims, and be viewed as a repeat of tactics employed during the hated Suharto regime.

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Analysis: Are CIA Agents out of Control (Again)?

February 4, 2009 by Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
What’s going on at the CIA? As the corruption trial of Kyle “Dysty” Foggo, the Agency’s no. 3 under former CIA Director Porter Goss, continues this week, news has emerged that the Agency’s station chief in Algeria has been unceremoniously recalled back to Washington after being accused of drugging and raping two Algerian women at his residence. Meanwhile, an unidentified “former CIA station chief in Baghdad, allegedly ‘notorious’ for womanizing and the licentious behavior of his aides, is in line to become chief of the spy agency’s powerful Counterterrorism Center”. One might be excused for wondering what’s next for the troubled agency. Read article→

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