Newspaper publishes names of suspected Israeli spy ring members

August 1, 2009 by Leave a comment

As-Safir

As-Safir

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A Lebanese newspaper has published the names of 22 Arabs arrested in conjunction with the Al-Alam spy ring affair, which intelNews has been monitoring since February, when it first erupted. The catalogue, aired by As-Safir newspaper, contains the arrestees’ address and employment details, and includes photographs of three of the suspects. Over 70 individuals have so far been arrested in connection with the Al-Alam spy ring, which Lebanese authorities allege was operated by Israel and operated predominantly in southern Lebanon. Detained suspects include two Palestinians, one Egyptian, and at least 37 Lebanese citizens, one of whom was a retired brigadier. Read more of this post

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Cambridge spy ring member’s memoir reveals motives behind actions

July 24, 2009 by Leave a comment

Anthony Blunt

Anthony Blunt

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The British Library kept its promise and released yesterday the closely guarded, incomplete autobiographical manuscript of Anthony Blunt, fourth member of the Cambridge spy ring. The group of British spies, which worked secretly for the Soviet Union from the 1930s until the 1960s, included Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and H.A.R. “Kim” Philby, all of whom eventually defected to the Soviet Union. In his 30,000-word memoir, Blunt, an art history professor who in 1945 became Surveyor of the King’s Pictures and was knighted in 1954, describes his recruitment to spy for the Soviets as “the most important decision of my life”. Read more of this post

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MI5 looking for new chief scientific adviser

April 18, 2009 by Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The MI5 is openly advertising for a chief scientific adviser for the first time. Britain’s foremost counterintelligence agency, which is also known as the Security Service, has posted the job advertisement on its website, and is asking interested individuals to submit applications by April 24. It also urges them to exercise discretion by discussing the application “only with [their] partner and/or immediate family”. The brief advertisement describes the “unique and challenging” mission of the new position as “lead[ing] and co-ordinat[ing] the scientific work of the Security Service”. Read more of this post

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Lebanese arrest second member of Israeli spy ring

April 17, 2009 by Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Early yesterday morning I wrote that Adib Al-Alam, a retired Lebanese brigadier general who was arrested last Saturday on charges of spying for Israel, was “part of a wider spy ring operating out of the town of Bint Jbeil, in southern Lebanon, and that more arrests are likely to follow before too long”. Several hours later, Lebanese officials announced the arrest of J’ Al-Alam, nephew of Abid Al-Alam, in the town of Naqoura, on charges of spying for Israel. Like his uncle, J’ Al-Alam is a Lebanese Christian and, like is uncle, is rumored to be an employee “in a non-civilian capacity” of Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces (ISF). Read more of this post

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Lebanese arrest former general on spying charges

April 16, 2009 by Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
For the past several months, intelNews has been keeping an eye on the intensifying intelligence war between Lebanon and Israel. In late 2008 and early 2009, Lebanese military intelligence agents busted up a number of autonomous Israeli spy rings operating in the country. On Tuesday, an anonymous source inside Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces (ISF) announced the arrest of a retired Lebanese brigadier general on charges of spying for Israel. The arrestee’s identity is not yet known, and Lebanese media have named him only as “Adib A.”. But Lebanese government sources have disclosed that the retired general has admitted spying on behalf of Israel for over a decade, and that he “regularly met with his Israeli contacts at European destinations”. Read more of this post

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DC surveillance house still outside Russian embassy

April 10, 2009 by Leave a comment

Secret camera

Secret camera

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Almost exactly a year ago, MSNBC’s Jim Popkin showed how easy it was to detect an FBI surveillance post at a house outside the Russian embassy in Washington, DC. The post operated out of what initially appeared to be a residential property located directly across from the Russian embassy building. Watching closely late in the afternoon, however, three video cameras could be seen operating from inside the three opaque skylights in the roof of the house. It took minimal background research for Popkin to confirm the FBI connection to the property. One of the Bureau’s counterintelligence agents associated with the operation, and listed as a resident of the property, had even identified himself as “clerk [but] really a spy” in a publicly available database. Now Cryptome has published recent photographs of the house, which confirm the earlier MSNBC story and show that the opaque skylights are still in place in the roof of the residential property. One of the photographs shows an empty lot by the side of the property, which readers with background in surveillance and will undoubtedly find intriguing.

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Secretive US court to relocate in symbolic move

March 3, 2009 by 1 Comment

Judge Lamberth

Judge Lamberth

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
In 1978, in the wake of the Watergate scandal, US legislators attempted to curtail the government’s spying powers by instituting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). The court is supposed to handle requests by US counterintelligence agencies for surveillance of suspects operating inside the US. In reality, however, the court, which operates in total secrecy, has effectively become a rubber-stamp for the government, rarely turning down a request for a surveillance warrant. It usually rejects less than 1% of all requests each year; in 2007, the court denied only three of the 2,370 applications submitted to it by government agencies wishing to conduct surveillance operations. Even in rare instances when FISC does reject a warrant or two, another body, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR) re-examines the rejected cases and usually ends up granting them to the counterintelligence agencies that have requested them. Now, however, the secretive court has reportedly decided to take a symbolic step toward self-determination, by moving its headquarters from the US Department of Justice building to a newly built wing of Washington DC’s federal courthouse. Read more of this post

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Russian intelligence notes influx of foreign spies into Siberia

February 10, 2009 by 2 Comments

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The press office of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has announced a noticeable increase in espionage activity by agents of foreign governments in Siberia. Russian counterintelligence agents have apparently detected increased presence of operatives from Asian-Pacific countries in and around Siberian scientific centers in Novosibirsk, and especially in its suburb of Akademgorodok, nicknamed “science city” by the Russians. The head of FSB’s local directorate in Novosibirsk, Sergey Savchenkov, said that “dozens of foreign spies” had been discovered in the region in 2008″, and that most of them were targeting Russian scientists using “all possible means” to extract confidential information. Siberian academic facilities are noted for their research in the fields of oil and gas geology, nanotechnology, creation of new materials, and biochemistry, among other subjects. This is not the first time in recent months that the FSB has drawn attention to scientific and technical espionage on Russian soil. In December of 2008, Major-General Valeriy Beklenishchev, who heads the FSB’s Saratov branch, said nanotechnology research projects conducted at regional universities, as well as research on “heat and power engineering and electronics” were prime espionage targets of foreign operatives.

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Oak Ridge employee admits espionage charges

February 9, 2009 by 2 Comments

Roy Oakley (court illustration)

Roy Oakley (court illustration)

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
On February 6, Roy Lynn Oakley, of Harriman, Tennessee, pleaded guilty to espionage charges under the US Atomic Energy Act. From 2006 to 2007, Oakley worked for Bechtel Jacobs, a contractor at the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) in Oak Ridge. He had apparently been granted a security clearance and thus had access to a host of classified materials and data relating to uranium enrichment. In 2006, US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (OIC) officers in Oak Ridge were tipped that “Oakley may have been in possession of protected materials that belonged to the DOE and was offering to sell the materials to a foreign government”. Along with FBI agents, they initiated a counterintelligence sting operation. Read more of this post

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Britain says at least 20 countries spying on it

February 9, 2009 by Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Britain’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper has revealed a government report, which states that the UK is a “high priority espionage target” for “at least 20 foreign intelligence services”. The report, issued to UK government departments on January 19, 2009, warns against overlooking traditional espionage threats while focusing almost solely on the activities of al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups. Authored by a group of British Army Intelligence Corps officers, the report identifies Chinese and Russian espionage networks as the most active on British soil, and discloses that “[t]he number of Russian intelligence officers in London has not fallen since the Soviet times”. Read more of this post

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Analysis: Behind the Recent CIA Espionage Indictments

January 31, 2009 by Leave a comment

Harold Nicholson

H.J. Nicholson

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
In 1997, when Harold James Nicholson was convicted for working for Russian intelligence, he became the highest-ranking CIA officer to be convicted of spying on behalf of a foreign agency. Last Thursday, it emerged that 24-year-old Nathaniel James Nicholson, Harold Nicholson’s youngest son, was arrested by FBI counterintelligence officers and charged with repeatedly contacting Russian officials on behalf of his imprisoned father. According to the court documents (.pdf) released Thursday, the purpose of Nathaniel Nicholson’s contact with the Russians was “to collect moneys from the Russian Federation for his [father’s] past espionage activities”. In reporting on the Nicholsons’ case, The New York Times quoted an anonymous “intelligence official” who played down Harold Nicholson’s importance for the Russians and suggested that “[t]his just shows that the Russians are either sentimental or stupid”. In fact, the Russians are neither, and The New York Times‘ sources should know better than to downplay Nicholson’s continued contact with his Russian handlers. Read article→

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Finnish UN official details recruitment attempts by Israeli spies

January 20, 2009 by Leave a comment

Raitasaari

Raitasaari

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat has published a relatively detailed account of attempts by Israeli intelligence agents to recruit United Nations (UN) personnel stationed in the Middle East and the Balkans. The source of the details is Reijo Raitasaari, a 30-year veteran of the UN and other international organizations, who was stationed for several years in the Middle East. Raitasaari admitted that he was targeted at least three times by Israeli intelligence recruiters during his career and that the Israelis often used “[s]ex and money […] as bait in such attempts”. He said that sending attractive Israeli women to parties of UN personnel was standard practice by Israeli intelligence agencies attempting to recruit UN workers. When offers for sex were accepted by married male UN workers, the Israeli spies would resort blackmail as a method to secure their cooperation. Raitasaari also detailed his relationship with Raimo Majuri, the Finnish military officer who spied on behalf of Israel and later immigrated to Israel, where he changed his name to Ram Laor. It appears that Suojelupoliisi, Finland’s security police (otherwise known as SUPO), took the Helsingin Sanomat revelations seriously. Earlier today, the agency announced plans to launch a training workshop designed for Finnish international agency personnel stationed around the world, “to help them deal with possible attempts of recruitment by foreign intelligence services”.

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Secretive US review court backs warrantless surveillance

January 17, 2009 by Leave a comment

wiretappingBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews |
The US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) is a panel of Federal Judges tasked with overseeing requests by counterintelligence agencies for surveillance of suspected foreign intelligence agents operating inside the US. It operates in total secrecy and rarely turns down a request for a surveillance warrant –it usually rejects less than 1% of all requests each year. Even in rare instances when it does reject a warrant or two, another body, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISCR) re-examines the rejected cases and usually ends up granting them to the counterintelligence agencies that have requested them. Last Thursday, FISCR resorted to a near-unprecedented action: it published a redacted copy [.pdf] of a legal decision it handed down last August. Read more of this post

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Shin Bet arrests Israeli allegedly spying for Iran

January 16, 2009 by 1 Comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A spokesperson for Shin Bet, Israel’s General Security Service, announced yesterday the capture of an Israeli-Argentinean citizen, living in Buenos Aires, for offering to spy against Israel on behalf of Iran. The man, Mauricio Segel, was arrested by Shin Bet and Israeli police officers on December 22, while attempting to enter Israel. He is accused of having contacted the Iranian embassy in the Argentinean capital and offered to sell Israeli government documents to Iranian diplomatic officials. Israeli intelligence sources claim Segel first contacted the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires in 2006 and gained the Iranians’ trust by giving them access to copies of his Israeli national passport and identification card. Read more of this post

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Indians arrest second alleged Pakistani spy in Uttar Pradesh

January 12, 2009 by Leave a comment

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Less than a month after India’s Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) arrested Abdul Jabbar, an alleged Pakistani Military Intelligence agent operating in Lucknow, Indian authorities have announced the capture of a second alleged operative in Meerut, a city 400 kilometers from Lucknow, in the region of Uttar Pradesh. Like Jabbar, who was said to possess “secret information regarding [Indian] Central command”, the second arrestee, Ameer Ahmad, was found to possess “[m]aps of [Indian] army units in Meerut and Dehradun”. On December 17, we speculated that Jabbar’s arrest was “part of an elaborate counterintelligence sting, possibly involving Indian moles inside Pakistani Military Intelligence”. Speculation aside, it would be logical to infer at this stage that Ahmad’s capture is directly related to Jabbar, who appears to be talking to his Indian interrogators.

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