News you may have missed #558

August 4, 2011 by 3 Comments

Amrullah Saleh

Amrullah Saleh

►► US government says Iran aids al-Qaeda. The US Treasury Department has accused the Iranian authorities of aiding al-Qaeda, saying Tehran had entered into financial agreements with six people believed to be al-Qaeda operatives in Iran, Kuwait, Qatar and Pakistan. According to Treasury officials, one of the six “is believed to have recently ascended to the No. 2 position in Al Qaeda, reporting directly to the organization’s new leader, Ayman al-Zawahri”.
►►Interview with Afghan spy chief. CNN has an exclusive interview with Amrullah Saleh, the –usually media-shy– former head of Afghanistan’s National Directorate for Security. The interview is essentially one long attack on Pakistan, which Saleh blames for destabilizing Afghanistan, hiding and sheltering al-Qaeda members, and providing funding and arms to the Taliban.
►►Sudan’s spy chief secretly visited France in June. The director of Sudan’s National Security and Intelligence Services (NISS), Mohamed Atta al-Moula Abbas, secretly traveled to Paris last June. He held talks there with Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #360

May 27, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • New book hints at covert US-French spy war. A forthcoming book, Diplomats: Behind the Façade of France’s Embassies, by Franck Renaud, claims that in 2008 French security agents discovered hidden bugs placed by the CIA in the Paris apartment of Pierre Brochand, head of the  DGSE, France’s primary intelligence agency. A CIA spokesperson refused to speculate on the accuracy of the allegations.
  • Obama rethinking his lead pick for DNI. Following skepticism expressed by intelligence insiders, President Obama is reportedly reevaluating his initial choice of James R. Clapper as the leading contender for the post of the Director of National Intelligence.

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Comment: Was Clotilde Reiss a French Spy in Iran?

May 20, 2010 by 3 Comments

Clotilde Reiss

Clotilde Reiss

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The case of Clotilde Reiss acquired new momentum earlier this week, after a former French intelligence official claimed she had collaborated with French secret services. Pierre Siramy, who until late last year was a senior official at DGSE, France’s external intelligence agency, said on Sunday that Reiss had worked “very well” for France. Reiss, a 25-year-old Farsi-speaking French-language assistant at the University of Isfahan, was arrested in Iran last year on accusations of being a ‘nuclear spy’. But last weekend her ten-year prison sentence was suddenly commuted to a fine, and she was able to return home to France, in an apparent secret deal with Paris, which included the release of two Iranian operatives held in France.

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Iranian defector briefed UN inspectors on Iran nuclear program

December 14, 2009 by Leave a comment

Iranian nuclear facility in Qum

Qum facility

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
An Iranian nuclear scientist who vanished during a pilgrimage to Mecca last June has defected to the West and has briefed American and United Nations officials about Iran’s nuclear program. As intelNews reported on October 9, rumors have been circulating in the Arab press that Shahram Amiri, a senior figure in the Iranian nuclear research program, was not abducted by Saudi and Western intelligence agencies, as Iran claims, but actually defected to the West. Now British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph has cited “a source close to France’s overseas secret service, the DGSE”, who claims that Amiri’s defection was facilitated through a carefully planned intelligence operation involving the CIA, as well as French and German operatives. Read more of this post

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French “trial of the century” continues with ex-spy’s testimony

October 8, 2009 by Leave a comment

Philippe Rondot

Philippe Rondot

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A complex court case in France, which the nation’s media have dubbed “trial of the century”, continued this week with the testimony of one of France’s most distinguished intelligence agents. Retired General Philippe Rondot, who worked for France’s domestic (DST) and foreign intelligence (DGSE), and advised several French leaders, gained international fame in 1994, when he managed to arrest Venezuelan-born operative Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, known as Carlos the Jackal. General Rondot was called earlier this week to testify whether France’s former Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, helped forge a series of documents showing that France’s current President, Nicolas Sarkozy, had laundered millions of dollars in defense contract bribes through secret accounts in Luxembourg’s Clearstream bank. Mr. de Villepin will face up to five years in prison if found guilty of the forgery. Read more of this post

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French former spy wanted in Dubai to be tried in Florida

September 16, 2009 by 1 Comment

Herve Jaubert

Herve Jaubert

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A French former spy who escaped secretly from the United Arab Emirates, where he is wanted for fraud and embezzlement, will face trial in the US, where he currently resides. Herve Jaubert left Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), France’s foreign intelligence agency, in 1993, to pursue a career in the luxury tourist market, first in Florida and then in Dubai. But less than a year ago, Emirates authorities accused the Frenchman of embezzling nearly $4 million from Dubai World, a company he helped found in the country. Jaubert says he was threatened with torture by Emirates authorities and decided to escape, despite having been forced to surrender his French passport. He allegedly left the country using an inflatable rubber dinghy to reach a sailboat located just outside UAE territorial waters, which he then used to sail to India. Read more of this post

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More information on ex-French spy’s escape from Dubai

August 25, 2009 by 1 Comment

Herve Jaubert

Herve Jaubert

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
New information has emerged on former French spy Herve Jaubert’s alleged secret escape from Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), which intelNews reported last week. British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph has published an article with details of Jaubert’s escape, including a photograph of the former spy dressed in a black abaya, a head-to-toe burka traditionally worn by Muslim women in the Persian Gulf. Jaubert left Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), France’s foreign intelligence agency, in 1993, to pursue a career in the luxury tourist market, first in Florida and then in Dubai. But less than a year ago, Emirates authorities accused the Frenchman of embezzling nearly $4 million from Dubai World, a company he helped found in the country. Jaubert says he was threatened with torture by overzealous Emirates authorities and decided to escape, despite having been forced to surrender his French passport. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0072

August 19, 2009 by Leave a comment

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French Presidential scandal linked to journalist’s disappearance

January 2, 2009 by Leave a comment

Couraud

Couraud

Jean-Pascal Couraud was Editor-in-Chief of Tahiti News, a large Polynesian newspaper based in Pape’ete, the capital of French Polynesia. In 1997, he disappeared. His body has never been found. The official explanation, which is fervently rejected by Couraud’s family, is that the prominent journalist committed suicide. However, on December 29, a suspicious letter was seized from the office of former Polynesian President, Gaston Flosse. It was written by Vetea Cadousteau, a former member of Groupement d’ Intervention de la Polynésie (GIP), the Polynesian secret services. In it, Cadousteau claims that he helped GIP abduct Couraud to stop him from further investigating an alleged illegal fund transfer by a large Polynesian company to a secret Japanese bank account belonging to French former President Jacques Chirac. Read more of this post

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