Estonian intel officer comes out as Russian spy in TV interview
December 17, 2014 1 Comment
By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
Estonian authorities have charged a retired officer in the country’s internal intelligence service with espionage, after he revealed in a television interview that he spied for Russia for nearly 20 years. Uno Puusepp retired from the Internal Security Service of Estonia, known as KaPo, in 2011. He first joined the Soviet KGB as a wiretapping expert in the 1970s, when Estonia was part of the USSR. Following the dissolution of the USSR, when Estonia became an independent nation, he was hired by KaPo and worked there until his retirement, three years ago, at which time he moved permanently to Russian capital Moscow. Last Sunday, however, Puusepp was the main speaker in a documentary entitled Our Man in Tallinn, aired on Russian television channel NTV. In the documentary, Puusepp revealed that he was a double spy for the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), which is KGB’s successor, from 1996 until his retirement. He told the network that he was one of several former KGB operatives who had gone on to work for independent Estonia’s intelligence agencies, but that he had quickly decided that his true allegiance was to Russia. He eventually supplied Moscow with information on the activities of Western intelligence agencies in Estonia, including those of the American CIA, Britain’s MI6 and Germany’s BND. One commentator said in the documentary that “for 15 years, practically everything that landed on the desk of the Estonian security service’s director also landed on the desk of the FSB” thanks to Puusepp. The retired double spy said that one of his successes was letting the FSB know about a planned CIA operation that involved setting up a signals intelligence station in a disused bunker in the northern Estonian town of Aegviidu. The station was aimed at collecting communications from Russian diplomats and intelligence officers, but the Russian side terminated those networks once it got word of the CIA’s plans. Puusepp’s FSB recruiter and handler, Nikolai Yermakov, also spoke in the documentary, saying that the Estonian double spy was not motivated by financial profit, but rather by grievances against what he called “the Estonian establishment”. It is unclear why the Russian authorities permitted Puusepp to speak publicly at this particular time.
By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
intelNews.org 
Hezbollah leader’s senior bodyguard was Mossad agent
December 22, 2014 by Joseph Fitsanakis Leave a comment
The man who directed the personal security detail of the secretary-general of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah was an agent of Israeli intelligence, according to multiple sources in Lebanon. The agent, who was arrested earlier this year by Hezbollah’s counter-intelligence force, and is now undergoing trial, was able to penetrate the highest levels of the Shiite militant group, and leaked sensitive information to Israel for several years prior to his capture. American newspaper The Washington Post and Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star cite “security officials and people in Lebanon” who say they are familiar with the incident. They say the agent’s activities constitute “one of the most significant security breaches” in the history of Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group that controls large swathes of Lebanese territory. Media reports have identified the alleged agent as Mohammed Shawraba,
a man in his late 30s or early 40s42, who is believed to come from a small village in southern Lebanon. According to reports from Lebanon, several years ago Shawraba used to direct the personal security detail of Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general. Nasrallah has led the militant group since 1992, when his predecessor, Abbas al-Musawi, was assassinated by Israel. In 2008, after a number of years in the service of Nasrallah’s personal security detail, Shawraba was promoted to director of the group’s Unit for Foreign Operations, also known as Unit 910, which collects information on Israeli activities abroad. However, unbeknownst to Hezbollah officials, Shawraba had been recruited by the Israeli spy agency Mossad even before he joined Nasrallah’s personal security team. According to The Post, the information he shared with the Mossad on a regular basis helped Israel thwart a number of high-profile Hezbollah operations in Lebanon and Israel, especially in 2006. Eventually, however, Hezbollah’s military commanders became increasingly suspicious of the high rate of failed operations, and began to suspect that a mole inside the group’s senior command structure was feeding sensitive operational information to the Israelis. Eventually, Shawraba was arrested after Hezbollah’s leadership was given crucial information from Iranian intelligence sources. Shortly afterwards, Shawraba was arrested in a Hezbollah-led sting operation, reportedly along with four other people who worked for him in the group’s Foreign Operations Unit. In an article published last week, the Beirut-based Daily Star said Shawraba is currently undergoing trial in a Hezbollah court. Israeli government officials have refused comment on the story.Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with double agents, espionage, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah, Hezbollah Unit 910, Israel, Lebanon, Mohammed Shawraba, Mossad, News