Philby’s granddaughter revisits Moscow in search of ‘Kim’

Charlotte Philby

Charlotte Philby

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Charlotte Philby, daughter of John Philby, H.A.R. “Kim” Philby’s oldest son, has written an account of a recent trip to Moscow to revisit her grandfather’s apartment and grave. In her article, published in British daily The Independent, she describes her visit to Kuntsevo Cemetery, where her grandfather, a British intelligence officer, who secretly spied on behalf of the Soviet KGB and NKVD, was given a hero’s burial in 1988. Even though Kim Philby has been dead for over 20 years, his legacy is very much alive in both sides involved in the Cold War. Charlotte Philby reveals that, in 2005, she and her mother were refused service in a store in the US state of Arizona “on account of the name on our credit cards”. She also claims that “a gang of five or six of Kim’s former colleagues still meet up every month [in Moscow] and raise a toast in his honor”. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0287

  • India still trying to get access to Headley. Congratulations to The New York Times, for managing to publish a feature-length article about the constant requests by Indian intelligence officials to interrogate David C. Headley, currently held in a US prison, without probing why the US is refusing to facilitate these requests. The American-born Headley was arrested in October for having links to Islamic extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. There are rumors in India and Pakistan that Headley is in fact a renegade CIA informant.
  • Spanish double agent sentenced to 12 years. Roberto Flórez García, a former employee of Spain’s National Intelligence Center (CNI), was arrested in September for giving classified documents to Russian intelligence, via Petr Melnikov, political attaché at the Russian Embassy in Madrid. This was Spain’s first treason conviction since returning to democracy in 1978 after decades of military dictatorship.

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Did missing Polish intel officer defect to Russia?

Stefan Zielonka

Stefan Zielonka

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
We have been keeping an eye on the mysterious case of Stefan Zielonka, a senior SIGINT officer with Poland’s Military Intelligence Services (SWW), who disappeared without trace in early May of 2009. The seriousness of Zielonka’s disappearance stems from his extensive knowledge of Polish undercover intelligence networks operating overseas, including names and contacts of illegals –i.e. agents operating without diplomatic cover. Consequently, Polish intelligence officials have expressed fears that, if Zielonka defected, or was kidnapped by foreign intelligence agents, “much of the country’s intelligence network could be compromised”. The possibility that Zielonka actually defected increased after it became known that his wife and young child also disappeared. In December, a report in Poland’s Dziennik Gazeta Prawna claimed that the signals intelligence officer’s mysterious disappearance is connected with a “trail leading to the Far East”, with “all clues lead[ing] to China”. Earlier this week, however, Russian weekly Argumenti Niedieli suggested that Zielonka was in fact recruited by Russian military intelligence. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0270

  • S. Korean court orders damages in alleged spy case. Lee Soo-geun was a senior North Korean government apparatchik, who defected to the South and joined its intelligence service in 1967. Later, however, when he attempted to flee to a third country, he was arrested by South Korean counterintelligence agents, charged with working as a double agent, and shot. But now a court in Seoul has concluded that Lee’s confession was extracted by force, and has ordered that damages be paid to Lee’s niece, who was imprisoned for allegedly helping him.
  • Belarus reshuffles KGB leadership. Last week, Belorussian President Alexander Lukashenko carried out a major reshuffle in the country’s State Security Committee (KGB), a surprise move which affected all KGB deputy chairs and regional department heads. Retired KGB lieutenant colonel Valery Kostka explains the reasoning behind the reshuffle.

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News you may have missed #0269

  • LeT planning paraglide attacks in India? Indian intelligence officials suspect that the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks, is planning another audacious strike on the country, this time from the air, using suicide bombers flying paragliders. The group is thought to have purchased 50 paragliding kits from Europe for this purpose.
  • Trial of double agent begins in Spain. The trial has begun in Spain of Roberto Flórez García, a former employee of Spain’s National Intelligence Center (CNI), who was arrested in September for giving classified documents to Russian intelligence, via Petr Melnikov, political attaché at the Russian Embassy in Madrid.

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News you may have missed #0251 (analysis edition)

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News you may have missed #0245 (CIA edition)

  • CIA saw Jordanian double spy as valuable asset. Before detonating a suicide bomb in Afghanistan last week, Jordanian double spy (or was he?) Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi was considered by US spy agencies “the most promising informant in years about the whereabouts of Al Qaeda’s top leaders”.
  • CIA going through worst spell since 9/11. America’s most recognizable intelligence agency is currently going through its worst time since 9/11, what with Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and the loss of at least seven of its agents in Khost, Afghanistan.
  • US intel in Afghanistan is broken, irrelevant, says US insider. A new report (.pdf) by US Major General Michael Flynn, the top intelligence aide to International Security Assistance Force Commander General Stanley McChrystal, says the US intelligence community “is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy” in Afghanistan. The report recommends “[s]weeping changes to the way the intelligence community thinks about itself, from a focus on the enemy to a focus on the people of Afghanistan”.

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Breaking news: CIA officers were killed by Jordanian double spy

Forward Operating Base Chapman

Chapman FOB

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Ever since I posted “The Meaning of the Suicide Attack on the CIA” on this blog, I have been telling reporters who contacted me that the attack at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Chapman was probably carried out by a double agent. I dismissed claims on other websites that the bomber had been just a “potential recruit” who was “not required to go through full security checks [at Chapman FOB] in order to help gain [his] trust”. Instead, as I wrote on Saturday, I suggested that “the bomber was able to evade safety search standards [at the US base] by relying on a long-term informant-handler relationship with CIA personnel stationed at the outpost. This would lead to the strong possibility that the informant-turned-bomber had been groomed as a double agent from the very start by local Taliban operatives”. A news report has just appeared on NBC, which appears to confirm just that: namely that the suicide bomber had been “an al-Qaeda double agent” who was “arrested by Jordanian intelligence more than a year ago”, and turned over to the Americans by his Jordanian handlers, who believed he “had been successfully reformed”. Read more of this post

Analysis: The Meaning of the Suicide Attack on the CIA

Forward Operating Base Chapman

Chapman FOB

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS* | intelNews.org |
The recent deaths of seven and the serious injury of another six CIA personnel in Afghanistan’s Khost province has undoubtedly shocked an Agency not used to mass casualties. But what exactly is the significance of Wednesday’s suicide attack at the Forward Operating Base (FOB) Chapman, and how will it affect the US military and intelligence presence at the Afghan-Pakistani border? Given that the CIA team at Chapman FOB could not have consisted of more than 15 to 20 agents, it would be logical to conclude that the attack virtually decimated the CIA presence in Khost. But the impact of this development on US operations in Afghanistan will be minimal, in contrast to operations inside Pakistan, which constituted the primary objective of the CIA team at Chapman FOB. Read article →

Missing Polish intel officer probably defected to China

Stefan Zielonka

Stefan Zielonka

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
We have been keeping an eye on the mysterious case of Stefan Zielonka, a senior signals intelligence officer with Poland’s Military Intelligence Services (SWW), who disappeared without trace in early May. The seriousness of Zielonka’s disappearance stems from his extensive knowledge of Polish undercover intelligence networks operating overseas, including names and contacts of illegals –i.e. agents operating without diplomatic cover. Consequently, Polish intelligence officials have expressed fears that, if Zielonka defected, or was kidnapped by foreign intelligence agents, “much of the country’s intelligence network could be compromised”. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0226

  • CIA tries to increase numbers of women leaders. CIA Director Leon Panetta is taking steps to increase the number of women at the Agency’s highest levels. The US is apparently “behind the curve when it comes to promoting women to the top ranks of intelligence services”.
  • CIA denies employing David Headley. CIA spokesperson Marie E. Harf said that “any suggestion that [David Coleman Headley] worked for the CIA is flat wrong”. The comment was in response to persistent rumors that Headley, who was arrested by the FBI in October, for plotting to attack a Danish newspaper that published cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, is in fact an undercover CIA agent gone wild.
  • Taiwan wants to swap jailed spies with China. The Taiwanese Ministry of Defense, which proposed the exchange, said the plan follows its policy of “do[ing] our best to take care of agents and their family members in accordance with the law and regulations”. There have been several espionage-related arrests involving the two bitter rivals in recent months.

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EU foreign minister’s husband shunned KGB approaches in 1980s

Peter Kellner

Peter Kellner

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The husband of the recently appointed European Union minister for foreign affairs has acknowledged that the KGB tried to cultivate a relationship with him in the 1980s. Peter Kellner, who now presides over influential British polling company YouGov, is married to Baroness Ashton of Upholland (born Catherine Margaret Ashton), who assumed the prominent EU post on November 19. Intelligence documents show that British domestic intelligence agency MI5 had tagged Kellner and his wife as “communist sympathizers”, because of their anti-apartheid activism and long-term involvement with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, considered a “subversive” movement within the intelligence services. Read more of this post

Israel reveals long-awaited Levinson spy case details

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
As part of a move by Israeli intelligence agencies to adhere to elementary provisions of Israel’s declassification laws, Shin Bet has for the first time published details about the Shimon Levinson spy case. Levinson was a senior agent in Shin Bet (domestic intelligence) and the Mossad (external intelligence), who in 1991 was jailed for 12 years for spying on Israel on behalf of the Soviet KGB. Levinson’s career culminated with his appointment as head of the Mossad station in Ethiopia. This happened shortly before he voluntarily retired in1978, in frustration over an awaited promotion that failed to materialize. According to Shin Bet, it was Levinson’s business failures and financial instability, not ideology, that led him to contact the KGB and “offer his services to the Soviet Union” shortly after his retirement. Eventually the Soviets flew Levinson to the USSR, where he was trained in Soviet espionage techniques before being sent back to Israel. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0176

  • Hungarian Cold War double agent dies at 71. István Belovai, a former Lieutenant-Colonel in the Hungarian People’s Army Military Strategic Service (HPAMSS), who secretly began working for the US in 1984, has died in Denver, Colorado. Belovai revealed to the CIA details of the so-called Conrad spy ring. He was arrested by Hungarian security agents in 1985 and fled to the US upon his release from prison, in 1991, after being warned that his life was in danger.
  • US military spies to train Iraqi counterparts. The 201st Battlefield Support Battalion is training Iraqis on how to “coordinate spying from human sources, intercept cell phone and other electronic messages, do counterintelligence work, manage linguists, and monitor and target enemy positions, among other specialized tasks”.
  • Swiss secret service chief calls for more spies. Markus Seiler, the head of the new Swiss Federal Intelligence Service, which combines the country’s foreign and domestic intelligence services, has called Switzerland “a stomping ground for secret services”, and has called for more counterintelligence personnel. He has also said that the intelligence services plan a greater presence in Swiss embassies around the world.

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News you may have missed #0175

  • South Korean spy agency now regards North as ‘international affairs’. The Seoul-based National Intelligence Service (NIS) has relocated its unit that monitors North Korea under a department dealing with international affairs. The change, described as a “paradigm shift” by one South Korean official, apparently reflects President Lee Myung-bak’s view that the North Korean issue should be dealt more “from the international geopolitical perspective”.
  • Robbery of S. African intel agent was planned, say officials. The robbery by five men of a woman said to be an agent of South Africa’s National Intelligence Agency “was conducted as though it was very well planned”, according to police.
  • Interview with ex-West German spy master. Radio France Internationale has aired an interview with Hans-Georg Wieck, chief of the West German Secret Service (BND) between 1985 and 1990. Among other things, Wieck claims that BND had “well-placed” agents in East Germany, as well as in spy services of other communist, including the KGB.

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