Iran arrests seven with alleged CIA ties

February 9, 2010 by 1 Comment

RFE/RL old HQ

RFE/RL's old HQ

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The Iranian government has announced the arrests of seven people linked to a US government-funded radio station, some of whom it says were working for the CIA. The arrests were announced on February 7 by Iran’s Intelligence Ministry, which said some of the seven detainees had been “officially hired by US intelligence agencies” and had gone through “a selection and training process in Dubai and Istanbul”, in sabotage and black operations. The radio station in question is Radio Farda, the Farsi-language arm of the US government’s Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which has been broadcasting to Iran from Prague, Czech Republic, its headquarters in Europe, since 2003. According to the Iranian government, the seven detainees participated in fermenting opposition protests that led to the demonstrations in Iran during Ashura, the Shiite day of mourning, on December 27, 2009. Read more of this post

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Al-Mabhouh assassins used Irish passports, says Dubai police

February 8, 2010 by 3 Comments

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh

Al-Mabhouh

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
At least four of the seven people believed to have participated in last month’s assassination of a senior Hamas military official in Dubai, used forged Irish passports to enter and exit the United Arab Emirates, according to local police. The body of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, co-founder of the Palestinian Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, was discovered by staff at Dubai’s luxury Al-Bustan Rotana Hotel, where al-Mabhouh was a guest, on January 20. Nine days later, on January 29, Hamas accused Israeli intelligence service Mossad of having killed al-Mabhouh. Now the Dubai police alleges that four of the seven assassins, which included at least one woman, used real Irish travel documents with falsified identities to enter the Emirates, and used them again to “flee to a European country” several hours before al-Mabhouh’s body was discovered.   Read more of this post

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Israel blamed for killing of Hamas official in Dubai

February 2, 2010 by 1 Comment

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh

Al-Mabhouh

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The Palestinian group Hamas says Israeli agents are behind the murder of one of its most senior commanders, whose body was discovered two weeks ago in a luxury Dubai hotel. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, co-founder of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, was an important mediator in weapons procurement for the Palestinian group, which has controlled the Gaza strip since 2006.  On January 19, al-Mabhouh arrived in the United Arab Emirates on a commercial flight from Damascus, Syria, where he had lived for the past several years. Interestingly, he was apparently traveling under his real name, and was unaccompanied by his usual bodyguard detail, which —intelNews hears– has led to speculation that al-Mabhouh was somehow lured to Dubai. His body was discovered by staff at the luxury Al-Bustan Rotana Hotel the following morning. Read more of this post

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Real-life story behind Indian spy novel revealed

December 8, 2009 by 8 Comments

Mission to Pakistan by Maloy Krishna Dhar

Book cover

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A few years ago, Maloy Krishna Dhar, a longtime veteran of India’s Central Intelligence Bureau (CIB), wrote Mission to Pakistan, a spy novel about the ongoing intelligence war between nuclear powers India and Pakistan. Since 2002, when the novel was published, Dhar has maintained that the exploits of his protagonist, an undercover Indian spy leading a double life inside the Pakistani armed forces, were based on the true story of an unnamed CIB agent who was active in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It now appears that the real-life story behind the book is that of Ravindra Kaushik, an accredited CIB agent who moved to Pakistan from Dubai, converted to Islam, married a Pakistani woman, and joined the country’s Army under the cover name “Nabi Ahmed”. Read more of this post

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CIA using US consulate in Dubai to recruit Iranian spies: book

September 25, 2009 by Leave a comment

Dubai

Dubai

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The CIA routinely uses the US consulate in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to recruit Iranian spies, according to a new book. In Dubai: The World’s Fastest City, author Jim Krane quotes two unnamed American diplomats who say that US consular employees in Dubai issue travel visas to the thousands of Iranians who request them “only in exchange for inside information on the country”. Washington has no formal diplomatic relations with Tehran, and so Iranians use instead the US consular office in Dubai, which is situated right across from Iran in the Persian Gulf. 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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Dutch double agent called “modern-day Mata Hari” in prison

August 11, 2009 by 2 Comments

Malika Karoum

Malika Karoum

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Malika Karoum, the 33-year old intelligence operative who has been described as the “modern-day Mata Hari” is in prison in Egypt, a Dutch news magazine has revealed. Karoum, a Dutch citizen of Moroccan descent, joined Holland’s General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) in 2004, and worked as an undercover agent investigating Islamist groups operating on Dutch soil. In 2006, AIVD sent Karoum to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to aid an international investigation into money laundering with possible Islamist links. But Dutch intelligence sources say that Karoum, whose apparent cover was working as a real-estate agent, began “subcontracting” herself to Egyptian and United Arab Emirates intelligence services, and eventually utilized her real-estate cover to enter the murky business world of property development in Dubai. Read more of this post

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Dubai police say Russian parliamentarian ordered murder

April 6, 2009 by 1 Comment

Yamadayev

Yamadayev

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Police officials in the United Arab Emirates said last weekend that Chechnya’s ex-Prime Minister and “close ally of the Chechen president” was behind the March 31 assassination of a former Chechen separatist living in Dubai. Speaking to reporters, Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan bin Tamim, chief of Dubai’s police, said Adam S. Delimkhanov, who is currently a Member of Parliament in Russia, “is the man behind the assassination of Sulim B. Yamadayev”. Yamadayev was a Chechen rebel commander who fought against Moscow in the 1990s, but in 1999 switched sides and headed an elite pro-Moscow paramilitary squad that targeted the separatists. Last spring, however, after Yamadayev fell out with pro-Moscow Chechen President Ramzan A. Kadyrov, Moscow issued an arrest warrant against him for the 1998 abduction of a Chechen entrepreneur. Shortly after one of his brothers was shot dead in Moscow, Yamadayev moved to the United Arab Emirates. On March 31, however, less than four months after his relocation to Dubai, Yamadayev was shot several times in the head outside the Jumeirah Beach apartment complex in which he lived. He thus became the latest target in a recent wave of assassinations of former Chechen commanders by mysterious assailants, who many suspect are commissioned by the Russian intelligence services.  Read more of this post

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