News you may have missed #508

May 12, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • US not to withdraw Pakistan CIA chief. The US has said it will not withdraw the CIA station chief in Pakistan, despite his name being leaked to local media last week. But officials quoted by US media said the name published in Pakistani news outlets was spelled incorrectly.
  • CIA, not Pentagon, ran bin Laden operation. Has anyone noticed that CIA Director Leon Panetta has said a lot more about the Navy commandos’ killing of Osama bin Laden than has the Pentagon chief? The reason Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said exactly nothing about the raid is that the CIA, not the Pentagon, ran the operation.
  • Spy vs. spy in China. Interesting summary of the case of Glenn Shriver, an American who was arrested last year for accepting $70,000 from Chinese spies as he attempted to secure jobs with the CIA and US Foreign Service that would have allowed him to expose US government secrets.

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News you may have missed #507

May 10, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • Pakistani media reveal name of CIA station chief. Mark Carlton, the purported CIA station chief in Islamabad, was named by a Pakistani newspaper and a private television news network over the weekend, the second holder of that post in less than a year to have his cover blown by the media.
  • How an immigrant from Taiwan came to spy for China. Well-researched article on Tai Shen Kuo, a Taiwanese-born American citizen who is serving time in an Arizona prison for spying on the US for China.
  • Domestic surveillance grew in US in 2010. The level of domestic US intelligence surveillance activity in 2010 increased from the year before, according to a new Justice Department report to Congress. Moreover, the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved all 1,506 government requests to electronically monitor suspected “agents” of a foreign power or terrorists on US soil.

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News you may have missed #504

April 29, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • Israel spy pleads to Obama for release. United States Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard, who was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for spying for Israel, has pleaded for his release in a personal letter to President Barack Obama. The letter was apparently handed to Obama by Israeli President Shimon Peres when he visited the White House on April 5.
  • US-Pakistan spy feud boils over CIA drone strikes. The Pakistani government has voiced strong criticism of a fresh CIA drone attack, which has killed 26 people. But an anonymous US counterterrorism official, who spoke to the McClatchy news agency, said that “the Pakistanis should spend less time complaining to the press [about the drone strikes] and more time trying to root out terrorists within their country”.
  • Colombia to issue international warrant for ex-spy chief. Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office will issue an international arrest warrant for Maria Pilar Hurtado, former director of the country’s disgraced DAS intelligence agency, who was granted political asylum in Panama.

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Australian Labour Party leader worked for Soviets, claims historian

April 11, 2011 by 1 Comment

H.V. Evatt

H.V. Evatt

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
One of Australia’s leading intelligence historians has said that Herbert V. Evatt, who led the Australian Labour Party in the 1950s, operated as a secret agent for the Soviet Union. Dr Desmond Ball, professor at the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, made the claim following last week’s release in London of previously classified documents relating to Australian intelligence. The documents, which came from the archives of MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, reveal that Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies was convinced that Evatt was a Soviet agent. His fear appears to have culminated two days before the national election of November 22, 1958, when he privately expressed the fear that Evatt would destroy Australian counterintelligence documents on the Soviet Union if the Labour Party was elected to power. With this in mind, he ordered the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) to share top-secret documents on the Soviet Union with London and Washington. Following Menzies’ directive, the ASIO provided Britain’s MI5 and MI6, as well as America’s CIA with two sets each of a number of intelligence reports acquired through KGB defector Vladimir Petrov. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #494

April 8, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • David Petraeus tipped to be new CIA director. The Obama administration may tap CIA Director Leon Panetta to succeed Bob Gates as Secretary of Defense. If this happens, then General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Afghanistan, may take over Panetta’s job at the CIA.
  • Reuters denies bureau chief had CIA contacts. The Reuters news agency has denied an accusation made on Cuban state television that its bureau chief Anthony Boadle helped arrange a meeting between an undercover Cuban agent and a US diplomat described as a CIA operative.
  • UK court grants Russian ‘spy’ aid to fight deportation. Katia Zatuliveter, who is accused by Britain’s MI5 of spying for Russia, has won legal aid to help fight her case against deportation, according to news reports.

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News you may have missed #491

April 4, 2011 by Leave a comment

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MI5 concealed report on Soviet penetration from CIA

April 4, 2011 by Leave a comment

Kim Philby

Kim Philby

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
British counterintelligence officials decided to conceal from their American counterparts a report detailing Soviet spy penetration of the UK, because it showed London’s permissive attitude towards intelligence infiltration. The secret report, entitled “Survey of Russian Espionage in the UK 1935-1955”, was authored by the D Branch of MI5, which was tasked with countering Soviet intelligence operations on British soil. It was declassified on Monday by Britain’s National Archives, 55 years after it was initially authored. The survey was apparently commissioned following the embarrassing defections of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, MI5 and MI6 officers respectively, who escaped to Moscow in 1951, after several years of spying for the Soviet Union. Its pages detail the cases of over 50 Soviet intelligence operatives and double agents who were believed at the time to be mostly at large in the UK or abroad. But senior MI5 officials decided to limit the report’s distribution, fearing that it revealed too many weaknesses in Britain’s counterintelligence posture. Instead, they decided to print only about 25 copies of the report, which were to be distributed strictly within MI5. Read more of this post

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Israel to revoke citizenship for spying under new law

March 30, 2011 by 4 Comments

Avigdor Lieberman

Avigdor Lieberman

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A new law passed by the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, allows courts for the first time in Israel’s history to revoke the Israeli citizenship of those convicted of espionage, treason, or aiding “enemy organizations”. The new law, which the Knesset enacted on Monday night by a vote of 37 to 11, amends the country’s revered Citizenship Law, which was first enacted in 1952. Along with citizenship rights, judges will be allowed to revoke the permanent residency permits of individuals found guilty of assisting organizations designated as terrorist by the Israeli government. The legislation was primarily sponsored by the ultraconservative Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is Our Home) party, which is led by Israel’s current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Avigdor Lieberman. During the 2009 national elections, Mr. Lieberman campaigned on a so-called “no loyalty, no citizenship” political platform. This ultranationalist stance formed the basis of the citizenship revocation legislation enacted on Monday. The new law is in fact a watered down version of Yisrael Beiteinu’s original proposal, which included a requirement for loyalty oaths administered to all non-Jews living in Israel. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #488

March 28, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • Russians claim NATO plans ground operation in Libya. The international coalition force is “developing a plan for a ground operation on Libyan territory”, according to Russian news agency RIA Novosti, which quotes “a high-ranking Russian intelligence service source”.
  • Dutch Libya evacuee ‘not a spy’. An individual who was to be evacuated from the Libyan city of Sirte during a botched Dutch Navy helicopter rescue mission on February 27, is not a spy but an engineer who had been working there for two years on a construction project. This according to Erik Oostwegel, CEO of Royal Haskoning, the company that employed the engineer.
  • Syria arrests US engineer for ‘spying for Israel’. Syria has arrested an Egyptian engineer carrying a United States passport, who had been working in Syria after a secret visit to Israel, according to Syrian state-run television. But a “senior Syrian diplomatic source” has told Egyptian media that the spying charges are to be dropped.

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News you may have missed #484

March 18, 2011 by 2 Comments

  • Analysis: CIA may face reduced role in Pakistan after murder row. People familiar with the views of the Pakistani government say that, as part of the deal for the freeing of CIA operative Raymond Davis, the CIA agreed to give Pakistan more credit for its role in counter-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan, to cut back on US spying in Pakistan and to keep Pakistani authorities better informed of CIA activities.
  • Lebanese Army dismantles Israeli spying device. The Lebanese Army has dismantled an Israeli electronic spy device after receiving a tip-off from members of Hezbollah, according to reports from south Lebanon. This is not the first such reported incident. More pictures of the device are posted here.
  • Exhibition commemorates Soviet spy legend. An exhibition, dedicated to the 100th birth anniversary of legendary Soviet intelligence agent Nikolai Kuznetsov has opened in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg. Kuznetsov uncovered German plans to launch a massive tank attack in Ukraine’s Kursk region, as well as an operation to assassinate Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill in Tehran in 1943.

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Egypt busts alleged Israeli spy ring

March 17, 2011 by Leave a comment

Egypt

Egypt

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Authorities in Egypt announced Wednesday that they uncovered an espionage network, which they accuse of spying on the country on behalf of Israel. According to Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry al-Youm, which cited “informed security sources”, the alleged ring consisted of one Egyptian and several Israeli citizens, at least two of whom have been arrested. Other sources, however, state that the entire spy ring has been captured by Egyptian counterintelligence. The paper says that one of the detained Israelis entered Egypt in late January, carrying Jordanian travel documents and posing as a business executive interested in investing in the country. Al-Ahram has published a follow-up report suggesting that the alleged spy ring specialized on collecting information relating to the Egyptian military. The report also claims that the carrier of the Jordanian passport admitted before Egypt’s state prosecutor that he spied for the Mossad, Israel’s primary external intelligence agency. Al-Masry states that the alleged spy ring began its operations in Egypt following the January 25 revolution, with the aim of passing on information to Tel Aviv about the handover of power from the clique of former President Hosni Mubarak to Egypt’s military leadership, which has controlled the government since Mubarak’s ouster. Read more of this post

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Pakistan releases CIA operative in ‘carefully choreographed’ deal [updated]

March 16, 2011 by Leave a comment

Raymond Allen Davis

Raymond Davis

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Pakistani groups had warned of “Egyptian-style protests” if CIA operative Raymond Allen Davis was released from detention, so his release earlier today, which hardly surprised intelligence observers, appears to have been arranged so as to limit its feared political spillover. In a move that The Washington Post described as “carefully choreographed”, Islamabad handed Davis to the Americans, while the latter thanked the families of the two men killed by Davis for “their generosity” in forgiving him. The exchange was announced later in the day, so by the time it made the rounds on Pakistani media, it was after nightfall, and too late to organize street protests. Some violent clashes between police and demonstrators were reported in Lahore (where the killings took place), but the streets other Pakistani cities appear to be generally quiet. Davis, who was charged with murder by a Pakistani court earlier this year, appears to have been freed after the US agreed to give $700,000 to the families of each of his two victims. The total cost to the US behind Davis’ deal may be as high as $2.3 million (update: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton  has said the US “did not pay compensation” for Davis’ release). Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #482

March 11, 2011 by 2 Comments

  • Kissinger wants US spy for Israel freed. Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is urging President Barack Obama to release Jonathan Pollard, an American convicted of spying on the US for Israel 24 years ago. He has sent Obama a letter, in which he writes “I believe justice would be served by commuting” Pollard’s life sentence.
  • MI5 short of surveillance officers says minister. A senior British official has revealed MI5 does not have enough spies to allow it to increase its counterintelligence surveillance, as per government plans. Security Minister Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones said the Security Service needed to recruit and train more surveillance officers.
  • US spy agencies lack fluent bilingual speakers. Many Americans don’t learn a second or a third language from birth, let alone a language that the CIA or US Foreign Service might want. The situation has forced US government agencies to learn how to cultivate the most talented second-language speakers from among college students with little to no other-language expertise.

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Russia may swap convicted spy for ‘merchant of death’ held in US

March 10, 2011 by 4 Comments

Viktor Bout

Viktor Bout

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Moscow and Washington may swap a Russian former defense official, convicted for spying for the United States, with notorious Russian weapons dealer Viktor Bout, who is being held in a US prison. Andrei Klychev, 49, who worked at Rosatom Russia’s Nuclear Energy State Corporation, was arrested last year on espionage charges. Last week, he was given an 18-year sentence in a closed-door trial, for spying on behalf of the United States. But Russia’s Interfax news agency reported on Wednesday that Russia is actively considering swapping Klychev with Viktor Bout, history’s most notorious weapons smuggler, whose shady activities inspired the 2005 motion picture Lord of War. Bout, who was born in 1967 in Dushanbe, Soviet Tajikistan, served in the GRU (Soviet military intelligence) until the dissolution of the USSR, at which point he began supplying weapons to groups ranging from Congolese rebels and Angolan paramilitaries to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. In March of 2008, Bout was arrested by the Royal Thai Police, after a tip by US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officers. The latter had managed to lure Bout to Thailand by pretending to be Colombian FARC arms procurers. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #481

March 9, 2011 by 3 Comments

  • Who brought down the CIA website last Thursday? US Federal officials as of Monday afternoon were still investigating the cause of a Thursday cyber incident that knocked offline the public website of the CIA and its unclassified e-mail system. The interference was isolated to CIA networks. Some cyber experts say the disruption may have been caused by a denial of service attack perpetrated by pranksters to show off their skills, rather than an act committed by a foreign government.
  • Israeli cabinet minister to visit jailed spy in US. Israel’s Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon is to make a visit next week to see Jonathan Pollard, an American serving a life term in a US jail for spying on the US for Israel. Israeli media claim that Kahlon will give Pollard a “verbal message” from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
  • Egypt’s spies dragged from shadows. New evidence of spying and torture by Egypt’s General Intelligence Services (GIS) has piled pressure on the country’s military rulers to abolish the agency. After breaking into the GIS Cairo headquarters and ransacking archives, activists posted videos showing a torture chamber with a bloodstained floor and equipped with chains.

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