News you may have missed #301

  • Six more arrested in Lebanon for spying for Israel. The Lebanese army has arrested at least six more people in southern and northern Lebanon, among them former army officers, on suspicion of spying sharing information about the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah with Israeli intelligence service Mossad. Dozens of alleged Israeli spy cells have been uncovered in Lebanon in recent months.
  • Survey of US spy agencies’ web presence. US intelligence agencies are using the Web to share information and engage the public. Some offer mobile versions and social networking tools –others badly need an update.
  • Danish journalist admits using job as cover to spy for Israel. Herbert Pundik, a Danish former newspaper editor, has admitted he used his journalism credentials to spy for Israel for a decade in the 1960s, saying he felt an obligation as a Jew.

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Australia investigates more alleged Israeli spies

ASIO Headquarters in Canberra

ASIO HQ

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) is among a number of Western intelligence agencies investigating at least three dual Australian-Israeli citizens, who are suspected of being Israeli spies. Citing “two Australian intelligence sources”, the Sydney Morning Herald said that the investigation into the three suspects began last year and is not connected to the January 19 assassination of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. At least three of the 26-member Mossad hit squad that killed al-Mabhouh used forged Australian passports to enter and exit the United Arab Emirates. Read more of this post

Ireland seeks Israeli spy who assembled forged passport data

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh

Al-Mabhouh

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
As the number of suspects involved in the assassination of Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh rose to 26 yesterday, Irish government sources said they suspect an Israeli agent in Dublin of orchestrating the acquisition of several Irish passports used in the assassination. Six of the 26 identified members of the Israeli hit squad who killed al-Mabhouh in Dubai last January used forged Irish travel documents to enter the United Arab Emirates from a variety of international locations. There are rumors in Dublin that at least three more forged Irish passports, which were utilized in the assassination operation, will soon be added to the growing list. According to Ireland’s Independent newspaper, the unnamed Dublin-based Israeli spy collected and collated most of the misleading information that was used to apply for the passports, under the names of real, living Irish citizens, all of whom have now been traced by Irish authorities. Read more of this post

Son of senior Hamas official was Shin Bet informant

Mosab Hassan Yousef

Yousef/Joseph

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The son of a senior Hamas official, who moved from the Gaza Strip to the United States in 2007, has said he was an informant for Israeli intelligence for at least a decade. Mosab Hassan Yousef, who legally changed his name to Joseph after converting to Christianity, is son of Hamas parliamentarian Sheikh Hassan Yousef. He told Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz that he was turned by Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence service, in 1997, after serving a year in an Israeli prison. The newspaper also spoke with Joseph’s Shin Bet handler, a “Captain Loai”, who said the Hamas official’s son was the agency’s most prized Hamas informant, and was given the operational alias GREEN PRINCE. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #294

  • Tensions mount in Turkey over alleged coup plot. Simmering tensions between Turkey’s government and judicial elite erupted into open confrontation Thursday, over the handling of a probe into the Ergenekon network, an alleged military-intelligence plot to topple the Islamist-rooted government.
  • CIA recruiting Chinese-Americans. The CIA is posting recruitment advertisements in Southern California’s Chinese language media during the Lunar New Year, in an attempt to hire Chinese Americans. This is part of a wider effort by the Agency to increase numbers of ethnic minority employees by 22 to 30 percent by 2012.
  • Two alleged Israeli spies sentenced to death in Lebanon. Retired police officer Mahmoud Qassem Rafeh, who was arrested by Lebanese authorities in 2006, has been given a death conviction for “collaboration and espionage on behalf of the Israeli enemy”. Another defendant, Palestinian Hussein Khattab, has been convicted in absentia for his alleged involvement in the murders of members of Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

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News you may have missed #293

  • US DHS monitors websites. According to a document released by the US Department of Homeland Security, Cryptome, Wired‘s Danger Room blog, and WikiLeaks, are among websites the DHS systematically monitors “in order to provide situational awareness and establish a common operating picture”. IntelNews wants to take this opportunity to say ‘hi’ to members of the DHS lurking around.
  • Russian spy lived in Dayton, stole secrets. Iowa-born and -bred communist and US Army engineer, George Koval, was a master at blending in. And, as it turns out, he was also a master spy for the Soviet Union. He did just that while working on the Manhattan Project in Dayton for six months in 1945.
  • Niger army suspends constitution. No word yet in Niger about the elections promised by the military coup plotters who appear to have staged a successful coup. For those who may not know, in international politics, Niger means uranium –lots of it. It’s also worth asking what ten agents of Bulgaria’s counterterrorism unit were doing in Niger on the day of the coup.

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News you may have missed #0289

  • UK spies worry about human rights lawsuits. Intelligence officers at Britain’s MI5 and MI6 are allegedly being diverted from counter-terrorism work to sift through thousands of documents relating to former terrorism detainees, who are suing the security services for breaching their human rights. The article makes it look like it is the torture victims’ fault for pursuing their rights. But in reality, MI5 and MI6 should have known better than to allow and participate in extralegal torture.
  • Bangladesh arrests alleged Burmese spies. Bangladesh coast guards have arrested eight citizens of Myanmar on suspicion of spying. Photographs of Bangladesh Navy warships and security installations were found in their possession, according to the country’s police chief.

News you may have missed #0288

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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News you may have missed #0286

  • More on CIA spies working for corporations. Author Eamon Javers provides more information about his new book, in which he examines the increasing phenomenon of CIA agents working for private corporations on the side.
  • Rio Tinto spy controversy thickens. Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto says it is “extremely worried” about four of its staff, who were arrested last July by Chinese authorities and have now been formally charged with espionage.
  • Court keeps White House spy emails secret. Two weeks ago, US President Barack Obama declared in his State of the Union address that “it’s time to require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or Congress”. This does not appear to apply to telecommunication industry lobbyists, who campaigned in favor of facilitating warrantless communications interception through the National Security Agency’s STELLAR WIND program.

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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 #0283

  • Romanian spy chief in rare interview. On the 20th anniversary of Romania’s post-communist Foreign Intelligence Service (SIE), Romanian daily Libera published an interesting interview with SIE director Mihai Razvan Ungureanu. Includes quote of the week: “The diplomat does nothing illegal […] while the spy does nothing in the spirit of respecting the laws of other states”.
  • Trial of Hawaii resident accused of spying for China postponed. Noshir Gowadia’s federal trial has been delayed several times since he was arrested in 2005, for allegedly providing China with information on making cruise missiles less visible to radar and heat-seeking missiles.
  • Bizarre suicide streak in Turkish military continues. Could the latest in a long list of recent alleged suicides by members of the Turkish military be connected to the shadowy Ergenekon military-intelligence network?

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News you may have missed #0282

  • Iran summons Canadian ambassador over CIA links. The Iranian government announced that it summoned the Canadian charge d’affaires in Tehran, in connection with revelations that Canada’s former ambassador to Iran secretly worked for the CIA in the late 1970s.
  • Charlie Wilson dead at 76. Charlie Wilson, a 12-term American congressional representative, who orchestrated the covert funding of Muslim mujahedeen in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s, has died in Texas.
  • Analysis: Is Colombia turning into a nation of informants? On January 27, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe announced his goal of putting a thousand spies in college classrooms. He offered to pay students $50 per month to report any suspicious ideas or behavior to the Colombian authorities. Forrest Hylton, who teaches at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, explains the disturbing political background of Uribe’s announcement.

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News you may have missed #0278

  • Israelis arrest two alleged Hamas informants. Israeli security service Shin Bet says 24-year olds Murad Kamal and Murad Nimer were recruited by Hamas in Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
  • Descendant of Richard Sorge’s accomplice receives Soviet-era award. An updated report on the 81-year-old niece of Yotoku Miyagi, a Japanese accomplice of famous German-born Comintern spy Richard Sorge, who has been awarded the Soviet Order of the Patriotic War medal in a ceremony at the Russian embassy in Tokyo, Japan. The medal was originally granted in 1965, but Miyagi was unable to collect it, as he had been executed by the Japanese, along with Sorge, in 1944.

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News you may have missed #0279

  • Pakistani spy agencies drug political activists. Intelligence agencies in Pakistan are using drugs to extract information from political activists, with the cooperation of doctors on the payroll of the state, according to one of Pakistan’s leading newspapers.
  • Georgia jails alleged Russian spy. Vakhtang Maisaia, a military expert who advised Georgia’s mission to NATO, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for spying for Russia during the 2008 South Ossetia War. Last week, Tsotne Gamsakhurdia, son of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Georgia’s first post-communist president, was formally charged with “collaborating with Russian intelligence services”.

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