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News you may have missed #0058

August 5, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Were Americans in Iran spying or in wrong place at wrong time? Officials in northern Iraq’s Kurdish region said Sunday that the three, Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Joshua Fattal, were tourists who inadvertently crossed into Iran on Friday while hiking in the region. But the head of the Iranian parliament’s National Security Committee said on government-run Arabic television that the three came as spies.
British lawmaker challenges US threats to suppress CIA torture evidence. Conservative British parliamentarian David Davis is on a visit to the United States to speak with US lawmakers about the case of Binyam Mohamed.
Al-Qaeda will pose a threat for 20 years, says Dennis Blair. The US Director of National Intelligence has said al-Qaeda will continue to rely mostly on conventional explosives in its attacks.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with al-Qaeda, Binyam Mohamed, CIA, David Davis, Dennis Cutler Blair, DNI, espionage, Iran, Iranian Parliament National Security Committee, Joshua Fattal, Kurdistan, News, news you may have missed, Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer, torture, UK, UK House of Commons, United States, War on Terrorism

Russians helped Lebanon bust Israeli spy ring, claims site

August 5, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

FSB agent

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Israeli website DEBKAfile claims that the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) is the primary counterintelligence force behind the busting of the Al-Alam spy ring in Lebanon, which intelNews has been monitoring since February, when it first erupted. The website, known for its contacts with intelligence circles, says that it was Russian, not French, surveillance technology that helped uncover the spy ring. The article cites “Western intelligence sources in the Middle East”, who apparently revealed that a specialist FSB unit was commissioned by Hezbollah, the Shia Islamic political and paramilitary organization that controls large parts of Lebanon, to root out the massive spy ring. The unit then proceeded to do so “with the help of super-efficient detection systems”, DEBKAfile claims. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Al-Alam spy ring, counterintelligence, espionage, FSB, Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanese Internal Security Forces, Lebanon, News, Russia

News you may have missed #0055

August 4, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Top Sri Lanka government officials spied for Tigers. Sri Lankan authorities say that some top government officials serving in the north of the country are facing arrest over allegedly feeding intelligence to the LTTE. The revelation follows the arrest last week of the LTTE’s intelligence chief.
Three Americans arrested in Iran are not spies, says ABC News. The news outlet claims the detainees are two writers and an environmental worker. Interestingly, all three are based in the Middle East and are fluent in Arabic.
Rio Tinto spy allegations would stand in Australia, say Chinese. Liu Jieyi, a vice minister with the international department in the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, tells ABC Radio that allegations of bribery and stealing state secrets against Stern Hu would stand in Australia as well as China.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Australia, bribing, Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, China, corporate espionage, economic espionage, espionage, Iran, Joshua Fattal, Kurdistan, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Liu Jieyi, LTTE, News, news you may have missed, Rio Tinto, Sarah Shourd, Shane Bauer, Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, Stern Hu, United States

News you may have missed #0054

August 3, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Stasi files reveal covert war against Western musicians. Files kept by the former East German secret police indicate that they were worried about rock concerts held within listening distance of East Berlin neighborhoods by Michael Jackson, Pink Floyd and Bruce Springsteen, among others.
Greece arrests Muslim minority member for ‘spy photos’. The man was arrested last weekend on charges of spying for Turkey, following the confiscation of hundreds of photographs from his home, most of which depict Greek military facilities. Greece’s State Intelligence Service (EYP) had been monitoring his activities for nearly a year.
Head of Bulgaria’s national security agency resigns. Petko Sertov, director of Bulgaria’s State Agency for National Security (DANS) has handed his resignation, allegedly after Bulgaria’s “American partners were said to have lost faith” in him.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Bruce Springsteen, Buglaria, Cold War, culture, DANS (Bulgaria), Eastern Europe, espionage, EYP (Greece), Greece, Greek Muslims, Michael Jakson, music, News, news you may have missed, Petko Sertov, photographic intelligence, Pink Floyd, State Intelligence Service (Greece), Turkey

News you may have missed #0053

August 3, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

[UNCONFIRMED] Saudi opposition group claims Prince Bandar under house arrest. Saad al-Faqih, head of the Saudi opposition group Islamic Reform Movement, claims that Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the kingdom’s former ambassador to the United States, and a close ally of the Bush family and former CIA leadership, is under house arrest after reportedly trying to “provoke 200 agents working for the Saudi security service to stage a coup against King Abdullah”.
Ukrainian diplomat expelled from Russia named. An Ukrainian source has named one of the two Ukrainian diplomats to be expelled by Russia as part of the tit-for-tat row as Igor Berezkin. The expulsions follow a similar move by Ukrainian authorities who requested that Russia’s consul general in Odessa, Alexander Grachev and a senior counselor at the Russian embassy, Vladimir Lysenko, leave Ukraine over accusations that they had been involved in work in violation of their diplomatic status (i.e. espionage).
Book claims Secret Service took psychic’s advice. Ronald Kessler claims in a new book that the US Secret Service changed a motorcade route for the first President George Bush based on a psychic’s vision that he would be assassinated.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, Alexander Grachev, assassinations, Bandar bin Sultan, coup plots, diplomatic expulsions, espionage, George Bush Sr., Igor Berezkin, Islamic Reform Movement, News, news you may have missed, Odessa, Ronald Kessler, Russia, Russian consulate in Odessa (Ukraine), Russian embassy in the Ukraine, Saad al-Faqih, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, US Secret Service, Vladimir Lysenko

Newspaper publishes names of suspected Israeli spy ring members

August 1, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

As-Safir

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A Lebanese newspaper has published the names of 22 Arabs arrested in conjunction with the Al-Alam spy ring affair, which intelNews has been monitoring since February, when it first erupted. The catalogue, aired by As-Safir newspaper, contains the arrestees’ address and employment details, and includes photographs of three of the suspects. Over 70 individuals have so far been arrested in connection with the Al-Alam spy ring, which Lebanese authorities allege was operated by Israel and operated predominantly in southern Lebanon. Detained suspects include two Palestinians, one Egyptian, and at least 37 Lebanese citizens, one of whom was a retired brigadier. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Al-Alam spy ring, As-Safir (newspaper), counterintelligence, espionage, Gaza Strip, Israel, Lebanon, News, Palestine, West Bank

News you may have missed #0050

July 31, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Cuban Five to be given new sentences in October. Washington accuses the Five of spying on the US for Cuba. But an appeals court has ruled that the sentences they received (ranging from life to 19 years) were too long. New sentences will be imposed on October 13. The Cuban government has said that it would be willing to swap jailed political dissidents for the Five.
CIA invests in web-based software company –again. The CIA’s venture-capital investment arm, In-Q-Tel, appears to be really fond of Lingotek, a tiny software company in Draper, Utah. Last month, In-Q-Tel funded another software start-up, Lucid Imagination.
Canada to investigate spy service’s role in Abdelrazik’s torture. Canada’s Security Intelligence Review Committee has agreed to probe the case of Abousfian Abdelrazik, who was renditioned to Sudan by Canada’s Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). He says he was severely tortured by Sudanese guards and interrogators.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Abousfian Abdelrazik, Canada, CIA, CSIS (Canada), Cuba, Cuban Five, espionage, extraordinary rendition, In-Q-Tel, Lingotek, News, news you may have missed, Security Intelligence Review Committee (Canada), Sudan, torture, United States

News you may have missed #0049

July 31, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Return to court for ex-CIA station chief accused of rape. Andrew M. Warren has been free on bail since February of 2009, when he was unceremoniously recalled to the US from the CIA’s Algiers station. He is accused of having drugged and raped two Algerian women at his official residence. On Tuesday he was back at a federal courtroom in Washington for a status hearing.
Swedish spy threat at Cold War levels, claims report. A study by the Swedish Military Intelligence and Security Service (MUST), says spying on Sweden by “several countries, including those in our immediate surroundings” is “at the same level […] as during the Cold War”.
Former CIA station chief doubts Daniel Boyd story. Milt Bearden, former CIA station chief in Pakistan, doubts that Boyd, who was arrested along with seven others in North Carolina on domestic terrorism charges, ever saw action in Afghanistan, as stated by his prosecutors.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Afghanistan, Algeria, Algiers, Andrew M. Warren, CIA, CIA Algiers station, Cold War, Daniel Boyd, espionage, Milt Bearden, MUST (Sweden), News, news you may have missed, North Carolina, Sweden, Swedish Military Intelligence and Security Service, terrorism, United States

News you may have missed #0048

July 30, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Spy charges against I.F. Stone nonsense, says biographer. D.D. Guttenplan, biographer of American journalist and scholar I.F. Stone, says charges made in the new book Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America that Stone was a Soviet spy are historically unfounded and politically suspicious.
NSA releases pre-WWII COMINT history without redactions. Declassification of complete text follows successful appeal by researcher Michael Ravnitzky.
Philippine protesters allege military surveillance. Anti-government protesters in Quezon City say they caught eight men spying on them on behalf of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. But military officials have denied the charges.
Canada court to review Ex-KGB agent’s expulsion order. Mikhail Lennikov has a date for a judicial review of a decision to expel him from Canada on security grounds.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Armed Forces of the Philippines, Canada, COMINT, communications intelligence, D.D. Guttenplan, declassification, domestic intelligence, espionage, history, I.F. Stone, informants, KGB, Michael Ravnitzky, Mikhail Alexander Lennikov, national security, News, news you may have missed, NSA, Philippines, Russia, United States

Kim Philby’s granddaughter describes memories of her grandfather

July 30, 2009 by intelNews 3 Comments

Charlotte Philby

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Charlotte Philby, daughter of John Philby, H.A.R. “Kim” Philby’s oldest son, has penned an extensive account of her memories of her grandfather. In her article, published yesterday in British daily The Independent, she describes Kim Philby as “a proud man, and one who chose to publicly stand by his actions”. Kim Philby was probably the most successful double spy in history. While working as a senior member of British intelligence, he spied on behalf of the Soviet KGB and NKVD from the early 1930s until 1963, when he defected to Moscow. Two years later he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. The Soviet authorities buried him with honors when he died in 1988. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Cambridge Five, Charlotte Philby, Cold War, double agents, espionage, H.A.R. "Kim" Philby, John Philby, KGB, MI6, Moscow (Russia), News, NKVD, Order of the Red Banner, Sheremetyevo International Airport, UK, USSR

News you may have missed #0044

July 27, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Attorney behind CIA lawsuit gives interview. Brian C. Leighton, the attorney representing former Drug Enforcement Agency officer Richard A. Horn, who claims that CIA agents illegally wiretapped his conversations, has given an interview to The Merced Sun-Star.
Germany accuses China of industrial espionage. A senior German counterintelligence official has said Germany is under attack from an increasing number of state-backed Chinese spying operations that are costing the German economy tens of billions of euros a year. Similar claims were made in May.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Brian C. Leighton, Burma, China, CIA, DEA, espionage, Germany, industrial espionage, Internet, lawsuits, News, news you may have missed, Rangoon (Burma), Richard A. Horn, wiretapping

News you may have missed #0042

July 26, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Postcards containing Cold War spy messages unearthed. The postcards, containing chess moves, were posted in 1950 by an unidentified man in Frankfurt, thought to have been an undercover agent, to Graham Mitchell, who was then deputy director general of MI5. The problem is, researchers are not quite sure whether the cryptic text on the postcards is based on British or Soviet codes, because Mitchell was suspected of being a secret Soviet agent at the time.
Is NSA actively mapping social networks? There are rumors out there that NSA is monitoring social networking tools, such as Tweeter, Facebook and MySpace, in order to make links between individuals and construct elaborate data-mining-based maps of who associates with whom.
US Senate bill would disclose intelligence budget. The US Senate version of the FY2010 intelligence authorization bill would require the President to disclose the aggregate amount requested for intelligence each year. Disclosure of the budget request would enable Congress to appropriate a stand-alone intelligence budget that would no longer need to be concealed misleadingly in other non-intelligence budget accounts.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with cloud computing, Cold War, cryptology, data mining, double agents, espionage, Facebook, Frankfurt (Germany), government secrecy, Graham Mitchell, intelligence budget, intelligence funding, MI5, MySpace, News, news you may have missed, NSA, social networking, Twitter, UK, United States, US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, USSR

News you may have missed #0041

July 25, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Ex-CIA analyst scolds Ignatius for defending CIA’s assassination program. Melvin A. Goodman, author of Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA, calls The Washington Post‘s David Ignatius “the mainstream media’s leading apologist” for the CIA.
Tajikistan uranium factory boss accused of espionage. The Tajik government has detained Shavkat Bobojonov, director of its Vostokredmet uranium-reprocessing plant, considered by many a strategic facility, of spying for neighboring Uzbekistan.
US says it focuses “new intelligence effort” on Taliban. The US Pentagon says it is consolidating into a unified effort “for the first time” data from several intelligence sources, including unmanned drones and other aircraft, intercepted messages, and ground troops.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Afghanistan, CIA, David Ignatius, espionage, military intelligence, News, news you may have missed, Predator drones, Shavkat Bobojonov, Tajikistan, Taliban, United States, US DoD, Uzbekistan, Vostokredmet uranium-reprocessing plant (Tajikistan)

News you may have missed #0040

July 24, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Top court scolds German government over spy secrecy. Angela Merkel’s government has been rebuked by Germany’s most senior court for withholding information from a parliamentary inquiry into the role of Germany’s intelligence service (BND) in the detention of two Muslims from Germany at a US prison in Afghanistan.
Man implicated in Israeli spy affair says US government “tainted by anti-Semitism”. Larry Franklin, the former Defense Department analyst accused by the US government of handing classified US military information to two American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobbyists, has told Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz that “some of the agencies of the US administration, and in particular the Federal Bureau of Investigation, are tainted by anti-Semitism”.
Defense contractors preparing private cyberwarriors? US Defense contractors such as Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), and others, are moving into the lucrative realm of cyberwarfare.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Afghanistan, AIPAC, BND, cyberwar, defense industry, espionage, FBI, German Muslims, Germany, Israel, Lawrence Anthony Franklin, News, news you may have missed, United States

Cambridge spy ring member’s memoir reveals motives behind actions

July 24, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Anthony Blunt

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The British Library kept its promise and released yesterday the closely guarded, incomplete autobiographical manuscript of Anthony Blunt, fourth member of the Cambridge spy ring. The group of British spies, which worked secretly for the Soviet Union from the 1930s until the 1960s, included Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and H.A.R. “Kim” Philby, all of whom eventually defected to the Soviet Union. In his 30,000-word memoir, Blunt, an art history professor who in 1945 became Surveyor of the King’s Pictures and was knighted in 1954, describes his recruitment to spy for the Soviets as “the most important decision of my life”. Read more of this post