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Iran factory blast coincides with reported bomb attack on Ahmadinejad

August 6, 2010 by intelNews 3 Comments

Ahmadinejad

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Official Iranian denials of an alleged bomb attack on the life of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday have been followed by reports of a simultaneous attack on a state-of-the-art Iranian petrochemicals complex. Specifically, on August 4, Reuters news agency cited an Iranian “presidential office source” in reporting a strong blast “500 meters from Ahmadinejad’s motorcade”. The blast, which Reuters attributed to either a hand grenade or a homemade explosive device, occurred as the Iranian President was being transported from the regional airport of Hamadan, in western Iran, to the city’s sports complex, where he was scheduled to deliver a speech. Reuters’ unnamed source said the President escaped unhurt, but subsequent reports indicated that several other passengers on the motorcade were injured. Interestingly, President Ahmadinejad’s office initially appeared to confirm the assassination attempt, but soon afterwards official state news agency IRNA attributed the blast on “an excited young man from Hamadan [who] exploded a firecracker in order to express his happiness”. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Ahmadreza Radan, assassinations, Hamadan (Iran), Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Middle East, News, Pardis (Iran), Philip Crowley, sabotage, Tehran (Iran), United States, US Department of State

Comment: Is Lebanon Using US Assistance to Capture Israeli Agents?

August 5, 2010 by intelNews 5 Comments

Lebanon

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A minor revolution has been taking place in Lebanon over the past 16 months. Since April of 2009, Lebanese authorities have arrested nearly 100 individuals on charges of spying for Israel, three of whom have been sentenced to death. Judging by numbers alone, this may be one of the most astonishing coups in the annals of counterintelligence. There are several reasons why this is happening.

News you may have missed #406

August 4, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

US National intelligence nominee oversaw problematic contract. While James Clapper headed the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a corporation he contracted for information technology functions was found to have “been seriously deficient with respect to security issues”. Clapper is now President Barack Obama’s controversial nominee to be Director of National Intelligence.
Pakistan spy chief cancels UK visit over terrorism comments. British Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent claim that Pakistan promotes the export of terrorism has led its intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, to cancel a visit to Britain.
Israel alleges new Turkey spy chief is Iran supporter. Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak has expressed concern over Turkey’s appointment of new spy chief, Hakan Fidan, saying he is a “supporter” of the Jewish state’s enemy Iran. This is the second time in recent weeks that Israel has expressed concern over Fidan.

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News you may have missed #401

July 27, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Ex-CIA chief Hayden predicts war with Iran. General Michael Hayden, a CIA Director under President George W. Bush, says US-led military action against Iran now “seems inexorable”.
Venezuela warns of US oil cut in Colombia dispute. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday that his government would cut oil supplies to the United States in case of a military attack from Colombia, as a dispute escalated over charges his country harbors Colombian rebels. Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations with Colombia last week.
Canada revokes passport of Russian spy who fled to Cyprus. Canada has canceled the passport of Christopher Metsos, a suspected Russian spy who is wanted by Interpol after fleeing following his release on bail in Cyprus last month.

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News you may have missed #398

July 22, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Britain’s first spy chief ordered Rasputin’s murder. Mansfield Cumming, or ‘C’ as he became known, was the first chief of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). In December 1916, he sent three agents in Russia to eliminate Grigori Rasputin, an influential Orthodox Russian priest who had a positive view of Germany.
Russian spy network moved money to Zimbabwe. A Zimbabwean company called Southern Union is alleged to have been used by exposed Russian spy Anna Chapman in a money smuggling operation involving a syndicate linked to the Robert Mugabe regime.
Iran says nuclear scientist gave valuable info on CIA. Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency says that Iranian nuclear scientist Dr. Shahram Amiri, who resurfaced and returned home last week from the United States, after having disappeared during a 2009 religious pilgrimage to Mecca, has provided Iran with “valuable information” on the CIA.

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Comment: Defector’s Wish to Return to Iran Not Unusual

July 14, 2010 by intelNews 5 Comments

Shahram Amiri

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
This website has covered extensively the case of Dr. Shahram Amiri, a scientific researcher employed in Iran’s nuclear program, who disappeared during a religious pilgrimage to Mecca in May or June of 2009. Tehran maintains that Dr. Amiri was abducted by CIA agents. However, most intelligence observers, including this writer, believe that the Iranian researcher willfully defected to the West, following a long, carefully planned intelligence operation involving the CIA, as well as French and German intelligence agencies.

Ex-Panama dictator Noriega describes ‘friendly ties’ with CIA

July 7, 2010 by intelNews 2 Comments

Manuel Noriega

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Panama’s notorious former dictator, Manuel Noriega, has described what he called his “long, friendly relationship” with the CIA in court testimony in France where he is defending charges of money laundering. Speaking on the second day of his trial in Paris, Noriega argued that millions of dollars he deposited in several French bank accounts were CIA payments for his services, not income from illicit drug sales. Panama’s former strongman described in his testimony how he gained power with the help of the CIA in the small but strategically important Central American nation, in 1983. He also listed the services he provided to the CIA during the closing stages of the Cold War, in relation to Cuba, Nicaragua and Iran. But Noriega, who was deposed during the 1989 US invasion of Panama, said the US leadership and the CIA turned against him after he repeatedly refused to take part in a series of covert operations against the leftist Sandinistas government in neighboring Nicaragua. Read more of this post

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Retired US colonel charged with smuggling weapons to Somalia

July 6, 2010 by intelNews 5 Comments

Somalia

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A retired US Air Force colonel, who was charged with weapons smuggling during the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s, has been indicted again, this time for trying to smuggle automatic weapons into Somalia. US federal authorities accuse Joseph O’Toole, now 79, of conspiring with Israeli citizen Chanoch Miller, formerly an aeronautics engineer with Israeli defense firm Radom Aviation, to transport nearly 2,000 AK-47s from Bosnia to Banderal, Somalia. The smuggling operation, which employed forged end-user certificates issued in Chad, violated US weapons export control regulations, which are in compliance with a United Nations weapons embargo to war-ravaged Somalia. This is the second time O’Toole has been indicted with conspiring to smuggle weapons. In 1989, he was charged of working with fellow-American Richard St. Francis and Israeli alleged ex-Mossad operative Ari Ben-Menashe, to sell several US C-130 cargo airplanes to the Iranian government. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #378

June 28, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Knesset thanks Hamas leader’s son for spying for Israel. The Israeli Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee has sent a letter of thanks to Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Hamas West Bank leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef, who from 1998 to 2007 spied for Israel’s Shin Bet security service.
Analysis: Will McChrystal’s intel staff survive his exit? In the shock wave following General Stanley McChrystal’s abrupt summons from Kabul, there were rumors in special operations circles that his senior staff had been relieved of duty, too. But the fevered buzz appears to have been false, or at least premature.
Iran embassy dismisses Czech report on weapons smuggling. The Iranian embassy in Prague has criticized the Czech counterintelligence’s (BIS) 2009 annual report, which says that Iran strove to gain access to component parts that can be used in the production of mass destruction weapons.

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News you may have missed #376

June 21, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Dubai plans more cameras after Mossad operation. Dubai will beef up its surveillance capability by installing more cameras around the city-state after the Israeli hit squad that murdered a senior Hamas operative was caught on a hotel video. As intelNews has reported before, Mossad has really helped the Gulf surveillance industry.
Iran hangs ‘spy’ with alleged US connections. Iran hanged Sunni militant leader Abdolmalek Rigi last weekend for allegedly having connections with foreign secret services, including “intelligence officers of the US and Israel working under the cover of NATO and certain Arab countries” as well as “anti-revolutionary expatriate groups such as the MEK”, the People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran.
Analysis: FBI use of Muslim informers now part of daily life. Gathering information on people in Muslim communities in the United States has become part of daily life. After 9/11, all data is considered useful. But, Stephan Salisbury of The Philadelphia Inquirer asks, is that how America should be?

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News you may have missed #375 (analysis edition)

June 17, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

Analysis: Israel worried by new Turkey spy chief’s defense of Iran. Israel’s defense establishment, which maintains ties with Turkey’s national intelligence organization (MİT), is concerned over the recent appointment of Hakan Fidan as head of that organization, and the implications of that appointment vis-a-vis Turkish relations with Israel and Iran.
Analysis: How the CIA bolstered radical Islam during Cold War. The CIA’s battle with communism during the Cold War allowed radical Islamists to gain a foothold in Europe, according to a new book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ian Johnson, entitled A Mosque in Munich: Nazis, the CIA and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West.

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Turkey, Iran, offer warship protection for Gaza flotillas

June 7, 2010 by intelNews 4 Comments

Tayyip Erdoğan

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Close aides to the Turkish Prime Minister’s office have disclosed that Ankara is funding a new fleet of ships to sail to Gaza under protection by Turkish warships. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps have also offered warship protection. The office of Turkey’s Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan, is now actively assisting the Turkish-based Humanitarian Aid Foundation (ÍHH) in fundraising for the acquisition of a new fleet of ships to carry humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. Last Monday, an ÍHH-funded flotilla bound for Gaza was raided in international waters by the Israeli Navy, which diverted the ships to Israel after killing nine and injuring over 60 passengers. According to reports from The Associated Press and Agence France Presse, Mr. Erdogan plans to be among the passengers of the new flotilla, which will be escorted en route to Gaza by Turkish warships. Meanwhile, reports from Iran’s government-aligned Mehr News Agency indicate that the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) have offered their warships as protection for future aid ship convoys to the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #366 (Gaza flotilla edition III)

June 2, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Israel insists Hezbollah members were on flotilla. Israeli officials are privately saying that they had intelligence that Hezbollah operatives were hidden among the crew and passengers of several Gaza Freedom Flotilla ships. The plan, they say, was to board all the ships, bring the flotilla to Ashdod, and then deal separately with the Gaza activists and alleged Hezbollah members.
Analysis: Flotillas and the wars of public opinion. In the aftermath of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla massacre, “[t]he Israeli threats against Iran will be seen in a different context, and Israeli portrayal of Iran will hold less sway over the world”, says StratFor.
Turkey compares flotilla massacre to 9-11. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu drew a parallel between the Israeli raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and September 11, 2001. “Psychologically this attack is like 9/11 for Turkey,” he said. Meanwhile, as two more aid ships are approaching Gaza, an anonymous senior Israeli Navy commander told The Jerusalem Post that Israel will “use more force next time”.

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Documents reveal Bill Clinton’s secret contact with Iran

May 31, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

M. Khatami

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Two newly declassified high-level documents reveal a short-lived overture between Washington and Tehran, initiated in 1999 by the Bill Clinton administration. The US President resorted to the secret communication with Iran in an attempt to preempt several hawkish policy planners in his administration. The latter pressed for strong American military retaliation against Iran, in response to the latter’s alleged involvement in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing. The bombing, which targeted a US Air Force base in the suburbs of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killed 19 and wounded 400 American servicemen and women. By 1999, US intelligence agencies were convinced that the bombing had been financed and orchestrated by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), an independent administrative and paramilitary institution tasked with –among other things– exporting the Iranian Revolution abroad. But the Clinton Administration decided to contact the then newly elected reformist Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, and sternly inform him of the evidence against the IRGC. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #361

May 28, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

FBI linguist jailed in leak probe. The Obama administration’s crackdown on government whistleblowers continued on Tuesday with the jailing of Shamai Leibowitz, a former FBI contract linguist who disclosed classified information to the media.
Yemen sentences alleged Iranian spies to death. Two members of an alleged Iranian spy cell operating in Yemen were sentenced to death on Tuesday. The Yemeni government accuses Iran of arming the Shiite so-called Sa’adah insurgency along the Yemeni-Saudi border.
New Turkish intel chief has big plans. Among the changes that Hakan Fidan, new chief of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT), intends to spearhead is “starting a separate electronic intelligence organization like the American NSA or the British GCHQ”.