Iran | intelNews.org

News you may have missed #0260

January 20, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Senior Iran military official says foreign correspondents “clearly spying”. Speaking at a gathering of Iranian armed forces personnel, Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri said individuals who have links with some foreign radio and television networks are “clearly spying on Iran in a modern way”. This comment comes after last year’s arrest in Iran of Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari, who was accused by Tehran of being a “media spy”.
Protest organized near CIA headquarters. Activists led by antiwar campaigner Cindy Sheehan have staged a rally near the CIA’s headquarters and former Vice President Dick Cheney’s home in northern Virginia, protesting the use of unmanned drone aircraft to assassinate al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders in Pakistan.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Afghanistan, assassinations, CIA, Cindy Sheehan, Dick Cheney, espionage, Iran, Iranian armed forces, journalism, Massoud Jazayeri, Maziar Bahari, News, news you may have missed, Pakistan, political activism, Predator drones, United States

News you may have missed #0257 (assassinations edition)

January 18, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Who tried to kill the Israeli diplomats in Jordan? “Whoever placed the bomb targeting the two armored embassy vehicles on their way from Jordan to the Allenby Bridge, last Thursday, appears to have had very good intelligence. They knew that many Israeli diplomats, who normally live in Amman without their families, usually depart for Israel for the weekend on Thursday afternoon, and they knew how to identify the two-car convoy”.
Iran insists in Israeli link to Mohammadi assassination. Last week’s assassination of Iranian scientist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi was carried out in a “Zionist style”, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said in his first direct comment on the killing.
Pakistanis urge US to stop drone attacks. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has renewed calls on the US to stop its CIA-operated targeted assassinations, using unmanned Predator drone attacks on Pakistani soil, as they “kill civilians and ruin its efforts to isolate militants sheltering with tribes in the border region”.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Amman (Jordan), assassinations, CIA, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, News, news you may have missed, Pakistan, Predator drones, United States, Yousuf Raza Gilani

News you may have missed #0253

January 14, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Iran undecided on nukes, says US military spy chief. The US Pentagon’s top intelligence official, Lieutenant General Ronald Burgess, has said what intelNews has been pointing out again and again, namely that the key finding of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, that Iran has not yet committed itself to nuclear weapons production, is still valid.
Nobel winner demands Germany uncover Romanian ex-spies. Herta Mueller, the Romanian-born German winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature, has called on Germany to find and prosecute former agents of Romania’s Securitate secret police, large numbers of whom have resettled in Germany after communism ended in Romania 20 years ago.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with 2007 NIE, Cold War, communism, Germany, Herta Mueller, intelligence analysis, Iran, Iranian nuclear program, literature, News, news you may have missed, NIE, nuclear proliferation, Romania, Ronald Burgess, Securitate (Romania)

More on Iranian physicist’s assassination

January 13, 2010 by intelNews 4 Comments

Blast site

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
American intelligence and State Department officials, some anonymous, have denied any connection with the assassination yesterday of Iranian physicist Masoud Ali-Mohammadi, in Tehran. Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports that Ali-Mohammadi was among several Iranian researchers who had regular contacts with Israeli and Arab physicists, through a United Nations-sponsored scientific collaboration project based in Amman, Jordan. The program, known as Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME), was focused on non-nuclear physics applications in the medical industry and nanotechnology. To further complicate the issue, the Iranian opposition issued a report late last night saying that photographs taken at the scene of the bombing shortly after the blast, reveal the presence at the site of Abu Nasser Hossein, assistant to Manif Ashmar, who is Hezbollah’s public face in Iran. Read more of this post

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BREAKING NEWS: Bomb blast kills Iranian physicist

January 12, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Dr. Mohammadi

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
Iran’s state broadcaster has said a government physicist was “martyred” earlier this morning in a suspicious blast outside his home. The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) news agency reports that police forces have sealed off the area around the Tehran residence of Masoud Ali-Mohammadi, whom it described as a “dedicated revolutionary professor”. Dr. Ali-Mohammadi was reportedly killed by a remotely controlled explosive device that was planted at the entrance of his residence. Iranian officials hint that the remnants of the device point to the work of “outside intelligence agencies”, and some implicate the Mossad. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0243

January 5, 2010 by intelNews 4 Comments

US releases video of Iranian arms dealer caught in Georgia. The CIA has released footage showing Amir Hossein Ardebili, an Iranian arms dealer allegedly working for the government in Tehran, trying to purchase avionics systems from two men, who were reportedly covert US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Numbers of ex-KGB agents in Russian government falling. The numbers of Vladimir Putin-linked ex-KGB agents inside the Russian government hit their apogee in 2007, when they accounted for two out of every three members of the Putin’s administration. But since the accession to the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev, they are now down to one in two.

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Iran monarchists, foreign spies, behind suspicious news reports

January 4, 2010 by intelNews 3 Comments

M.R. Madhi

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
There is no question that the domestic security situation in Iran is critical, and that we may soon witness crucial political shifts in the Islamic Republic. At the same time, however, observers should be cognizant of what Politico’s Laura Rozen calls “a notable uptick […] in very fishy stories” forecasting the immediate end of the Islamic government by supposed radical Western-aligned forces. IntelNews has detected several such stories in recent days, such as this unconfirmed December 31 report in Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, which stated that the Iranian government was moving “[h]undreds of military forces and tens of armored vehicles towards Tehran”, something which never actually occurred. Two days earlier, a report in Dutch government-owned Radio Netherlands had suggested that members of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, including Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei, were preparing to abandon the country and seek political asylum in Russia. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0239

January 2, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Iran denies secret deal to import Kazakh uranium. Iran and Kazakhstan have denied a report that they were close to clinching a deal to transfer to Iran 1,350 tons of Kazakh purified uranium ore. The IAEA has declined comment.
US travel security lapses to mark end of the line for DHS? The US Department of Homeland Security “is adrift and treated as an orphan by the rest of the [US intelligence] community but is so badly staffed by low quality people that no other agency will ever take them seriously”, according to an anonymous former senior US intelligence official.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Analysis, IAEA, intelligence reform, Iran, Iranian nuclear program, Kazakhstan, News, news you may have missed, United States, US Department of Homeland Security

Secret UK envoy convinced Iran Shah to stay away in 1979

December 30, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Sir Denis Wright

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The British government sent a former diplomat, disguised as an old friend of the Iranian Shah, to convince the deposed monarch to stay away from the UK, after he was forced to abandon Iran in 1979. The information has been made available in a series of official government documents recently declassified by Britain’s Foreign Office. Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the US-backed Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, abandoned his throne and ended up in the Bahamas, a former British colony which had gained its independence in 1973. But Britain’s Labour government feared that the deposed monarch aimed to live in England, something that Prime Minister James Callaghan considered a potentially damaging decision by “an immensely controversial figure in Iran”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0232

December 25, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Ahmadinejad says US fabricated nuclear documents. The Iranian President dismisses this document on Iran’s alleged nuclear intentions as “fabricated and distributed by the US”.
US to recognize Honduran elections despite low turnout. The Honduras Supreme Electoral Tribunal says that less than 50% of voters participated in the country’s November 29 election, which was boycotted by ousted President Jose Manuel Zelaya. But the United States has said it will recognize the new government regardless of the low turnout.
Interviewing Kim Philby and drinking with the KGB. Tribune magazine’s web editor recalls how he tried to get an interview with British defector to the USSR Kim Philby, and how he nearly became a source for the KGB, in the process.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Cold War, coup plots, defectors, forgery, H.A.R. "Kim" Philby, history, Honduras, Iran, Iranian nuclear program, KGB, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Manuel Zelaya, News, news you may have missed, United States, USSR

Comment: Saudi Spies Take Over Yemen Border War

December 18, 2009 by intelNews 4 Comments

Saudis in Yemen

By IAN ALLEN* | intelNews.org |
Perceptive Middle East observers have been following the under-reported but escalating conflict along the Yemeni-Saudi border, in which Saudi and Yemeni government forces have joined forces in combating al-Qaeda-linked Yemeni rebels. It now appears that Saudi Arabia’s preeminent intelligence agency, the General Intelligence Presidency (GIP) has assumed direct command of the conflict. What exactly is going on?

News you may have missed #0223 (Iran special)

December 17, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

US tells China it can’t stop Israel from striking Iran indefinitely. Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz claims that “senior officials in Jerusalem” said US President Barack Obama recently warned his Chinese counterpart that “the United States would not be able to keep Israel from attacking Iranian nuclear installations for much longer”.
Iranian memo puzzles Western spy agencies. Does this two-page memorandum, written in Persian, provide an accurate account of the status of Iran’s nuclear program? “Some people think this is the smoking gun”, one senior European official said on Tuesday, “and others say it will be very hard to prove if it’s authentic”.
Iran claims capture of Western spy in Qom. An Iranian state-owned television station has announced the alleged capture two months ago of a spy for a Western intelligence agency who is said to have gathered information on Iran’s uranium enrichment site at Qum. But some observers have questioned the report.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with China, espionage, Iran, Iranian nuclear program, Israel, News, news you may have missed, Qum (Iran), United States

News you may have missed #0222

December 15, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

UN investigates claims Iran using Taiwan as nuclear conduit. United Nations officials are investigating intelligence claims that Iran has established a smuggling network using front companies in Taiwan to acquire equipment that it could use to make nuclear weapons.
Blackwater tied to secret CIA raids, say employees. “There was a feeling that Blackwater eventually became an extension of the agency”, said one former top CIA officer. IntelNews regulars will remember that we described last summer’s revelations of Blackwater’s participation in US special operations as “just the tip of the iceberg”.

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News you may have missed #0219

December 14, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Kennedy considered supporting 1963 coup in S. Vietnam, documents show. New audio recordings and documentation unearthed by George Washington University’s National Security Archive, show that US President John F. Kennedy supported a military coup against the US-backed South Vietnamese regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, even though he recognized the planned coup had no chance of a political success. See previous intelNews coverage for more Vietnam War-related declassified items.
Speak Farsi? Israel’s Shin Bet is interested. Israel’s Shin Bet internal intelligence agency is advertising jobs for speakers of the Iranian language Farsi. Israeli intelligence agencies appear to have similar problems with those faced by their US counterparts.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Cold War, coup plots, declassification, Farsi, history, intelligence recruitment, Iran, Israel, John F. Kennedy, languages, News, news you may have missed, Ngo Dinh Diem, Shin Bet, Vietnam, Vietnam War

Iranian defector briefed UN inspectors on Iran nuclear program

December 14, 2009 by intelNews Leave a comment

Qum facility

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
An Iranian nuclear scientist who vanished during a pilgrimage to Mecca last June has defected to the West and has briefed American and United Nations officials about Iran’s nuclear program. As intelNews reported on October 9, rumors have been circulating in the Arab press that Shahram Amiri, a senior figure in the Iranian nuclear research program, was not abducted by Saudi and Western intelligence agencies, as Iran claims, but actually defected to the West. Now British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph has cited “a source close to France’s overseas secret service, the DGSE”, who claims that Amiri’s defection was facilitated through a carefully planned intelligence operation involving the CIA, as well as French and German operatives. Read more of this post