News you may have missed #0110

  • So, was it pirates or Israeli spies that intercepted a ship carrying Russian missiles? Several observers are beginning to think that Israeli intelligence intercepted or was otherwise involved in the interception of the Arctic Sea, a Russian ship that reportedly carried Russian missiles destined for either Iran or Hezbollah.
  • Trial of accused Palestinian spy begins in Israel. Rawi Sultani is accused of having informed Hezbollah of his membership in the same fitness club as the head of Israel’s military forces, Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, in the town of Kfar Saba, as well methods of access into the club. Sultani says that the whole case is nonsense and that he doesn’t even know what Ashkenazi looks like.
  • Czech spies see Russians behind antiwar group’s actions. The Czech Security Information Service (BIS) is monitoring a billboard agency, which has given free advertising space to an antiwar group opposing the country’s participation in US missile defense shield plans. The US announced on Thursday that it plans to abandon the plans. Newspaper Aktuálně reported that BIS suspects Russian involvement. People in the Czech Republic are incapable of opposing US missile shield plans without Russian prompting, it appears.

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News you may have missed #0103

  • Iran deliberately delaying nuclear bomb plans. US intelligence agencies believe that Iran “has deliberately stopped short of the critical last steps to make a bomb”, claim The New York Times. Could the recent political violence in the country have something to do with this delay?
  • CIA sets up new External Advisory Board. Panetta says the new Board the Board will serve as “informal advisors to me and other senior leaders of our Agency”. Interestingly the group includes lots of business representation (Lazard Frères, Scowcroft Group, Bell Labs, Computer Sciences Corporation, Arnold & Porter).
  • Is the CIA’s Excessive Secrecy Near an End? Although stopping short of pre-election promises, Barack Obama’s plans for administrative transparency will mark an “unprecedented level of openness” in US government agencies, especially the CIA, argue former US House Government Operations Committee spokesman Robert Weiner, and policy analyst Jordan Osserman.

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News you may have missed #0100

  • Iran says US is forging nuclear intelligence. Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, says the US government is using forged intelligence to make the case to the UN’s nuclear watchdog group that Iran is pursuing an atomic weapons program. What is arguably missing in the Iranian nuclear debacle is conclusive IAEA confirmation of the existence of Iran’s nuclear arms program, as in the case of Syria.
  • Pakistanis call for intelligence dialogue with India. Mahmud Ali Durrani, Pakistan’s former national security adviser, has called for a “frank dialogue” between Pakistani and Indian security services. As intelNews reported earlier this year, Durrani was fired for his dovish stance vis-à-vis India and for being “too pro-American”.
  • US official was investigated for espionage. Alberto Coll, a Cuban-American who lost a senior job at the Navy War College after he was convicted of lying about a 2004 trip to Havana, was also investigated for espionage, according to an FBI document.

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News you may have missed #0099

  • Who killed London Times reported David Holden, in 1977, and what was the involvement of American, British and Egyptian intelligence services in the mysterious case?
  • Iran denies bodyguard’s arrest on spying charges. Iranian authorities deny earlier reports that a man belonging to a “senior official security squad” was arrested on suspicion of “espionage and anti-security activities”.
  • Profile of South Africa’s next spy chief. Moe Shaik, former member of ANC’s intelligence wing and a close friend of South African President Jacob Zuma will most likely head the country’s spy services. During ANC’s underground period, he was involved in Operation VULA, which involved smuggling large quantities of weapons into South Africa. He will be heading the nation’s intelligence establishment during one of the most challenging periods in its history.

News you may have missed #0096

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News you may have missed #0094

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CIA deployed agents disguised as journalists, says ex-NSA analyst

Wayne Madsen

Wayne Madsen

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Former NSA analyst and US Navy intelligence officer Wayne Madsen has said that the CIA deployed at least two operatives posing as journalists in several world hotspots after 9/11. The two operatives, both US Special Forces veterans, were subcontracted to the CIA by private mercenary company Blackwater, and were accredited as journalists by Korean-owned United Press International (UPI). Madsen, who authors the daily Wayne Madsen Report, says the two operatives were active in Uzbekistan shortly after 9/11. One of them secured a travel visa to enter Iran in 2003, where he allegedly “engaged in target analysis and spotting for a planned US attack on Iran” (this was presumably before Washington decided to axe the rumored plan to launch a direct military attack on Iran in favor of an intensive plan of covert sabotage, as detailed by The New York Times last January). Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0083

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News you may have missed #0081

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News you may have missed #0080

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Libyan’s release prevented “explosive” appeal hearing, says ex-CIA agent

Robert Baer

Robert Baer

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
As intelNews anticipated, Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was released last week by British authorities. Al-Megrahi, who allegedly has terminal cancer, was convicted in 2001 for his role in the Lockerbie air disaster, but has now been allowed to return to Libya in order to die in his homeland. But former CIA agent Robert Baer has repeated charges that the Libyan prisoner was released so at to prevent his legal team from filing an appeal, which Baer believes would have proven beyond doubt that Iran, not Libya, was behind the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103. As The London Times has reported before, al-Megrahi’s legal team is in possession of several US government documents on the case, including a report by the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which says that the attack was “conceived, authorized and financed” by Ali-Akbar Mohtashemi-Pur (alternative spelling: Ali-Akbar Mohtashamipur), Iran’s Minister of Interior during the early years of the Islamic Revolution. Read more of this post

Document reveals US spies saw Iran behind Lockerbie bombing

Al-Megrahi

Al-Megrahi

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A US intelligence report available to the lawyers of a Libyan former intelligence agent convicted for his role in the Lockerbie air disaster blames Iran, not Libya, for the attack. Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, who intelNews hears will be released from jail on compassionate grounds, had instructed his legal team to present the document in court if his release appeal failed. Al-Megrahi is one of two Libyans jailed for their alleged role in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which killed 270 people. But the report, produced by the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), says that the attack was “conceived, authorized and financed” by Ali-Akbar Mohtashemi-Pur (alternative spelling: Ali-Akbar Mohtashamipur), who served as the Iran’s Minister of Interior during the first years of the Islamic Revolution. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0069

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News you may have missed #0065

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News you may have missed #0064

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