The CIA in Iran Today: A Realistic Assessment

July 13, 2009 by 4 Comments

Iran protestors

Iran protestors

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
It is hardly surprising to witness the sudden cessation of the US media frenzy that placed Iran under the microspore last month. And yet I believe that now, as the regime in Tehran is redeploying its machinery of social control, is the perfect time to calmly and sensibly provide a rational assessment of what really took place in Iran in June, as well as the US involvement, if any. The CIA’s past shenanigans in Iran are by now widely known and understood –particularly by the Iranians themselves, who, regardless of their feelings toward the present regime in Tehran, are suspicious of collaborating with US agencies. But what is the US involvement in fomenting unrest in Tehran today? More importantly, to what extent can the CIA’s ongoing covert activities in the Middle East be said to have played a role in last June’s seemingly spontaneous popular uprising in Tehran? With this question in mind, I wrote The CIA in Iran Today: A Realistic Assessment, which you can now read in Jeremy Hammond’s Foreign Policy Journal. Here’s a tip: for the CIA’s intelligence directorate  analysts, the recent unrest in Iran was more like 1979 than 1953. Read article →

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News you may have missed #0026

July 13, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • US Attorney General considers torture probe. The Associated Press is among several news outlets reporting that Eric Holder is considering the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the use of torture by US intelligence agencies after September of 2001.
  • Iran’s invisible Nicaraguan embassy. The US State Department has been raising alarm bells about the Iranians supposedly “building a huge embassy in Managua”. But nobody in Nicaragua can find any super-embassy, The Washington Post reports.
  • Kim Jonh Il likely to die soon, CIA tells S. Korean spy agency. According to South Korean sources, the CIA now believes that Kim Jong-Il’s chances of surviving the next five years are less than 30%. Last June, intelNews relayed reports that Kim Jong Un, Kim Jong Il’s third son, appears to be his father’s most likely successor.

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Israel directs cyberwar resources against Iranian nuclear program

July 8, 2009 by 1 Comment

Ahmedinejad

Ahmadinejad

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
An Israeli cyberwarfare project that began in the late 1990s is a major tool in the Jewish state’s covert war on the Iranian nuclear program. A former member of the Israeli Knesset has anonymously confirmed the program’s existence to the Reuters news agency, while US experts said they view the clandestine project as “the likely new vanguard” in Israel’s attempts to hamper Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Israel’s cyberwarfare program is apparently encouraged by Washington’s resistance to an all-out military confrontation with Tehran, which includes US President Barack Obama’s rumored reluctance to endorse conventional air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. As intelNews has reported before, the Israeli cyberwarfare project is probably part of a wider Israeli operation, which British newspaper The Daily Telegraph has described as a covert “decapitation program”. The operation, which involves assassinations, front companies and bribing, among other tactics, is supplemented by an extensive CIA operation approved by President George W. Bush in early 2008 and “hand[ed] off to President […] Barack Obama”, according to The New York Times.

 

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Analysis: Al-Qaeda dumps phones, making interception impossible

July 7, 2009 by Leave a comment

Secret Sentry

Secret Sentry

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
In his brief but perceptive review of Matthew M. Aid’s new book, The Secret Sentry: The Untold Story of the National Security Agency, Craig Seligman, critic for Bloomberg News, refers to an argument made in the book, which in my opinion deserves attention. Namely, in discussing the NSA’s activities in the so-called “war on terrorism”, Aid points out that, not only are Iran and North Korea increasingly converting their analog communications networks into fiber-optic cables, thus making their internal communications virtually impossible to intercept, but al-Qaeda and other militant groups are now “practically cut[ing] out the use of telephones and radios”. All of this is gradually turning the NSA, an agency that receives over $9 billion a year in US taxpayers’ money, into a gargantuan organization whose daily tasks are becoming “maddeningly difficult” –indeed, almost irrelevant. Read more of this post

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Larry Franklin, implicated in Israeli spy affair, breaks silence

July 6, 2009 by Leave a comment

Franklin

Franklin

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Lawrence Anthony Franklin, the former US Defense Department analyst whose 12-year prison sentence was suspended last month, has finally broken his silence. Franklin, who was accused by the US government of handing classified US military information to two American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobbyists, has told Jeff Stein of SpyTalk that he handed out the secret information “in hopes that it would be passed on to the White House”. He said he was “worried” the Bush administration pursued a schizophrenic policy on Iran and had not calculated the Iranian reaction to a possible US invasion of Iraq. He therefore decided to pass on the classified information, which included “the names and locations of Iran’s secret agents and safe houses in Iraq”, to AIPAC lobbyists Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, who claimed they had senior contacts in the Bush administration. Read more of this post

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Secret meetings reported between CIA and Saddam loyalists

July 6, 2009 by 2 Comments

Al-Douri

Al-Douri

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The CIA is reportedly participating in a series of secret meetings with the two main leaders of the Ba’athist insurgency in Iraq. According to Intelligence Online and United Press International, CIA agents have entered truce negotiations with Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri (photo) and Mohammed Yunis al-Ahmad, who head most of the armed Sunni groups in Iraq. Until the 2003 US invasion, Al-Ahmad was an army general during the latter part of Saddam’s reign, while al-Douri was vice-president and deputy chairman of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council. The US has put out a reward of $1 million for Al-Ahmad, who is reportedly operating out of Syria. Al-Douri, who is said to be in Syria as well, is also wanted by the US in exchange for a $10 million reward. Read more of this post

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Fears raised of Iranian-style surveillance in the US

July 2, 2009 by 1 Comment

NSN Logo

NSN Logo

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Nokia Siemens Networks has denied allegations, published in The Wall Street Journal and reported by intelNews, that it helped the Iranian government acquire what experts describe as “one of the world’s most sophisticated mechanisms” for spying on Iranian telecommunications users. But critics remain unconvinced and are raising concerns about the use of similar intrusive capabilities by Internet service providers (ISPs) in the US. The Open Internet Coalition, a consortium of online business and consumer groups, has sent letters [.pdf] to US Congress members urging them to consider regulating the use of deep packet inspection technology. In addition to blocking or monitoring target communications, deep packet inspection enables ISPs and monitoring agencies to trace and alter the content of messages exchanged between users. Read more of this post

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Breaking news: CIA has no clue about what’s going on in Iran

June 29, 2009 by Leave a comment

Jeff Stein

Jeff Stein

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Amidst all the furor about CIA meddling in the Iranian anti-government demonstrations, an informed voice of reasoning comes from intelligence veteran and current GQ intelligence and security correspondent Jeff Stein. Stein, who does not rule out attempts by the CIA to promote the demonstrators’ agenda in Tehran, wisely cautions pundits that Iran is currently “nearly impervious to Western intelligence –and Israeli intelligence, too”. Consequently, despite allegations to the contrary, “there can be little confidence that [anyone at the CIA] really knows what’s going on in Iran”, says Stein. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0009

June 25, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • Head of Spain’s secret service accused of misuse of public funds. The Spanish Ministry of Defense says it has requested “complete” information on allegations concerning secret service chief Alberto Saiz, who has been accused by the daily newspaper El Mundo of using public money for diving and hunting trips in Mexico, Senegal, Mali and Morocco. Saiz, who heads Spain’s National Intelligence Center, denies the accusations. 
  • No Obama apology for CIA in Latin America. US President Barack Obama declined to apologize on Tuesday for past CIA interventions and coup attempts in Latin America, after talks with Chilean leader Michele Bachelet. Obama was asked by a Chilean journalist whether he would apologize for past CIA operations in the region, like the US-backed coup attempt in Chile in 1973. “I’m interested in going forward, not looking backward”, replied the US President. 
  • Consumers boycott Nokia, Siemens for selling to Iran. As intelNews has been reporting since April, The Wall Street Journal has disclosed that the Iranian government has acquired some of the world’s most sophisticated communications surveillance mechanisms with the help of some of Europe’s leading telecommunications hardware and software manufacturers. The latter appear to have been all too happy to supply Tehran with advanced means to spy on its own people. Now Western consumers are calling for a boycott of Nokia and Siemens, whose Nokia Siemens Networks collaboration is a key supplier of Iran’s extensive surveillance system. 
  • Ex-CIA columnist claims CIA “harrassment”. Former CIA operations manager, Stephen Lee, who now blogs for The Washington Examiner, says he is “being subjected to a campaign of low-level harrassment” by the Agency.

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Western companies help Tehran spy on protestors

June 22, 2009 by 1 Comment

NSN Logo

NSN Logo

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Numerous celebratory articles have appeared recently in several blogs that praise Western Internet firms for “help[ing] out the pro-democracy movement inside [Iran]”. These articles overlook Tehran’s extremely powerful Internet and telephone spying capabilities, which experts describe as “one of the world’s most sophisticated mechanisms”. Moreover, as intelNews reported last April, the Iranian government acquired these mechanisms with the help of some of Europe’s leading telecommunications hardware and software manufacturers, who were all too happy to supply Tehran with advanced means to spy on its own people. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0005

June 19, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • Republican Senator’s extra-marital affair endangered national security. John Ensign is a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, including its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, giving him and his staff access to extremely sensitive national defense information. His extra-marital affair made him vulnerable to blackmail by hostile spy services or other interests eager to pry secrets from his position on sensitive national security committees, veteran counterintelligence officials say.
  • Thank goodness reformists didn’t win in Iran election, says Mossad. Israel spy chief Meir Dagan, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee on June 17 that if reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi had won the elections “Israel would have a more serious problem because it would need to explain to the world the danger of the Iranian threat”.
  • CIA still fighting full release of detainee report. According to two intelligence officials, the CIA is pushing the Obama administration to suppress passages describing in graphic detail how the agency handled its detainees, arguing that the material could damage ongoing counterterrorism operations by laying bare sensitive intelligence procedures and methods.
  • US electricity industry to scan grid for spies. The planned scan is part of a pilot initiative to see whether Chinese spies have infiltrated computer networks running the US power grid. IntelNews has been keeping an eye on revelations that foreign spies have penetrated the electronic infrastructure of America’s electrical supply grid.
  • US Supreme Court declines review of Cuban Five case. It and its supporters argue Cuban spies received a fair trial in heart of Miami Cuban-American community, but Cuban government says it will continue to campaign for their release.

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CIA silent on rumors of Panetta’s secret visit to Israel

May 18, 2009 by Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Several news outlets have pointed to The London Times as the source of the revelation that CIA Director Leon Panetta secretly visited Israel earlier this moth. In reality, the source of the report is not The Times, but Israel National Radio, which aired the news early on Thursday morning. The report was promptly picked up by Agence France Presse (AFP) and issued in French and English later on the same day. According to AFP, US President Barack Obama sent Panetta to Jerusalem in search of high-level assurances from the new Israeli government of President Benjamin Netanyahu, that Israel “would not launch a surprise strike on Iran”. The same report stated that Panetta received assurances from both President Netanyahu and Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, that “Israel does not intend to surprise the US on Iran”. It is important to note that the Israelis’ assurances pertain solely to their obligation to notify Washington prior to launching a strike on Tehran, and in no way rule out such an attack. Therefore they fall significantly short of US requirements. Read more of this post

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Western companies sold phone spy equipment to Iran

April 15, 2009 by 2 Comments

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
For about a year now, political dissidents in Iran have suspected that the Iranian government’s ability to spy on private communications has intensified, covering for the first time cell phone and instant messaging exchanges. Last Monday it emerged that two European telecommunications hardware manufacturers are actually behind the Iranian government’s increased surveillance capabilities. The Wall Street Journal reports that Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) sold Iran Telecom –Iran’s government-owned telecommunications provider– a sophisticated surveillance system, in the summer of 2008. NSN is an engineering partnership between Finland’s Nokia Corporation and German hardware manufacturer Siemens AG, Europe’s largest engineering firm. Read more of this post

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Researchers discover gigantic cyberespionage operation

March 31, 2009 by 1 Comment

Ronald Deibert

Ronald Deibert

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A team of Canadian researchers claims to have discovered a large cyberespionage ring located mainly in China. The researchers say the ring has managed to infiltrate nearly 1,300 mainly government and corporate computers in at least 103 countries around the world. The report, entitled Tracking GhostNet: Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network, was compiled after a ten-month collaboration between Ottawa’s SecDev group and the University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Although the report concludes that the cyberespionage ring is located mainly in China, it specifically rejects claims that GhostNet is inevitably a Chinese government operation, saying that there is no evidence that Beijing is behind the operation. University of Toronto associate professor Ronald Deibert suggested that the operation could potentially be the work of non-state pro-Chinese actors, or could be conducted by a profit-oriented group that sells the acquired information to whoever offers it the highest monetary compensation. “It’s a murky realm that we’re lifting the lid on”, said Dr. Deibert: “This could well be the CIA or the Russians”. Read more of this post

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Journalist reveals names of 300 Iranian spies in Bosnia

March 8, 2009 by Leave a comment

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A Croatian journalist has revealed a secret document containing the names of 300 Iranian intelligence operatives who operated in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2004 until 2007. Domagoj Margetić, one of Croatia’s most uncompromising investigative reporters, has published on his website a .pdf document thath lists the names of several hundred Iranian agents who received official authorization from the embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Tehran to enter the Balkan country. According to Margetić, numerous Iranian academics, as well as random Iranian government employees, are included in the intelligence operatives’ list, which implies they carried out intelligence missions in Bosnia while traveling under academic or diplomatic cover. Insiders have noted that the long list is indicative of the intensification of Iran’s intelligence activities in the Balkans and southern Europe in recent years, which they attribute to the “reorganization of Iranian intelligence infrastructure in the Balkans”. The disclosed document of Iranian intelligence operatives is available in .pdf format here, with a mirrored link here.

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