Comment: There Is No Such Thing as ‘Friendly Espionage’

August 9, 2012 by 5 Comments

Benjamin Netanyahu and Barack ObamaBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Last month we reported on a story published by The Associated Press, according to which the Near East Division of the United States Central Intelligence Agency views Israel as the most serious threat to its secrets. The report cited interviews with several current and former US intelligence officials, who said the CIA views the Israeli spy community as “a genuine counterintelligence threat” to American interests. But Daniel Pipes, founder of the Middle East Forum and well-known American supporter of Israel, has authored a well-researched response to the Associated Press piece, in which he argues that reciprocal spying has been a decades-old element in Israeli-American relations. He recalls the case of Yosef Amit, a Major in Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate, who in 1986 was arrested for spying on behalf of the CIA. Amit is believed to have been recruited by US intelligence in Bonn, West Germany; it is said that his handler was Tom Waltz, a Jewish CIA officer from the Agency’s station at the US embassy in Tel Aviv. Amit was convicted in 1987 and stayed in prison until 1993, when he was released after serving two-thirds of his sentence. Pipes also quotes Itamar Rabinovich, Israel’s Ambassador to Washington from 1993 until 1996, who has said that, during his tenure as Israel’s envoy in DC, it was common knowledge among embassy staff that “the Americans were […] tapping our phone lines”, including the embassy’s secure line. Consequently, claims Rabinovich, American intelligence potentially had access to “every juicy telegram” communicated to or from the embassy. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #775

August 8, 2012 by Leave a comment

Ramstein Air Base, GermanyBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►Israel arrests man for allegedly spying for Syria. Israeli prosecutors have charged Iyad Jamil Assad al-Johari, a Druze resident of the occupied Golan Heights, with spying for Syria. The Shin Bet internal security service said in a statement that Johari, who is from the border village of Majdal Shams, was charged with “having contact with a foreign agent” and “passing information to the enemy”. The Shin Bet said Johari was arrested last month “on suspicion of maintaining contact with Syrian intelligence and passed information on Israeli army deployment on the Golan Heights”. The man’s family has denied the accusations.
►►German NATO employee charged with spying. Markus Koehler, a spokesman for German federal prosecutors, said in a statement that the suspect –identified only as Manfred K. in accordance with German privacy rules– was arrested Monday on charges of obtaining state secrets with the intent to provide them to an unidentified third party. The civilian NATO employee, who works at the US air base at Ramstein, is alleged to have obtained the data and then transferred it to his private computer.
►►Aussie spy agency looking for locksmith. In a new notice on its careers webpage, ASIS, Australia’s foreign intelligence agency, is looking for a “corporate locksmith”. “This is a unique role for a highly motivated and dedicated locksmith to provide complex locksmith services and advice across our organisation”, the notice states. “The position involves interstate and overseas travel, often at short notice”. The job notice says the successful applicant would have to manage the purchasing of all locks, safes and other secure containers for the service.

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News you may have missed #773

August 6, 2012 by 1 Comment

Tamir PardoBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►Conflicting reports on CIA-ISI meeting. Lieutenant General Zahir ul-Islam, who heads Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, the ISI, held talks in Washington with his CIA counterpart General David Petraeus, between August 1 and 3. It was the first time in a year that the chief of the ISI made the trip to the US, signaling a possible thaw in relations. Depending on the source, the meeting was either “substantive, professional and productive”, or “made no big strides on the main issues”.
►►Senior Mossad official suspected of financial misconduct. A senior Mossad official is suspected of financial misconduct and has been forced to take a leave of absence until Israeli police complete an investigation into his alleged deeds, Israeli media reported on Sunday. The official, a department head in Israel’s spy organization, has reportedly denied any wrongdoing, but sources said he would likely not be reinstated in light of investigation findings and is effectively being forced to retire. The nature of the official’s alleged misconduct has not been reported, but it is said that the official in question has close ties to Mossad Director Tamir Pardo, who appointed him to his position last year.
►►Ex-NSA official disputes DefCon claims by NSA chief. William Binney, a former technical director at the NSA, has accused NSA director General Keith Alexander of deceiving the public during a speech he gave at the DefCon hacker conference last week. In his speech, Alexander asserted that the NSA does not collect files on Americans. But Binney accused Alexander of playing a “word game” and said the NSA was indeed collecting and indexing e-mails, Twitter writings, Internet searches and other data belonging to Americans. “The reason I left the NSA was because they started spying on everybody in the country. That’s the reason I left”, said Binney, who resigned from the agency in late 2001.

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Israeli intelligence insiders warn of ‘imminent’ attack on Iran

August 6, 2012 by 2 Comments

Efraim HalevyBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
If Iranian government officials had a uranium centrifuge for each time a warning is issued of an impending military attack on Tehran, they would undoubtedly have a nuclear weapon by now. Warnings about such an attack are now ‘a-dime-a-dozen’. Yet it is admittedly difficult to ignore the increasing frequency with which such warnings are being issued by leading retired intelligence officials in Israel. Last week alone, two intelligence insiders, Major-General Danny Yatom and Efraim Halevy, both former Directors of the Mossad, Israel’s main external intelligence agency, said a military attack on Iran was imminent. Speaking on Wednesday, Halevy said that Israel’s threats of a military attack were “credible” and “serious”, adding that, if he were an Iranian, he would be “very fearful of the next 12 weeks”. His comments were echoed on Sunday by Major-General Yatom, who told Israel’s Army Radio that the debate among senior Israeli security officials was not over whether Israel should strike Iran, but about when it should do so. The two men spoke shortly after a similar warning was issued by Major-General Aharon Ze’evi Farkash, former chief of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate. Farkash, who is not a proponent of an all-out military operation against Iran, said that an Israeli attack would probably come “within weeks, or a couple of months”. It is worth pointing out that all three men issued their public warnings along with significant reservations about the way Israel is handing the situation with Iran. Halevy said that, in his view, “it would not be desirable for Israel to act alone” against Iran and warned of a potentially serious international backlash. Major-General Farkash reiterated his previously stated position that an open military attack on Iran at this point in time would be premature and would “ruin the legitimacy that is needed” in order to permanently stop Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #772

August 3, 2012 by 1 Comment

Israeli team at the 1972 Munich OlympicsBy TIMOTHY W. COLEMAN | intelNews.org |
►►India restricts agency-to-agency contacts with CIA. According to The Deccan Herald, Indian intelligence officials are growing increasingly wary of the frequent interactions between their own intelligence personnel and the CIA. Cooperation between the US intelligence organizations and Indian government agencies has been increasing under the guise of counter-terrorism efforts. Calcutta News reports that a book published by author Prem Mahadevan, called The Politics of Counterterrorism in India, identifies at least two CIA penetrations of Indian intelligence officials since 2001.
►►Canadian spy revealed classified information in “massive leak”. As was previously reported on this blog, former Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Paul Delisle, a navy intelligence officer, is accused of spying for Russia. According to The New Zealand Herald, the accused Canadian spy provided the Russian government with classified information on the US, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia in what is being termed a “massive leak”.
►►Germany had advance warning of 1972 Olympics massacre. Israel-based English-language newspaper The Jerusalem Post is reporting that an article in the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, stated Germany had advance warning about a potential terrorist attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic games. Previously classified documents accessed by Der Spiegel show that not only were there indications of a terror plot, but that there were explicit warnings and details. Perhaps more damaging are the lengths and extremes that German intelligence officials went to in order to cover up blatant mistakes in the case.

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CIA sees Israel as ‘genuine counterintelligence threat’: sources

July 30, 2012 by Leave a comment

Mossad sealBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The Near East Division of the Central Intelligence Agency, America’s primary intelligence organization, views Israel as the most serious threat to its secrets, according to an exposé published yesterday by the Associated Press. Citing interviews with at least five current and former US intelligence officials, the news agency said the CIA views the Israeli spy community as “a genuine counterintelligence threat” to US interests. The intelligence officials, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said the CIA believes US national secrets are less safe in the hands of Israel than in those of other governments in the region, such as Turkey, Jordan, or Lebanon. The Associated Press exposé will not surprise regular readers of intelNews, as this blog has regularly covered various aspects of the complex US-Israeli intelligence relationship. Indeed, seasoned readers of this blog may recall that a 2010 survey among officers in the CIA’s National Clandestine Service showed that they considered Israeli intelligence agencies to be the world’s least friendly and most uncooperative with their US counterparts. The survey also showed that officers in the NCS (the CIA division that includes actual operatives on the ground), also considered Israeli spy services as the world’s third most aggressive in their operations on American soil. This new report by the Associated Press seems to confirm the NCS survey results, while adding a partial explanation as to why the intelligence services of one of America’s closest geopolitical allies would be considered a threat by the CIA. It is widely thought that Israel’s intelligence agencies can often match —and sometimes surpass— their American counterparts in terms of their analytical and operational capabilities. These skills, coupled with Israel’s unique access to the inner sanctums of the American national security establishment, place the Jewish state in an unparalleled position to acquire and compromise US government secrets. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #768

July 26, 2012 by Leave a comment

CIA headquartersBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►‘CIA could get bin Laden but can’t get a gym’. As CIA Director, General David Petraeus is credited by some as having helped turn the tide in the Iraq War, flush the Taliban from southern strongholds in Afghanistan, and infiltrated al-Qaeda in Yemen. But his campaign to improve the Agency’s fitness gyms has been a marathon effort –one that defeated other CIA directors over a course of some 16 years. Petraeus arrived at the CIA in 2011 to find two basement gyms at the Langley, Va., headquarters, one with original flooring dating to 1964. One gym is so small it can’t contain the punching bags and medicine balls that spill into the hall, where people stretch out and do mat exercises.
►►Israel convinced Hezbollah behind Bulgaria bombing. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that his government has gathered “unquestionable intelligence” showing that the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, backed by Iran, was behind a suicide bombing in Bulgaria last week that killed five Israeli nationals. The Israeli leader said the Mossad had drawn close parallels between the attack in Bulgaria and a foiled operation in Cyprus earlier this month, involving an alleged Hezbollah operative.
►►Hezbollah silent on reports of Israel spy arrests. Hezbollah would not comment on a local newspaper report on Wednesday, which said the Lebanese Shiite party had detained three men, including two of its own members, for spying for Israel. Lebanese daily newspaper An-Nahar said Hezbollah’s security apparatus had detained two Hezbollah members and a member of a Bekaa village municipal council on the suspicion that they have been collaborating with Israel.

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US spy agencies turn to Israel, Turkey, for help in Syria war

July 24, 2012 by 1 Comment

Regional map of SyriaBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Just days after a senior United States defense official admitted Pentagon intelligence analysts missed early signs of the Arab Spring, a new report claims that Washington is still “struggling to understand” the Syrian situation, sixteen months into the uprising. Citing “interviews with US and foreign intelligence officials”, The Washington Post says that the US Intelligence Community has yet to develop a clear understanding of the intentions of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Nor have American analysts been able to draw a lucid picture of the fragmented opposition forces in the country. The paper says that, even though US spy agencies have intensified their intelligence-gathering efforts targeting all sides of the civil war, they have been unable to establish a physical presence inside Syria. This, according to The Post, is partly due to Washington’s decision, back in February of this year, to shut down the US embassy in Damascus, which has traditionally served as staging ground for Central Intelligence Agency operations inside Syria. This latest article confirms previous reports in The New York Times and elsewhere, of a small CIA team operating along the Syrian-Turkish border, with the task of overseeing a multinational effort to secretly deliver weapons, communications equipment and medical supplies to Syrian opposition forces. But this is about as close as the CIA has managed to get to Syria; for the most part, like its partner agencies in the US Intelligence Community, the Agency is “still largely confined to monitoring intercepted communications and observing the conflict from a distance”, says The Washington Post. As a result, US intelligence agencies are becoming increasingly dependent on their counterparts in Turkey, Jordan, and —most of all— Israel for reliable ground intelligence from inside Syria. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #765

July 22, 2012 by Leave a comment

Hillary ClintonBy TIMOTHY W. COLEMAN | intelNews.org |
►►MI6 chief says Iran will get nukes in 2 years. Sir John Sawers, the head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, has been quoted as publicly forecasting that Iranian nuclear weapons efforts will likely come to fruition by 2014. Sawers is quoted in The Daily Telegraph as saying: “The Iranians are determinedly going down a path to master all aspects of nuclear weapons; all the technologies they need”, adding “it’s equally clear that Israel and the United States would face huge dangers if Iran were to become a nuclear weapon state”. He went on to assert that Iran would have achieved nuclear statehood in 2008 had it not been for clandestine efforts to thwart such ends. He did not elaborate on what he meant by his comments, for which he was criticized in Parliament earlier this week.
►►MI6 chief claims US interrogators were ‘obsessed’. In the same Telegraph interview, Sir John claimed that British interrogators, following the attacks of September 11, 2001, came “close to the line” of illegality. He went on to say that US interrogators straddled the line between legal and illegal, insinuating that US personnel may have crossed the line during interrogations. Sir John is quoted as explaining: “They [US interrogators] got so obsessed with getting a right answer that they drifted into an area that kind of amounted to torture”. He went on to claim that British personnel involved in interrogations never crossed the line, observing: “We’ve never been there, we’ve never been involved in that, and I think our accountability, our disciplines, have helped us keep on the right side of these lines”.
►►Clinton says Israeli spy Pollard unlikely to be freed. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has reaffirmed Washington’s position that Jonathan Pollard was unlikely to receive clemency or see freedom anytime soon. During a press conference in Jerusalem on July 16, Secretary Clinton stated unequivocally: “He [Jonathan Pollard] was sentenced to life in prison, he is serving that sentence, and I do not have any expectations that that is going to change”. Pollard, a former US naval intelligence analyst, was suspected of trying to provide classified information to South Africa, Pakistan, and Australia. He was arrested and convicted of espionage for providing classified information to the State of Israel. He is serving a life sentence for his crimes.

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Mossad gave us no terror warning before blast, says Bulgaria -updated

July 19, 2012 by 5 Comments

Burgas, BulgariaBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Bulgarian authorities received no warning from Israeli intelligence prior to yesterday’s bombing in eastern Bulgaria, which killed at least seven and injured over 30 Israeli tourists. The bomb blast occurred outside the main airport building in the Black Sea resort town of Burgas. Less than an hour earlier, Air Bulgaria flight 392, which had departed from Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, had landed at the Burgas International Airport, carrying nearly two hundred Israeli tourists. The latter were boarding three buses scheduled to transport them to various hotels in Burgas, when one of them was ripped apart by a blast —most likely caused by an explosive device placed in the vehicle’s storage compartment a suicide bomber. Reports from Bulgaria and Israel said last night that at least two of the injured were in critical condition and could die soon. Speaking to local media gathered at the site of the blast, Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev said that Israeli intelligence services had provided no warning of a planned attack inside the country. Plevneliev said that members of Bulgaria’s security apparatus met a month ago with officials from the Mossad, Israel’s primary external intelligence agency, but received “no warning of an expected attack”. Earlier this year, it was reported that the Bulgarian intelligence services had uncovered a plot by Lebanese militant group Hezobllah to strike Israel-linked targets in Bulgarian capital Sofia. Last January, Israel had asked Bulgaria to increase security provisions for Israeli tourists, after a suspicious package was found on a tour bus carrying Israeli holidaymakers from Turkey into Bulgaria. Ironically, Dan Shenar, head of security at the Israeli Transportation Ministry, said at the time that security measures were excellent in Bulgarian airports, but “the situation is not the same outside them”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #762

July 18, 2012 by Leave a comment

Danni YatomBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►Italy postpones court decision on wanted CIA operatives. The Washington Post has published a useful update on Sabrina De Sousa, one of nearly two-dozen CIA operatives who were convicted in Italy in 2007 for the kidnapping four years earlier of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr. The Americans kidnapped Nasr, known as Abu Omar, from the streets of Milan without the consent of Italian authorities. The Italians, who were themselves carefully monitoring Nasr, responded by convicting all members of the CIA team in absentia, and notifying INTERPOL. But last Friday, the Supreme Court of Cassation in Rome postponed its verdict after a two-day hearing aimed at deciding whether to uphold or overturn the Americans’ convictions.
►►Ex-Mossad chief urges Israel to prepare for military action in Syria. In an interview with British news network Sky News, former Mossad Chief Danni Yatom said last week that Israel must be prepared for the possibility of military attacks on Syria, which may deteriorate into war.  He said his warning stems from the fear that Syria’s hundreds of tons of chemical weapons will fall into the hands of terrorists. “We would have to pre-empt in order to prevent it. We need to be prepared to launch even military attacks […] and military attacks mean maybe a deterioration to war”, said the former Mossad Director.
►►British spy agencies failed to predict Arab Spring. The Intelligence and Security Committee of the British Houses of Parliament has said in its annual report that British spy agencies had been surprised by the spread of unrest during the Arab Spring and failed to predict the dramatic uprisings that swept the region. The report also noted that the Arab Spring had exposed Britain’s decision to scale back intelligence assets in much of the Arab world, in favor of monitoring Iran and al-Qaeda. We at intelNews wrote about this in 2011.

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Mossad ‘helped arrest’ alleged Hezbollah operative in Cyprus

July 16, 2012 by 4 Comments

Cyprus, Israel, Syria, Lebanon By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Israeli intelligence was directly involved in the recent arrest of an alleged member of Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, who is said to have been planning a series of attacks against Israeli targets on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Cypriot media quoted police spokesman Andreas Angelides, who confirmed that the 24-year-old man was arrested on July 7 during a raid on his hotel in the tourist resort of Limassol. He also said that the man, whose name has not been released, was arrested “on possible charges pertaining to terrorism laws” soon after entering Cyprus using a Swedish passport. According to local media, Cypriot authorities were tipped off as to the man’s alleged Hezbollah connections and plans by an unnamed “foreign intelligence agency”. However, several news reports suggested over the weekend that officers of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad have already been dispatched to Cyprus to aid local counterterrorist officials involved in the investigation. Several sources allege that the Swedish-passport holder has been collaborating with his interrogators, telling them that he traveled to Cyprus with the intent of launching an armed attack at the embassy of Israel in Cypriot capital Nicosia. He allegedly changed his mind after observing the heavy security measures in place at the embassy, and opted instead for a plan to blow up a commercial airplane belonging to El Al Airlines, Israel’s national air carrier. He also allegedly considered attacking a number of buses belonging to Israeli tour companies operating in Israel. Cypriot police said that a thorough search of the man’s hotel room netted information on Israeli bus tour companies on the island, detailed flight schedules of Israeli airline operators, as well as digital photographs of popular destinations among Israeli tourists holidaying in Cyprus. Read more of this post

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Intelligence wars heat up in Lebanon amid regional instability

July 10, 2012 by 1 Comment

Lebanese-Israeli-Syrian borderBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
As the security situation in Syria and Egypt deteriorates, Lebanon is rapidly emerging as a major intelligence hub in the wider geopolitical power-struggle currently unfolding in the Middle East. On Monday, Lebanon’s leading Arabic-language newspaper, An-Nahar, reported the discovery last month of a foreign espionage network allegedly operating in Lebanese capital Beirut. The paper said that the clandestine network was spying on behalf of “a major Western country”, and was unearthed by forces loyal to Hezbollah, the Shiite group that controls large parts of southern Lebanon. The network allegedly consisted of at least three men, all Lebanese citizens, who lived in close proximity to each other in Beirut’s southern suburbs —a traditional Hezbollah stronghold. The three men were not Hezbollah members, said An-Nahar, but one was stoutly religious and all had good relations with local Hezbollah cells operating in their respective neighborhoods. The alleged head of the spy ring was an unnamed Lebanese citizen who had lived in the Ukraine for several years, where he operated a human smuggling network transporting Arab men into Europe. However, he was eventually arrested by French authorities in Paris and spent two years in prison. According to An-Nahar, the man was able to secure a deal with his captors, under which he would be allowed to return to Lebanon in exchange for informing them about the activities of a senior Hezbollah official wanted by Interpol. His ultimate mission was allegedly to lure the Hezbollah official, with whom he was friends, to Europe, where he could be arrested. Hezbollah has refused to comment on the newspaper’s claims. But the militant Shiite group did confirm on Tuesday the reported explosions of three alleged Israeli spy devices found in Southern Lebanon. Read more of this post

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Israel, not US, behind killings of Iranian scientists, claims new book

July 9, 2012 by 4 Comments

Yossi MelmanBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The United States has endorsed but does not actively participate in an ongoing Israeli-led program of assassination operations against Iranian nuclear scientists, according to a new book by two veteran Israeli intelligence commentators. Published today, July 9, by Levant Books, Spies Against Armageddon: Inside Israel’s Secret Wars, is written by CBS News correspondent Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman, intelligence and military affairs analyst for Israel’s leading newspaper, Ha’aretz.  The two authors claim that the killings, which are allegedly aimed at preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon, form one aspect of a multi-layered program of sabotage that consists of regular spy-missions deep inside Iranian territory. Raviv and Melman allege that Israeli operatives routinely enter and exit Iran using “a multitude of routes” and an extensive network of safe houses that is said to predate the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The book, an advanced copy of which has been received by intelNews, appears to dispute widespread media speculation that Israeli covert operations inside Iran are carried out by members of ethnic minorities hostile to Tehran and trained by the Mossad, Israel’s primary covert action intelligence agency. According to Raviv, the task of ‘beheading’ the Iranian nuclear program is considered politically delicate by the Israeli government; the latter would never consider “farm[ing] out a mission that is that sensitive”. The CBS correspondent argues that Mossad would indeed use ethnic, religious or political “dissidents” inside Iran, primarily “for assistance and logistics”. But the hit itself, said Raviv, would be carried out by Mossad officers: Read more of this post

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Comment: Did Israel assassinate senior Hamas official in Syria?

July 2, 2012 by Leave a comment

Kamel RanajaBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The leadership of Hamas has accused Israel of assassinating one of its senior officials in Syria last Wednesday. The Palestinian militant group, which controls the Gaza Strip, announced late last week that the charred body of Kamel Ranaja had been found in his half-burned apartment in Syrian capital Damascus. Ranaja, known informally as Nizar Abu Mujhad, was said to have replaced the post of the late Hamas weapons procurer Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Al-Mabhouh was killed in 2010 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, most likely by Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Citing French news agency Agence France Presse, Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz quoted an unnamed Hamas official as saying that “a group of people entered [Ranaja’s] home […] and killed him”, adding that “according to the information that we have gathered, the Mossad is behind the attack”. Reports from Reuters published in the British press suggest that Ranaja’s charred body “bore signs of torture” and that it had been dismembered. There are also suggestions that the group that attacked the Hamas official’s apartment took with them an unspecified volume of documents and computer files before setting the place on fire.

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