Attacking Iran ‘a stupid idea’ says Mossad ex-chief

Meir Dagan

Meir Dagan

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
The former director of Israel’s Mossad spy agency has described the option of a military attack by Israel on Iran’s nuclear installations as “the stupidest thing I have ever heard”. Meir Dagan, who led the Mossad from 2002 until January of this year, was speaking publicly for the first time since his retirement, at a conference held at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University. He told conference participants that any military action against Iran would be “patently illegal under international law” and that it would probably not achieve its goals, since Iranian nuclear installations are deliberately dispersed in locations across that vast country. Consequently, the widespread nature of the attack could lead to a prolonged war, “the kind of thing where we know how it starts, but not how it will end”, said Dagan. His comments found their way to the front pages of most Israeli newspapers over the weekend, and were headlined in television and radio station news programs, prompting responses by several former and acting Israeli officials. Read more of this post

Israel intelligence source warns of West Bank collapse

Mahmoud Abbas

Mahmoud Abbas

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A senior source inside Israel’s intelligence community has warned that the continuing building of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories could cause the rapid collapse of the Fatah government in the West Bank. Speaking anonymously to the BBC, the intelligence official cautioned that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, “is tired and fed up”, and that if he “continued to be humiliated” by Israel’s refusal to halt illegal settlement construction he might “step down and return home”. This would terminate the ongoing negotiations between Israel and Fatah, mediated by Washington, and could bring down the Fatah government in the West Bank, in a chaotic process that would ultimately “be a major setback for Israel”, said the official. Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and elsewhere, lack international recognition, and in recent years Israel has been pressured by its allies, including the United States, to stop residential expansion into the Palestinian Territories. Read more of this post

Did Hamas penetrate US Consulate in Jerusalem?

The US Consulate in Jerusalem

US Consulate

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
I was first alerted to this story by staff at the The Jerusalem Post on January 9, but I thought I would wait for follow-up stories in the US media before reporting it on this website. Strangely, none have appeared. The report reveals that, in 2006, a Palestinian working for the US Consulate in Jerusalem was fired because his late father had strong links with Hamas. But now the former employee, Azam Qiq, is suing the Consulate, claiming he was fired unlawfully without receiving severance pay. From 2003 to 2006, Qiq was an award-winning mechanic, whose job was to oversee the Consulate’s diplomatic car fleet. But in February of 2006, when Qiq’s father, Hassan Qiq, died, US Consulate workers noticed that several Hamas officials were in attendance at his funeral, which was apparently “lined with Hamas flags”. In the funeral service brochure, the deceased was described as a founding member of Hamas. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0240

  • Major purge in Gambian security services continues. Ngorr Secka, the former deputy director general of Gambia’s National Intelligence Agency, has reportedly been arrested. The arrest marks the latest development in a major purge that began last July, after the chief of the country’s armed forces, Lt. Colonel Sainey Bayo, fled to the United States reportedly while being “investigated for supplying sensitive state secrets to an unnamed Western country”.
  • Jerusalem memorial may honor British Auschwitz spy. The Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem may honor Denis Avey, 91, who as a British prisoner of war in Monowitz (a.k.a. Monowice or Auschwitz III) prisoner camp, convinced Ernst Lobethall, a Jew held at nearby Auschwitz concentration camp, to give him his ID badge and concentration camp uniform. He then walked back to Auschwitz on two occasions, gathering valuable evidence about the Nazis’ Final Solution.

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News you may have missed #0228

  • Irish nationalists planting honey traps on British troops? The Belfast Telegraph reports that British Army personnel have been “warned about the recruitment by dissidents of attractive females to identify soldiers at popular nightspots and lure them into ambushes” in Northern Ireland. This is highly unnecessary. Usually British troops in the North are easily identifiable by their haircuts, accents, even by their choice of beer!
  • Egyptian spy chief meets Israeli defense minister. Ehud Barak and Omar Suleiman, director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Services, met in Jerusalem on Sunday. The meeting included a “private 30-minute session” between the two men (and the eavesdroppers on either side, presumably –ed.).
  • Terror suspect David Headley was ‘rogue US secret agent’. The London Times has woken up to the rumors circulating about David Headley, a full month after Indian media began reporting them, and nearly three weeks after intelNews alerted its readers. Nice of them to catch up.

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