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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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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Interview with ex-Mossad director Meir Dagan

April 6, 2012 by 4 Comments

Meir DaganBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The former director of Israel’s most revered intelligence agency has given an extensive interview on why he believes a military strike against the Iranian nuclear program “should be the last option” for Israel. In November 2010, Meir Dagan stepped down from his post as the head of the Mossad after having led the agency for over eight years —the longest tenure of any Mossad director. During his leadership, the Israeli intelligence agency augmented its notoriety by assassinating Imad Mughniyah, security chief of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and allegedly killing Islamic Hamas weapons procurer Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. The Mossad is also said to have played a role in Operation ORCHARD, the 2007 Israeli air attack on what is thought to have been a secret nuclear reactor in Al-Kibar, Syria. However, when it comes to the Iranian nuclear program, the 67-year-old retired spy is adamant that the military option would be a strategic error of gigantic proportions. Last year, Dagan admonished calls by hawkish Israeli politicians to bomb Iran as “the stupidest idea” he had ever heard. In an interview with Reuters news agency published on Thursday, April 5, Dagan said the word “stupid” was “a harsh expression” and “not something [he is] very proud of”. But he insisted that the military option should be last on the table, and said that it would be a mistake for Israel to lead international action against the Iranian nuclear program. Instead, the “Iranian problem” should be “left in the hands of the international community”, said Dagan. The Mossad veteran went on to identify three main problems with the military option. To begin with, he said, military action, no matter how damaging in the physical sense, “cannot disarm the core factor of the Iranian program: knowledge” about how to build a nuclear device. Second, Dagan argued that, even if a military strike managed to eliminate a considerable portion of the Iranian nuclear program’s infrastructure —which is not at all assured— it would likely cause a significant backlash. That backlash would culminate in “a regional war” that would involve simultaneous actions by non-state forces allied with Iran, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah. Read more of this post

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Israel ‘scales back covert operations in Iran’, says Time magazine

April 3, 2012 by 3 Comments

Israel and IranBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The Israeli government has instructed the country’s intelligence services to “scale back” their covert operations in Iran, according to Time magazine. The American publication quotes anonymous “senior Israeli security officials”, who argue that the Jewish state’s covert activities in Iran have been scaled down by “dozens of percent” in recent months. The alleged reduction is said to include “a wide spectrum of operations”, but has mostly affected some of Israel’s most high-profile covert actions. The latter include regular assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists in Tehran and the alleged sabotage of Iranian missile bases. These are said to include a blast at an Iranian military base near the city of Isfahan, in central Iran, which is home to one of Iran’s most active nuclear facilities. They are also said to include a massive explosion in 2011 at an Iranian missile depot near Tehran, which killed at least 17 people, including Major General Hassan Moqqadam, described by Iran’s state media as the “founder of Iran’s missile program”. According to Time, the reduction in Israeli covert operations inside Iran was ordered by none other than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The magazine quotes a “senior security officer” in Israel who claims that the Israeli leader is “worried about the consequences of an [Israeli] covert operation being discovered by Iranian counterintelligence”. There is also a sense in Tel Aviv, says Time, citing “Israeli officials”, that Mossad intelligence planners have largely exhausted their major targets inside Iran at this stage. Nevertheless, the decision to scale back intelligence operations on Iranian territory has reportedly “caused increasing dissatisfaction” inside the Mossad, Israel’s premier external intelligence agency, according to an unnamed Israeli official quoted in Time. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #701

March 26, 2012 by 1 Comment

Mohammed MerahBy IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
►►Ex-NASA scientist gets 13 years for spying for Israel. Former US government scientist Stewart Nozette was once on the cutting edge of space exploration, but he will spend 13 years in prison for trying to sell some of his country’s most closely guarded secrets. In 2009 Nozette sought to sell classified information to someone he thought was an Israeli Mossad officer but was in fact an FBI agent in an undercover sting operation. As intelNews explained back in 2010, Nozette was not simply a Mossad agent-wannabe, but had actually passed information to Israel in the past.
►►French intel under fire over Toulouse gunman. The French government went on the defensive last week amid questions over why its intelligence service had failed to deal with Mohammed Merah. The self-confessed al-Qaeda militant died in a police assault on his flat last Thursday, where he was tracked down after murdering seven people, including three children and three soldiers, in a series of attacks. With hindsight, Merah’s past appears to make him an obvious suspect —he had at least 15 criminal convictions, some with violence, had become a radical Islamist and travelled to Pakistan and Afghanistan. One press report said that in 2010 Merah forced a youth to watch videos of al-Qaeda hostage beheadings. When the boy’s mother complained, Merah allegedly attacked her, putting her in hospital for several days.
►►Ex-Mossad chief says Israel will know when Iran begins producing nukes. Former Mossad head Meir Dagan said he believes Israel will be aware when Iran moves to the stage of nuclear weapon production —for example, enriching uranium to a degree of 90 percent. Dagan said that at that stage Israel would have to attack the Iranian nuclear sites if the international community does not stop its program. Dagan said he believed the Israeli Air Force has the capability to significantly damage Iran’s nuclear sites, yet repeated previous warnings that such a strike will have serious repercussions.

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Mossad, CIA, ‘agree Iran has no active nuclear weapons program’

March 19, 2012 by 3 Comments

Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment facilityBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
Quoting American intelligence sources, The New York Times reports that intelligence agencies from the United States and Israel agree that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program years ago, and that Tehran is not currently attempting to revive it. As intelNews has been reporting consistently since 2009, the overwhelming consensus in the US intelligence community is that the Iranian regime suspended all efforts to build a nuclear bomb in 2003. Furthermore, the US intelligence community maintains that the decision to turn Iran into a nuclear power has yet to be conclusively taken in Tehran. This was first outlined in the 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), an annual report cooperatively authored by the heads of all US intelligence agencies. This consensus appears even wider after Sunday’s New York Times report, which maintains that, even though many hawkish Israeli politicians advocate aggressive action against Iran, Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, is in broad agreement with the premise of the 2007 NIE. The Times cites an anonymous “former senior American intelligence official”, who says that, although Israeli intelligence planners direct “very hard questions” to their American counterparts, the “Mossad does not disagree with the US on the [Iranian] weapons program”, and that “there is not a lot of dispute between the US and Israeli intelligence communities on the facts”. Undeniably, the 2007 NIE has its detractors, including some who accuse the US intelligence community of refusing to realize “that Iran now has the capability to change the balance of power in the Gulf”. The latest report in The Times does not deny that there are “significant intelligence gaps” in Washington’s ability to understand Iran’s intentions. Iran, argues the report —correctly— is “one of the most difficult intelligence collection targets in the world”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #693: Israel edition

March 13, 2012 by 1 Comment

Meir DaganBy IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
►►India soon to announce Iranian role in New Delhi bomb attack. The Delhi Police has cracked the Israeli embassy car blast case and traced the conspiracy to Iranian secret agents. According to sources privy to the investigation, it has now been “conclusively established” that Syed Mohammad Kazmi, the freelance journalist recently arrested in the case, was in touch with an Iranian intelligence officer and had even visited Iran as part of the conspiracy. Sources in the Indian security establishment said that the breakthrough in the February 13 blast on an Israel diplomat’s car, will be announced by the New Delhi Police in a “day or two.” They added that another couple of detentions have been made in the case.
►►Ex-Mossad chief says Iran’s response to attack would be devastating. An Israeli attack on Iran would lead to a missile attack on Tel Aviv that would have a “devastating impact” on the ability of Israelis to continue their daily lives, Meir Dagan, former head of Israel’s spy agency Mossad, said on Monday. Dagan said that Iran doesn’t have only four nuclear sites, but it has “dozens” of them. He seemed quite skeptic over the effectiveness of an Israeli attack on Iran, saying that no military attack could halt the Iranian nuclear project. “The attack could only delay it”, he said.
►►Ex-Mossad chief says Iran regime is ‘very rational’. The Iranian regime is “very rational” and is moving deliberately in its secretive nuclear program, the former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency says. “Maybe it’s not exactly rational based on what I call ‘Western thinking’, but no doubt that they are considering all the implications of their actions”, Meir Dagan said in an interview with CBS‘ 60 Minutes that aired Sunday.

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Turkey denies reports of intelligence officers arrested in Syria

February 21, 2012 by Leave a comment

Turkish-Syrian borderBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The Turkish government has denied reports in the Israeli media that dozens of Turkish intelligence officers have been arrested and are under interrogation in neighboring Syria. Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported over the weekend that at least 40 Turkish intelligence officers had been captured by the Syrian military and were being questioned. The paper also claimed that Syrian military interrogators had extracted “confessions” from the captured Turkish officers, according to which they were operating on instructions to “carry out bombings” in Syria, and other operations aimed to “undermine the country’s security”. Citing Syrian sources, Ha’aretz also said that the Turkish intelligence officers “admitted” having been trained by Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, and that the Mossad also trains members of the opposition Free Syrian Army. The Israeli daily also said that Ankara and Damascus have been involved in “intensive negotiations” over the fate of the 40 Turkish intelligence officers. According to Ha’aretz, Syria has offered to release the Turks, providing Ankara extradites scores of Syrian defectors —most of them from the military— who have been given political asylum in Turkey during the past few months. Damascus reportedly also insists that Turkey takes immediate steps to prevent the smuggling of weapons and military supplies to the Free Syrian Army through its territory. But in a brief press statement on Monday, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said that the report in Ha’aretz was “incorrect”. Turkish newspaper Zaman also quoted anonymous Turkish intelligence sources who flatly refuted the reports from Israel. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #682

February 17, 2012 by 1 Comment

Lieutenant General Ronald BurgessBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►Is there a Mossad base near Iran? The London-based Sunday Times has published an interview with a man claiming to be an Azerbaijan-based agent of Israeli intelligence agency, who confirmed the existence of such a base. The man, identified in the article as “Shimon,” told the paper that there were dozens of Israeli Mossad agents working out of the base. The meeting between the agent and the London Times‘ reporter took place in Baku, near the Israeli Embassy, the report said.
►►Analysis: CIA report on Soviet bioweapons still secret. It has been three decades since the Reagan administration accused the Soviet Union and Vietnam of using chemical weapons known as yellow rain. We still do not know how the US came to this conclusion, but have good reason to believe that it was based on flawed or distorted intelligence. A classified critique of the intelligence behind those charges, written several years ago for the Central Intelligence Agency, could shed light on what happened. Last year, Matthew Meselson, a Harvard expert on chemical and biological weapons, filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get the report released. He was turned down.
►►US official says Iran unlikely to strike first. Lieutenant General Ronald Burgess, director of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, said the Iranian military is unlikely to intentionally provoke a conflict with the West. He said Iran probably has the ability to “temporarily close the Strait of Hormuz with its naval forces”, as some Iranian officials have threatened to do if attacked or in response to sanctions on its oil exports by the US and European Union. But, he added, “Iran is unlikely to initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict or launch a preemptive attack”.

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News you may have missed #681

February 17, 2012 by Leave a comment

Vladimir NesteretsBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►Mossad ‘bolsters activity in Tunisia’. The Mossad has bolstered its activity in several Tunisian cities since the start of the revolt that ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali last January, Tunisian magazine Al-Musawar has reported. According to the magazine, the Israeli intelligence agency has been working with its US-based counterpart, the CIA, to revive its spy network in post-revolution Tunisia.
►►US ‘used quake’ to send Special Forces into Pakistan. The US Pentagon used the Kashmir earthquake of 2005 to send operatives from the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) into Pakistan, reveals a new book by D.B Grady and Marc Ambinder, entitled The Command: Deep Inside the President’s Secret Army. The authors claim that dozens of CIA operatives and contractors entered Pakistan using valid US passports and posing as construction and aid workers, thus avoiding the requisite background checks from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency.
►►Russian officer convicted of spying for CIA. A Russian military court last week convicted Lt. Col. Vladimir Nesterets of providing the CIA with secret information on Russia’s new intercontinental ballistic missiles and sentenced him to 13 years in prison. The officer pleaded guilty to passing on that classified information in exchange for money, said the Federal Security Service, the main agency that replaced the Soviet-era KGB. Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency quoted the officer’s wife, Irina, as saying she could not understand the guilty plea because her husband had told her he did nothing wrong and had not betrayed his country.

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News you may have missed #680

February 16, 2012 by Leave a comment

General Ziauddin KhawajaBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►Did Pakistani ex-leader know bin Laden’s hideout? General Ziauddin Khawaja, who was head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) from 1997 to 1999, claims Pakistan’s former President, Pervez Musharraf, knew bin Laden was in Abbottabad.
►►Sweden expels Rwanda diplomat for spying. Sweden has expelled a Rwandan diplomat for allegedly spying on Rwandan exiles there, according to the Associated Press. The diplomat, Evode Mudaheranwa, was sent back to Rwanda last week, according to a sources close to the Swedish government. Mudaheranwa was the Rwandan embassy’s second-highest-ranking official. The Swedish action comes as amid charges that Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s government sends agents overseas to silence critics.
►►Mossad continues to use foreign passports. Agents of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency are still using foreign passports to conduct undercover operations in other countries, according to a report in The Sunday Times of London. The paper says that new evidence shows that foreign nationals residing in Israel are willingly allowing the Mossad to use their passports. The Times interviewed several Israelis who revealed details of how they were approached by intelligence officials about the possibility of volunteering their passports for the Mossad.

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Israeli-Iranian ‘dirty war’ nearing point of no return

February 15, 2012 by 16 Comments

Bomb blast in New DelhiBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The ongoing intelligence war between Israel and Iran appears to be reaching unprecedented levels following the exposure earlier this week of a simultaneous bombing campaign against Israeli targets in Europe and Asia. The wife of Israel’s Defense Attaché in New Delhi, India, was among four people injured on Monday, after a magnetic bomb attached to her car exploded just 500 yards from the gates of the Israeli embassy. Three thousand miles away, in Tbilisi, Georgia, a sharp-eyed employee of the Israeli embassy there discovered a bomb attached to a diplomatic car; the device was eventually diffused by Georgian counterterrorist authorities. A few hours later, the government of Thailand announced that two Iranian nationals had been detained following an explosion at a rented house in the capital Bangkok, which critically injured one of the arrestees. A second man was reportedly arrested in Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport while he was trying to board a flight to Malaysia. At least two other men, also Iranian nationals, remain at large, though Thai officials suspect they have already fled to Iran. (Update: Thai authorities have confirmed the bombers’ targets were Israeli diplomats). Speaking anonymously to Bloomberg news agency, US intelligence officials said that operations directed at Israeli targets were also “disrupted” in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, as well as in Bulgaria. Observers have also noted that the attack that injured the wife of the Israeli diplomat was carried out in one of Israel’s strongest allies in Asia, thus delivering a two-fold message to both Tel Aviv and New Delhi. India’s Home Affairs Minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, told journalists yesterday that the attack in the Indian capital was conducted by a “well trained” motorcyclist, who attached “a magnetic device” to the car before speeding away. Read more of this post

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US Senate hearing accidentally reveals Mossad director’s secret visit

February 1, 2012 by 1 Comment

Tamir PardoBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The chairwoman of a public hearing at the United States Senate, which was televised live across America, accidentally revealed that the Director of Israeli intelligence service Mossad secretly visited the US for talks last week. The revelation took place on Tuesday at a high-profile hearing conducted by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, with the participation of the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Central Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus. While addressing the latter, Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein mentioned in passing that “the vice chairman [of the Committee] and I have just met this past week with the director of Mossad”, and that the meeting was classified. She was referring to Tamir Pardo, the newly installed head of Israel’s foremost external intelligence agency. Without blinking an eye, Petraeus responded saying: “Like you, obviously, I met with the head of Mossad when he was here”. Subsequent discussion during the hearing appeared to establish that Pardo visited the United States specifically to discuss the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran’s known nuclear installations. In responding to Senator Feinstein’s comment, the CIA Director said that Pardo’s secret visit was “part of an ongoing dialogue that has also included conversations that I’ve had with [Israeli] Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and with [Defense] Minister [Ehud] Barak”. No further information was shard on the Mossad official’s visit, and US government representatives refused to elaborate, when asked about it later. Read more of this post

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