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News you may have missed #448

November 2, 2010 by intelNews 3 Comments

Russian intel source threatens WikiLeaks. A Russian secret services expert has denied that whistleblower website WikiLeaks poses a threat to Russia, and warned that the “right team” of people could simply shut down WikiLeaks “forever” if it posts classified Russian government documents.
UK female spy gave rare interview about WWII exploits. It has emerged that British wartime spy Eileen Nearne, who died aged 89 in September, and whose exploits echoed the fictional character Charlotte Gray, gave an interview 13 years ago –in disguise– in which she told how she was tortured by the Gestapo.
Lebanon sentences 3 to death for spying for Israel. A Lebanese military court on Monday sentenced three people to death for spying for Israel. Two of the Lebanese nationals, Sami Farhat and Amar al-Halabi, were sentenced in absentia because they have fled the country. The third man, Jawdat el-Hakim, is held by Lebanese authorities. Dozens of alleged Israeli spy cells have been uncovered in Lebanon in the past year.

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News you may have missed #447

October 29, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

UK MI6 chief speaks publicly for the first time. Sir John Sawers, the head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, also known as MI6, has delivered what he said was the first public address by a serving chief of the agency in its 101-year history.
WikiLeaks to release secret Russia, China logs. Whistleblower website WikiLeaks, which has published hundreds of US war logs, is preparing to release secret files from Russia and China, Russian newspaper Kommersant said on Tuesday.
Renegade CIA agent’s papers acquired by NYU. The private papers of the late Philip Agee, the disaffected CIA operative whose unauthorized publication of agency secrets 35 years ago was arguably far more controversial than anything WikiLeaks has produced, have been obtained by New York University, which plans to make them public next spring.

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News you may have missed #446

October 28, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

American pleads guilty to spying for China. Glenn D. Shriver acknowledged on Friday that he accepted $70,000 from Chinese spies as he attempted to secure jobs with the CIA and US Foreign Service that would have allowed him to expose US government secrets. He apparently spent two years going through the CIA hiring process and reached the final security screenings. But US intelligence sources say Shriver was discovered very early in the hiring process.
Obama widens CIA operations in Pakistan. The US is pushing to expand secret CIA operations in Pakistan. But Islamabad is so far rebuffing US requests to allow additional CIA officers and special operations military trainers to enter the country.
US spy balloons blew towards Iran. The latest WikiLeaks revelations show that on two occasions in 2006 American JLens spy balloons broke from their moorings in Iraq and drifted toward the Iranian airspace. No information on the balloons’ fate is reported in the war logs. Did Iran get hold of them?

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News you may have missed #445

October 27, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

WikiLeaks files show Iranian involvement in Iraq. The latest WiliLeaks release of nearly 392,000 US military reports from Iraq shows, among other things, that Iran was a major combatant in the Iraq War. According to the documents, Tehran’s elite Quds Force trained Iraqi Shiite insurgents and imported weapons like Explosively Formed Projectile bombs into Iraq for use against civilians, Sunni militants and US troops.
WikiLeaks founder on the run. Julian Assange’s fate seems as imperiled as that of Private Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old former Army intelligence operative under detention in the US for leaking Iraq and Afghan war documents to WikiLeaks. Last Monday, Mr. Assange’s bid for a residence permit in Sweden was rejected. His British visa will expire early next year.
Money problems of US spies may threaten US security. Elizabeth Bancroft The executive director of the US Association of Former Intelligence Officers, has suggested that government agencies should monitor intelligence service employees with security clearances, who may have fallen into bankruptcy during the ongoing economic crisis. Spy agencies are worried that financial problems might leave these employees open to bribery or blackmail.

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News you may have missed #444

October 26, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Kyrgyz leader says spies tried to kill him. Kamchybek Tashiev, head of Kyrgyzstan’s Ata-Jurt party, which won the most votes in the recent national parliamentary elections, has accused the country’s State Security Service chief, Keneshbek Dushebayev, of organizing an attempt to assassinate him on October 23.
Pakistan’s ISI organized Mumbai attacks, say Indians. A report by the Indian government, based on information provided by Pakistani-American informant David Headley, accuses Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency of masterminding the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Russian sleeper agents receive highest state honor. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has bestowed the country’s highest state honor on the Russian sleeper agents deported from the United States earlier this year as part of the countries’ biggest spy swap since the Cold War.

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News you may have missed #443

October 25, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

First budget cuts in a decade for UK spy agencies. Spending on Britain’s intelligence agencies is set to fall by 7%, for the first time in more than a decade. This is be expected to force MI5, MI6 and GCHQ to cap staff numbers, merge some of their operations, and scrap plans to modernize some of their buildings. Looks like even more British spies will be moving to Australia.
South Koreans arrested for trying to defect to North. Three South Koreans, including a medical doctor, are being investigated after allegedly trying to defect to North Korea from China. It is extremely unusual for South Koreans or other nationals to attempt to defect to the North.
Plame calls Fair Game movie ‘accurate portrayal’. CIA agent Valerie Plame has said the movie Fair Game, based on her book, is a “really good, accurate portrayal of what we went through, both personally and in the political maelstrom that we live through”. The Bush administration was accused of blowing Plame’s cover as retaliation after her diplomat husband openly challenged the reasoning behind the Iraq War.

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News you may have missed #442

October 21, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Israeli lobby intensifies Pollard release effort. As convicted spy Jonathan Pollard approaches 25 years behind bars, Israelis and others are renewing efforts to secure freedom for the former US Navy intelligence analyst, who is serving a life sentence in the United States for relaying military documents to Israel.
No compromise in WikiLeaks expose, concludes Pentagon. Much ado about nothing. The US Pentagon has concluded that no US intelligence sources or practices were compromised by the posting of secret Afghan war logs by the WikiLeaks website. Meanwhile, WikiLeaks is preparing to publish more revelations.
Niger ex-spy chief arrested. Seini Chekaraou, head of counterintelligence at the uranium-rich nation of Niger, has been arrested along with four senior members of the West African country’s ruling junta, allegedly on suspicion that they were “attempt[ing] to destabilize the [military] regime” that took power in the country last February.

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News you may have missed #441

October 20, 2010 by intelNews 2 Comments

US officials admit terrorist suspect was DEA informant. US government officials have told The Washington Post what the world’s media has been saying for almost a year, namely that Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley, who was arrested by the FBI in October for plotting an attack on a Danish newspaper, was working as a Drug Enforcement Administration informant while training with Islamist insurgents in Pakistan.
Ex-CIA officer decries Israeli policies. Philip Giraldi, a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer at the CIA, has said in an interview that Israel’s policies in Palestine “are manifestly evil”.
Bomber who killed seven at CIA base was not vetted. Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a Jordanian al-Qaeda sympathiser who killed himself and seven CIA agents at a remote base in eastern Afghanistan in January had not been properly vetted, the CIA has said.

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News you may have missed #440 (USA edition)

October 19, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

US DNI scraps Intelligence Science Board. The newly appointed US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, has disbanded an advisory panel set up after 9/11, and tasked with providing him with scientific advice, ranging from nuclear physics to forensics to the psychology of interrogation. There are rumors that Clappers intends to disband another 19 advisory boards, believing them to be inefficient.
Analysis: Uses and misuses of intelligence in four US wars. Former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman assesses the success of the CIA’s intelligence analysis by measuring the Agency’s performance before and during four controversial wars: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
US Army awards medal to 95-year-old ex-OSS agent. George Vujnovich, a former agent of the US Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA, is to be awarded the US Army’s Bronze Star for helping rescue 512 American airmen in the former Yugoslavia during World War II.

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News you may have missed #439

October 18, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Book critical of Russian FSB published. In a new book entitled The New Nobility, Russian journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan claim that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) is less repressive but ultimately more dangerous than its predecessor, the Soviet KGB.
Senior-most North Korean defector dies. Hwang Jang-yop, the theoretician behind North Korea’s Songun and Juche state doctrines, who defected to South Korea in 1997, has died at his home in Seoul, aged 87. Last April, South Korea charged two North Korean government agents with attempting to assassinate Hwang.
‘Low morale’ leads MI6 spies to apply for Australian jobs. More than 50 spies at Britain’s MI6 have allegedly responded to a recruitment drive by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS). According to insiders, there has been growing uncertainty among MI6’s 2,600 staff over looming budget cuts and inquiries into alleged complicity in the torture of terrorism suspects.

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News you may have missed #438 (Stuxnet edition)

October 5, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Stuxnet cyber superweapon moves to China. The Stuxnet computer virus, dubbed the world’s “first cyber superweapon” by experts, and which may have been designed to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, has found a new target: China. The computer worm has infecting millions of computers around the country, Chinese state media reported this week.
Stuxnet worm heralds new era of global cyberwar. The Stuxnet worm, which Iran admits has affected 30,000 of its computers, was a sophisticated attack almost certainly orchestrated by a state. It also appears that intelligence operatives were used to deliver the worm to its goal.
Israeli cyber unit allegedly responsible for Iran computer worm. Some experts claim that Unit 8200, an elite Israeli military group responsible for cyberwarfare, has been accused of creating a virus that has crippled Iran’s computer systems and stopped work at its newest nuclear power station.

[Research credit to Arthur Sbygniew]

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News you may have missed #437

October 1, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Huge demand for spy balloons in Afghan war. The hottest US weapon in Afghanistan lacks a lethal capability, floats thousands of feet in the air and doesn’t carry troops. It’s a spy balloon. Similar contraptions have been making appearances at the Lebanese-Israeli border.
One, two, many WikiLeaks. Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a defector from the WikiLeaks website has said he has decided to jump ship and is thinking of creating a competitor site to Julian Assange’s whistleblower platform.
Is publication of classified info a criminal act? When WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of classified US military records concerning the war in Afghanistan last July, did it commit a criminal act under US law? A US Congressional Research Service report argues that it did not.

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News you may have missed #436

September 30, 2010 by intelNews 1 Comment

Iran crosses into Iraq to hit bombing suspects. Iranian forces crossed into neighboring Iraq and killed 30 Kurdish fighters from a group it says was involved in last week’s bombing of a military parade, Iran’s state TV reported Sunday. The group in Iran is a wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and sometimes operates inside friendly territory in Iraqi Kurdistan.
German trial of Libyan spies starts in Berlin. Two Libyans, identified only as 42-year-old ‘Adel Ab’ and 46-year-old ‘Adel Al’, have gone on trial in Berlin, accused of gathering information on Libyan opposition members living in Germany. Prosecutors say the spying was “on a personal level” and “there was no technical eavesdropping involved”.
Nine years after 9/11, US intel sharing still hobbled. More than nine years after 9/11, America’s intelligence-sharing system continues to be impeded by legal and technical difficulties. The newly created National Counterterrorism Center

(NCTC) is a good case in point.

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News you may have missed #435 (cyberwarfare edition)

September 28, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

Analysis: Cyber attacks test US Pentagon. US military and civilian networks are probed thousands of times a day, and the systems of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters are attacked at least 100 times a day. Meanwhile, more than 100 countries are currently trying to break into US defense networks.
US should be able to shut Internet, ex-CIA chief says. Cyberterrorism is such a threat that the US President should have the authority to shut down the Internet in the event of an attack, Former CIA Director Michael Hayden has said.
Iran battling alleged ‘spy virus’. Iranian officials have confirmed reports that a malicious computer code, called Stuxnet, was spreading throughout the nation’s nuclear infrastructure. But they have given differing accounts of the damage, said to be capable of taking over computers that operate huge facilities, including nuclear energy reactors. Did someone say ‘Israel‘?

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News you may have missed #434 (book news edition)

September 27, 2010 by intelNews Leave a comment

CIA drone strikes have killed Americans, claims journalist. In his new book, Obama’s Wars, veteran US journalist Bob Woodward claims that CIA drone strikes in Pakistan have killed many Westerners, including some US citizens.
Norway’s greatest spy case to be re-examined. The case of former Norwegian diplomat Arne Treholt, who was sentenced during the end of the Cold War in Norway’s most famous spy case, is to be re-opened, after the publication of book called Counterfeit, whose authors charge that Norwegian police fabricated evidence against Treholt.
US Pentagon censors widely used acronyms in book. Pentagon censors, who recently struck a deal to redact portions of Operation Dark Heart, a book written by US Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer, have blacked out from the text widely used terms such as SIGINT, which means signals intelligence.