Comment: Some early remarks on bin Laden’s assassination

May 2, 2011 by 6 Comments

Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS* | intelNews.org |
It is tempting to consider the impact of Osama bin Laden’s assassination on al-Qaeda-inspired groups and, more broadly, on America’s “global war on terrorism”. Yet any such endeavor at this point would be inevitably speculative. The truth is, nobody has the slightest idea of the possible strategic spillover of bin Laden’s killing, and this includes the White House, the CIA and NATO. There are, however, some general remarks, mostly of operational nature, that can safely be made on the basis of the limited factual information that has been made available. To begin with, it appears that the assassination of al-Qaeda’s senior figurehead was conducted by ground forces, and not remotely, as has been the case with the vast majority of US assassination operations carried out in Afghanistan and Pakistan during the past several years. This potentially strengthens the argument, made frequently by Western and Pakistani officials, that significant achievements in the field of counterterrorism can only be conducted by surgical-type ground operations, based on accurate and actionable intelligence.

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News you may have missed #504

April 29, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • Israel spy pleads to Obama for release. United States Navy analyst Jonathan Pollard, who was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for spying for Israel, has pleaded for his release in a personal letter to President Barack Obama. The letter was apparently handed to Obama by Israeli President Shimon Peres when he visited the White House on April 5.
  • US-Pakistan spy feud boils over CIA drone strikes. The Pakistani government has voiced strong criticism of a fresh CIA drone attack, which has killed 26 people. But an anonymous US counterterrorism official, who spoke to the McClatchy news agency, said that “the Pakistanis should spend less time complaining to the press [about the drone strikes] and more time trying to root out terrorists within their country”.
  • Colombia to issue international warrant for ex-spy chief. Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office will issue an international arrest warrant for Maria Pilar Hurtado, former director of the country’s disgraced DAS intelligence agency, who was granted political asylum in Panama.

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Hundreds of European mercenaries ‘fighting for Gaddafi’

April 28, 2011 by 1 Comment

Libya

Libya

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Hundreds of European mercenaries, including large numbers of European Union citizens, have voluntarily enrolled in the armed forces of the Libyan government, and are fighting under the command of Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi. According to criminologist Michel Koutouzis, the Greek CEO of a French-registered consulting firm with connections to Libya, up to 500 European soldiers-of-fortune have been hired by the Libyan government to provide “special services”, particularly in heavy weaponry and attack helicopters. Koutouzis says that most of the European mercenaries, who sell their services for thousands of dollars a day, come from Eastern Europe, especially Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Serbia, but there are also French, British and Greek nationals currently in Libya. He also claims that Gaddafi is supported by serving military personnel from Russia, Syria and Algeria. It is believed that the Gaddafi camp is also employing thousands of non-specialist mercenaries from various African nations, including Somalia, Mali, Niger, Chad, and the Central African Republic. Unconfirmed reports have surfaced in the American press that the Gaddafi forces are employing female snipers from Colombia. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #503

April 27, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • Dutch forces’ covert operations in Africa revealed. Dutch forces have for several years been training government soldiers in Mali, Senegal and Chad, without the Dutch parliament being informed, according to Dutch newspaper AD, which cites documents from the US Congress and the Pentagon.
  • Israel destroys spying devices found in Gaza. Hamas sources have told Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram that they discovered several “audio-visual spying devices” in the sand hills south of Gaza City. But, as soon as they started removing the devices, they “received a phone call from Israeli intelligence elements” telling them that the site would be bombed “within three minutes” —which is precisely what happened, according to al-Ahram. Regular readers of this blog will know this incident was not a first.
  • Leaked documents reveal Guantanamo secrets. A batch of leaked US government intelligence documents, not meant to surface for 20 years, shows that intelligence collection at Guantánamo often was much less effective than the George Bush administration has acknowledged. According to the documents, the US military used interrogation and detention practices that they largely made up as they went along.

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Controversial Swiss master-spy dies in Ireland

April 26, 2011 by 2 Comments

Albert Bachmann

Albert Bachmann

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
One of Switzerland’s most controversial Cold War figures, who set up a clandestine guerrilla unit to combat a feared Soviet invasion, has died in Cork, Ireland. Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger has said last week that Colonel Albert Bachmann, who headed Switzerland’s military intelligence force, the Untergruppe Nachrichtendienst der Armee (UNA), from 1976 until 1979, died on April 12. Although Bachmann was a communist in his student years, he later headed Projekt-26 (P-26), a clandestine project to set up a ‘left-behind’ force of Swiss guerrillas trained in sharp shooting, bombing and assassination techniques. The guerrilla force was designed to engage the Soviet military if it ever invaded Switzerland. In the late 1970s, Colonel Bachmann also secured government funds to purchase the 200-acre Liss Ard country estate near the Irish town of Skibbereen, in west Cork. The estate was to be used as a base for a Swiss government-in-exile following a feared Soviet invasion of central Europe. Furthermore, the basement of one of the two manors on the estate was designated as a secret depository of Switzerland’s gold reserves, in the event of a Soviet invasion of the Alpine country. Read more of this post

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Book claims CIA framed Bulgaria over assassination attempt on Pope

April 25, 2011 by Leave a comment

John Paul II

John Paul II

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A new book claims that the United States Central Intelligence Agency concocted a link between the Bulgarian intelligence services and the 1981 failed assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II. Entitled Kill the Pope: The Truth About the Assassination Attempt on Pope John Paul II, the book is authored by Italian investigative journalist Marco Insaldo and Turkish researcher Yasemin Taksin. Both say that Kill the Pope is the result of a twenty-year study into the incident. Pope John Paul II was shot four times by a 9mm handgun fired by Turkish citizen Mehmet Ali Ağca, while riding in the back of an open-roof car at the Vatican’s St Peter’s Square. Although Ağca’s motives are shrouded in mystery, many intelligence historians believe that he was operating as an agent for the Bulgarian secret services. It has been speculated that the Soviet KGB instructed Bulgarian intelligence to use Ağca and another Turk, Oral Çelik, to kill the Polish-born Pope, because he had strong ties with Poland’s dissident Solidarność (Solidarity) movement. But Insaldo and Taksin insist that there is no evidence to connect the Bulgarian government to the assassination operation, and that Ağca operated under the command of Turkey’s Grey Wolves, a nationalist, anti-Western paramilitary group, which consists of both secular and Islamist factions. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #502

April 22, 2011 by 2 Comments

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News you may have missed #501 (United States edition)

April 21, 2011 by 1 Comment

  • Ex-double agent Hanssen’s house goes on sale. The five-bedroom home on Talisman Drive in Vienna, Va., offered by Llewellyn Realtors for $725,000 as “perfect for a growing family”, is the former lair of ex-FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Hanssen, who is regarded as one of the most damaging spies ever to betray the US government.
  • Ex-CIA officer critical of US activities in Pakistan. Speaking on Pakistan’s TV show Express 24/7, former CIA officer Robert Baer said there were no less than 16 US intelligence agencies working in Pakistan and none of them talked to each other, with even officials from the New York police department at one point in time conducting investigations in Pakistan.
  • US agents descending on Mexico According to Mexican daily El Diario, the country’s Attorney General’s Office estimates that there are currently over 500 US intelligence operatives working in Mexico, up from just 60 in 2005.

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Leaked US cable reveals concern about China spying in Chile

April 20, 2011 by 2 Comments

WikiLeaks

WikiLeaks

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A leaked US government document reveals strong concerns expressed by the US embassy in Santiago about Chinese intelligence operations in Chile. The document, classified “secret”, and dated August 29, 2005, was released by whistleblower website WikiLeaks. It contains a report sent by the embassy to the US Department of State, concerning Chinese intelligence collection activities in the South American nation. The report points out that the Chinese embassy in the Chilean capital is one of the largest in Latin America, with 22 employees, who are “all good Spanish speakers”. It also notes that Chinese news agency Xinhua maintains three full-time correspondents in Chile, who are “assumed [to be] involved in some kind of collection activity”. But the leaked document focuses mostly on alleged Chinese intelligence collection activities aimed at the Chilean military, which is heavily subsisted by the United States. It suggests that bilateral ties between the Chinese and Chilean military were significantly strengthened in 2004, when, during an official visit to China, the then Chief of the Chilean Army, General Juan Emilio Cheyre, adopted a Chinese proposal to establish a Mandarin-language training program for selected officers of the Chilean military, which became operational shortly after. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #500

April 19, 2011 by Leave a comment

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German spies meddled in ex-Nazi Eichmann’s trial in Israel, records show

April 18, 2011 by 3 Comments

Adolf Eichmann

Adolf Eichmann

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The West German government instructed its intelligence agency to interfere in the trial of former senior Nazi official Adolf Eichmann in Israel, in order to avert the incrimination of other Germans over the Holocaust. Eichmann, who was Obersturmbahnführer in the German SS from 1940 onwards, was among the chief organizers of the Holocaust and was personally responsible for the extermination of untold numbers of European Jews during World War II. However, in 1946 he managed to escape from American custody and eventually fled to Argentina with the help of a network of Franciscan Catholics in Italy. But in 1960, a ten-member Israeli intelligence team kidnapped Eichmann from his home in Argentina and transported him secretly to Israel, where he would be tried and, eventually, executed by the Israeli government. The public trial attracted the world’s attention, but at least one government was fearful of it, namely that of West Germany. The reason was Bonn’s concern that Eichmann might publicly name as responsible for the Holocaust several other Nazi officials, many of whom were living at the time in West Germany. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #499 (CIA edition)

April 17, 2011 by Leave a comment

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News you may have missed #498

April 16, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • US claims Iran helping Syria crackdown. Iran is secretly helping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad put down pro-democracy demonstrations, according to US officials, who say Tehran is providing gear to suppress crowds and assistance blocking and monitoring protesters’ use of the Internet, cellphones and text-messaging.
  • Frenchmen arrested in Pakistan. One of the French citizens is of Pakistani origin and the other is a Caucasian convert to Islam; the two had apparently intended to travel to Pakistan’s North Waziristan region, where al-Qaida’s top command is based, for terrorist training, according to a US official.
  • Did US blow up its old spy satellite? The US military’s huge reconnaissance satellite Lacrosse 2, which was launched 20 years ago, has been reported by amateur satellite observers as missing in action –a sign that the classified spacecraft may have been purposely destroyed in Earth’s atmosphere.

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News you may have missed #497

April 14, 2011 by 1 Comment

  • Interview with Finnish ex-counterespionage officer. Finland’s Helsingin Sanomat has published a very interesting interview with Hannu Moilanen, who recently retired as a senior officer with SUPO, the Finnish Security Intelligence Service. Among other things, Moilanen says SUPO considered the CIA “the bad boys” of the Western bloc during the Cold War, because the Americans would not always disclose to SUPO the identities of CIA officers stationed in Finland, as they were supposed to.
  • European Union sent intelligence officers to Libya. But the EU’s Joint Situation Centre denies they were spies. “They were technical specialists who went to help with satellite phones and that type of thing”, said JSC Director Ilkka Salmi.
  • Talks aimed at mending rift between CIA and ISI. The CIA has agreed to reveal more about its operatives and their activities in Pakistan, and pledged expanded cooperation on drone strikes, US and Pakistani officials said. Meanwhile, however, the drone strikes on Pakistani soil appear to be continuing.

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West German defector dies in Moscow

April 13, 2011 by 2 Comments

Hans-Joachim Tiedge

Tiedge

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A senior West German counterintelligence official, whose 1985 defection to the Soviet bloc shocked Western intelligence, has died in Moscow. Hans-Joachim Tiedge headed the Cologne office of West Germany’s now-defunct Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV). He was also involved in the BfV’s counterintelligence work against East German spy operations on West German soil. But on August 19, 1985, Tiedge boarded a train to East Germany. Once there, he walked over to a branch of the Ministry for State Security (commonly known as the Stasi) and declared his intent to defect. His defection caused disarray in West German intelligence circles, prompting the recall of dozens of West German officers and agents operating in East Germany. It eventually led to the resignation of the Director of the BfV, Heribert Hellenbroich. In his autobiography, published in 1998, Tiedge said he decided to defect “due to personal problems” relating to chronic alcoholism and financial debt. He also said his decision to flee to East Germany was prompted by the fear that he was about to be reassigned to a less desirable post inside the BfV. Read more of this post

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