News you may have missed #0288

February 17, 2010 by Leave a comment

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Answers to questions about al-Mabhouh’s assassination

February 17, 2010 by 5 Comments

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh

Al-Mabhouh

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The intelNews email inbox is literally bulging with messages about the recent assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the co-founder of Hamas’ military wing, who was found dead in Dubai last month. Here are brief answers to a selection of readers’ questions. Q. Is there any doubt that Mossad was behind the assassination? A. Almost none. By no means was Israel al-Mabhouh’s sole enemy. In fact, his killing caused little distress among Fatah’s leadership, and at least two Palestinians are believed to have assisted in the assassination. Nevertheless, the operation has all the hallmarks of a state-sponsored action, something particularly evident in the sophisticated travel documentation forgery involved. Moreover, the tactics of the hit squad, its composition, as well as its methods, point almost directly to the Mossad.  Q. Were those passports real, or not? If not, who are the people in the photos? The eleven known members of the hit squad utilized British, Irish, German, and one French (the squad leader) passports. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0287

February 16, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • India still trying to get access to Headley. Congratulations to The New York Times, for managing to publish a feature-length article about the constant requests by Indian intelligence officials to interrogate David C. Headley, currently held in a US prison, without probing why the US is refusing to facilitate these requests. The American-born Headley was arrested in October for having links to Islamic extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. There are rumors in India and Pakistan that Headley is in fact a renegade CIA informant.
  • Spanish double agent sentenced to 12 years. Roberto Flórez García, a former employee of Spain’s National Intelligence Center (CNI), was arrested in September for giving classified documents to Russian intelligence, via Petr Melnikov, political attaché at the Russian Embassy in Madrid. This was Spain’s first treason conviction since returning to democracy in 1978 after decades of military dictatorship.

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CIA declassifies controversial submarine recovery project

February 16, 2010 by Leave a comment

Glomar Explorer

Glomar Explorer

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
I have written before about the CIA’s controversial 1974 project to recover a Soviet submarine that had sunk in 1968, in 17,000 feet of water, about 750 miles northwest of Hawaii. The project involved the infamous ship Hughes Glomar Explorer and was led by CIA agent Christopher Fitzgerald, who died last year. But the CIA recovery team nearly caused a nuclear explosion when the submarine split while being raised, and its body hit the ocean floor. Now the CIA has for the first time declassified a substantial document relating to the project, codenamed AZORIAN. The document is a lengthy article first published in 1985 in the mostly classified CIA research journal Studies in Intelligence, written by an unnamed CIA team member who participated in the recovery effort. Read more of this post

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UK special forces chief trying to prevent book publication

February 15, 2010 by 1 Comment

SAS seal

SAS seal

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The director of Britain’s Special Forces is actively trying to stop the publication of a new book that sheds unprecedented light on the elite combat group’s operations in Iraq. The official, whose name cannot be revealed for security reasons, has said that the book, authored by BBC journalist Mark Urban, will negatively impact the operational effectiveness of the Special Air Service (SAS) and other UK Special Forces units. The official’s objections have come to overshadow a compromise struck earlier this month between Mr. Urban’s publishers and the UK Ministry of Defence. Following four months of negotiations, the Ministry reportedly decided that the book “would not compromise the operational effectiveness of the SAS”. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0286 (Internet edition)

February 15, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • Email trojan targeted at US .gov, .mil accounts. A Trojan-containing email, which is spoofed so that it appears to have been sent by the US National Intelligence Council, appears to have been directed solely at US government and military email accounts.
  • Analysis: Smuggling secret information through VOIP. Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) systems use a series of protocols to essentially create an open, unmediated link between two computers. VOIP applications also provide a way to make sure the packets are ordered quickly and correctly. And that’s a goldmine for anyone trying to send hidden messages.
  • ACLU concerned about Google-NSA partnership. Google corporation has turned to the US National Security Agency for assistance in warding off cyberattacks. But the American Civil Liberties Union is among several organizations that view the partnership as “troubling”.

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How many government informants are there in China?

February 15, 2010 by 1 Comment

Kailu County

Kailu County

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The interest of intelligence observers was stirred last week by a rare revelation made by a Chinese regional police official, who said that his bureau employs one in every 33 local residents as an informant. Speaking to Xinhua News Agency, Liu Xingchen, deputy public security bureau director for Inner Mongolia’s Kailu County, said his force employed 12,093 informants out of approximately 400,000 inhabitants. The informants’ task, he said, was to provide government with intelligence, to weed out “non-harmonious elements”, and to uncover “all sorts of information that might destabilize society”. Some reports note that, when applied nationwide, these statistics point to the possible existence of “at least 39 million informants”, a number that represents 3 per cent of China’s population and “lays bare the enormous scale of China’s surveillance network”. Such extrapolations, however, are risky for a number of reasons. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0286

February 14, 2010 by 1 Comment

  • More on CIA spies working for corporations. Author Eamon Javers provides more information about his new book, in which he examines the increasing phenomenon of CIA agents working for private corporations on the side.
  • Rio Tinto spy controversy thickens. Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto says it is “extremely worried” about four of its staff, who were arrested last July by Chinese authorities and have now been formally charged with espionage.
  • Court keeps White House spy emails secret. Two weeks ago, US President Barack Obama declared in his State of the Union address that “it’s time to require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or Congress”. This does not appear to apply to telecommunication industry lobbyists, who campaigned in favor of facilitating warrantless communications interception through the National Security Agency’s STELLAR WIND program.

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Did missing Polish intel officer defect to Russia?

February 13, 2010 by Leave a comment

Stefan Zielonka

Stefan Zielonka

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
We have been keeping an eye on the mysterious case of Stefan Zielonka, a senior SIGINT officer with Poland’s Military Intelligence Services (SWW), who disappeared without trace in early May of 2009. The seriousness of Zielonka’s disappearance stems from his extensive knowledge of Polish undercover intelligence networks operating overseas, including names and contacts of illegals –i.e. agents operating without diplomatic cover. Consequently, Polish intelligence officials have expressed fears that, if Zielonka defected, or was kidnapped by foreign intelligence agents, “much of the country’s intelligence network could be compromised”. The possibility that Zielonka actually defected increased after it became known that his wife and young child also disappeared. In December, a report in Poland’s Dziennik Gazeta Prawna claimed that the signals intelligence officer’s mysterious disappearance is connected with a “trail leading to the Far East”, with “all clues lead[ing] to China”. Earlier this week, however, Russian weekly Argumenti Niedieli suggested that Zielonka was in fact recruited by Russian military intelligence. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0284

February 12, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • Real IRA faction killed MI5 informant, says Irish police. The Gardai have concluded that a Real IRA faction executed Denis Donaldson, a former Sinn Fein official who turned informer for MI5 and the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Last year, the Real IRA took responsibility for the 2007 killing.
  • NATO spy station up for sale. A Canadian NATO spy station in Nova Scotia that operated between 1983 and 2006 is for sale for US$1.4 million. It appears that the site’s current owner, who doesn’t want to be identified, bought it from the Canadian Defense Department after the base was closed down.
  • Analysis on the Binyam Mohamed disclosures and UK-US spy cooperation. This analysis, by Michael Clarke, director of Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, is probably the best synopsis of the meaning of the recent court order to disclose Binyam Mohamed’s torture records, which has complicated US-UK spy relations.

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Israeli minister in handshake debacle with Saudi spy chief

February 12, 2010 by Leave a comment

Danny Ayalon

Danny Ayalon

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Much has been made of an episode in the recent Munich Security Conference, in which Israel’s deputy foreign minister shook hands with Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence director. As is often the case in international conferences involving high-level participants from Israel and Muslim states, organizers at the Munich Security Conference went out of their way to ensure that Egyptian, Saudi, and –lately– Turkish government representatives were not to meet in the same seminars with Israeli officials. Participants were surprised, however, to see Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief, Prince Turki bin Faisal al-Saud, present in a seminar that featured a panel contribution by Israeli deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon. During the remarks session, Ayalon expressed dissatisfaction with the Muslim participants’ insistence to stay clear of the Israeli delegation, to which Turki al-Faisal responded with reference to Israel’s recent diplomatic spat with the Turkish government. Read more of this post

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Three women among al-Mabhouh assassins, says journal

February 12, 2010 by 3 Comments

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh

Al-Mabhouh

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Three women were among ten members of a Mossad assassination team that killed a top Hamas official last month in Dubai, according to Intelligence Online. The Paris-based, subscription-only website also said that all members of the Israeli assassination squad that killed Mahmoud al-Mabhouh used European passports to enter the United Arab Emirates. Earlier this week, Dubai police announced that the team consisted of seven people, at least four of whom had used fraudulent Irish passports to enter the Emirates. According to Intelligence Online, one female member of the Mossad hit-team played a central role in the operation, by dressing herself in a generic hotel uniform before knocking on the door of al-Mabhouh’s room at the luxury Al-Bustan Rotana Hotel. Read more of this post

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US, UK spy agencies on alert after unprecedented court decision

February 11, 2010 by Leave a comment

Binyam Mohamed

Binyam Mohamed

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
British and American intelligence agencies have been placed on alert following an unprecedented ruling by a British court, which forces the British government to disclose CIA documents in its possession. The documents relate to the case of Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian resident of Britain, who says he was severely tortured with the collaboration of the CIA and British domestic intelligence agency MI5, after he was renditioned to Morocco. Last February, two British judges overseeing Mr. Mohamed’s case revealed that the British government kept “powerful evidence” secret after being threatened by the US that it would “stop sharing intelligence about terrorism with the UK”. In July, it emerged that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton personally threatened the British government that Washington would stop collaborating with London on intelligence matters if evidence in Mr. Mohamed’s case was publicly released. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0282

February 11, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • Iran summons Canadian ambassador over CIA links. The Iranian government announced that it summoned the Canadian charge d’affaires in Tehran, in connection with revelations that Canada’s former ambassador to Iran secretly worked for the CIA in the late 1970s.
  • Charlie Wilson dead at 76. Charlie Wilson, a 12-term American congressional representative, who orchestrated the covert funding of Muslim mujahedeen in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s, has died in Texas.
  • Analysis: Is Colombia turning into a nation of informants? On January 27, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe announced his goal of putting a thousand spies in college classrooms. He offered to pay students $50 per month to report any suspicious ideas or behavior to the Colombian authorities. Forrest Hylton, who teaches at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, explains the disturbing political background of Uribe’s announcement.

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Civil war continues in South African spy agency

February 10, 2010 by Leave a comment

Arthur Fraser

Arthur Fraser

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
In July of last year, South Africa’s ministerial Review Commission on Intelligence warned that a steadily declining culture of accountability in South Africa’s spy services threatened the country’s constitutional order. In October, the government’s minster for state security, Siyabonga Cwele, cited the Commission’s findings and policy suggestions in announcing a “major restructuring” of South Africa’s security services. Several months later, the “restructuring” process resembles a major civil war between rival political factions of the African National Congress. An entire generation of pro-ANC intelligence officials, who staffed the post-apartheid South African intelligence apparatus, has already been purged. The wave of purges was completed with the resignation this past week of Arthur Fraser, until recently director of the South African National Intelligence Agency’s Operations Division. Read more of this post

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