Analysis: Taliban knew about US Special Forces presence in Pakistan

Bombed site in Shahi Koto, Pakistan

Bombed site

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
There has been remarkably little coverage in the US media of the deaths earlier this month of three US Special Forces operatives in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, who were killed in a bomb attack in the city of Shahi Koto. Most of the few analyses that have commented on the importance of this event have focused on the inevitable revelation that US troops are indeed active in Pakistan. But what about the intelligence angle? It appears that the bombing, which took place outside a newly built girls’ school in the town, was in fact aimed at the US troops, and that the attackers were aware of their supposedly secret presence in the area. The operation was therefore carefully targeted, and the suicide bomber appears to have patiently waited for the arrival of the Pakistani Frontier Corps five-vehicle convoy to arrive at the school. Read more of this post

CIA deployed agents disguised as journalists, says ex-NSA analyst

Wayne Madsen

Wayne Madsen

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Former NSA analyst and US Navy intelligence officer Wayne Madsen has said that the CIA deployed at least two operatives posing as journalists in several world hotspots after 9/11. The two operatives, both US Special Forces veterans, were subcontracted to the CIA by private mercenary company Blackwater, and were accredited as journalists by Korean-owned United Press International (UPI). Madsen, who authors the daily Wayne Madsen Report, says the two operatives were active in Uzbekistan shortly after 9/11. One of them secured a travel visa to enter Iran in 2003, where he allegedly “engaged in target analysis and spotting for a planned US attack on Iran” (this was presumably before Washington decided to axe the rumored plan to launch a direct military attack on Iran in favor of an intensive plan of covert sabotage, as detailed by The New York Times last January). Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0014

  • Belarus releases US lawyer jailed for industrial espionage. Emmanuel Zeltser who spent a year in jail in Belarus, is a lawyer with “a vast knowledge of organized crime, particularly the practice of money laundering”.
  • US Pentagon supplying intelligence to Pakistani armed forces. IntelNews has been keeping an eye on the intelligence side of the ongoing Pakistani offensive in the country’s North-West Frontier Province. Chinese intelligence involvement has already been established, and there have been allegations of Indian and Israeli involvement. It has now emerged that the US military has resumed surveillance flights over Pakistan, a clear sign of increased US-Pakistani intelligence collaboration.
  • US Congressional intel committee issues warnings. The US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has approved, as expected, the 2010 fiscal intelligence authorization bill, but it said that “funding for cybersecurity programs may need to be reduced or slowed until the future direction for cybersecurity is better defined”. It also urged US intelligence agencies to expand ethnic diversity among employees and improve training on foreign languages.

Foreign spy services active in Pakistani army’s war with the Taliban

Fazlullah

Fazlullah

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Pakistani military and security officials alleged earlier this week that foreign intelligence services are helping pro-Taliban warlords fight the Pakistani army in Swat and in other tribal areas in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. According to news reports from Islamabad, the officials have presented the Pakistani government with an extensive report alleging covert assistance to pro-Taliban forces from Indian and Israeli agents. The classified report alleges that Israel supplies tribal warlords “with modern technology”, including radio equipment, while Indian agents, operating out of Indian consulates in the region, are providing the Taliban with weapons and probably training. Pakistani military officials claim they have proof of visits by Indian operatives to Taliban training camps and of meetings between Indian operatives and leading pro-Taliban military leaders and propagandists, such as Maulana Fazlullah and Baitullah Mehsud. Read more of this post

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