News you may have missed #0188

  • India arrests Pakistani ‘spy’ carrying documents at airport. The Delhi Police says it arrested a Pakistani spy just as he was set to board a flight to Saudi Arabia, carrying with him a set of vital documents on Indian defense installations. The man was reportedly using a fake passport bearing the name “Aamir Ali”.
  • Hezbollah claims infiltration of Israel. Lebanese militant group Hezbollah says it has infiltrated the security services of Israel and obtained vital documents regarding military activity, by “taking pictures and copying sensitive documents”.
  • Spy arrest causes major Peru-Chile diplomatic row. A senior Peruvian Air Force officer was arrested in Lima on Saturday, on charges of spying for Chile. The spying affair caused the Peruvian delegation to pull out of an Asia-Pacific summit in Singapore on Sunday.

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One third of Pakistani spy budget comes from CIA, say officials

ISI HQ

ISI HQ

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
As much as one third of the annual budget of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence has come from the CIA in the last eight years, according to a new report in The Los Angeles Times. The paper says that even more US dollars have been supplied to the ISI through a secret CIA monetary rewards program that pays for the arrest or assassination of militants wanted by Washington. The payments reportedly began during the early years of the George W. Bush administration, and are now continuing under the Obama administration, despite “long-standing suspicions” that the ISI and the Pakistani military maintain close links with the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan and elsewhere. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0187

  • Cambodia arrests Thai for spying on exile leader. Cambodian authorities said the man, Siwarak Chothipong, who works for the Cambodia Air Traffic Service, spied on the flight itinerary of visiting former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who has been living in exile since a 2006 military coup in Thailand. The Thai government has rejected the charge.
  • CIA’s Panetta to visit India, Pakistan. CIA director Leon Panetta will visit Pakistan and India for three days, starting on November 20. IntelNews will be keeping an eye on his visit.
  • Former Monaco spymaster says prince invokes immunity. More on the saga of former FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Eringer, who until recently was spymaster to prince Albert II of Monaco, and is now suing him for €360,000 ($542,000) in alleged unpaid income. Eringer’s lawyers have accused Albert of invoking head-of-state immunity, “an absolute defense used by dictators around the world to avoid accountability in US courts”.

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News you may have missed #0186

  • UN shares intel with Rwandan rebels, says paper. Rwandan daily The New Times has aired allegations that the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) has an intelligence-sharing relationship with Hutu FDLR rebels, which runs “even deeper than earlier thought”.
  • Pakistan militants target spy agency. Militants have stepped up their fight against the Pakistani government in western Pakistan, by ramming a truck bomb into the Peshawar regional office of the Inter-Services Intelligence, the country’s main spy agency. This is the first large-scale specific targeting of intelligence agents in the region, outside of Afghanistan.
  • US bases in Colombia to be used for spying, says Chávez. Venezuela’s President says he does not think that the new US bases will be used for counternarcotics efforts, but rather for “electronic spying”.

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Book claims CIA turned blind eye on Pakistan’s post-9/11 terror links

Jean-Louis Bruguiere

J.L. Bruguiere

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A new book by France’s former leading investigating magistrate on counterterrorism affairs alleges that the CIA allowed the Pakistani army to train members of a notorious Islamist militant group, even after 9/11. In the book, entitled Ce que je n’ai pas pu dire (The Things I Would Not Utter), Jean-Louis Bruguiere says the US spy agency was aware that Pakistani army trainers worked with Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani group responsible for a series of sophisticated strikes in India, including the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The former magistrate bases his allegations on official testimony provided by Willy Brigitte, a French citizen from Guadeloupe, who was arrested in Australia in 2003, in connection with Lashkar-e-Taiba activities there. Soon after the US invasion of Afghanistan, Brigitte traveled to Pakistan aiming to join the Taliban insurgency, but was unable to cross the Pakistani-Afghan border. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0180

  • UK spy tip led to Zazi arrest in New York. British spies tipped off their American counterparts to what has been described as “the most serious terrorist plot foiled in the US since 9/11”, which led to the recent arrest of Najibullah Zazi in New York.
  • US prevents Indian spies’ access to jailed Islamist. US authorities won’t let an Indian intelligence team question American Muslim David Coleman Headley, who was arrested last month for traveling to Denmark in order to plot an attack on a newspaper targeted by Islamic extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, because it published cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. Sources blamed “bureaucratic” and “procedural” hurdles. Hmmm…
  • Largest military deal in Israeli history taking shape. The largest defense deal in Israel’s history, the purchase of 25 F-35 stealth fighters, is advancing, as talks continue between Israel, the Pentagon, and Lockheed Martin.

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Indians allege Pakistani spies funded through Europe

India-Pak border

India-Pak border

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Indian authorities have told a major newspaper that Pakistani spies operating in India are funded with money transfers from spy handlers in Europe. Indian daily The Telegraph cites Indian counterintelligence sources, who claim that Pakistani embassies in several European nations, including Spain, Estonia and Luxembourg, use “a popular money transfer company” (in all likelihood Western Union) to fund Pakistani agents operating in India. According to the Indians, most money transfers are facilitated through the simple technique of email account password sharing, which allows both the handler in Europe and the agent in India to access the same email inbox, as well as the same money transfer drafts. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0157

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News you may have missed #0149

  • Why is CIA fighting to keep JFK documents sealed? For years, the CIA has fought in US federal courts to keep secret hundreds of documents detailing the relationship between Lee Harvey Oswald and a CIA anti-Castro front group. The Agency says it is only protecting legitimate secrets. But some researchers are questioning this.
  • Up to 320 Pakistani civilians killed in US drone war. As many as 320 innocent civilians may have been killed in the CIA-led US drone war in Pakistan, according to an analysis by the New America Foundation. That’s about a third of the 1,000 or so people slain in the robotic aircraft attacks since 2006. Previous research has shown that approximately 80% of the airstrikes have failed to kill what the US Pentagon calls “high value targets”.
  • Analysis: What are the risks of the CIA’s covert drone program? “It’s easy to understand the appeal of a ‘push-button’ approach to fighting al-Qaeda, but the embrace of the Predator program has occurred with remarkably little public discussion, given that it represents a radically new and geographically unbounded use of state-sanctioned lethal force. And, because of the CIA program’s secrecy, there is no visible system of accountability in place, despite the fact that the agency has killed many civilians inside a politically fragile, nuclear-armed country with which the US is not at war”.

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Senior Afghan official says Pakistan aided Kabul suicide bombing

ISI HQ

ISI HQ

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A senior advisor to the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai has accused Pakistani intelligence services of aiding suicide bombers strike targets in Afghan capital Kabul and other areas in Afghanistan. Speaking last week to Reuters news agency, Davood Moradian, senior policy aide in the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, alleged that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency systematically helps “anti-Western militants” in Afghanistan mount attacks against civilian and military targets alike. Moradian hinted that the ISI assistance to the militants is sanctioned by senior officials in the Pakistani government. The latter view it as a means to “arouse Western concern for stability” in Pakistan, which may in turn translate into increasing Western financial aid poring to the country, said Moradian. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0145

  • Alleged Norwegian spies appeal Congo sentence. Two Norwegian citizens arrested last May in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on spying charges have begun an appeal against their sentence. The DRC has ordered Norway to pay $60 million in reparations for the spying incident, but Oslo says the two men had no ties to the Norwegian government.
  • Mother of Israeli-handled spy sues government. The mother of Muhamad Said Sabr, an Egyptian nuclear engineer convicted in 2007 of spying for Israel, has filed a damage suit against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ambassador to Egypt Shalom Cohen. She claims mental damage as a result of her son’s being recruited by the Mossad.
  • Pakistan defends spy agencies after week of carnage. Pakistan defended its intelligence agencies Tuesday after a bloody week which saw 125 people killed in a wave of attacks blamed on Taliban militants. Interior Minister Rehman Malik alleged the country’s spy services “foiled at least a hundred attacks before they were carried out”. But local media have reported that the threat to army headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi was known in advance by police.

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US wont’ share al-Qaeda intelligence, say Pakistani spies

Quetta, Pakistan

Quetta, Pakistan

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
A number of senior Pakistani security officials have accused US spy agencies of systematically withholding from their Pakistani counterparts actionable intelligence on al-Qaeda and Taliban activities in Pakistan. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officials complained to The Washington Times that the last time the CIA shared actionable intelligence on al-Qaeda with the government of Pakistan was in 2007. They also said that recent public assertions by US officials that senior al-Qaeda leaders are hiding in Quetta, Pakistan, have not been followed with corresponding actionable intelligence by US spy agencies. The allegations shed further light on the increasingly severed intelligence relationship between Washington and Islamabad, which began shortly before the 2008 ousting of American-supported Pakistani dictator General Pervez Musharraf. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0139

  • Pakistan tells US diplomat to be quiet. Perturbed by the recent remarks of US Deputy Chief of Mission in Islamabad, Gerald Feierstein, that top al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders are presently hiding in Quetta, Pakistan has summoned the US diplomat and demanded that he stops discussing intelligence issues in media. The move follows a closed-door meeting last week between the director of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Ahmed Shuja Pasha, and CIA director Leon Panetta.
  • Analysis: HUMINT worries al-Qaeda more than drone assassinations. The CIA-operated drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan get all the headlines. But what’s really worrying al Qaeda are the agents in their midst, says Adam Rawnsley of Wired magazine’s Danger Room blog.
  • Chinese spymaster complains about US news leak. It has emerged that Major General Yang Hui, China’s most senior military intelligence official, recently made a secret visit to the US and complained to the Pentagon over the US press leak on the Chinese submarine that secretly shadowed the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier in 2006. He said senior Chinese leaders suspect the Pentagon deliberately disclosed the encounter as part of an effort to send a “tough” message to China’s military.

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Indian government tells telecoms to avoid buying Chinese hardware

Huawei logo

Huawei logo

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The Indian government has asked the country’s telecommunications companies to “refrain from buying Chinese telecommunications equipment”, because they may be used by Beijing to spy on India. The request was reportedly delivered to Indian telecommunications industry representatives by officials from India’s Department of Telecommunications, in a closed-door meeting earlier this week. Indian media report that the Department’s request has no legal backing, but is simply a call for Indian telecommunications providers to “self-regulate”. But the government is said to be working on official guidelines to restrict the domestic use of telecommunications hardware and software originating from countries considered “unfriendly” to India, including Pakistan, China and Egypt. Some industry observers have expressed fears that the pending restrictions will severely hinder the growth of India’s rapidly rising telecommunications sector. Read more of this post

News you may have missed #0130

  • One in three votes for Karzai was fraudulent, says US diplomat. Hamid Karzai was fraudulently re-elected to Afghanistan’s presidency, according to Peter Galbraith, a US diplomat who was sacked last week from the UN mission in Afghanistan. Galbraith also warned that Karzai, who was handpicked by the US to lead Afghanistan following the US invasion, and whose brother is probably a CIA informant, is not credible with many Afghans following the election fiasco.
  • US lobbyist for Rep. of Georgia says Russian agents tried to kill him. Paul Joyal, former director of security for the US Senate Intelligence Committee, and a paid lobbyist in the US for the country of Georgia, insists that agents of the Russian government tried to kill him two years ago outside his Washington, DC, home.
  • Ex-CIA agent says Indian spies operating in Afghanistan. Milt Bearden, former CIA station chief in Pakistan, has told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Indian intelligence operatives were active in Afghanistan, and that “the concerns of Pakistan’s Army are legitimate in this regard”. His words appear to echo complaints expressed last June by Pakistani security officials that Indian intelligence services are helping pro-Taliban warlords fight the Pakistani army in the Afghan borderlands. However, the Pakistanis also said that Israel supplies tribal warlords “with modern technology”, including radio equipment.

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