Qatargate corruption scandal probe widens to include Moroccan spy services

January 2, 2023 by 1 Comment

European ParliamentTHE CRIMINAL CORRUPTION SCANDAL known as Qatargate, which has rocked the European Parliament in recent weeks, involves covert influence operations by Moroccan spies, in addition to Qatari intelligence operatives, according to news reports.

On December 9 and 10, Belgian and Italian police arrested a dozen politicians, European Parliament aides, civil servants, lobbyists, and members of their families. Over €2 million in cash and other assets has since been seized by authorities, as a Europe-wide investigation continues. Those arrested included Eva Kaili, vice president of the European Parliament, which is among the core legislative bodies of the European Union. Kaili and her co-conspirators are accused of selling their ability to influence European Union policies on Qatar, in exchange for cash and other perks. Although the government of Qatar vehemently denies having a role in the scandal, it is widely believed that operatives linked to Qatari authorities facilitated the bribes.

During the past week, however, several reports in European news outlets have been alleging that, in addition to Qatar, the Kingdom of Morocco also appears to have been involved in parallel efforts to buy influence within the European Parliament. Early clues of this development surfaced during the week of December 12 in the Belgian broadsheet Le Soir and the Italian daily La Republica. The reports focused on an intelligence operative codenamed M118, who allegedly worked for the General Directorate for Studies and Documentation (DGED), the foreign spy service of Morocco.

Last week, a new report in the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel supported the theory that M118 is Mohamed Belahrech. Belahrech is allegedly an identified DGED operative, who is believed to have recruited two members of the European Parliament from Italy, Antonio Panzeri and Andrea Cozzolino, as well as Francesco Giorgi, Kaili’s Italian partner. Giorgi, a key figure in Qatargate, remains in custody. Der Spiegel also claims that Abderrahim Atmun, Morocco’s ambassador to Poland, led the Moroccan government’s efforts to recruit the three Italians. According to the report, the three were in direct communication with Mohamed Yassine Mansouri, director general of the DGED.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 02 January 2023 | Permalink

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Analysis: Turkey and Qatar emerge as Taliban government’s main envoys to the West

September 7, 2021 by Leave a comment

Turkish embassy in Afghanistan

TURKEY AND QATAR, TWO countries with a growing diplomatic and intelligence network inside Afghanistan, are emerging as significant envoys to the Western world for the new government of the Taliban. Their newfound role in the Central Asian country puts them in direct competition with China and Russia, which have kept their embassies in Kabul open throughout the dramatic events of the past month. Three other countries with historically close ties to the Taliban, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are also important players amidst the new reality in the war-torn country.

As a recent article by the BBC points out, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were the only countries to recognize the Taliban government in the 1990s, when the group last held the reins of power in Kabul. But they quickly cut diplomatic ties with it following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Their contacts with some of the older Taliban leaders remain strong, however.

In contrast to the older generation, some of the younger leaders of the Taliban see Qatar and Turkey as important mediators and conduits of communication with the outside world, and especially with the West. It is no accident that the Taliban entrusted the restoration of the —undoubtedly soon to be renamed— Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul to technicians from Turkey and Qatar, who were hurriedly flown to the Afghan capital last week for that purpose.

In establishing relations of trust with the Taliban, Qatar is relying on a lengthy record of facilitating diplomatic connections between the militant group and Western powers. It should be recalled that it was in Doha that American and Taliban representatives negotiated the terms of Washington’s exit over several meetings spanning several administrations in the White House. In the past month, the Qataris used their links to the Taliban to assist numerous Western nations, including the United States, in evacuating their citizens from Afghanistan. Read more of this post

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UAE cyber-hacking program spied on Michelle Obama’s emails, book claims

February 8, 2021 by Leave a comment

Michelle ObamaMICHELLE OBAMA HAD SOME of her personal emails intercepted by a group of American cyber-spies who were working for the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to a new book. The book, This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends, is written by Nicole Perlroth, who covers cybersecurity-related topics for The New York Times. It tackles what the author describes as the global “cyber-weapons arms race” and its impact on international security.

Among the topics discussed in the book is Project RAVEN, a highly intrusive cyber-espionage effort by the government of the UAE. The project was allegedly aimed at neutralizing domestic and international targets, which the UAE monarchy saw as threats to its survival. According to the Reuters news agency, which revealed the existence of Project RAVEN in 2019, its targets included foreign governments, officials of international bodies, as well as suspected terrorists and human rights activists.

As the dispute between the UAE and Qatar deepened, Project RAVEN increasingly targeted the island oil kingdom. In one notable instance, UAE cyber-spies hacked into the email accounts of officials at the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) in an unsuccessful effort to sabotage Qatar’s bid to host the 2022 football World Cup. According to Reuters, the cyber-spies sought to unearth damaging and potentially embarrassing private information about Qatari officials, and leak them in order to damage Qatar’s candidacy for the high-profile sporting competition. According to the news agency, several American former employees of the National Security Agency were involved in Project RAVEN.

Now Perlroth’s book claims that Project RAVEN’s cyber-spies acquired a series of emails exchanged between Moza bint Nasser, wife of Qatar’s then-ruling Emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, and Michelle Obama, when she held the position of America’s First Lady. The emails, which were intercepted in 2015, contained the US first lady’s personal thoughts, information on her security detail, and the travel details of her planned visit to Doha later that year. According to Perlroth, the inclusion of Obama’s emails into Project RAVEN’s targets caused at least one American involved in the effort, a former NSA analyst, to quit and leave the UAE. The Emirati monarchy has not commented on allegations about Project RAVEN.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 08 February 2021 | Permalink

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FIFA World Cup host Qatar ‘used ex-CIA agents to sabotage rival bids’

July 30, 2018 by 1 Comment

Qatar FIFA 2022The government of Qatar, which won the right to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, hired a high-profile public relations group and a team of former officers of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in order to undermine rival bids to host the tournament, according to a British newspaper. In December 2010, Qatar was named as the host of the lucrative tournament, which is held every four years under the auspices of the International Federation of Association Football. In winning the right to host the tournament, the Middle Eastern oil kingdom beat formidable rival bids from Japan, South Korea, Australia and the United States. FIFA’s decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar has been heavily criticized –not least because it will take place in the winter, so as to avoid Qatar’s scorching summer temperatures. Many countries in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere will therefore have to resort to the highly unusual step of disrupting their domestic football seasons in order to send their national teams to compete in Qatar.

Now controversy over Qatar’s winning bid is likely to intensify following a claim by a leading British newspaper that the oil kingdom hired former CIA officers and public-relations specialists to discredit rival bids. According to the London-based Sunday Times newspaper, Qatar employed the public-relations firm Brown Lloyd Jones (now known as BLJ Worlwide) and a team of ex-CIA operatives. The Times said it had seen internal documents leaked by an unnamed whistleblower, which reveal the sinister nature of Qatar’s public-relations offensive. Much of it, said The Times, centered on propagating the view that World Cup bids by the United States and Australia would not be supported by the two countries’ domestic audiences. Organizations, academics, journalists and pressure groups from Australia and the United States, who were critical of their countries’ efforts to host the tournament, were clandestinely funded in order to promote their views. Additionally, BLJ and the former CIA operatives compiled intelligence folders on the leading figures of the rival countries’ bids.

If The Sunday Times’ allegations are correct, it would mean that Qatari authorities violated FIFA’s regulations for bidding to host tournaments. But last night the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, Qatar’s state-run group that organized the country’s World Cup bid, disimssed the newspaper’s accusations. Its spokesman rejected “each and every allegation put forward by The Sunday Times” and assured reporters that Qatar had “strictly adhered to all FIFA’s rules and regulations”.

 

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 29 July 2018 | Permalink

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Emirati royal seeks asylum in rival Qatar in unprecedented move

July 16, 2018 by 1 Comment

Sheikh Rashid bin Hamad al-SharqiA member of one of the United Arab Emirates’ seven royal families has defected to Qatar and asked for political asylum, in what appears to be the first time that an Emirati royal has publicly turned against the oil-rich kingdom. In May of last year, the UAE joined an Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia, which broke off all diplomatic relations with Qatar. The coalition accuses the tiny oil kingdom of clandestinely supporting Iran and funding Iranian-backed militant groups in the region. The UAE also participates in an ongoing large-scale commercial embargo against Qatar, which observers say is part of the regional cold war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

But on the morning of May 16, 2018, security officers in the Qatari capital Doha were stunned when an Emirati royal appeared before them and asked for political asylum and protection from the UAE. The royal was Sheikh Rashid bin Hamad al-Sharqi, the second son of the emir of Fujairah, one of the seven kingdoms that form the UAE. As a son of Fujairah’s emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Mohammed al-Sharqi, Sheikh Rashid, 31, had been placed in charge of the kingdom’s state-owned media arm. But in a stunning development, which appears to be a first in the 47-year history of the UAE, the prince has now defected to the UAE’s rival Qatar, and is publicly airing criticism of the UAE’s secretive rulers. In an interview with The New York Times last weekend, the prince provided what the paper described as “a rare glimpse into tensions among the rulers of the UAE” —especially between the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, which dominates the UAE, and the other six kingdoms.

Sheikh Rashid told The Times that Emirati officials were displeased with the country’s military intervention in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition is battling against Iranian-backed rebels. The increasingly bloody war is now in its third year without a clear end in sight. According to the prince, the rulers of Abu Dhabi have repeatedly failed to consult the country’s six remaining kingdoms before making major decisions about the war in Yemen. The sheikh also accused the leadership of the UAE of money laundering, and claimed that it was routine for UAE royals like himself to be asked by the country’s rulers to make secret payments “to people he did not know in other countries”, in direct violation of international money-laundering laws. Prince Rashid also alleged that the UAE government had tried to blackmail him by threatening to reveal audiovisual material that would discredit his reputation.

The Times said it reached out to the government of the Emirate of Fujairah, but its messages were not returned. The paper also contacted the UAE’s embassy in Washington, DC, but officials there declined to comment. For the time being, Sheikh Rashid remains at an unspecified location in Qatar, but the Qatari government will not comment as to his whereabouts.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 16 July 2018 | Permalink

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News you may have missed #894: Economic warfare edition

January 26, 2018 by 2 Comments

Ali bin Smaikh al-Marri►►This website has covered extensively the ongoing diplomatic war between Qatar, widely seen as an Iranian ally, and a coalition of Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia. In July of last year, the Saudi-led coalition —namely the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain— broke relations with Qatar and imposed a commercial embargo on the small oil kingdom, which they accuse of supporting Iran and Iranian-backed militant groups in the region. On January 8, the National Human Rights Committee of Qatar accused Saudi Arabia and its allies of carrying out a “unilateral, abusive, arbitrary” and illegal economic blockade. The head of the committee, Ali bin Smaikh al-Marri, said that the Saudi-led blockade amounted to “economic warfare”. Does he have a point? Does economic warfare constitute a tangible part of the arsenal of modern nations, or is it a fantastical concept with little relation to reality?

►►Giuseppe Gagliano, director of the Centro Studi Strategici Carlo De Cristoforis in Italy, argues that economic warfare has been practiced for centuries. While examining the concept of economic intelligence in contemporary French strategic thinking, Professor Gagliano, explains that the concept of economic warfare has deep historical roots. He argues that, in its contemporary form, economic warfare originates in the period immediately after the end of World War II. Traditionally, it has defensive and offensive applications: Nations strive to limit outsourcing in order to preserve their industrial resources; at the same time, they seek to conquer international markets and, when able, resources. Although outsourcing has played a major role in economic warfare, the financial crisis of 2008 significantly upped the stakes and renewed the central role of the state in economic warfare theory and practice, argues Gagliano.

►►It should perhaps be noted that economic warfare does not operate simply an appendage to traditional warfare. In fact, it often takes place in the absence of traditional warfare, or indeed between wars. David Katz, senior analyst at the United States Special Operations Command and a career Foreign Service Officer, argues that economic warfare can, if used substantially and effectively, deter proxy warfare. In an article [pdf] published last year in Parameters, the quarterly journal of the United States Army War College, Katz suggests that the principles of economic warfare could be used “independently and within campaigns” by state actors. He also argues that the US should not hesitate to employ economic warfare to preempt the non-traditional warfare capabilities of its adversaries.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 26 January 2018 | Permalink

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US spies confirm Qatar’s claims that its media were hacked by Emirates to spark crisis

July 18, 2017 by Leave a comment

Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-ThaniAmerican officials appear to confirm Qatar’s allegations that its news media were hacked by its Gulf adversaries, who then used the fake news posted by hackers to launch a massive campaign against it. Tensions between Qatar and other Muslim countries have risen since late May, when the country’s state-controlled news agency appeared to publish an incendiary interview with Qatar’s Emir, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani. In the interview, which appeared on May 24, the sheikh appeared to praise Saudi regional rival Iran as a “great Islamic power” and to express support for the militant Palestinian group Hamas. On the following day, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain immediately banned all Qatari media —primarily Al Jazeera— from broadcasting in their territories and broke diplomatic relations with Doha. Later on, they declared a large-scale commercial embargo against the small oil kingdom. They have since threatened war unless Qatar changes its alleged support for Iran and for a number of militant groups in the region.

The Qatari government has dismissed the embargo as unjust and has claimed that Sheikh al-Thani’s controversial interview was fake, and was placed on the country’s state-owned news agency and social media as a result of a computer hack. It has also claimed to have evidence of a number of iPhones that were used from locations in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates to launch the hacks on its networks. Qatari officials have also said that an investigation into the incident is underway, but their claims have been criticized as outlandish by Qatar’s regional rivals.

Now, however, a report by The Washington Post claims that American officials have uncovered evidence that Qatar’s allegations of a computer hack are true. The paper cited “US intelligence and other officials” who spoke “on the condition of anonymity”. The officials said that US intelligence agencies recently became aware of a meeting of senior UAE state administrators that took place on May 23 in Abu Dhabi. At the meeting, the officials discussed a plan to hack Qatari news websites and social media, in order to post incendiary messages that could be used to spark a row between Qatar, the Saudi government and its allies. The alleged computer hacks is reported to have taken place on the following day. According to The Post, the only thing that US intelligence is unsure about is “whether the UAE carried out the hacks itself or contracted to have them done” by a third party.

The Post said that several US intelligence agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, refused to comment on its report. The paper received a response from the UAE embassy in Washington, DC, which said that the Emirates had “no role whatsoever in the alleged hacking described in the article”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 18 July 2017 | Permalink

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Former head of Qatar spy agency sides with Saudis in diplomatic quarrel

June 13, 2017 by 6 Comments

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani with US President Donald Trump A former director of Qatar’s intelligence agency broke ranks with the government of Qatar and accused Doha of supporting terrorism. He also warned that the United States, which has a base in Qatar, would not allow the presence of foreign troops there.

Tensions between Qatar and other predominantly Muslim countries rose dangerously in recent weeks. The crisis erupted soon after Qatar’s state-controlled news agency published an interview with the country’s ruler, Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, in which he appeared to praise Iran and Israel, Saudi Arabia’s primary regional adversaries. Despite protestations by the Saudi government, the Qatari emir then contacted Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, to congratulate him on his reelection, a move that was interpreted as adversarial by Riyadh. Saudi Arabia also feels threatened by Al Jazeera, a Qatari-based television network with worldwide reach, which is often critical of the Gulf’s oil monarchies other than Qatar.

Last week, Saudi Arabia and 16 other predominantly Muslim countries, including Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, announced a series of diplomatic, commercial and military sanctions on Qatar. The sanctions are ostensibly designed to curtail the country’s alleged support for international terrorism. Riyadh and its allies accuse Doha of secretly supporting militant groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Hamas and the Taliban, among others. Currently all sea, air and land connections between these 16 countries and Qatar have been suspended, while no diplomatic relations exist between them. The tense situation has prompted some analysts to describe the diplomatic crisis as the worst in the Gulf region since the 1991 Gulf War.

In response to the diplomatic boycott, the government of Qatar said last week that it would invite military personnel from three of its allies, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey, to protect its territory. But the former director of Qatar’s intelligence service said in an interview on Monday that Qatar’s threat would not materialize. Read more of this post

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Egypt ex-president charged with spying for Qatar, faces death penalty

September 8, 2014 by 2 Comments

Mohamed MorsiBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
Egypt’s ousted president Mohammed Morsi has been officially charged with spying for the government of Qatar, in what Egypt’s state prosecutor calls the biggest espionage case in the country’s history. In the summer of 2012, Morsi, representing the Muslim Brotherhood, became the first democratically elected national leader in Egyptian history, after winning the presidential election with nearly 52 percent of the vote. But he was ousted in a military coup a year later, following widespread protests against him and the Muslim Brotherhood, and has been held in prison ever since. Now Egypt’s state prosecutor has charged Morsi and eight others, including two former presidential aides, with spying on behalf of the government of Qatar. Egypt’s government accuses Morsi of selling classified documents “with direct bearing on Egypt’s national security” to the intelligence services of Qatar in exchange for $1 million. The documents allegedly included sensitive information on Egyptian military strategy, as well as tactical “positioning and the nature of its armaments”. The indictment says Morsi authorized the transfer of the documents through the Muslim Brotherhood’s “international bureau”, and that the illegal exchange was facilitated by television network Al Jazeera, which is owned by the royal family of Qatar. The oil kingdom is among the strongest international supporters of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, as well as Hamas, which is the Muslim Brotherhood’s sister organization in the Occupied Territories. Speaking to Reuters news agency, an Al Jazeera representative denied that the network played any role in transferring classified Egyptian documents to the government of Qatar. He told the news agency that “any information received by Al Jazeera is handled with the highest standard of journalistic ethics. Read more of this post

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CIA helping Turkey, Saudi Arabia, smuggle weapons into Syria: sources

June 25, 2012 by 5 Comments

Turkish-Syrian borderBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A growing team of United States Central Intelligence Agency personnel is currently in Turkey overseeing a multinational effort to secretly deliver weapons to Syrian anti-government rebels, according to The New York Times. Quoting “American officials and Arab intelligence officers”, the paper said last week that the weapons are being smuggled into Syria primarily through the Turkish border. The financial cost of smuggling into Syria such weapons as antitank explosives, rocket-propelled grenades, and automatic rifles, has so far been covered by the governments of Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, according to the article. The funds are partly required to bribe members of what The Times describes as “a shadowy network of intermediaries”, which reportedly includes forces loyal to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. The latter is a Sunni group that is widely viewed as the most dominant of the anti-government factions that make up the rebel side in the ongoing Syrian uprising. The paper quotes an “Arab intelligence official”, who says the CIA contingent in Turkey “is trying to make new sources and recruit people” along the porous Turkish-Syrian border. But its presence in the volatile region, which has been constant for “several weeks”, according to The Times, is also aimed at keeping the smuggled weapons out of the reach of Syrian anti-government forces that are allied with militant Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda. The article notes that American support for the Syrian rebels has been minimal, when compared with that in Libya in 2011, mostly because of staunch Russian support for the government forces of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. Read more of this post

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Al Jazeera director resigns amidst ‘US intelligence links’ row

September 21, 2011 by 2 Comments

Wadah Khanfar

Wadah Khanfar

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The senior executive of the Middle East’s most recognizable news television network has resigned following revelations that he met with American intelligence officials and complied with their requests to alter the content of news reports. A brief news report  posted today on the Al Jazeera website said that Wadah Khanfar, the news network’s Palestinian-born director, had announced his resignation, eight years after assuming the station’s leadership. In a public statement, Khanfar, whose brother is a Hamas activist in the Gaza Strip, said that Al Jazeera “stands as a mature organization” and that he is “confident that [the station] will continue to maintain its trailblazing path”. But he did not mention the incident that might have led to his resignation: namely the recent revelation that he was in constant contact with US intelligence officials during much of his executive career, and that he agreed to alter the content of some Al Jazeera news reports at their request. According to American diplomatic cables leaked by whistleblower website WikiLeaks, Khanfar came in contact with officials from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA, the Pentagon’s premier spy organization) through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatar —the Gulf country that owns and operates Al Jazeera. The leaked cables mention that the Palestinian-born executive attended several meetings with DIA personnel in Doha, Qatar, and even agreed to “remove” news content when requested to do so. In one instance, he reportedly directed his editorial staff to remove strong images of injured Iraqi children lying on hospital beds and of a woman with extensive facial injuries. Read more of this post

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Ex-Bush official advised Gaddafi until early August, documents show

September 2, 2011 by 2 Comments

Libya

Libya

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Intelligence documents found at the headquarters of Libya’s abandoned spy agency appear to show that the regime of Muammar al-Gaddafi enjoyed the support of an American diplomat who served in the Bush administration. Al Jazeera reports that David Welch, who was Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs in the US Department of State between 2005 and 2008, met on August 2 with Gaddafi officials in the Four Seasons Hotel in Cairo, Egypt. According to a Libyan intelligence memo from the meeting, Welch, who now works for Bechtel Corporation, gave the Gaddafi officials tips on how “to win the propaganda war” against the rebel National Transitional Council (NTC). He also instructed them to undermine Libya’s rebel movement by relying on several “confidence-building measures”, including controlled intelligence leaks aimed at manipulating the news output of Arab and Western media. The documents also reveal that Gaddafi maintained spies at the highest echelons of the rebel council, and that at least one of these spies offered to assassinate rebel leaders by “poisoning their food and water”. However, despite maintaining an ample amount of informants inside the NTC, the Gaddafi regime found it difficult to collect reliable and actionable intelligence during the civil war. Characteristically, many of the names of NTC’s central figures are misspelled in intelligence field reports, and one intelligence analyst complained recently that “the majority of those currently working for the intelligence administration are ill-prepared to carry out intelligence duties”. Despite these shortcomings, however, Gaddafi’s spies inside the NTC appear to have managed to intercept a large number of telephone messages and confidential emails between the NTC and foreign diplomats. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #558

August 4, 2011 by 3 Comments

Amrullah Saleh

Amrullah Saleh

►► US government says Iran aids al-Qaeda. The US Treasury Department has accused the Iranian authorities of aiding al-Qaeda, saying Tehran had entered into financial agreements with six people believed to be al-Qaeda operatives in Iran, Kuwait, Qatar and Pakistan. According to Treasury officials, one of the six “is believed to have recently ascended to the No. 2 position in Al Qaeda, reporting directly to the organization’s new leader, Ayman al-Zawahri”.
►►Interview with Afghan spy chief. CNN has an exclusive interview with Amrullah Saleh, the –usually media-shy– former head of Afghanistan’s National Directorate for Security. The interview is essentially one long attack on Pakistan, which Saleh blames for destabilizing Afghanistan, hiding and sheltering al-Qaeda members, and providing funding and arms to the Taliban.
►►Sudan’s spy chief secretly visited France in June. The director of Sudan’s National Security and Intelligence Services (NISS), Mohamed Atta al-Moula Abbas, secretly traveled to Paris last June. He held talks there with Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #526

July 1, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • Russia convicts colonel of exposing US spy ring. Colonel Alexander Poteyev has received a (relatively lenient) 25-year sentence for exposing a Russian ‘sleeper cell’ network in the United States. The sentence was delivered in absentia, as Poteyev is believed to have defected to the US, where he probably lives under an assumed identity. As he was fleeing Russia in June 2010, he texted his wife: “try to take this calmly: I am leaving not for a short time but forever. I am starting a new life. I shall try to help the children”. Here is the most detailed recent account the Poteyev’s case in English.
  • Libyan defector holed up in luxury hotel. Moussa Koussa, Libya’s former intelligence chief and foreign minister, faced calls last night to return to Britain for prosecution after he was tracked down to a penthouse suite at the Four Seasons Hotel in Doha, the capital of Qatar, where he has been living under the protection of the Qatari security services.
  • New NZ SIGINT spy agency boss named. The government of New Zealand has appointed Simon Murdoch as the acting chief executive and director of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) intelligence agency.

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Russian intelligence suspected in Chechen commander’s assassination in Turkey

December 12, 2008 by Leave a comment

Another Chechen former commander has been assassinated abroad and the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) is once again suspected of having carried out the assassination. This time it was Islam Dzhanibekov (Canibekof, in Turkish), who had lived in Istanbul, Turkey, since 2002. Dzhanibekov, who was killed on December 9, was reportedly shot from a close range with a single action 7.62 MSP pistol. This type of weapon has been traditionally favored by the KGB and its successor agencies since the early 1970s, mainly due to its small size and relatively silent operation. Read more of this post

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