US regular troops enter Somalia for the first time in 20 years
January 16, 2014 Leave a comment
By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org
For the first time since 1993, when American troops left Somalia following the infamous ‘Black Hawk down’ incident, the US army has secretly stationed a group of regular troops in the troubled African country. The last time United States troops were in Somalia, in support of a wider United Nations stabilization operation, the administration of US President Bill Clinton decided to abandon the operation. The decision has been largely attributed to an incident known as “The Battle of Mogadishu”, in which nearly 20 American soldiers were killed. Images of their bodies being dragged by Somali militiamen through the streets of the capital resulted in major policy shift in Washington, with successive US administrations avoiding prolonged military engagements in Somalia ever since. In the post-9/11 era, American military and intelligence planners have deployed Predator drones against Somali targets from a US base in neighboring Djibouti, while rare cases have involved US Special Forces entering the country for a few hours at a time. Washington has also spent hundreds of millions of dollars to fund the nascent Somali military. But American Presidents have avoided any long-term military or civilian presence on the ground; Washington does not even maintain an embassy in Mogadishu —though most observers agree that the Central Intelligence Agency has operated a base there for years. On January 12, however, The Washington Post published a statement by US Africa Command (AFRICOM) spokesman Army Colonel Thomas Davis, in which he confirmed that the Pentagon recently established a “military coordination cell” in Somalia that “is now fully operational”. Read more of this post
By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
US lawmakers say Snowden was coached by foreign spy agency
January 20, 2014 by Ian Allen 2 Comments
Two American lawmakers with senior positions in Congressional intelligence committees have expressed strong views that American defector Edward Snowden was probably coached by Russian intelligence prior to his defection. Speaking separately on Sunday, the two lawmakers —both Republican— said they suspected that Snowden had “acted in concert” with Russian intelligence in order expose Washington’s worldwide surveillance programs and steal military secrets. Snowden, a former technical expert for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA), is currently in Russia, where he has been granted political asylum. On Sunday, Mike Rogers, who chairs the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence at the United States House or Representatives, said he was convinced Moscow had “at least in some part something to do” with Snowden’s defection. During separate interviews at NBC’s Meet The Press and CBS’ Face the Nation, Rogers said he thought it highly unlikely that Snowden’s defection was “a gee-whiz luck event”. He added that the former intelligence technician’s arrival in Russia had been likely pre-arranged by the FSB —the Russian Federal Security Service (though he likely meant the SVR, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, which is responsible for intelligence activities outside the borders of the Russian Federation). The Republican lawmaker said that Snowden’s defection plan, ranging “from how he prepared to leave [to] his route of departure and how quickly [he] ended up in Moscow”, points to involvement by Russian intelligence. Also on Sunday, Republican Congressman Michael McCaul told ABC’s This Week that he did not think “Snowden woke up one day and had the wherewithal to do this all by himself”. The lawmaker, who chairs the US House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, cautioned that he could not prove definitively that Russia had a role in Snowden’s defection. Read more of this post
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