Computer virus found on CIA’s Predator drone remote-control system

October 10, 2011 by 2 Comments

Predator drone

Predator drone

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The remote control cockpits of the US Central Intelligence Agency’s Predator drones have been infected by a potentially disastrous computer virus, which surreptitiously records every keystroke made by the pilots. Wired magazine’s Danger Room blog, which aired the exclusive report, said that the virus was discovered by the US Pentagon’s network security specialists less than two weeks ago. It also said that the virus has successfully resisted “multiple efforts” to remove it from the computers that guide the remote-controlled missions of the Agency’s unmanned drones. The blog cited a Pentagon computer specialist, who claims that he and his network security team “keep wiping it off and it keeps coming back”. The specialist also said that it is unclear at the present stage whether the computer virus is malicious or benign, in terms of its security implications. It also remains unknown whether the virus was introduced to the system intentionally or by accident, and how far it has spread into the system. It has been confirmed that the primary task of the virus is keylogging —recording all keystrokes made by users. But nobody at the Pentagon seems to know what happens to the keylogged data —that is, whether it remains within the Predator drone computer system, or whether it is clandestinely transmitted to individuals located outside the US military’s chain of command. The Wired report notes that there have been no reports of incidents relating to compromised information as a result of the keylogging virus. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , ,

News you may have missed #606

October 7, 2011 by Leave a comment

Gaza Freedom Flotilla raid

2010 Flotilla raid

►►N. Korea planned to trade nukes for full ties with US. North Korea in 2008 indicated it would retain its nuclear bombs until the end of the six-party talks as a final bargaining chip for attaining full diplomatic relations with the United States, according to US diplomatic cables leaked recently by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.
►►Judge refuses to sanction CIA for destroying torture tapes. A federal judge won’t hold the CIA in contempt for destroying videotapes of detainee interrogations that included the use of a torture technique known as waterboarding, ruling instead that the spy agency merely committed “transgressions” for its failure to abide by his court order. The Obama administration has kept its promise to the CIA.
►►Turkey says NATO members will not share intelligence with Israel. Turkey has says it is certain that NATO member states will keep their promise of not sharing the Alliance’s intelligence within with Israel. Turkish-Israeli relations badly damaged last year, after Israeli naval commandos stormed a Turkish ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza to breach the naval blockade, killing nine Turkish civilians.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

News you may have missed #605

October 6, 2011 by Leave a comment

Hamid Karzai

Hamid Karzai

►►French intelligence ‘spied on Socialist politician’. Hand-picked” French intelligence agents allegedly spied on the private life of François Hollande, the Socialist whom polls predict is best-placed to beat Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s presidential elections. They are also said to have spied on Hollande’s partner, Valérie Trierweiler –-potentially France’s future first lady.
►►US to release Cuban spy under supervision. Rene Gonzalez, the first of five Cubans imprisoned in the United States as spies since 1998 will regain his freedom Friday but won’t be able to go home for three more years because of a court order requiring he remain under US supervision.
►►Afghan intelligence says it stopped plot to kill Karzai. A plot to kill Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been foiled by Afghan intelligence agents in Kabul who arrested six men with links to al-Qaeda and the Haqqani network. The discovery of the plot comes just two days before the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan in retaliation for the September 11 attacks in the US and, had it been successful, would have plunged the country further into chaos.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

News you may have missed #603

October 5, 2011 by Leave a comment

Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai

Syed Fai

►►Turkey has names of Israeli soldiers who attacked Gaza Flotilla. According to Turkish media, government officials succeeded in amassing the list of 174 names of officers and soldiers involved in the 2010 MV Mavi Marmara attack, by planting intelligence agents inside Israel. Turkish government officials have denied the reports.
►►Ex-MI5 chief to hear deportation case of alleged spy. A British judge has ruled that Sir Stephen Lander, former director of MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence service, can help to decide whether Katia Zatuliveter should be deported from the UK for allegedly spying for Russia. Zatuliveter, a Russian citizen who worked as an assistant to former British Member of Parliament Mike Hancock, may be deported on the basis of espionage evidence gathered by MI5.
►►Analysis: Pakistan’s spy plot to influence Washington. Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai came to the US on Saudi money with hopes of helping people in the disputed Indian territory of Kashmir. But he found himself spending millions on behalf of Pakistan’s notorious Inter-Services Intelligence and, now, under arrest. An excellent article by The Atlantic‘s Kim Barker, Habiba Nosheen, and Raheel Khursheed.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

News you may have missed #602 (Israel edition)

October 4, 2011 by 2 Comments

Ahmed Jamal Daif

Ahmed Jamal Daif

►►Lebanon arrests three suspected of spying for Israel. Lebanon has arrested three people suspected of spying for Israel and trespassing, the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported Tuesday. According to the report, an Egyptian citizen and his wife were arrested on suspicion of spying, and an Arab-Israeli man was arrested on suspicion of trespassing. The Israeli, Ahmed Jamal Daif (pictured), was found on Monday in a diving suit on a beach in the southern Lebanese border town of Naqoura, a Lebanese army source said.
►►Egypt may release alleged Israel spy. Agence France Presse is reporting that Cairo is considering the release of alleged Israeli spy Ilan Grapel, in exchange for “political and economic incentives” offered by the United States. Grapel was arrested by Egyptian state security officers in June, on charges of spying for Israel. According to one source, former CIA Director and current US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is set to visit Egypt today and is supposed to “take Grapel with him at the end of his visit”.
►►Jordanian accused of spying for Israel pleads not guilty. A Jordanian telecommunications engineer, who is on trial in Egypt on charges of spying for Israel, pleaded not guilty on Sunday. Bashar Ibrahim Abu Zeid was detained in Egypt last April after intelligence information allegedly showed he was spying for the Mossad, with Ofir Herari, an alleged Mossad agent, being tried in absentia.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Biden stopped Obama from granting clemency to Israel spy

October 3, 2011 by Leave a comment

Joe Biden

Joe Biden

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
The President of the United States considered clemency for an American Navy analyst who spied on the US for Israel, but was stopped by his Vice President, Joe Biden, according to a report in The New York Times. The report claims that Barack Obama gave in to concerted pressure from the Israeli government and members of the pro-Israel lobby in the US, and proposed that Jonathan Pollard, who was jailed for life in 1986 for handing over classified US government documents to Israeli spies, be released. But Joe Biden rejected Obama’s proposal, reportedly telling the President that “over my dead body are we going to let [Pollard] out before his time”. The information appears to have come from Joe Biden himself, who revealed it during a recent meeting with rabbis in Boca Raton, Florida. The Times reports that, “according to several people at the meeting”, Biden was asked by one of the rabbis why it was that Pollard remained in prison, despite a lengthy campaign in Israel to have him released, or transferred to an Israeli jail. Biden responded that Obama had proposed releasing Pollard, but his suggestion never reached the heads of America’s intelligence community, because it was blocked by Biden himself. The Vice President said he told Obama that, if it were up to him, Pollard “would stay in jail for life”. The Times article does not relay the reaction to Biden’s forceful answer at the meeting; but the paper states that Biden appears to be on a mission to improve Obama’s image with Jewish voters in the United States. Although Jewish Americans traditionally tend to vote for the Democratic Party, they are currently being aggressively courted by the Republicans, worrying some Democratic electoral strategists. By answering the way he did in response to the question about Pollard, Biden “took a punch meant for his boss”, argues the paper. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Analysis: Ex-CIA WMD director warns of ‘morphed’ Islamist groups

September 26, 2011 by Leave a comment

Charles S. Faddis

Charles S. Faddis

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
In recent months, the heads of the United States Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency have opined that the United States may be close to “strategically defeating al-Qaeda”. These were the words used by former CIA Director and current Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta in July, to describe the current state of Washington’s ‘war on terrorism’. Shortly afterwards, General David Petraeus, who replaced Panetta at the helm of the CIA, echoed his predecessor, arguing that the situation following the death of Osama bin Laden “hold[s] the prospect of a strategic defeat […], a strategic dismantling, of al-Qaeda”. But do such optimistic projections correspond to reality on the ground? In a new column for Homeland Security Today, former CIA operations officer Charles S. Faddis, who retired from the Agency in 2008 as the chief of its weapons of mass destruction counterterrorism unit, agrees that al-Qaeda has been “severely battered” in the ten years since 9/11. But he warns that, while America insists of engaging in “large-scale conventional military operations” in Afghanistan, and essentially “a strategic bombing campaign” in Pakistan, a new generation of terrorist groups appears to have “shifted, morphed and evolved”. In light of this reality, the recent comments by Panetta and Petreaus may suggest “the possibility of a loss of focus” in American counterterrorist operations, says Faddis. The former CIA covert operations officer, who has written several books since his retirement, goes on to discuss the rapid rise of several ethnic or regional militant Islamist groups, including Nigeria’s Boko Haram. The organization made macabre headlines earlier this month, when it launched a massive suicide attack against a United Nations office complex in the Nigerian city of Abuja, killing and injuring over 100 people. He also mentions the Islamic State of Iraq, a notorious outfit whose most recent strikes display an operational sophistication that often surpasses that of Boko Haram’s. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

US spy Pollard tried to spy for Australia before spying for Israel

September 23, 2011 by 1 Comment

Jonathan Pollard

Jonathan Pollard

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Lobbyists campaigning for the release of jailed spy Jonathan Pollard portray him as a genuine Jewish patriot, who risked his freedom to spy on the United States for Israel. But in her first-ever public interview, Pollard’s FBI interrogator has revealed that he also spied for South Africa and tried to spy for Australia, before working as an agent for Israel. Lydia Jechorek was the FBI agent assigned to the case of Jonathan Pollard, after the United States Navy analyst was arrested for spying against his country, by handing countless classified documents over to his Israeli handlers. She spent countless hours with Pollard, interrogating him in jails in Washington, DC, and Lewisburg, PA. On Monday, Jechorek, who has never publicly commented about her role in the Pollard case, spoke to Newsmax, after having received clearance from the FBI to do so. She told the website that, during his FBI interrogation sessions, Pollard said that, before spying for Israel, he had attempted to spy on the United States for a “friendly country”. Jechorek did not mention the “friendly country” by name. But John L. Martin, who supervised the Pollard case on behalf of the Counterespionage Division of the United States Department of Justice, told Newsmax that the “friendly country” was Australia. It appears that Pollard approached Australian officials in the United States and offered to provide them with classified US government documents. It was only after they rejected his offer that Pollard accosted Israeli intelligence officers and began spying for Tel Aviv. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

US openly accuses Pakistan of waging ‘proxy war’ in Afghanistan

September 22, 2011 by Leave a comment

Mike Mullen

Mike Mullen

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
For the first time a senior American official has openly accused the intelligence services of Pakistan of using Taliban-linked groups to wage a “proxy war” in neighboring Afghanistan. United States Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has described the Haqqani Network, an insurgent group closely allied with the Taliban, as Pakistan’s proxy-army in Afghanistan. The Haqqani Network, which is considered by US military commanders as “the most resilient insurgent force in Afghanistan”, is widely seen as responsible for the massive attack on the US embassy and several other targets in Kabul, earlier this month. Some military observers have compared the attacks to the 1968 Tet Offensive by the Viet Cong. Speaking on Tuesday at an event hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Admiral Mullen said he had pressed the government and intelligence agencies of Pakistan to break their links with the Haqqani Network. He did so during a recent meeting with the chief of Pakistan’s armed forces, which reportedly lasted over four hours. By “intelligence services”, Mullen means the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI), Pakistan’s most powerful spy agency. According to Admiral Mullen, the meeting centered on “the need for the […] ISI to disconnect from [the] Haqqani [Network] and from this proxy war that they’re fighting” in Afghanistan. He also said that “the ISI has been […] supporting proxies for an extended period of time” and described the ISI-Haqqani collaboration as “a strategy in the country”, rather than simply a series of isolated incidents by shadowy groups operating within the Pakistani intelligence services. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

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

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

News you may have missed #596

September 21, 2011 by 1 Comment

August Hanning

August Hanning

►►Analysis: China’s growing spy threat. Extensive and well-research analysis by Alex Newman in The Dipomat magazine. The article contains input by –among others– Charles Viar, of the Center for Intelligence Studies, Larry Wortzel, formerly of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and intelNews’ own Joseph Fitsanakis.
►►Dutch court orders compensation for Indonesian massacre widows. The Dutch state is responsible for executions committed by colonial troops at an Indonesian village in 1947 and relatives of victims should be compensated, a Dutch court has ruled. Eight widows and one survivor from the town of Rawagedeh, east of Jakarta, took the Dutch state to court in 2008 to claim compensation for the execution of men and boys on December 9, 1947 by Dutch colonial troops.
►►Bush official says Germany partly responsible for Iraq War fiasco. A few weeks ago, August Hanning, the former Director of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, accused the Bush administration of consciously falsifying intelligence supplied by Germany in order to justify going to war in Iraq. Hanning’s charges related to ‘Curveball’, an Iraqi defector to Germany who supplied the CIA with false information about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, in order to justify his political asylum. But now the American side is fighting back. Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff has told German newspaper Die Welt that the Germans were “at least partly responsible” for the war (article in German).

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

News you may have missed #595

September 20, 2011 by 1 Comment

Bruce Carlson

Bruce Carlson

►►US commander sees proliferation threat in Libyan chemicals. Libya’s stockpile of chemical warfare materials remains a potential source of proliferation, General Carter Ham, the US military commander for Africa, told reporters on Wednesday. In addition to chemical materials, Ham said he is concerned about shoulder-fired missiles falling into the hands of al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or Boko Haram, the continent’s three major extremist organizations.
►►NRO spy satellites on time and on budget. Bruce Carlson, director of the US National Reconnaissance Office, has told reporters in Washington that every one of his agency’s programs is on time and on budget. This is seen as a success for the US intelligence community, which is known for botched and grossly over-budget programs outsourced to industry.
►►Watchdog says Canadian spies must follow same rules abroad. A new report by the watchdog body for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service argues that rules governing the conduct of Canadian spies do not relax once they leave Canada. While it cleared CSIS of complicity in any detainee abuse in America’s ‘war on terrorism’, the report did criticize the country’s spymasters for lax record keeping and for sending CSIS officers overseas without sufficient guidance.

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Colombian ex-spy chief gets 25 years for aiding death squads

September 20, 2011 by 1 Comment

Jorge Noguera

Jorge Noguera

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
In a continent dominated by leftwing governments, Colombia is one of Washington’s few remaining allies. It is therefore unfortunate that the US-supported conservative government of Álvaro Uribe, which ruled Colombia from 2002 to 2010, has been one of the most corrupt regimes in recent Latin American history. The disgraced Colombian Administrative Department of Security (DAS) appears to have been the cornerstone in the Uribe administration’s corruption complex. Last Wednesday, Colombia’s Supreme Court convicted Jorge Noguera, Director of DAS from 2002 to 2005, to 25 years in prison, for systematically collaborating with illegal far-right death-squads. Noguera’s conviction was based on evidence recovered from the computer of a former death-squad commander, which led to a revealing testimony from former DAS director of information technology, Rafael Garcia. According to Garcia, Noguera routinely provided rightwing paramilitaries with lists of leftist politicians and activists, labor union leaders, and even journalists, who were then targeted for intimidation, blackmail or —in several instances— assassination. One such murdered victim was the late Dr Alfredo Correa de Andreis, who was shot by a death-squad in 2004. The court ordered Noguera to pay Professor Correa’s family nearly US$100,000 in restitution fees, as well as another US$2 million to the state for illegally destroying and expropriating confidential government documents. It is worth noting that at least one of Noguera’s predecessors, Miguel Maza Marquez, who directed DAS in the late 1980s, turned himself in to the authorities in 2009, and is now facing charges of ordering the 1989 assassination of reformist Colombian presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán —a self-styled enemy of Colombia’s drug cartels. Noguera’s successor at DAS, Maria Pilar Hurtado, is also wanted for her part in a nationwide wiretapping scandal that targeted several of Uribe’s political opponents, as well as labor leaders, journalists and academics. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Declassified documents reveal US-Libyan spy war in Malta

September 15, 2011 by 1 Comment

Libya and Malta

Libya and Malta

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A batch of declassified CIA reports from the late 1980s point to the Mediterranean island-nation of Malta as a major battlefield between American and Libyan intelligence operatives. According to the reports, which date from between 1988 and 1991, Malta served as a “primary launching point” for Libyan intelligence and paramilitary units on their way to Germany, Britain, and other countries in Western Europe. Most of the reports, which number over 250 pages in total, contain intelligence from a CIA informant named Abdul Majid Giaka. Referred to as “P/1” in the CIA documents, Giaka was a Libyan employee of Libyan Arab Airlines stationed in Malta. In 1988, however, he walked in the American embassy in the Maltese capital Valetta, and offered to work as an agent-in-place for the CIA. In exchange for his services, he requested regular financial compensation, as well as a promise of eventual relocation to the United States for him and his Maltese wife. Eventually, the intelligence collected by Giaka formed a major component of the prosecution’s case in the Lockerbie bombing court hearings. Giaka’s testimony directly led to the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer, who was released from a British prison in August of 2009 on compassionate grounds and is now in Tripoli. The declassified documents show that, in return for Giaka’s services, the CIA arranged a fake surgery for him in 1989, in order to help him secure an exemption from serving in the Libyan armed forces. The CIA’s initial assessment of Giaka was that he was dependable “intelligent, serious and fairly well composed”. Later, however, Giaka’s CIA handlers began questioning his commitment after he started appearing with new information only when in need of money. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Covert war in Somalia involves CIA, European mercenaries

September 14, 2011 by 1 Comment

Richard Rouget

Richard Rouget

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Regular readers of this blog will remember Jeremy Scahill’s report in The Nation last July, about the US Central Intelligence Agency’s expanding operations in Somalia. Since the 2006 US-led Ethiopian invasion, the Western-backed Somali government has been engaged in a brutal war with al-Shabaab, the youth wing of the Islamic Courts Union, which ruled most of the country in the years after 9/11. Scahill revealed that the CIA maintains a growing security complex in the country, located right behind Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport. The complex allegedly contains over a dozen buildings, as well as several metal hangars, which house CIA aircraft. Now a new report by United Press International claims that the clandestine American campaign in the horn of Africa “appears to be growing daily”, and that the CIA complex contains a prison for renditioned militant suspects. The latter are routinely interrogated by members of a Mogadishu-based CIA team consisting of approximately 30 case officers, analysts, linguists, and others. The UPI article suggests that the growing CIA presence in the Somali capital is part of a wider expansion of America’s counter-terrorist campaign in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Indonesia, and the Philippines. However, the instances when CIA personnel venture outside Mogadishu are few and far between. For this purpose, the Somali government is using American financial aid to hire European private security firms, including Bancroft Global Development, a combat consulting group with a growing presence in Mogadishu. Bancroft’s 40-member team consists of Scandinavian, South African, and French former special forces members, including Richard Rouget (also known as ‘Colonel Sanders’), a former officer in the French Army who has recent combat experience in several African countries. Read more of this post

Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →