Georgia war prompted Russian purchase of Israeli drones
April 10, 2009 1 Comment
By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Much was made last week of an agreement between the Russian government and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) to purchase three Israeli-made intelligence-gathering drones. The Israeli company will receive $50 million to supply the Russian military with three unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), namely a Bird-Eye 400 mini, an I-view MK 150 tactical, and a Searcher MK II medium-range UAV. The Russian Ministry of Defense announced the deal last Friday, saying it needed the new generation UAVs “to provide battlefield reconnaissance to the country’s armed forces”. What the Ministry didn’t say, however, is that it was prompted to purchase the Israeli-made drones after it saw its operations severely hampered by lack of aerial intelligence during the 2008 South Ossetia war last August. Read more of this post
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Analysis: CIA now operates on its own inside Pakistan
April 16, 2009 by intelNews 1 Comment
Border region
By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Pakistani newspaper The Daily Times has published what is probably the most significant report from Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in recent months. The paper quotes senior Pakistani government officials in arguing that intelligence cooperation and coordination between Washington and Islamabad is now “at its lowest level”. One senior intelligence source describes the present situation as the latest stage in a gradual process of deterioration in relations between the two countries, beginning in 2001-2003, when “relations were good” and intelligence sharing was considerable in scale. As intelNews readers have known since November 16, 2008, these sharing arrangements included CIA-orchestrated airstrikes on Pakistani soil by unmanned drones, which the Pakistani leadership then secretly approved. However, The Daily Times reports that eventually Washington began notifying Islamabad just “minutes before carrying out strikes”. In recent weeks “[t]he level of cooperation has gone so low that the US now even does not intimate Pakistan after a drone strike” (emphasis added,) according to one senior Pakistani security official. Read more of this post
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with CIA, covert operations, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Pakistan), intelligence cooperation, Pakistan, Taliban, Tariq Khan, United States, unmanned aerial vehicles, War on Terrorism