The Associated Press
Monday, February 16, 2009
JERUSALEM: A powerful Sudanese rebel leader met secretly with top Israeli espionage officials in Israel earlier this month, Israeli defense officials said Monday.
The officials would not disclose the substance of the talks between Abdulwahid Elnur of the Sudan Liberation Movement and officials from Israel's Mossad spy agency. Israel claims weapons have reached Gaza Strip militants via Sudan and that Palestinian militants operate there.
The meeting took place on the sidelines of a security conference Elnur attended, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was confidential. The Defense Ministry had no immediate comment.
Last year, Elnur's group opened an office in Israel, which granted temporary residency status to 600 Sudanese who fled the massacres in their country's vast western Darfur region.
"We must forge new alliances, no longer based upon race or religion, but upon shared values of freedom and democracy. This is why we opened a representative office in Israel," he said at the time.
Elnur has said in the past that he favors establishing ties with Israel and opening an Israeli Embassy in Khartoum. Sudan considers Israel an enemy state and has no diplomatic relations with it. Elnur could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.
Elnur fled to France in 2007 and has lived in exile since.
The SLM was founded in 1992, three years after President Omar al-Bashir took power in a military coup, and took up arms in 2003, the year the war in Darfur began. Today it is the largest rebel group, though it has fractured into splinter movements.
The U.N. estimates 300,000 people have died in Darfur, directly from attacks or indirectly through starvation, and 2.5 million more have been driven from their homes.
The International Criminal Court, based in The Netherlands, is expected to decide soon whether to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in connection with atrocities in Darfur.
Sudan's government denies the war crimes and genocide accusations and has dismissed the court as a conspiracy against Sudan. It also says the U.N. death toll estimates are grossly inflated.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Navy-operated US drones pursue pirates
Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:09:00 GMT
The US Navy in Somalia has started sending unmanned drones to spy on pirates, after the aircraft gained widespread notoriety in Pakistan.
The American servicemen have been directing the drones on a daily basis “to spot potential pirate mother ships”, the Associated Press reported on Sunday.
The US military has also been using the drones to fire rockets at 'suspected militants' in tribal areas along the border between Pakistan an Afghanistan.
The attack, which on many occasions, result in civilian casualties have spark outrage among Pakistanis.
The US Navy is a part of an expansive international naval coalition which has put the Gulf of Aden under close watch, following frequent piracy in the region. The armada has, however, been able to stem a few pirate attacks and arrest some of the buccaneers.
The forces present in the region, however, are often accused of acting on their own countries' mandate rather than forming a united front against the pirates.
A US spy drone
If the coalition worked together, piracy 'could' decrease said US Rear Admiral, Terence McKnight. He added that the ultimate resolution of the problem depended on Mogadishu and that the country's political and military stability had to cement until Somalis were able to "patrol their waters themselves."
The official made the remarks while a shaky agreement between the newly-elected Somali government and the opposition has barely let the nation breathe a sigh of relief following 18 years of infighting.
The violence peaked in 2006, when foreign intervention in support of the embattled Somali transitional government was faced with stiff responses from the public and opposition fighters.
At the same time, the country witnessed an increase in the American aerial espionage activities which had started years back under the pretext of 'keeping track of potential militants'.
HN/MMN
Egyptian-Canadian accused of spying for Israel
BY CANWEST NEWS SERVICEFEBRUARY 4, 2007
OTTAWA - An Egyptian with Canadian citizenship used his position at a bank in Canada to spy for Israel, a Cairo prosecutor charged Saturday.
Charges against Mohamed Essam Ghoneim el-Attar, 31, were announced Saturday following his arrest at Cairo airport on Jan. 1.
He is accused of "harming Egypt's national interests" judicial sources said.
Three Israelis have also been charged with spying and are still at large.
Israelis recruited el-Attar while he was living in Turkey in August 2001, said High State Security Prosecutor Hisham Badawi in an interview with Reuters. Intelligence agents allegedly assisted him in obtaining a residency permit in Canada under a fake name and found him work in a bank.
Badawi said el-Attar was paid to spy on Egyptians and Arabs during his time in Turkey and Canada, and used his position in the bank to obtain information on specific accounts.
Bernard Nguyen, a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs, said the Canadian government was aware of the allegations against el-Attar, but would not confirm if he is indeed a Canadian citizen.
"We are in contact with our embassy in Cairo," Nguyen said. "We can't confirm what has been reported in the media but we are investigating." He declined to give any further information, citing privacy concerns.
El-Attar was also expected to scout and approach potential recruits and was paid $56,000 since he began his work in August 2001, Reuters reports said Saturday.
El-Attar had been under investigation since January 2002, according to Badawi, and would stand trial before a High State Security Emergency Court.
The state security court operates under the state of emergency in force in Egypt for the past quarter-century and its judgments cannot be appealed.
The three Israelis who also face charges have been identified by MENA, the Egypt state news agency, as Daniel Levi, Kemal Kosba and Tuncay Bubay. MENA said Kosba and Bubay also hold dual Turkish citizenship.
Israel confirmed that it was the subject of espionage allegations in Egypt.
"We confirm the reports from Cairo of a spy scandal in Egypt in which Israel is implicated," said foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev.
"For the time being, we do not have any details on this subject beyond those already reported by the media."
Ottawa Citizen, with files from Associated Press, AFPand Reuters
© (c) CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc.
OTTAWA - An Egyptian with Canadian citizenship used his position at a bank in Canada to spy for Israel, a Cairo prosecutor charged Saturday.
Charges against Mohamed Essam Ghoneim el-Attar, 31, were announced Saturday following his arrest at Cairo airport on Jan. 1.
He is accused of "harming Egypt's national interests" judicial sources said.
Three Israelis have also been charged with spying and are still at large.
Israelis recruited el-Attar while he was living in Turkey in August 2001, said High State Security Prosecutor Hisham Badawi in an interview with Reuters. Intelligence agents allegedly assisted him in obtaining a residency permit in Canada under a fake name and found him work in a bank.
Badawi said el-Attar was paid to spy on Egyptians and Arabs during his time in Turkey and Canada, and used his position in the bank to obtain information on specific accounts.
Bernard Nguyen, a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs, said the Canadian government was aware of the allegations against el-Attar, but would not confirm if he is indeed a Canadian citizen.
"We are in contact with our embassy in Cairo," Nguyen said. "We can't confirm what has been reported in the media but we are investigating." He declined to give any further information, citing privacy concerns.
El-Attar was also expected to scout and approach potential recruits and was paid $56,000 since he began his work in August 2001, Reuters reports said Saturday.
El-Attar had been under investigation since January 2002, according to Badawi, and would stand trial before a High State Security Emergency Court.
The state security court operates under the state of emergency in force in Egypt for the past quarter-century and its judgments cannot be appealed.
The three Israelis who also face charges have been identified by MENA, the Egypt state news agency, as Daniel Levi, Kemal Kosba and Tuncay Bubay. MENA said Kosba and Bubay also hold dual Turkish citizenship.
Israel confirmed that it was the subject of espionage allegations in Egypt.
"We confirm the reports from Cairo of a spy scandal in Egypt in which Israel is implicated," said foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev.
"For the time being, we do not have any details on this subject beyond those already reported by the media."
Ottawa Citizen, with files from Associated Press, AFPand Reuters
© (c) CanWest MediaWorks Publications Inc.
Documents shed light on 'atom spy' who triggered Cold War
BY CANWEST NEWS SERVICEMARCH 10, 2007
It was arguably the clandestine Canadian encounter that launched the Cold War.
Just days after the first atomic weapon was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, a traitorous British scientist working in Canada met with a Russian agent in Montreal and handed him two samples of enriched uranium - precious specimens in the early days of a global arms race when Soviet scientists were rushing to match American firepower and construct their own A-bomb.
"The man gave me some dollars (I forget how many) in a bottle of whisky, and I accepted these against my will," Alan Nunn May, a Cambridge-educated nuclear physicist, later confessed. "The whole affair was extremely painful to me and I only embarked on it because I felt this was a contribution I could make to the safety of mankind."
May, who had been seconded by Britain to the National Research Council of Canada in January 1943, was outed as a Communist spy just a month after his illicit uranium transfer. That's when Igor Gouzenko, a cipher clerk at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, defected with about 100 telegrams and other classified documents he'd stolen from a consular safe, exposing an extensive espionage ring - including scientists, bureaucrats and even the Montreal-area socialist MP Fred Rose - operating in North America and Britain at the end of the Second World War.
Now, hundreds of documents related to May's espionage activities, all recently declassified by the British government, have been posted on the website of Britain's National Archives, offering an unprecedented inside look at the Canadian spy case that sparked the Gouzenko Affair and ultimately reshaped 20th-century history.
Among the secret dispatches revealed by Gouzenko, and now viewable online, were detailed accounts of the handover of radioactive material by May - code-named ALEK in several secret missives from the Ottawa embassy to Moscow. Soviet telegrams about the uranium coup were the showpiece evidence in a growing file of documents that eventually gave Gouzenko confidence that he had the goods to convince Western authorities of a Communist conspiracy in their midst, and to grant him and his young family asylum in Canada.
The revelations stunned officials in London, Ottawa and Washington. The head of the nuclear lab in Montreal, John Cockcroft, produced for the British a list of the secret technologies and materials May could have passed to Soviet agents: "Working knowledge of properties of Uranium 233," notes his grim litany. "Knowledge of methods of separating Plutonium and U. 233.... Had access to small samples of U. 233.... May have obtained access unofficially to Uranium metal irradiated in the X. pile and containing Plutonium.... Such samples would be of great value in starting up chemical separation work...."
The Soviet capital, too, was rocked as it became clear that Moscow's carefully cultivated overseas intelligence network had been unearthed.
The fallout was far-reaching and - according to many experts - the episode locked the U.S., Britain and their allies into a political and military standoff with the Soviet Union that would dominate global politics for nearly 50 years.
Among the files opened by the British archives are typed translations of the coded messages sent between Moscow and the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa reporting May's espionage activities; exchanges between British and Canadian officials as they planned surveillance of May after his exposure as a traitor; transcripts of phone calls recorded by agents tailing the scientist-spy; and finally, after his arrest, the typewritten record of May's February 1946 confession.
"About a year ago whilst in Canada, I was contacted by an individual whose identity I decline to divulge. He called on me at my private apartment in Swail Avenue, Montreal. He apparently knew I was employed by the Montreal laboratory and he sought information from me concerning atomic research," May admitted. "I gave and had given very careful consideration to the correctness of making sure that the development of atomic energy was not confined to the U.S.A.
"At one meeting I gave the man microscopic amounts of U. 233 and U. 235 (one of each). The U. 235 was a slightly enriched sample and was in a small glass tube and consisted of about a milliogramme (milligram) of oxide. The U. 235 was about a tenth of a milliogramme (milligram) and was a very thin deposit on a platinum foil and was wrapped in a piece of paper...."
Many of the documents have been examined previously by historians, most notably the Swiss-based scholar Amy Knight, author of the acclaimed 2005 study How the Cold War Began: The Gouzenko Affair and the Hunt for Soviet Spies.
But her book just scratches the surface of the records made available by the British archive, which detail virtually every move made by May after Gouzenko's disclosures alerted the RCMP and British security forces to the researcher's duplicity.
One of the telegrams obtained from Gouzenko revealed plans for May to meet with a Soviet operative in front of the British Museum in London after his planned return from Canada in September 1945. The trip home to Britain was to come just days after May's final duty in Canada: a two-day inspection of the Chalk River nuclear facility near Ottawa.
"Alek shall have under his left arm the newspaper Times, and the contact man will have in his left hand the magazine Picture Post," says Moscow's order, dated Aug. 22, 1945, to the Soviet military attache in Ottawa.
The memo adds that the contact man will ask: "What is the shortest way to the Strand?" to which May would reply: "Well, come along. I am going that way."
Eager to have the scientist proceed with the rendezvous and thus expose a Soviet agent in London, Canadian officials agreed to postpone May's arrest, allow him to take a flight to Britain and let British officials take over the surveillance and, eventually, prosecution of the "atom spy."
But there were concerns May could pass further information to the Soviets or disappear during his trip home to Britain. Another document labelled "TOP SECRET" detailed plans for an RCMP officer, "Detective Sergeant BAYFIELD," to accompany May on the flight out of Canada, but "under cover as Mr. Bayfield, special courier for United Kingdom High Commissioner in Canada."
After landing in Britain, Bayfield was to make contact with a British counterpart, who would ask the Canadian: "How do you like our lowlands weather?" The Mountie was to respond, "I have not seen much of it yet, but it's rather like our Maritime provinces," before confirming May's identity and handing over surveillance duties to the British agent.
May didn't keep the appointment at the British Museum. It is widely believed that Kim Philby - at the time a top British intelligence officer, but later revealed to be a Soviet spy - tipped May to the planned sting.
The archival documents also shed light on the diplomatic tensions caused by May's treachery. In one document, the British High Commissioner in Ottawa, Malcolm MacDonald, advises Sir Alexander Cadogan, British undersecretary of foreign affairs, that the Canadian government "draws my attention to the fact that vetting of United Kingdom scientists sent to Canada on project was responsibility of British Government and if these leakages on further investigation prove as serious as they appear at moment then H.M.G. (Her Majesty's Government) will be liable to criticism by United States Government."
May was eventually charged and convicted of passing official secrets to the Soviets. He was sentenced to 10 years hard labour, but served only six before his release in 1952.
He worked as a scientific researcher in Ghana until the late 1970s, and died in Britain in 2003.
British intelligence documents released by the archive indicate that the uranium samples stolen by May were ferried to Russia by Petr Motinov, a Soviet Embassy staffer in Ottawa. In her book, Knight quotes an account given years later by Motinov of his arrival with the uranium in Moscow, where he was met by top secret service officials, including Lavrentii Beria - the man who, later in the 1940s, would head the Soviet Union's successful atomic and hydrogen bomb projects.
"With great care I pulled the valuable ampoule out from under my waist-band and handed it to the director. He walked slowly to a black car, which stood on the tarmac, and put the ampoule inside. I then asked the director 'Who was in there?' 'That's Beria,' whispered the director. Up to this day, I still have from that uranium an agonizingly painful wound, and must get my blood changed several times a year."
It was arguably the clandestine Canadian encounter that launched the Cold War.
Just days after the first atomic weapon was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, a traitorous British scientist working in Canada met with a Russian agent in Montreal and handed him two samples of enriched uranium - precious specimens in the early days of a global arms race when Soviet scientists were rushing to match American firepower and construct their own A-bomb.
"The man gave me some dollars (I forget how many) in a bottle of whisky, and I accepted these against my will," Alan Nunn May, a Cambridge-educated nuclear physicist, later confessed. "The whole affair was extremely painful to me and I only embarked on it because I felt this was a contribution I could make to the safety of mankind."
May, who had been seconded by Britain to the National Research Council of Canada in January 1943, was outed as a Communist spy just a month after his illicit uranium transfer. That's when Igor Gouzenko, a cipher clerk at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, defected with about 100 telegrams and other classified documents he'd stolen from a consular safe, exposing an extensive espionage ring - including scientists, bureaucrats and even the Montreal-area socialist MP Fred Rose - operating in North America and Britain at the end of the Second World War.
Now, hundreds of documents related to May's espionage activities, all recently declassified by the British government, have been posted on the website of Britain's National Archives, offering an unprecedented inside look at the Canadian spy case that sparked the Gouzenko Affair and ultimately reshaped 20th-century history.
Among the secret dispatches revealed by Gouzenko, and now viewable online, were detailed accounts of the handover of radioactive material by May - code-named ALEK in several secret missives from the Ottawa embassy to Moscow. Soviet telegrams about the uranium coup were the showpiece evidence in a growing file of documents that eventually gave Gouzenko confidence that he had the goods to convince Western authorities of a Communist conspiracy in their midst, and to grant him and his young family asylum in Canada.
The revelations stunned officials in London, Ottawa and Washington. The head of the nuclear lab in Montreal, John Cockcroft, produced for the British a list of the secret technologies and materials May could have passed to Soviet agents: "Working knowledge of properties of Uranium 233," notes his grim litany. "Knowledge of methods of separating Plutonium and U. 233.... Had access to small samples of U. 233.... May have obtained access unofficially to Uranium metal irradiated in the X. pile and containing Plutonium.... Such samples would be of great value in starting up chemical separation work...."
The Soviet capital, too, was rocked as it became clear that Moscow's carefully cultivated overseas intelligence network had been unearthed.
The fallout was far-reaching and - according to many experts - the episode locked the U.S., Britain and their allies into a political and military standoff with the Soviet Union that would dominate global politics for nearly 50 years.
Among the files opened by the British archives are typed translations of the coded messages sent between Moscow and the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa reporting May's espionage activities; exchanges between British and Canadian officials as they planned surveillance of May after his exposure as a traitor; transcripts of phone calls recorded by agents tailing the scientist-spy; and finally, after his arrest, the typewritten record of May's February 1946 confession.
"About a year ago whilst in Canada, I was contacted by an individual whose identity I decline to divulge. He called on me at my private apartment in Swail Avenue, Montreal. He apparently knew I was employed by the Montreal laboratory and he sought information from me concerning atomic research," May admitted. "I gave and had given very careful consideration to the correctness of making sure that the development of atomic energy was not confined to the U.S.A.
"At one meeting I gave the man microscopic amounts of U. 233 and U. 235 (one of each). The U. 235 was a slightly enriched sample and was in a small glass tube and consisted of about a milliogramme (milligram) of oxide. The U. 235 was about a tenth of a milliogramme (milligram) and was a very thin deposit on a platinum foil and was wrapped in a piece of paper...."
Many of the documents have been examined previously by historians, most notably the Swiss-based scholar Amy Knight, author of the acclaimed 2005 study How the Cold War Began: The Gouzenko Affair and the Hunt for Soviet Spies.
But her book just scratches the surface of the records made available by the British archive, which detail virtually every move made by May after Gouzenko's disclosures alerted the RCMP and British security forces to the researcher's duplicity.
One of the telegrams obtained from Gouzenko revealed plans for May to meet with a Soviet operative in front of the British Museum in London after his planned return from Canada in September 1945. The trip home to Britain was to come just days after May's final duty in Canada: a two-day inspection of the Chalk River nuclear facility near Ottawa.
"Alek shall have under his left arm the newspaper Times, and the contact man will have in his left hand the magazine Picture Post," says Moscow's order, dated Aug. 22, 1945, to the Soviet military attache in Ottawa.
The memo adds that the contact man will ask: "What is the shortest way to the Strand?" to which May would reply: "Well, come along. I am going that way."
Eager to have the scientist proceed with the rendezvous and thus expose a Soviet agent in London, Canadian officials agreed to postpone May's arrest, allow him to take a flight to Britain and let British officials take over the surveillance and, eventually, prosecution of the "atom spy."
But there were concerns May could pass further information to the Soviets or disappear during his trip home to Britain. Another document labelled "TOP SECRET" detailed plans for an RCMP officer, "Detective Sergeant BAYFIELD," to accompany May on the flight out of Canada, but "under cover as Mr. Bayfield, special courier for United Kingdom High Commissioner in Canada."
After landing in Britain, Bayfield was to make contact with a British counterpart, who would ask the Canadian: "How do you like our lowlands weather?" The Mountie was to respond, "I have not seen much of it yet, but it's rather like our Maritime provinces," before confirming May's identity and handing over surveillance duties to the British agent.
May didn't keep the appointment at the British Museum. It is widely believed that Kim Philby - at the time a top British intelligence officer, but later revealed to be a Soviet spy - tipped May to the planned sting.
The archival documents also shed light on the diplomatic tensions caused by May's treachery. In one document, the British High Commissioner in Ottawa, Malcolm MacDonald, advises Sir Alexander Cadogan, British undersecretary of foreign affairs, that the Canadian government "draws my attention to the fact that vetting of United Kingdom scientists sent to Canada on project was responsibility of British Government and if these leakages on further investigation prove as serious as they appear at moment then H.M.G. (Her Majesty's Government) will be liable to criticism by United States Government."
May was eventually charged and convicted of passing official secrets to the Soviets. He was sentenced to 10 years hard labour, but served only six before his release in 1952.
He worked as a scientific researcher in Ghana until the late 1970s, and died in Britain in 2003.
British intelligence documents released by the archive indicate that the uranium samples stolen by May were ferried to Russia by Petr Motinov, a Soviet Embassy staffer in Ottawa. In her book, Knight quotes an account given years later by Motinov of his arrival with the uranium in Moscow, where he was met by top secret service officials, including Lavrentii Beria - the man who, later in the 1940s, would head the Soviet Union's successful atomic and hydrogen bomb projects.
"With great care I pulled the valuable ampoule out from under my waist-band and handed it to the director. He walked slowly to a black car, which stood on the tarmac, and put the ampoule inside. I then asked the director 'Who was in there?' 'That's Beria,' whispered the director. Up to this day, I still have from that uranium an agonizingly painful wound, and must get my blood changed several times a year."
Spy for Israel sold bugged cars to Hizbullah members
Faqih was trusted as a 'safe' supplier of vehicles
By Andrew Wander
Daily Star staff
Friday, February 20, 2009
BEIRUT: To those who knew him, the Hizbullah-supporting car dealer from Nabatiyeh seemed an unlikely Israeli spy. But as Marwan Faqih adjusts to life in military custody, new details have emerged about his secret double life as an undercover agent for the Jewish state.
Sources close to Hizbullah quoted by the Al-Balad daily on Thursday gave a fascinating glimpse into the secret world of international espionage inhabited by Faqih. The paper said that Faqih was accredited as a "safe" supplier of vehicles to Hizbullah after winning the trust of party officials in Nabatiyeh by making regular donations to the group. During the summer 2006 war with Israel, he even handed control of his petrol station over to Hizbullah fighters.
No-one suspected that every car he sold them was fitted with a satellite monitoring device that allowed Israeli intelligence agents to track their every move. In the end, the paper's sources say, it was a routine repair that led to the discovery of Faqih's secret double life.
According to the report, an auto electrician was trying to fix a problem with a Hizbullah vehicle when he discovered an "unfamiliar device" attached to the electrical system that he thought might have been causing the problem.
Thinking that it may have been fitted by Hizbullah, the electrician had a discreet word with the vehicle's owner, pointing out that the device was interfering with the car. But whatever it was, it had not been placed by Hizbullah, and a search of the party's fleet of vehicles revealed dozens of the mystery devices.
Investigations revealed that they were satellite wire tap devices and they were only present on vehicles supplied from one particular car dealer in Nabatiyeh: Marwan Faqih. Years of gathering intelligence about notoriously secretive Hizbullah on behalf of their sworn enemies were about to come to an end.
It had begun in France in the mid-1990s, when Faqih was approached by Mossad agents who asked him to gather information about Hizbullah and the Lebanese army in return for payment. He returned to Lebanon to begin his task, and over the years, the Israelis developed what was to become a prime intelligence asset located in the heartland of their most bitter and formidable enemies.
They provided Faqih with specialist software that allowed him to establish secure internet connections so he could send the intelligence he gathered, and met with him on his frequent trips to France. They even took him to Israel on four separate occasions, to train him in the latest espionage communications technology. And all the while, he sold bugged cars to Hizbullah that helped Israeli agents to build a picture of movements and conversations of the party's officials.
If it hadn't been for the discovery of the satellite device, the deception might have gone unnotcied. But once Hizbullah had traced the origins of the equipment to Faqih, his days of freedom were numbered. A senior Lebanese security official told The Daily Star on Thursday that Hizbullah conducted an investigation into Faqih and discovered that he "was using the internet and other complex technological devices" to communicate with Israeli agents.
The official said that Hizbullah had arrested the spy and handed him over to the Lebanese army ten days ago. But he was unable to comment on the details of the Al-Balad story.
"The army and the judiciary cannot confirm or deny what Hizbullah are saying about the satellite device," he said. "They are carrying out their own investigation to find whether he was part of a larger cell which will be completed before the case is handed over to the judiciary." Faqih is now in the custody of the army's intelligence wing. No formal charges have been filed against him.
Hizbullah is said to have reviewed its security procedures in response to the discovery of the spy in their midst. "Hizbullah has beefed up its security measures in the south," the security official said.
A Hizbullah source contacted by The Daily Star declined to comment on the veracity of Al-Balad's story, but praised the work of the Lebanese army in their handling of the Faqih affair. "It is very good that Israeli collaborators are stopped," he said.
By Andrew Wander
Daily Star staff
Friday, February 20, 2009
BEIRUT: To those who knew him, the Hizbullah-supporting car dealer from Nabatiyeh seemed an unlikely Israeli spy. But as Marwan Faqih adjusts to life in military custody, new details have emerged about his secret double life as an undercover agent for the Jewish state.
Sources close to Hizbullah quoted by the Al-Balad daily on Thursday gave a fascinating glimpse into the secret world of international espionage inhabited by Faqih. The paper said that Faqih was accredited as a "safe" supplier of vehicles to Hizbullah after winning the trust of party officials in Nabatiyeh by making regular donations to the group. During the summer 2006 war with Israel, he even handed control of his petrol station over to Hizbullah fighters.
No-one suspected that every car he sold them was fitted with a satellite monitoring device that allowed Israeli intelligence agents to track their every move. In the end, the paper's sources say, it was a routine repair that led to the discovery of Faqih's secret double life.
According to the report, an auto electrician was trying to fix a problem with a Hizbullah vehicle when he discovered an "unfamiliar device" attached to the electrical system that he thought might have been causing the problem.
Thinking that it may have been fitted by Hizbullah, the electrician had a discreet word with the vehicle's owner, pointing out that the device was interfering with the car. But whatever it was, it had not been placed by Hizbullah, and a search of the party's fleet of vehicles revealed dozens of the mystery devices.
Investigations revealed that they were satellite wire tap devices and they were only present on vehicles supplied from one particular car dealer in Nabatiyeh: Marwan Faqih. Years of gathering intelligence about notoriously secretive Hizbullah on behalf of their sworn enemies were about to come to an end.
It had begun in France in the mid-1990s, when Faqih was approached by Mossad agents who asked him to gather information about Hizbullah and the Lebanese army in return for payment. He returned to Lebanon to begin his task, and over the years, the Israelis developed what was to become a prime intelligence asset located in the heartland of their most bitter and formidable enemies.
They provided Faqih with specialist software that allowed him to establish secure internet connections so he could send the intelligence he gathered, and met with him on his frequent trips to France. They even took him to Israel on four separate occasions, to train him in the latest espionage communications technology. And all the while, he sold bugged cars to Hizbullah that helped Israeli agents to build a picture of movements and conversations of the party's officials.
If it hadn't been for the discovery of the satellite device, the deception might have gone unnotcied. But once Hizbullah had traced the origins of the equipment to Faqih, his days of freedom were numbered. A senior Lebanese security official told The Daily Star on Thursday that Hizbullah conducted an investigation into Faqih and discovered that he "was using the internet and other complex technological devices" to communicate with Israeli agents.
The official said that Hizbullah had arrested the spy and handed him over to the Lebanese army ten days ago. But he was unable to comment on the details of the Al-Balad story.
"The army and the judiciary cannot confirm or deny what Hizbullah are saying about the satellite device," he said. "They are carrying out their own investigation to find whether he was part of a larger cell which will be completed before the case is handed over to the judiciary." Faqih is now in the custody of the army's intelligence wing. No formal charges have been filed against him.
Hizbullah is said to have reviewed its security procedures in response to the discovery of the spy in their midst. "Hizbullah has beefed up its security measures in the south," the security official said.
A Hizbullah source contacted by The Daily Star declined to comment on the veracity of Al-Balad's story, but praised the work of the Lebanese army in their handling of the Faqih affair. "It is very good that Israeli collaborators are stopped," he said.
Spanish pickpockets leave Microsoft facing industrial espionage
NBR staff | Thursday February 19 2009 - 04:21pm
Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo (pictured) has been left embarrassed at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona after a pickpocket stole his phone – one of only a handful running a pre-release version of Microsoft’s still top-secret new edition of Windows Mobile.
Microsoft now reckons it faces an industrial espionage threat, as the phone – an HTC Diamond II – could fall into the wrong hands, allowing a competitor an advance look at the company’s new Windows Mobile 6.5 software.
The company’s operatives are on the pickpocket’s case.
However, judging by luke-warm early reviews from journalists in Barcelona – who were allowed to view the new version Windows Mobile but not even touch the HTC phone it was running on – the thief is in more danger of being bored to death.
Rubbing salt into Microsoft and Telstra’s wounds, Mr Trujillo was not even in possession of the HTC Diamond II at the time it was nicked. Rather, after being given the precious handset by Microsoft, he promptly palmed it off on a collegue.
A spokesperson for Testra says Mr Trujillo has six cellphones, and that it can be hard to keep track of them all.
Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo (pictured) has been left embarrassed at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona after a pickpocket stole his phone – one of only a handful running a pre-release version of Microsoft’s still top-secret new edition of Windows Mobile.
Microsoft now reckons it faces an industrial espionage threat, as the phone – an HTC Diamond II – could fall into the wrong hands, allowing a competitor an advance look at the company’s new Windows Mobile 6.5 software.
The company’s operatives are on the pickpocket’s case.
However, judging by luke-warm early reviews from journalists in Barcelona – who were allowed to view the new version Windows Mobile but not even touch the HTC phone it was running on – the thief is in more danger of being bored to death.
Rubbing salt into Microsoft and Telstra’s wounds, Mr Trujillo was not even in possession of the HTC Diamond II at the time it was nicked. Rather, after being given the precious handset by Microsoft, he promptly palmed it off on a collegue.
A spokesperson for Testra says Mr Trujillo has six cellphones, and that it can be hard to keep track of them all.
Southfield man sues U.S. Defense Department over spy claims
BY DAVID ASHENFELTER • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • FEBRUARY 19, 2009
A Detroit-area military engineer accused in 1997 of passing secrets to the Israelis sued the Defense Department, the Army and the people behind the charges today in U.S. District Court in Detroit.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of David Tenenbaum, 51, of Southfield said the military deprived him of his constitutional right to hold the military accountable for falsely accusing him of espionage by using the federal government’s state secrets privilege to kill his earlier lawsuit against the government. A federal judge dismissed the earlier lawsuit in 2002.
The latest suit, which seeks more than $200 million in damages, said the military asserted the privilege “in reckless disregard of the fact that no state secrets existed … because there was never any evidence against Tenenbaum.”
There was no immediate comment from the Defense Department.
Tenenbaum was suspected of but never formally charged with espionage involving his job at the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) in Warren. But the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General said in a report last July that Tenenbaum was singled out because he is Jewish.
The report said Tenenbaum wore a yarmulke and adhered to strict Jewish dietary rules rather than join coworkers for lunch at restaurants. Colleagues questioned why he was allowed to leave work early on Fridays to prepare for the Jewish Sabbath, the report said.
Coworkers said Tenenbaum spent too much time associating with Israeli contacts, made his own travel arrangements for overseas trips and stayed in hotels away from colleagues, which TACOM officials regarded as telltale signs of spying, the report said.
The FBI looked into the complaints but found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Tenenbaum returned to work in 1998 after a 14-month paid leave of absence. Though his clearance was restored and elevated in 2003 after a 4-year legal battle, he has been relegated to lesser duties and shunned by coworkers, said his lawyer, Mayer Morganroth, of Southfield.
Morganroth told the Free Press last year that a bogus investigation prompted the Army to scrap Tenenbaum's 1995 project to improve the armor on Humvees, a decision that proved fatal to American troops who were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan in woefully inadequate fighting vehicles.
Contact DAVID ASHENFELTER at dashenfelter@freepress.com
A Detroit-area military engineer accused in 1997 of passing secrets to the Israelis sued the Defense Department, the Army and the people behind the charges today in U.S. District Court in Detroit.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of David Tenenbaum, 51, of Southfield said the military deprived him of his constitutional right to hold the military accountable for falsely accusing him of espionage by using the federal government’s state secrets privilege to kill his earlier lawsuit against the government. A federal judge dismissed the earlier lawsuit in 2002.
The latest suit, which seeks more than $200 million in damages, said the military asserted the privilege “in reckless disregard of the fact that no state secrets existed … because there was never any evidence against Tenenbaum.”
There was no immediate comment from the Defense Department.
Tenenbaum was suspected of but never formally charged with espionage involving his job at the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) in Warren. But the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General said in a report last July that Tenenbaum was singled out because he is Jewish.
The report said Tenenbaum wore a yarmulke and adhered to strict Jewish dietary rules rather than join coworkers for lunch at restaurants. Colleagues questioned why he was allowed to leave work early on Fridays to prepare for the Jewish Sabbath, the report said.
Coworkers said Tenenbaum spent too much time associating with Israeli contacts, made his own travel arrangements for overseas trips and stayed in hotels away from colleagues, which TACOM officials regarded as telltale signs of spying, the report said.
The FBI looked into the complaints but found no evidence of wrongdoing.
Tenenbaum returned to work in 1998 after a 14-month paid leave of absence. Though his clearance was restored and elevated in 2003 after a 4-year legal battle, he has been relegated to lesser duties and shunned by coworkers, said his lawyer, Mayer Morganroth, of Southfield.
Morganroth told the Free Press last year that a bogus investigation prompted the Army to scrap Tenenbaum's 1995 project to improve the armor on Humvees, a decision that proved fatal to American troops who were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan in woefully inadequate fighting vehicles.
Contact DAVID ASHENFELTER at dashenfelter@freepress.com
Is Israel assassinating Iran nuclear scientists?
Last update - 18:17 17/02/2009
By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent
Israel is assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists as part of a covert war against the Islamic Republic's illicit weapons program, the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday quoted Western intelligence analysts as saying.
The British daily said Israel's Mossad espionage agency was rumored to be behind the death of Ardeshire Hassanpour, a top nuclear scientist at Iran's Isfahan uranium plant, who died in mysterious circumstances from reported "gas poisoning" in 2007.
Other recent deaths of important figures in the procurement and enrichment process in Iran and Europe have been the result of Israeli "hits", intended to deprive Tehran of key technical skills at the head of the program, according to the analysts.
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The Telegraph also quoted United States intelligence sources as saying Israel is using sabotage, front companies and double agents to disrupt the regime's illicit weapons project as an alternative to direct military strikes.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that Israel has been carrying out similar covert activities for about a decade, ever since Iran was first suspected of seeking nuclear weapons. The U.S. journalist James Risen has written recently that the CIA and the Mossad have planned together a number of sabotage operations against the Iranian program, including damaging power lines to nuclear sites in order to cause harm to computer systems and equipment.
The Telegraph also quoted Israeli officials as privately acknowledging the new U.S. administration is unlikely to sanction an air attack on Iran's nuclear installations and that President Barack Obama's offer to extend a hand of peace to Tehran puts any direct military action beyond reach for now.
As such, the reported goal of Israel's covert campaign is to delay or interrupt the Iranian research program, without engaging in a direct confrontation that could lead to a wider war.
"Disruption is designed to slow progress on the program, done in such a way that they don't realize what's happening. You are never going to stop it," a former CIA officer on Iran was quoted as saying.
"The goal is delay, delay, delay until you can come up with some other solution or approach," he added. "We certainly don't want the current Iranian government to have those weapons. It's a good policy, short of taking them out militarily, which probably carries unacceptable risks."
Reva Bhalla, a senior analyst with Stratfor, the U.S. private intelligence company with strong government security connections, was quoted by the paper as saying the strategy was to take out key people.
"With co-operation from the United States, Israeli covert operations have focused both on eliminating key human assets involved in the nuclear programme and in sabotaging the Iranian nuclear supply chain," she was quoted as saying.
"As US-Israeli relations are bound to come under strain over the Obama administration's outreach to Iran, and as the political atmosphere grows in complexity, an intensification of Israeli covert activity against Iran is likely to result."
By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent
Israel is assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists as part of a covert war against the Islamic Republic's illicit weapons program, the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday quoted Western intelligence analysts as saying.
The British daily said Israel's Mossad espionage agency was rumored to be behind the death of Ardeshire Hassanpour, a top nuclear scientist at Iran's Isfahan uranium plant, who died in mysterious circumstances from reported "gas poisoning" in 2007.
Other recent deaths of important figures in the procurement and enrichment process in Iran and Europe have been the result of Israeli "hits", intended to deprive Tehran of key technical skills at the head of the program, according to the analysts.
Advertisement
The Telegraph also quoted United States intelligence sources as saying Israel is using sabotage, front companies and double agents to disrupt the regime's illicit weapons project as an alternative to direct military strikes.
Nevertheless, it should be noted that Israel has been carrying out similar covert activities for about a decade, ever since Iran was first suspected of seeking nuclear weapons. The U.S. journalist James Risen has written recently that the CIA and the Mossad have planned together a number of sabotage operations against the Iranian program, including damaging power lines to nuclear sites in order to cause harm to computer systems and equipment.
The Telegraph also quoted Israeli officials as privately acknowledging the new U.S. administration is unlikely to sanction an air attack on Iran's nuclear installations and that President Barack Obama's offer to extend a hand of peace to Tehran puts any direct military action beyond reach for now.
As such, the reported goal of Israel's covert campaign is to delay or interrupt the Iranian research program, without engaging in a direct confrontation that could lead to a wider war.
"Disruption is designed to slow progress on the program, done in such a way that they don't realize what's happening. You are never going to stop it," a former CIA officer on Iran was quoted as saying.
"The goal is delay, delay, delay until you can come up with some other solution or approach," he added. "We certainly don't want the current Iranian government to have those weapons. It's a good policy, short of taking them out militarily, which probably carries unacceptable risks."
Reva Bhalla, a senior analyst with Stratfor, the U.S. private intelligence company with strong government security connections, was quoted by the paper as saying the strategy was to take out key people.
"With co-operation from the United States, Israeli covert operations have focused both on eliminating key human assets involved in the nuclear programme and in sabotaging the Iranian nuclear supply chain," she was quoted as saying.
"As US-Israeli relations are bound to come under strain over the Obama administration's outreach to Iran, and as the political atmosphere grows in complexity, an intensification of Israeli covert activity against Iran is likely to result."
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Beware Of "The Five Classes Of Spies"
2009-02-20 13:44
Hopping frogs, hula dances and love betrayers, could there be a plot behind all these incidents?
How could politicians have no knowledge in conspiracies and the use of spies if they wish to form alliances and sow dissensions by manoeuvring among various political groupings? Otherwise, it would be better not to join politics.
In an interview, Talking About the Battle in Xu Zhou, with Yazhou Zhoukanpublished on 25 Jan, Taiwan Businessmen's Association Vice Chairman Alexander Pann said that there was a big gap in terms of military strength between the then two forces. But why it was Kuomintang (KMT), which was originally in the absolute advantageous position, that had to suffer a defeat and went to Taiwan?
The author said: "One of the main reasons would be the Communist Party was doing much better than KMT in information warfare."
Another example that showed how high skill in information warfare determines the outcome of major battles would be the battle between France and Germany during World War II. Germany left France in the shame of subjugation by spending only six weeks in launching attacks from the West. After the war, a French journalist pointed out that: "The fall of France was not because of Adolf Hitler, it was because of The Fifth Column instead."
The Fifth Column in Germany was in fact an espionage organisation. The journalist said: "Germany's spies were having close relationships with French entrepreneurs, administrative and military officers. France has long been destroyed internally!"
According to The Art of War: "The highest form of generalship is to baulk the enemy's plans; the next best is to prevent the advance of the enemy's forces." Sunzi categorised spies into five classes: (1) local spies; (2) internal spies; (3) converted spies; (4) doomed spies; (5) surviving spies. He also pointed out that using spies is one of the important means to know your enemy. It is a must in any battle.
Having local spies means employing the services of the inhabitants of a district; having internal spies, making use of officials of the enemy; having converted spies, getting hold of the enemy's spies and using them for our own purposes; having doomed spies, doing certain things openly for purposes of deception, and allowing our spies to know of them and report them to the enemy; surviving spies, finally, are those who bring back news from the enemy's camp.
The purpose of reviewing the Art of War in today's situation is not to drive you frantic. Instead, it is meant to remind you to learn from the past and beware of Sunzi's "Five Classes of Spies" that might turn the whole situation a chaos. (By LIM MUN FAH/ Translated by SOONG PHUI JEE/ Sin Chew Daily)
( The opinions expressed by the writer do not necessarily reflect those of MySinchew )
MySinchew 2009.02.20
Hopping frogs, hula dances and love betrayers, could there be a plot behind all these incidents?
How could politicians have no knowledge in conspiracies and the use of spies if they wish to form alliances and sow dissensions by manoeuvring among various political groupings? Otherwise, it would be better not to join politics.
In an interview, Talking About the Battle in Xu Zhou, with Yazhou Zhoukanpublished on 25 Jan, Taiwan Businessmen's Association Vice Chairman Alexander Pann said that there was a big gap in terms of military strength between the then two forces. But why it was Kuomintang (KMT), which was originally in the absolute advantageous position, that had to suffer a defeat and went to Taiwan?
The author said: "One of the main reasons would be the Communist Party was doing much better than KMT in information warfare."
Another example that showed how high skill in information warfare determines the outcome of major battles would be the battle between France and Germany during World War II. Germany left France in the shame of subjugation by spending only six weeks in launching attacks from the West. After the war, a French journalist pointed out that: "The fall of France was not because of Adolf Hitler, it was because of The Fifth Column instead."
The Fifth Column in Germany was in fact an espionage organisation. The journalist said: "Germany's spies were having close relationships with French entrepreneurs, administrative and military officers. France has long been destroyed internally!"
According to The Art of War: "The highest form of generalship is to baulk the enemy's plans; the next best is to prevent the advance of the enemy's forces." Sunzi categorised spies into five classes: (1) local spies; (2) internal spies; (3) converted spies; (4) doomed spies; (5) surviving spies. He also pointed out that using spies is one of the important means to know your enemy. It is a must in any battle.
Having local spies means employing the services of the inhabitants of a district; having internal spies, making use of officials of the enemy; having converted spies, getting hold of the enemy's spies and using them for our own purposes; having doomed spies, doing certain things openly for purposes of deception, and allowing our spies to know of them and report them to the enemy; surviving spies, finally, are those who bring back news from the enemy's camp.
The purpose of reviewing the Art of War in today's situation is not to drive you frantic. Instead, it is meant to remind you to learn from the past and beware of Sunzi's "Five Classes of Spies" that might turn the whole situation a chaos. (By LIM MUN FAH/ Translated by SOONG PHUI JEE/ Sin Chew Daily)
( The opinions expressed by the writer do not necessarily reflect those of MySinchew )
MySinchew 2009.02.20
Olympic security cost hits $900m
Megan O'Toole, National Post, with files From Canwest News Service
Published: Friday, February 20, 2009
The tab for security at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver has been pegged at $900-million, more than five times higher than initially anticipated.
But the official cost, announced yesterday afternoon by federal and provincial governments, still falls short of later estimates that had ballooned to upwards of $1-billion.
Under two new agreements between Ottawa and Victoria, the province of British Columbia will contribute a total of $252.5-million for its portion of the security budget, with the federal government picking up the remainder of the tab.
That includes an increase of $165-million in new money from the province, which initially estimated its contribution at $87.5-million.
In doing so, the province insisted the federal government take over all risks and planning for security.
The B. C. government also agreed to put its increased share into joint federal-provincial major infrastructure costs of the next three years.
B. C. Finance Minister Colin Hansen said he proposed the new cost-sharing agreement because the old one, written several years ago, was confusing. "The old agreement invited 'co-management' of the security budget and it was not going to get us anywhere very fast," he said.
Mr. Hansen, who originally pegged security costs at $175-million, later sent a revised security budget to Ottawa that included a proposal outlining what he believed the province should pay.
While the province awaited the federal government's official response, experts and officials suggested the total cost of security could escalate to beyond $1-billion.
Late last year, Canada's intelligence service warned of an espionage threat to the 2010 Winter Games, saying foreign spies may try to steal security plans for the Olympics.
© National Post 2009
Published: Friday, February 20, 2009
The tab for security at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver has been pegged at $900-million, more than five times higher than initially anticipated.
But the official cost, announced yesterday afternoon by federal and provincial governments, still falls short of later estimates that had ballooned to upwards of $1-billion.
Under two new agreements between Ottawa and Victoria, the province of British Columbia will contribute a total of $252.5-million for its portion of the security budget, with the federal government picking up the remainder of the tab.
That includes an increase of $165-million in new money from the province, which initially estimated its contribution at $87.5-million.
In doing so, the province insisted the federal government take over all risks and planning for security.
The B. C. government also agreed to put its increased share into joint federal-provincial major infrastructure costs of the next three years.
B. C. Finance Minister Colin Hansen said he proposed the new cost-sharing agreement because the old one, written several years ago, was confusing. "The old agreement invited 'co-management' of the security budget and it was not going to get us anywhere very fast," he said.
Mr. Hansen, who originally pegged security costs at $175-million, later sent a revised security budget to Ottawa that included a proposal outlining what he believed the province should pay.
While the province awaited the federal government's official response, experts and officials suggested the total cost of security could escalate to beyond $1-billion.
Late last year, Canada's intelligence service warned of an espionage threat to the 2010 Winter Games, saying foreign spies may try to steal security plans for the Olympics.
© National Post 2009
Vienna remains one of the espionage centers of the world
AFP, VIENNA
Sunday, Feb 22, 2009, Page 6
Twenty years after the end of the Cold War, Vienna remains a spy haven, swarming with foreign agents who think nothing of killing in broad daylight while the Austrian authorities turn a blind eye, experts said.
Vienna formed the backdrop to Orson Welles’ legendary spy thriller The Third Man in 1949, but even today it remains a hive of secret service activity.
“Austria is still a favorite place for agents. They’re frequently known to the authorities, but rarely hindered. Everything is handled courteously and diplomatically. There’s a long tradition in that,” said Siegfried Beer, director of the Austrian Center for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies at the University of Graz.
In the latest addition to a growing list of cases that look unlikely ever to be resolved, a Chechen dissident, Umar Israilov, was gunned down in broad daylight in the Austrian capital on Jan. 23.
Other cases include the 1989 killing of Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, the head of a Kurdish opposition group in Iranian Kurdistan, and the attempted kidnapping in October of Kazakhstan’s former intelligence chief Alnur Musayev. Both were living in exile in Austria.
“Austria is a textbook case for this sort of operation that always remains unresolved. As soon as there is any sort of political link, the authorities start acting very strangely,” said journalist Kid Moechel, an author of a book on the subject.
For Peter Pilz, defense expert for the opposition Green party, “Some regimes such as Russia and Iran enjoy a freedom to do as they please in Vienna that they would never enjoy elsewhere.”
“Quite simply, the Austrian authorities don’t want to jeopardize their country’s economic interests,” the parliamentarian said.
He accused the Austrian Interior Ministry of trying to “cover up” the murder of Israilov, who had repeatedly asked for special police protection before he was gunned down while out grocery shopping last month.
Vienna, whose geographical position makes it a point of contact between East and West and North and South, has one of the highest densities of spies in the world, experts said.
It is home to international groups such as the International Atomic Energy Agency, OPEC and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
In all, at least 17,000 diplomats are based in Vienna, equivalent to around 1 percent of the city’s population, official figures show.
“Around half of these have links to the secret services,” Beer said.
Politician Pilz asserted that Vienna is also “a hub where it’s very easy to buy arms or hide or launder money.”
However, the advent in recent years of hundreds of thousands of refugees in Austria, including around 20,000 Chechens, is providing new impetus for secret service activity.
Sunday, Feb 22, 2009, Page 6
Twenty years after the end of the Cold War, Vienna remains a spy haven, swarming with foreign agents who think nothing of killing in broad daylight while the Austrian authorities turn a blind eye, experts said.
Vienna formed the backdrop to Orson Welles’ legendary spy thriller The Third Man in 1949, but even today it remains a hive of secret service activity.
“Austria is still a favorite place for agents. They’re frequently known to the authorities, but rarely hindered. Everything is handled courteously and diplomatically. There’s a long tradition in that,” said Siegfried Beer, director of the Austrian Center for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies at the University of Graz.
In the latest addition to a growing list of cases that look unlikely ever to be resolved, a Chechen dissident, Umar Israilov, was gunned down in broad daylight in the Austrian capital on Jan. 23.
Other cases include the 1989 killing of Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou, the head of a Kurdish opposition group in Iranian Kurdistan, and the attempted kidnapping in October of Kazakhstan’s former intelligence chief Alnur Musayev. Both were living in exile in Austria.
“Austria is a textbook case for this sort of operation that always remains unresolved. As soon as there is any sort of political link, the authorities start acting very strangely,” said journalist Kid Moechel, an author of a book on the subject.
For Peter Pilz, defense expert for the opposition Green party, “Some regimes such as Russia and Iran enjoy a freedom to do as they please in Vienna that they would never enjoy elsewhere.”
“Quite simply, the Austrian authorities don’t want to jeopardize their country’s economic interests,” the parliamentarian said.
He accused the Austrian Interior Ministry of trying to “cover up” the murder of Israilov, who had repeatedly asked for special police protection before he was gunned down while out grocery shopping last month.
Vienna, whose geographical position makes it a point of contact between East and West and North and South, has one of the highest densities of spies in the world, experts said.
It is home to international groups such as the International Atomic Energy Agency, OPEC and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
In all, at least 17,000 diplomats are based in Vienna, equivalent to around 1 percent of the city’s population, official figures show.
“Around half of these have links to the secret services,” Beer said.
Politician Pilz asserted that Vienna is also “a hub where it’s very easy to buy arms or hide or launder money.”
However, the advent in recent years of hundreds of thousands of refugees in Austria, including around 20,000 Chechens, is providing new impetus for secret service activity.
War of the spies as Israel and Hezbollah prepare for confrontation
February 23, 2009
Nicholas Blanford in Beirut
A barrage of rockets at the weekend and the recent arrests of alleged spies have exposed a deadly covert war waged between the Jewish state and Hezbollah, Lebanon's militant Shia organisation.
Two rockets launched from southern Lebanon on Saturday ruptured an uneasy calm that had reigned along the border since the month-long conflict between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006. Only one missile reached Israel, wounding a woman. Israel responded by firing artillery shells.
Even before the flare-up, Hezbollah and Israel had been busy making plans for what many believe will be an inevitable fresh confrontation. Israel's efforts focus on penetrating Hezbollah's notoriously tight security to learn of the group's battle plans and assassinate its senior leadership. Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah's veteran military commander, was killed in February last year when his car exploded in Damascus, a murder widely believed to have been the work of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency.
Lebanese newspapers reported last week that an employee of Middle East Airlines, Lebanon's flag carrier, who went missing nine days ago, allegedly had links to Israel. Yussef Sader was thought to have been kidnapped on his way to work at Beirut airport.
Two Lebanese newspapers have claimed that Mr Sader is in the custody of Lebanese military intelligence, although the army denies that it is holding him.
It also emerged last week that another suspected Mossad agent was arrested when military intelligence officers raided a petrol station near Nabatiyah in south Lebanon. Marwan Faqih, the owner of the garage, was reportedly detained by Hezbollah last month before being handed over to the Lebanese authorities. He was said to have told interrogators that he was recruited by Mossad in France in the mid-1990s.
He had won the trust of Hezbollah officials in Nabatiyah by donating money to the organisation's charities and providing cars for Hezbollah.
Hezbollah's highly effective counter-intelligence unit is responsible for most discoveries of Mossad cells in Lebanon. Last November Beirut newspapers reported the arrest of a Lebanese man who had been spying for Israel since the early 1980s.
The covert war works both ways, with Hezbollah building up a network of espionage cells in Israel and even recruiting Israeli soldiers.
Nicholas Blanford in Beirut
A barrage of rockets at the weekend and the recent arrests of alleged spies have exposed a deadly covert war waged between the Jewish state and Hezbollah, Lebanon's militant Shia organisation.
Two rockets launched from southern Lebanon on Saturday ruptured an uneasy calm that had reigned along the border since the month-long conflict between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006. Only one missile reached Israel, wounding a woman. Israel responded by firing artillery shells.
Even before the flare-up, Hezbollah and Israel had been busy making plans for what many believe will be an inevitable fresh confrontation. Israel's efforts focus on penetrating Hezbollah's notoriously tight security to learn of the group's battle plans and assassinate its senior leadership. Imad Mughniyah, Hezbollah's veteran military commander, was killed in February last year when his car exploded in Damascus, a murder widely believed to have been the work of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency.
Lebanese newspapers reported last week that an employee of Middle East Airlines, Lebanon's flag carrier, who went missing nine days ago, allegedly had links to Israel. Yussef Sader was thought to have been kidnapped on his way to work at Beirut airport.
Two Lebanese newspapers have claimed that Mr Sader is in the custody of Lebanese military intelligence, although the army denies that it is holding him.
It also emerged last week that another suspected Mossad agent was arrested when military intelligence officers raided a petrol station near Nabatiyah in south Lebanon. Marwan Faqih, the owner of the garage, was reportedly detained by Hezbollah last month before being handed over to the Lebanese authorities. He was said to have told interrogators that he was recruited by Mossad in France in the mid-1990s.
He had won the trust of Hezbollah officials in Nabatiyah by donating money to the organisation's charities and providing cars for Hezbollah.
Hezbollah's highly effective counter-intelligence unit is responsible for most discoveries of Mossad cells in Lebanon. Last November Beirut newspapers reported the arrest of a Lebanese man who had been spying for Israel since the early 1980s.
The covert war works both ways, with Hezbollah building up a network of espionage cells in Israel and even recruiting Israeli soldiers.
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