Thursday, February 23, 2012
CIA website down, Anonymous takes credit
From The Hindu
While the Occupy movement has relied primarily on peaceful protest marches to highlight post-recession income inequality in the United States, recent months have made clear that the rise of the American left is a double edged sword and a darker, angrier sub-group of the movement is willing to take on authorities more aggressively.
After its first high profile Christmas-weekend attack against Texas-based security firm Stratfor, which resulted in the exposure of the company’s global blue-chip clientele list, this rebel group of “hacktivists” called Anonymous brought down a much larger prey on Friday – the Central Intelligence Agency.
All through Friday afternoon and evening the website of the U.S.’ top intelligence agency only showed an error message and even on early Saturday morning this correspondent could not log onto the page. Simultaneously Anonymous announced via its Twitter pages and Tumblr feed that the Central Intelligence Agency's website had been taken down.
The modus operandi was likely to be a distributed denial-of-service attack and, referencing this, a Twitter posting by Anonymous-linked account noted, “We’d remind media that if we report a hack or DDOS attack, it doesn't necessarily mean we did it... FYI”
Another posting read: “CIA TANGO DOWN: https://www.cia.gov/ #Anonymous.” Others referenced news story highlighting the alleged takedown. Reports quoted CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood saying on Friday night, “We are aware of the problems accessing our website, and are working to resolve them.”
And it was not only the CIA. The U.S. state of Alabama came under a hack-attack too, and a website identified by CNN to included Anonymous' signature tag line said that the action was Anonymous’ response to “Alabama's recent racist legislation in an attempt to punish immigrants as criminals.”
Alabama last summer joined with Arizona and others in passing unprecedentedly stringent immigration laws, including granting local police sweeping powers to conduct stop-and-search operations and measures to ramp up the pace of deportation of suspected illegal immigrants.
A third target selected in Friday’s attack was Mexico's Mining Ministry. An Anonymous-linked Twitter page supplied links to documents and messages that it said it had taken off a website tied to the Ministry. Reports quoted a related Twitter post from Anonymous saying, “Hello Mexican Chamber of Mines. Want to see your emails exposed?”
Inexplicably, Friday also witnessed a hacker group using the nickname “Casi” taking credit for hacking the United Nations website and reportedly releasing vulnerabilities on the site. It was unclear why the UN was targeted, although it may have been an unrelated attack given the absence of Anonymous’ now-famous signature message: “We are Anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.”
While the Occupy movement has relied primarily on peaceful protest marches to highlight post-recession income inequality in the United States, recent months have made clear that the rise of the American left is a double edged sword and a darker, angrier sub-group of the movement is willing to take on authorities more aggressively.
After its first high profile Christmas-weekend attack against Texas-based security firm Stratfor, which resulted in the exposure of the company’s global blue-chip clientele list, this rebel group of “hacktivists” called Anonymous brought down a much larger prey on Friday – the Central Intelligence Agency.
All through Friday afternoon and evening the website of the U.S.’ top intelligence agency only showed an error message and even on early Saturday morning this correspondent could not log onto the page. Simultaneously Anonymous announced via its Twitter pages and Tumblr feed that the Central Intelligence Agency's website had been taken down.
The modus operandi was likely to be a distributed denial-of-service attack and, referencing this, a Twitter posting by Anonymous-linked account noted, “We’d remind media that if we report a hack or DDOS attack, it doesn't necessarily mean we did it... FYI”
Another posting read: “CIA TANGO DOWN: https://www.cia.gov/ #Anonymous.” Others referenced news story highlighting the alleged takedown. Reports quoted CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood saying on Friday night, “We are aware of the problems accessing our website, and are working to resolve them.”
And it was not only the CIA. The U.S. state of Alabama came under a hack-attack too, and a website identified by CNN to included Anonymous' signature tag line said that the action was Anonymous’ response to “Alabama's recent racist legislation in an attempt to punish immigrants as criminals.”
Alabama last summer joined with Arizona and others in passing unprecedentedly stringent immigration laws, including granting local police sweeping powers to conduct stop-and-search operations and measures to ramp up the pace of deportation of suspected illegal immigrants.
A third target selected in Friday’s attack was Mexico's Mining Ministry. An Anonymous-linked Twitter page supplied links to documents and messages that it said it had taken off a website tied to the Ministry. Reports quoted a related Twitter post from Anonymous saying, “Hello Mexican Chamber of Mines. Want to see your emails exposed?”
Inexplicably, Friday also witnessed a hacker group using the nickname “Casi” taking credit for hacking the United Nations website and reportedly releasing vulnerabilities on the site. It was unclear why the UN was targeted, although it may have been an unrelated attack given the absence of Anonymous’ now-famous signature message: “We are Anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.”
Labels: Anonymous, CIA, Hacking activities, Occuption movement, USA, Website
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Drone downed in Iran reportedly CIA's
From The Hindu
The unmanned aerial vehicle said to have been captured by Iranian
forces last week was being operated by the CIA, United States officials have
been quoted as saying.
Reports in major U.S. news outlets such as the Washington Post
and CNN quoted several unnamed officials confirming that “the
unmanned surveillance plane lost by the United States in Iran was a stealth
aircraft being used for secret missions by the CIA”, and Iran's military
appeared to be in possession of one of the more sensitive surveillance platforms
in the CIA's fleet.
The CIA's use of armed drones in countries such as Pakistan and
Yemen is not officially acknowledged and in this instance, too, CIA and Pentagon
spokespersons declined to comment.
However, the International Security Assistance Force in
Afghanistan issued a statement that the drone, possibly an unarmed RQ-170
surveillance model, “may be a U.S. unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been
flying a mission over western Afghanistan late last week”.
“The operators of the
UAV lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status,”
said the statement. The Post noted the ISAF statement's suggestion that
pilots lost control of the aircraft was accurate, according to U.S. officials
who have disputed claims by Iran that its defence forces downed the aircraft, or
that it had been felled by a sophisticated cyber-attack.
Labels: armed drones, CIA, US-Iran ties, veillance plane
Saturday, November 05, 2011
"Extraordinary rendition" in luxury aircraft
From The Hindu
As part of its infamous “extraordinary rendition” programme, the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States kidnapped and covertly transported persons across various countries using luxury jets supplied with the connivance of major U.S. corporations, court documents in New York have revealed.
Although the case initially appeared to be an innocent billing dispute between the contractors involved in the transactions was revealed by a human-rights campaign group called Reprieve to be wrangling within a secret network of aviation companies over unsettled bills for flights that had carried CIA prisoners.
Among the CIA's victims, some of whom were said to have been subjected to torture techniques such as water-boarding, was Indonesian terror suspect Riduan Isamuddin. He was reportedly captured in Thailand around 2003 yet spent “the next three years being shuttled among secret prisons operated by the CIA.”
Court documents revealed that a series of “unusual flights” that occurred around the time of Isamuddin's capture included a Gulfstream IV aircraft carrying six passengers on August 12 2003, which flew from Washington DC's Dulles International Airport to Bangkok, “with fuelling stops in Cold Bay, Alaska, and Osaka, Japan.” Prior to its return to the U.S. the same aircraft made further stops in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, the United Arab Emirates and Ireland, reports said.
Ironically the company that sponsored the supply of aircrafts for this and other flights that touched down in places like Islamabad, Pakistan, was reportedly a one-man aircraft brokerage business on Long Island, New York, called Sportsflight.
When Sportsflight was sued for breach of contract by another company from which it obtained the aircraft, Richmor Aviation of Columbia County, New York, heretofore secret costs and itineraries of a range of CIA rendition flights were entered into the court record before the U.S. government could block it.
The CIA did, however, succeed in a few other cases, where it was said to have invoked “state secrets” as a privilege to shut down litigation over its kidnap-and-transport programme, the Washington Post reported.
Bringing the details of the programme to public scrutiny Reprive said, over 1500 operational and legal documents were uncovered in the New York court case, which was fought from 2007 to 2011. The campaign group said that it had evidence that “a complicated billing chain obscured the ultimate end user of the flights – the CIA... [and] the U.S. government used the same aircraft – tail number N85VM, owned by Liverpool FC owner Philip Morse – for over 55 flights to Guantanamo Bay, Kabul, Bangkok, Dubai, Islamabad, Cairo, Baghdad, Djibouti, Rabat, Frankfurt, Ramstein, Rome, Tenerife, the Azores and Bucharest.”
In what might be a major setback for the U.S. federal government the documents also suggested that the U.S. State Department had been directly involved by supplying a “letter of convenience” to cover all rendition flights.
Reprieve's Legal Director Cori Crider said in a statement, “These documents give us an unprecedented insight into how the government outsourced renditions, right down to the complicated paper-trail the CIA used to cover their tracks.”
Labels: CIA, illegal detention, luxury jets
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
U.S. FORCES KILL OSAMA BIN LADEN
"Justice has been done," said U.S. President Barack Obama in a historic address. Mr. Obama announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed in a targetted attack on a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Osama bin Laden, leader of terror outfit al- Qaeda and alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks in New York City, was killed in Pakistan in a Special Forces operation by the United States, U.S. President Barack Obama announced on Sunday night.
In a statement issued shortly after 11.30 p.m., Mr. Obama confirmed that Osama, high on the list of U.S. authorities' most wanted men, had been killed after a “fire-fight” in Abbottabad, a military cantonment town not far from Islamabad. The President said U.S. forces subsequently “took custody of his body.”
Resistance
Media reports quoted administration officials saying Osama had offered resistance to the assault team, presumed to comprise U.S. Navy Seals, and was shot in the head. The end came when U.S. forces in helicopters attacked a large walled compound where Osama and some of his family members were said to be hiding.
Buried at sea
While U.S. officials said DNA evidence confirmed that Osama was killed, no official evidence of his identity was released yet. Senior administration officials, briefing the media, had said the body would be handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition, and reports confirmed that he was “buried at sea.”
Even as news of his death broke, large crowds gathered outside the White House, at Ground Zero — the site of the 9/11 attacks — and in Times Square, New York City. Comprising mostly college-aged youngsters, the masses waved the American flag, sang the U.S. national anthem and chanted “USA, USA”.
Touching upon the historic import of Osama's death after nearly a decade of the U.S.-led war on terror, Mr. Obama said in his address to the nation: “For over two decades, Bin Laden has been al-Qaeda's leader and symbol, and has continued to plot attacks against our country and our friends and allies.”
Mr. Obama said the death of Osama marked the “most significant achievement to date” in the U.S.' effort to defeat the al-Qaeda; however, he cautioned: “Yet his death does not mark the end of our effort. There is no doubt that the al-Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must — and we will — remain vigilant at home and abroad.”
“Justice done”
Echoing the popular mood of the jubilant masses on the streets, Mr. Obama said justice had been done. The former Presidents, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton – also associated with pursuing Osama for terror attacks on U.S. soil – also joined with Mr. Obama in hailing Osama killing as justice delivered.
‘Mass murderer of Muslims'
Even as spontaneous celebrations erupted across the country, Mr. Obama sought to emphasise that his country would never be at war with Islam, and also that Pakistan's counter-terrorism cooperation had been important in the operation. “Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims.” Indeed, the al-Qaeda had slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, Mr. Obama said.
There was some ambiguity regarding Pakistan's role in the operation. While Pakistani officials were quoted in the media as saying that they did have prior knowledge of the assault in Abbottabad, U.S. officials appeared to deny this, with one senior administration official saying: “We had shared this information with no other country, and... a very, very small group of individuals within the U.S. government was aware of this.”
However, Mr. Obama said he had called Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday night, and Pakistani officials “agree that this is a good and historic day for both of our nations.”
Covert operation
Regarding the covert operation, senior administration officials at the White House revealed numerous details regarding the intelligence gathering efforts that had set the stage for the assault.
Speaking to the media in a late-night conference call, they said that beginning in September 2010 the Central Intelligence Agency was said to have discussed with Mr. Obama “a set of assessments that led it to believe that in fact it was possible that Osama may be located at a compound in Pakistan.”
Following these discussions, officials said, it was determined in mid-February that there was a sound intelligence basis for pursuing the lead in an aggressive way and “developing courses of action to pursue Osama bin Laden at this location.”
With the President giving the final order to pursue the operation on the morning of April 29, the raid was sanctioned for Sunday, May 1, and the target, a large home with 18-foot walls and no telephone or internet connections, was identified based on intelligence reports compiled over four years.
40-minute affair
Spending less than 40 minutes in the compound, the U.S. forces “did not encounter any local authorities while performing the raid,” officials said, and apart from Osama, three adult males were said to have been killed, in all likelihood two couriers and Osama's adult son. Osama did offer resistance to the assault, officials said, confirming that one woman was also killed “when she was used as a shield by a male combatant.”
Following the assault, a helicopter was lost due to mechanical failure and “it had to be destroyed by the crew and the assault force.” Officials said crew members boarded the remaining aircraft to exit the compound.
Labels: 9/11 mastermind, Afghan war, CIA, jihadi groups, Obama administration ISI, Osama bin Laden killing, Pentagon, War on terror
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Swiss case against Pakistani nuclear smuggling ring could expose CIA role
From The Hindu
When a Swiss Magistrate recommended bringing nuclear smuggling charges against Friedrich Tinner and his two sons Urs and Marco this week, he could have only guessed at the ripple effect that the case would have in two faraway countries – Pakistan and the United States.
The Tinners, who are Swiss nationals, allegedly ran the most notorious nuclear smuggling ring in history – the shadowy web of disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
While Khan, who was released from house arrest in early 2009 despite confessing to illicit nuclear sales, is well known for smuggling nuclear products to states such as North Korea and Libya, what is likely to cause a stir in the United States is the fact that the Swiss case frustrates a “seven-year effort by the Central Intelligence Agency” to keep their own relationship with the Tinners secret.
According to reports in the American media, the Bush administration officials admitted that the Tinners not only worked for Khan but also secretly served as double agents for the CIA. In their latter capacity, the New York Times reported, the Tinners gave the U.S. spy agency information about Khan’s activities and helped the agency “introduce flaws into the equipment” sold by Khan to other countries.
Magistrate Andreas Müller, who held a news conference in Bern on Thursday to announce the charges, attacked the Swiss government for having “massively interfered in the wheels of justice by destroying almost all the evidence.”
While Mr. Müller criticised the government for ordering federal criminal police not to cooperate with him, what was left unsaid was that alleged CIA break-ins in Switzerland, and an “unexplained decision by the agency not to seize electronic copies of a number of nuclear bomb designs found on the computers of the Tinner family,” might also be exposed during the course of the forthcoming investigation.
According to the NYT,investigators from several countries said that one such blueprint “came from an early Chinese atomic bomb; two more advanced designs were from Pakistan’s program.”
Commenting on the murky involvement of the CIA and Swiss authorities, Mr. Müller said, “There are many parts. It is like a puzzle and if you put the puzzle together you get the whole picture.”
The possibility of official charges against the Tinners came even as a new book, “Fallout,” is on the verge of being released – a book that was said to describe “previously unknown details of the CIA’s secret relationship with the Tinners, which appears to have started around 2000.”
The book reportedly tells how the CIA agents sent the Tinners “coded instructions, spied on their family, tried to buy their silence and ultimately had the Bush administration press Switzerland to destroy evidence in an effort to keep the Tinners from being indicted and testifying in open court.”
In particular it is reported to describe how the Bush administration “grew so alarmed at possible disclosures of CIA links to the family that in 2006 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice lobbied Swiss officials to drop their investigation.”
Reports suggested that the next step would be for the Swiss Attorney General to decide whether to accept Mr. Müller's recommendations. The case continues.
When a Swiss Magistrate recommended bringing nuclear smuggling charges against Friedrich Tinner and his two sons Urs and Marco this week, he could have only guessed at the ripple effect that the case would have in two faraway countries – Pakistan and the United States.
The Tinners, who are Swiss nationals, allegedly ran the most notorious nuclear smuggling ring in history – the shadowy web of disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
While Khan, who was released from house arrest in early 2009 despite confessing to illicit nuclear sales, is well known for smuggling nuclear products to states such as North Korea and Libya, what is likely to cause a stir in the United States is the fact that the Swiss case frustrates a “seven-year effort by the Central Intelligence Agency” to keep their own relationship with the Tinners secret.
According to reports in the American media, the Bush administration officials admitted that the Tinners not only worked for Khan but also secretly served as double agents for the CIA. In their latter capacity, the New York Times reported, the Tinners gave the U.S. spy agency information about Khan’s activities and helped the agency “introduce flaws into the equipment” sold by Khan to other countries.
Magistrate Andreas Müller, who held a news conference in Bern on Thursday to announce the charges, attacked the Swiss government for having “massively interfered in the wheels of justice by destroying almost all the evidence.”
While Mr. Müller criticised the government for ordering federal criminal police not to cooperate with him, what was left unsaid was that alleged CIA break-ins in Switzerland, and an “unexplained decision by the agency not to seize electronic copies of a number of nuclear bomb designs found on the computers of the Tinner family,” might also be exposed during the course of the forthcoming investigation.
According to the NYT,investigators from several countries said that one such blueprint “came from an early Chinese atomic bomb; two more advanced designs were from Pakistan’s program.”
Commenting on the murky involvement of the CIA and Swiss authorities, Mr. Müller said, “There are many parts. It is like a puzzle and if you put the puzzle together you get the whole picture.”
The possibility of official charges against the Tinners came even as a new book, “Fallout,” is on the verge of being released – a book that was said to describe “previously unknown details of the CIA’s secret relationship with the Tinners, which appears to have started around 2000.”
The book reportedly tells how the CIA agents sent the Tinners “coded instructions, spied on their family, tried to buy their silence and ultimately had the Bush administration press Switzerland to destroy evidence in an effort to keep the Tinners from being indicted and testifying in open court.”
In particular it is reported to describe how the Bush administration “grew so alarmed at possible disclosures of CIA links to the family that in 2006 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice lobbied Swiss officials to drop their investigation.”
Reports suggested that the next step would be for the Swiss Attorney General to decide whether to accept Mr. Müller's recommendations. The case continues.
Labels: A. Q. Khan, CIA, nuclear smuggling, Tinners smuggling
Saturday, December 18, 2010
CIA chief in Pakistan flees after suspected ISI exposure
From The Hindu
The Islamabad station chief of the Central Intelligence Agency hastily departed from Pakistan on Thursday after his cover was blown through a suspected deliberate leak by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.
Jonathan Banks was identified as the head of the CIA’s Pakistan office, in a lawsuit filed against the United States’ secretive spy agency by a resident of North Waziristan. The resident, Kareem Khan, was said to have filed the case against the CIA and Mr. Banks for their role in organising drone strikes that killed his son and brother.
The legal case brought by Mr. Khan called for murder charges to be brought against Mr. Banks and the CIA, and also reportedly said they should be executed for their crimes. Mr. Khan’s lawyer was quoted by the Guardian saying he had obtained Mr. Banks’ name from Pakistani journalists.
While Pakistan was quick to deny any involvement in leaking Mr. Banks’ name, U.S. officials were quoted as saying that since he had been identified publicly Mr. Banks “had received a number of death threats,” and they “strongly suspected” that the ISI had a hand in the leak.
CIA operatives’ identities are usually classified information given the risks associated with the covert operations that they are often engaged in. Leaks of their names have occurred occasionally, as in the 2003 case of Valerie Plame, a CIA agent who resigned after officials in the Bush administration exposed her identity to the American media.
Intelligence officers here were also quoted by the New York Times as saying that the leak may have been in retaliation for a civil lawsuit filed in New York City last month implicating the ISI chief Ahmad Shuja Pasha in the Mumbai terror attacks of November 2008.
The incident laid bare the deep and growing mistrust between the U.S. and Pakistani spy agencies even as U.S. President Barack Obama made a speech this week in which he warned that “terrorist safe havens within their borders must be dealt with.”
This week, the White House also released a progress review for the U.S.’ Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, a report that sharply focused on the need for greater Pakistani cooperation in eliminating terrorist safe havens in the tribal border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Following Mr. Obama's speech there were reports of CIA-supported drone attacks that were said to have killed 54 suspected militants in Khyber Agency located in the border area. While drone strikes have enjoyed tacit support from the Pakistani government, they are a source of widespread resentment in the broader public.
The Islamabad station chief of the Central Intelligence Agency hastily departed from Pakistan on Thursday after his cover was blown through a suspected deliberate leak by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.
Jonathan Banks was identified as the head of the CIA’s Pakistan office, in a lawsuit filed against the United States’ secretive spy agency by a resident of North Waziristan. The resident, Kareem Khan, was said to have filed the case against the CIA and Mr. Banks for their role in organising drone strikes that killed his son and brother.
The legal case brought by Mr. Khan called for murder charges to be brought against Mr. Banks and the CIA, and also reportedly said they should be executed for their crimes. Mr. Khan’s lawyer was quoted by the Guardian saying he had obtained Mr. Banks’ name from Pakistani journalists.
While Pakistan was quick to deny any involvement in leaking Mr. Banks’ name, U.S. officials were quoted as saying that since he had been identified publicly Mr. Banks “had received a number of death threats,” and they “strongly suspected” that the ISI had a hand in the leak.
CIA operatives’ identities are usually classified information given the risks associated with the covert operations that they are often engaged in. Leaks of their names have occurred occasionally, as in the 2003 case of Valerie Plame, a CIA agent who resigned after officials in the Bush administration exposed her identity to the American media.
Intelligence officers here were also quoted by the New York Times as saying that the leak may have been in retaliation for a civil lawsuit filed in New York City last month implicating the ISI chief Ahmad Shuja Pasha in the Mumbai terror attacks of November 2008.
The incident laid bare the deep and growing mistrust between the U.S. and Pakistani spy agencies even as U.S. President Barack Obama made a speech this week in which he warned that “terrorist safe havens within their borders must be dealt with.”
This week, the White House also released a progress review for the U.S.’ Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, a report that sharply focused on the need for greater Pakistani cooperation in eliminating terrorist safe havens in the tribal border areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Following Mr. Obama's speech there were reports of CIA-supported drone attacks that were said to have killed 54 suspected militants in Khyber Agency located in the border area. While drone strikes have enjoyed tacit support from the Pakistani government, they are a source of widespread resentment in the broader public.
Labels: CIA, ISI, secret services
Thursday, July 15, 2010
CIA gave Amiri $5 million, says Post
From The Hindu
In the latest twist to the intrigue-laden saga of Shahram Amiri, media reports have cited unnamed officials in the Obama administration as saying that the Iranian nuclear scientist — said to have either defected to the United States or been kidnapped by the Central Intelligence Agency — received $5 million from the spy agency to reveal Iran’s nuclear secrets.
The Washington Post said in a news report on Thursday, “Shahram Amiri is not obligated to return the money but might be unable to access it after breaking off what U.S. officials described as significant cooperation with the CIA and abruptly returning to Iran.”
It further quoted unnamed official sources as saying, “Anything he got is now beyond his reach, thanks to the financial sanctions on Iran… He’s gone, but his money’s not. We have his information, and the Iranians have him.”
Mr. Amiri, who used to work at Iran’s Malek Ashtar University of Defence Technology disappeared during a visit to Saudi Arabia in June 2009, making a dramatic reappearance in the Iran Interests section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington earlier this week.
Alleges American conspiracy
After a brief stay there, Mr. Amiri returned to Tehran early on Thursday morning, where he was given a hero’s welcome. Mr. Amiri also spoke to journalists after his arrival at Imam Khomeini Airport, reportedly saying that he had no connection with Iran’s nuclear program and that he was the victim of an American conspiracy to wage “psychological warfare” against Iran.
Media reports also quoted Mr. Amiri as saying at that press conference that he had been offered $10 million to say on CNN that he had arrived in the U.S. to seek asylum. He added that just before his departure for Iran, he was offered $50 million and the option of residing in a European country of his choosing.
Mr. Amiri’s case generated renewed media interest in early 2010 when, initially, reports said that he had provided the U.S. with intelligence on Iran’s purported nuclear programme, and then three videos allegedly of Mr. Amiri appeared on the You Tube website.
Two of the videos, which appeared on June 8, presented contradictory explanations for Mr. Amiri’s disappearance, with one suggesting that he was captured, taken to a house in Saudi Arabia and given an injection, after which he awoke on a plane bound for the U.S.. The individual in the second video, also thought to be Mr. Amiri, said he was free and safe in the U.S., working on a Ph.D. and located in Arizona.
In a third video that emerged at the end of June, a man was observed saying, “I, Shahram Amiri, am a national of the Islamic Republic of Iran and a few minutes ago, I succeeded in escaping U.S. security agents in Virginia.”
Labels: CIA, Iranian scientist, Shahram Amiri
Missing Iranian nuclear scientist reappears in Washington
From The Hindu
Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist who vanished from the face of the earth while visiting Saudi Arabia in June 2009, has reappeared in the Iran Interests section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington.
His resurfacing in Washington is the latest twist in a Machiavellian saga at the heart of one of the most complex and potentially explosive areas of international politics — the Iran-United States nuclear controversy.
Shortly after Mr. Amiri (32) went missing while on a pilgrimage, reports emerged that he had defected to the U.S.. However, Tehran at the time alleged that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had kidnapped him. In March 2010, media reports here said that Mr. Amiri had provided the U.S. with intelligence on Iran’s purported nuclear programme.
Mr. Amiri used to work at Iran’s Malek Ashtar University of Defence Technology, which was listed for sanctions by the European Union in 2008 and said to be connected to the politically influential Revolutionary Guards.
Confirmation of his presence in the Iranian section reportedly came on Monday night from a Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman, Abdul Basit, who was quoted as saying that Mustafa Rahmani, head of the Iranian interests section, “is making arrangements for [Amiri’s] repatriation back to Iran”. Mr. Basit also noted that neither the Iranian nor American government had approached Pakistani authorities about Mr. Amiri's demands.
The BBC also reported that Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki had confirmed reports of Mr. Amiri having asked to be repatriated to Iran. “We hope that, without any obstacle, he can return to his country, that they [the U.S.], do not create any obstacle for his return to his homeland,” the report quoted Mr. Mottaki as saying.
Videos on YouTube
The latest twist to the denouement follows closely the appearance of three videos on the YouTube website, of an individual said to be Mr. Amiri. The first two videos, which appeared on June 8, presented contradictory explanations for Mr. Amiri’s disappearance.
According to a New York Times report, the first video showed a man identified as Mr. Amiri, who said in Persian that he was captured, taken to a house in Saudi Arabia and given an injection, after which he awoke on a plane bound for the U.S..
The second video, again thought to be of Mr. Amiri, showed a “young man in a suit… insisting that he was free and safe in the U.S., working on a Ph.D.” and located in Arizona. In that video he also reportedly said that he had no interest in politics or experience in nuclear weapons programs.
In the third video, which was broadcast by Iranian State Television on June 29, a man was observed as saying, “I, Shahram Amiri, am a national of the Islamic Republic of Iran and a few minutes ago I succeeded in escaping U.S. security agents in Virginia,” according to the BBC.
The BBC further noted that the man in the video said, “Presently, I am producing this video in a safe place. I could be rearrested at any time.” In this, he also reportedly debunked the claims made in the second video, calling it a “complete fabrication” and saying, “I am not free here and I am not permitted to contact my family. If something happens and I do not return home alive, the U.S .government will be responsible.”
The speaker in the video reportedly ended by urging Iranian officials and human rights organisations to “put pressure on the U.S. government for my release and return” further emphasising, “I was not prepared to betray my country under any kind of threats or bribery by the U.S. government.”
While U.S. officials could not be reached for comment on the latest developments, ABC News had earlier quoted CIA-linked individuals as saying, “The Iranian government has threatened to harm the family of a nuclear scientist who defected to the U.S. and helped provide crucial details about Iran’s burgeoning weapons program unless he returns home.”
The ABC also reported that the situation had become so grave that American officials feared that Mr. Amiri could re-defect, despite his operating as a CIA asset in Iran “for several years before his defection”.
Lisa Curtis of the Heritage Foundation and formerly with the CIA, said to The Hindu, “The CIA is not in the business of kidnapping nuclear scientists. It just doesn’t happen. This is likely a fabrication by Amiri for Iran to save face.”
Labels: CIA, Iranian scientist, Shahram Amiri
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Top U.S. intelligence officials in Pakistan for NYC bomb investigation
From The Hindu
The United States has sent two of its top intelligence officials to Pakistan to put greater pressure on its government to investigate the Pakistani connection to the failed Times Square bomb plot of May 2.
In the clearest indication of deep concern in the U.S. over the link between would-be bomber Faisal Shahzad and terror networks in Pakistan, Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta and National Security Advisor James L. Jones flew out to Pakistan on Monday night in a bid to speed up the investigation.
According to reports quoting administration officials, Mr. Panetta and Mr. Jones plan to discuss efforts to prevent future terrorist attacks in their meetings there. Reports also cited the U.S. government’s intention to ensure “continued Pakistani cooperation in determining what role the Pakistani Taliban may have played in assisting Faisal Shahzad,” the suspected bomber, who is now in custody and providing intelligence on terror networks in Pakistan to U.S. officials.
In this context, National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer said in an email on Monday night: “In light of the failed Times Square terrorist attack and other terrorist attacks that trace to the border region, we believe that it is time to redouble our efforts with our allies in Pakistan to close this safe haven and create an environment where we and the Pakistani people can lead safe and productive lives.”
In particular, Washington was said to be keen on an aggressive push by Pakistani authorities to take action against al-Qaeda and groups linked to it, located in the tribal areas.
In a report by the New York Times, one senior administration official was quoted as saying that Mr. Jones “would not threaten the Pakistanis, but would convey the risks to the country’s relationship with the U.S. if a deadly terrorist attack originated there.” He would also “prod them” to take tougher steps against the Taliban and other insurgent groups, the official reportedly said.
Labels: Al-Qaeda, CIA, Faisal Shahzad, Leon Panetta, Pakistani terror groups, Times Square bomb
Monday, January 04, 2010
Sharper focus on security
From The Hindu
When Nigerian terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarded the Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines Flight 253 at Amsterdam, he was already in the least-restrictive, 550,000-person Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database of the United States National Counterterrorism Centre. As a result of what President Obama candidly described as “a mix of human and systemic failures,” Abdulmutallab’s name never moved from there to the 4,000-person no-fly list, nor was his multiple-entry U.S. visa revoked. The botched Christmas-day terror attack occurred despite the Central Investigative Agency receiving information last November from Abdulmutallab’s father regarding the terror risk that his son posed; further the National Security Agency had intercepted, in August, al-Qaeda chatter in Yemen on a terror plot involving a Nigerian. The implied inter-agency coordination failures have sparked a sharp debate on national security, mostly along party lines. The Republican opposition, undoubtedly mindful of the mid-term Congressional elections in November, has called into question Mr. Obama’s track record against terror, with former Vice President Dick Cheney saying that the President was “trying to pretend we are not at war.” The White House hit back saying, “Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al-Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country.”
Yet there is a danger in dismissing specific Republican questions as opportunistic or irrelevant political posturing. President Obama would do well to take the queries seriously, especially given that the attack was foiled by circumstance rather than any prior intelligence. For example, it was fair to ask, as Representative John Boehner of Ohio did, what exactly is the administration’s “overarching strategy to confront the terrorist threat and keep America safe”; or to criticise, as Republican of the House Intelligence Committee Peter Hoekstra did, the lack of follow-up action when data on Abdulmutallab became available months ago. Some of these arguments may also paradoxically undermine the Republican campaign: Democrats have been quick to point out that it was House Republicans who voted this year against a $44 billion bill financing additional airport security measures. In particular, there is a strong case for using full-body scanners at airports — devices that would have detected the materials Abdulmutallab carried — subject to privacy concerns being addressed. Against the backdrop of intelligence lapses and coordination failures is the spectre of a shift in the balance of Congressional power after the November elections. A new Congress that is less overwhelmingly Democratic is likely to keep up the pressure on President Obama to address security concerns more rigorously.
When Nigerian terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarded the Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines Flight 253 at Amsterdam, he was already in the least-restrictive, 550,000-person Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database of the United States National Counterterrorism Centre. As a result of what President Obama candidly described as “a mix of human and systemic failures,” Abdulmutallab’s name never moved from there to the 4,000-person no-fly list, nor was his multiple-entry U.S. visa revoked. The botched Christmas-day terror attack occurred despite the Central Investigative Agency receiving information last November from Abdulmutallab’s father regarding the terror risk that his son posed; further the National Security Agency had intercepted, in August, al-Qaeda chatter in Yemen on a terror plot involving a Nigerian. The implied inter-agency coordination failures have sparked a sharp debate on national security, mostly along party lines. The Republican opposition, undoubtedly mindful of the mid-term Congressional elections in November, has called into question Mr. Obama’s track record against terror, with former Vice President Dick Cheney saying that the President was “trying to pretend we are not at war.” The White House hit back saying, “Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al-Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country.”
Yet there is a danger in dismissing specific Republican questions as opportunistic or irrelevant political posturing. President Obama would do well to take the queries seriously, especially given that the attack was foiled by circumstance rather than any prior intelligence. For example, it was fair to ask, as Representative John Boehner of Ohio did, what exactly is the administration’s “overarching strategy to confront the terrorist threat and keep America safe”; or to criticise, as Republican of the House Intelligence Committee Peter Hoekstra did, the lack of follow-up action when data on Abdulmutallab became available months ago. Some of these arguments may also paradoxically undermine the Republican campaign: Democrats have been quick to point out that it was House Republicans who voted this year against a $44 billion bill financing additional airport security measures. In particular, there is a strong case for using full-body scanners at airports — devices that would have detected the materials Abdulmutallab carried — subject to privacy concerns being addressed. Against the backdrop of intelligence lapses and coordination failures is the spectre of a shift in the balance of Congressional power after the November elections. A new Congress that is less overwhelmingly Democratic is likely to keep up the pressure on President Obama to address security concerns more rigorously.
Labels: Al-Qaeda, CIA, Nigerian terror suspect, NSA, security, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
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