Two US officials experienced symptoms similar to ones suffered abroad that were probably result of directed energy device
The White House has said it is investigating “unexplained health incidents” after a report that two US officials in the Washington area experienced sudden symptoms similar to the “Havana syndrome” symptoms suffered by American diplomats and spies abroad.
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Continue reading...The former plane enthusiast, lawyer and judo brown belt owned a cafe that staged erotica nights and worked for President Obama
Avril Haines, who now oversees all 16 US intelligence agencies, is unlike any of the spies who came before her, and not just because she is the country’s first female director of national intelligence.
She is also the first intelligence chief to have to make an emergency landing while trying to cross the Atlantic in a tiny plane; the first to take a year out in Japan to learn judo; and surely the first anywhere in the world to have owned a cafe-bookstore that staged frequent erotica nights.
Continue reading...Jerrold M Post, a psychiatrist who profiled dictators for the CIA and who declared Donald Trump a “dangerous, destructive charismatic leader”, has died of Covid-19. He was 86.
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Continue reading...Unnamed American died alongside four Somali officers when extremists detonated a car bomb
A CIA officer died during a raid in Somalia last month targeting a key extremist thought to be responsible for an attack that killed an American soldier in Kenya last year, local intelligence officials have told the Guardian.
The officer was deployed alongside Somali and US special forces during the operation at Gendershe, a coastal village about 30 miles south-west of Mogadishu, and died when fighters from the al-Shabaab extremist movement detonated a car bomb minutes after the raid began on 6 November, the official said.
Continue reading...John Brennan led the agency as it and others concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to benefit Donald Trump
The former CIA director John Brennan was interviewed on Friday by US attorney John Durham’s team, as part of its inquiry into the investigation of Russian election interference in 2016.
Related: US Senate report goes beyond Mueller to lay bare Trump campaign's Russia links
Continue reading...Documentary reveals evidence confirming a British spy’s role in restoring the Shah in 1953 – and how the Observer exposed the plot
The hidden role of a British secret service officer who led the coup that permanently altered the Middle East is to be revealed for the first time since an Observer news story was suppressed in 1985.
The report, headlined “How MI6 and CIA joined forces to plot Iran coup”, appeared in the 26 May edition but was swiftly quashed. It exposed the fact that an MI6 man, Norman Darbyshire, had run a covert and violent operation to reinstate the Shah of Iran as ruler of the country in 1953. Yet just a few days after the newspaper came out, all fresh evidence of this British operation and of Darbyshire’s identity disappeared from public debate.
Continue reading...Levinson disappeared 13 years ago after being sent on a mission to Kish island by CIA analysts who had no authority to do so
Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007, died in Iranian custody, according to a statement from his family.
The statement said Levinson’s family received the news from US officials but did not know how or when he died, only that his death preceded the coronavirus outbreak that has ravaged Iran.
Continue reading...Swiss government orders inquiry after revelations Crypto AG was owned and operated by US and German intelligence
The Swiss government has ordered an inquiry into a global encryption company based in Zug following revelations it was owned and controlled for decades by US and German intelligence.
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Continue reading...Court says state is entitled to any profits from Permanent Record because its publication breached non-disclosure agreements
Edward Snowden is not entitled to the profits from his memoir Permanent Record, and any money made must go to the US government, a judge has ruled.
Permanent Record, in which Snowden recounts how he came to the decision to leak the top secret documents revealing government plans for mass surveillance, was published in September. Shortly afterwards, the US government filed a civil lawsuit contending that publication was “in violation of the non-disclosure agreements he signed with both the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA)”, and that the release of the book without pre-publication review by the agencies was “in violation of his express obligations”. Snowden’s lawyers had argued that if the author had believed that the government would review his book in good faith, he would have submitted it for review.
Continue reading...A day after a lawyer for the whistleblower who raised alarms about Donald Trump’s dealings with Ukraine said his client is willing to answer written questions submitted by House Republicans, the president tweeted: “Written answers not acceptable!”
Related: 'Quid pro quo, yes or no?' Trump allies face Ukraine question
Continue reading...Document details 14 deadly raids by pro-government units with support of US intelligence
The Afghan soldiers who swept through Kulalgo village one late August night shot three of Dr Ulfatullah’s relatives carefully, a single bullet through their left eye, faces otherwise untouched as blood pooled below their bodies on the floor of the family home.
The last killing was less precise, and left the face of university student Ansarullah badly disfigured. His family thought perhaps he had heard the muffled gunshot that ended a cousin’s life, and briefly tried to struggle against his captors.
Continue reading...Diplomat who disputed the US intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003
Joseph Wilson, who has died aged 69 of organ failure, was the American diplomat whose first-hand questioning of the rationale behind the 2003 invasion of Iraq earned him the enmity of the George W Bush administration, and saw his wife Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA operative exposed publicly in retaliation.
In 2002, with the administration building its case for war with Iraq, the CIA sent Wilson, usually known as “Joe”, to investigate whether the Iraqis had sought to buy yellowcake uranium ore, which might be enriched for use in nuclear weapons, from Niger.
Continue reading...Edward Snowden has spent the last six years living in exile in Russia and has now decided to publish his memoirs, Permanent Record. In the book he reflects on his life leading up to the biggest leak of top secret documents in history, and the impact this had on his relationship with his partner, Lindsay Mills. The Guardian's Ewen MacAskill, who helped break Snowden's story in 2013, has been given exclusive access to meet him
Oleg Smolenkov hadn’t been seen after he went on holiday in 2017, but Russian authorities concluded he had fled abroad
The CIA Russian spy drama currently gripping Washington has taken a new turn as Russian media reported that a suspected US mole inside the Kremlin was a member of Vladimir Putin’s administration who disappeared in 2017 and was initially thought to have been murdered.
Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, confirmed the man, Oleg Smolenkov, had worked for the Kremlin but played down his importance, insisting he was a low-level employee who had been fired two years ago.
Continue reading...The US extracted “one of its highest-level covert sources inside the Russian government” in 2017, it was reported on Monday, in part because of concerns that mishandling of classified intelligence by Donald Trump and his administration could jeopardise the source’s safety.
CNN cited “multiple Trump administration officials with direct knowledge” of the matter and said “a person directly involved in the discussions” said the move was made because Trump and his officials could not be fully trusted.
Continue reading...Tehran says some of the Iranians allegedly spying for US have been sentenced to death
Seventeen Iranian nationals allegedly recruited by the CIA to spy on Iran’s nuclear and military sites have been arrested, Tehran said on Monday, adding that some of them had already been sentenced to death.
The arrests took place over the past months and those taken into custody worked on “sensitive sites” in the country’s military and nuclear facilities, an Iranian intelligence official told a press conference in Tehran.
Continue reading...The UN report into October’s murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul is the fullest account yet of events and as horrifying as one would expect. Agnes Callamard, the special rapporteur, describes a “deliberate, premeditated execution”; secretly recorded conversations before his visit discussed the arrival of the “sacrificial animal” and dismemberment of a body. She concludes that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia should be investigated because there is “credible evidence” that he and other senior officials are liable for the killing – a conclusion also reached by the CIA – despite the kingdom’s insistence that it was a rogue operation.
No reminder should be needed of the brutality of the killing of Khashoggi, a widely respected journalist living in Washington. Even Saudi Arabia’s business and diplomatic allies blanched, or at least felt obliged to put some distance between themselves and the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. The kingdom, after repeated lies about what happened, announced that it would try 11 suspects for his murder.
Continue reading...The bugged shoes and poison brollies are fun and fascinating. But why are the sections about state-sponsored torture and assassination so uncritical?
Sitting in a glass case, standing out against a backdrop of deep red, there’s an ice axe that still bears a rust mark, the consequence of a bloody fingerprint left on it decades ago. One day in 1940, this axe was hidden inside Ramón Mercader’s suit jacket, suspended by a string, as he walked into the office of Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary living in exile in Mexico, having been sentenced to death as an “enemy of the people” in his home country.
Mercader slipped behind Trotsky’s desk and brought the axe down with tremendous force, penetrating two-and-three-quarter inches into his skull. Trotsky died 26 hours later. Mercader served 20 years in prison then returned to a hero’s welcome in Moscow. On his deathbed in 1978, his last words were: “I hear it always. I hear the scream. I know he’s waiting for me on the other side.”
Continue reading...Former special agent jailed for selling classified US ‘defence information’ for $25,000 in 2017
An ex-CIA officer was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Friday for spying for China in a case called part of an “alarming trend” in the US intelligence community.
Kevin Mallory, 62, was convicted under the Espionage Act for selling classified US “defence information” to a Chinese intelligence agent for $25,000 during trips to Shanghai in March and April 2017.
Continue reading...Pro-democracy campaigner İyad el-Baghdadi has been vocal critic of Saudi crown prince
The CIA has warned Norway that a prominent Arab activist who is living in the country under asylum protection is facing a potential threat from Saudi Arabia, the Guardian has learned.
The pro-democracy activist, İyad el-Baghdadi, is a vocal critic of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
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