Category: Spooks
Two Mossad Operatives Institutionalized
One of the large mental health hospitals in Israel was recently surprised to receive a young, good-looking patient in a psychotic state who was accompanied by a personal security guard, Yedioth Ahronoth reported.
The doctors, who asked why the woman was accompanied by a guard, were shocked to learn that she was a Mossad agent and that the security guard was not assigned to her in order assure her safety or protect her life, but to ensure that she not reveal any state secrets in her shaky mental state.
The Mossad guard’s orders were clear: “It is forbidden that the organization’s secrets be passed on to those unauthorized to hear them.” The doctors, who are unaccustomed to the presence of a third party during their treatment sessions, were left with no choice but to acquiesce to their demands. In addition, the staff had to receive a security clearance before being allowed to work on her exceptional case.
To their complete amazement, another young woman, also accompanied by a secret agent charged with ensuring that the she not leak any state secrets, arrived at the institution just a short time later. The doctors learned that she, too, is a Mossad agent.
Experts said Saturday that the nature of the young women’s work was most likely the cause of their psychosis.
Anwar Al-Awlaki Timeline
Former CIA Director William Webster is taking a close look at how the FBI handled its investigation of a radical imam named Anwar al-Awlaki who had several e-mail exchanges with the suspected Fort Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Hasan.
April 1971: Anwar al-Awlaki born in Cruces, N.M. while father is on diplomatic posting.
1978: Leaves U.S. for Yemen.
Jan. 13, 1988: Issued U.S. passport.
June 5, 1990: Enters U.S. in Chicago with Yemeni passport with J-1 exchange visitor U.S. visa issued in Sana’a.
June 6, 1990: Applies for Social Security card. Claims he was born in Sana’a, Yemen.
June 8, 1990: SSN 521-77-7121 issued to Awlaki.
Aug. 21, 1991: Enters U.S. in Chicago.
1991: Attends Colorado State University on a scholarship from Yemen.
Jan. 29, 1992: Enters U.S. in New York City.
Nov. 18, 1993: Applies for a U.S. passport in Fort Collins, Colo.
1994: Graduates from Colorado State with bachelor’s in civil engineering.
1996: Named imam of Masjid al-Rabat in San Diego.
1996: Busted for soliciting a prostitute in San Diego.
Time uncertain: Arrested by San Diego police “for hanging around a school.” (9/11 Commission MFR FBI Agent #59)
1997: Busted again for soliciting a prostitute in San Diego.
1998 & 1999: Serves as vice president of Charitable Society for Social Welfare Inc., the U.S. branch of a Yemeni charity headed by Abdul Majeed al-Zindani. Federal prosecutors in a New York terrorism-financing case later describe the charity as “a front organization” that was “used to support al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.”
January 1999: Enrolls in San Diego State University master’s in educational leadership program. SDSU spokesman says the school does not have records showing Awlaki earned a degree.
June 1999: FBI investigates Awlaki after learning that he may have been contacted by Ziyad Khaleel, who bought a satellite phone bin Laden used in the 1990s.
1999-2000: During its investigation, FBI learns that Awlaki knows individuals from the Holy Land Foundation and others involved in raising money for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Sources alleged that Aulaqi had other extremist connections. (9/11 Commission Report)
February 2000: Four calls between Awlaki and Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi who helped Al-Hamzi and Almihdhar find an apartment in San Diego. An FBI agent tells 9/11 Commission staff he is “98 percent sure” that the two hijackers were using al-Bayoumi’s phone at this time. (9/11 Commission MFR FBI Agent #63)
Early 2000: Visited by a subject of a Los Angeles FBI investigation closely associated with Blind Sheikh [Omar Abdel] Rahman. (Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11)
Early 2000: Several sources tell FBI that Alwaki “had closed-door meetings in San Diego” with Alhazmi, al-Midhar and another unidentified person “whom al-Bayoumi had asked to help the hijackers.” (Congressional Joint Inquiry)
Feb. 3, 2000: FBI electronic communication, background searches re: Awlaki. (9/11 Commission report)
March 2000: FBI closes its investigation, stating “the imam … does not meet the criterion for [further] investigation.” (Congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11)
July-August 2000: Resigns from San Diego mosque.
Summer-Fall 2000: Travels abroad to “various countries.” (SD Union-Tribune 10/1/01)
January 2001: Moves to Virginia. Employed at Dar Al-Hijra Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., largest mosque in the country.
January 2001: Enrolls in George Washington University’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development, pursing a Ph.D in human resource development.
Unknown: Meets Nidal Hasan, future Fort Hood shooter.
Early 2001: Named Muslim chaplain at GWU.
April 2001: Al-Hazmi and Hani Hanjour arrive in Falls Church and attend Dar Al-Hijra mosque. Awlaki denies having contact with the men in Virginia. (9/11 Commission report)
Before Sept. 11, 2001: Awlaki returns briefly to San Diego (9/11 Commission MFR) “Reportedly acted suspiciously by declining help with boxes he was transporting in a rental car (driven only 37 miles) and by refusing to provide any local address to the rental agent.” (9/11 Commission MFR FBI Agent #59)
Sept. 17, 2001: In comments published on IslamOnline, Alawki suggested that Israelis may have been responsible for the 9/11 attacks and that the FBI “went into the roster of the airplanes and whoever has a Muslim or Arab name became the hijacker by default.”
Sept. 15-19, 2001: Interviewed four times by FBI. Awlaki says he did not recognize Hazmi’s name but identifies his picture. Admitted meeting with Hazmi several times, he claimed not to remember any specifics of what they discussed. Describes Hazmi as a soft-spoken Saudi student who used to appear at the mosque with a companion but who did not have a large circle of friends. Does not identify Almihdhar.
September-November 2001: Interviewed numerous times by reporters, including National Geographic, Ray Suarez and The Washington Post.
2001-2002: Awlaki observed allegedly taking Washington-area prostitutes into Virginia. Authorities contemplate charging him under the Mann Act, reserved for nabbing pimps who transport prostitutes across state lines.
March 2002: Awlaki leaves for U.K.
March 31, 2002: Lectures at Quran Expo in London
April 2002: Employment with Dar Al-Hijra mosque ends.
2002: Federal prosecutors in Colorado receive information from Ray Fournier, a federal diplomatic security agent in San Diego who was investigating Awlaki for passport fraud.
June 2002: Figures in Operation Green Quest, a terrorism-related money-laundering investigation.
Mid-2002: Radwan Abu-Issa, the subject of a Houston Joint Terrorism Task Force investigation, sends money to Awlaki, according to a document in a restricted government database. Awlaki’s name was placed on an early version of what is now the federal terror watch list.
June 17, 2002: Federal magistrate in Colorado signs warrant for Awlaki’s arrest for passport fraud.
October 2002: A federal diplomatic special agent in Colorado began investigating in preparation to take the case to a grand jury learns Awlaki corrected the place of birth on his Social Security application to New Mexico.
Oct. 8, 2002: FBI electronic communication, interview re: Awlaki. (9/11 Commission Report)
Oct. 9, 2002: Arrest warrant rescinded.
Oct. 10, 2002: Arrives in New York on a Saudi Airlines flight from Riyadh. Briefly detained by INS.
Oct. 11, 2002: Criminal case terminated.
Late 2002: Visits Fairfax, Virginia home of Ali al-Timimi, a radical cleric, and asked him about recruiting young Muslims for “violent jihad.” Al-Timimi, is now serving a life sentence for inciting followers to fight with the Taliban against Americans.
Late 2002: Departs U.S. for London.
June 2003: Delivers lecture at Muslim Association of Britain symposium in London
December 2003: Islamic Forum of Europe lecture: “Stop police terror.”
Dec. 18, 2003: British MP Louise Ellman tells House of Commons calls Muslim Association of Britain is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood; says Awlaki “is reportedly wanted for questioning by the FBI in connection with the 9/11 al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.”
Early 2004: Moves to Yemen.
2004: Lectures at Imam University in Sana’a, Yemen, a school headed by Abdul Majeed al-Zindani.
Mid-2006: Awlaki arrested in Yemen. Claims he was held at the request of the U.S. government.
Oct. 17, 2006: Yemeni secret police raid swept up eight foreigners living in Sana’a, under surveillance by the CIA and British intelligence, and at least 12 other men across Yemen. Yemeni authorities insist they dismantled an al-Qa’ida cell and disrupted a gun-running ring to neighbouring Somalia, although no evidence is found. Awlaki (identified as “Abu Atiq”) said to be key to the raid.
September 2007: FBI agents interview Awlaki in prison. Ask about contacts with 9/11 hijackers.
December 2007: Awlaki released after 18 months confinement in Yemen, almost all of it in solitary confinement.
February 2008: Registers http://www.anwar-alawlaki.com
February 2008: U.S. counterterrorism officials link Awlaki to terrorism, The Washington Post reports. “There is good reason to believe Anwar Aulaqi has been involved in very serious terrorist activities since leaving the United States, including plotting attacks against America and our allies,” an anonymous U.S. counterterrorism official tells the Post.
Unknown: Awlaki leaves Sana’a and moves to remote Shabwa region.
Dec. 17, 2008: Maj. Nidal Hasan contacts Awlaki via e-mail. “Do you remember me? I used to pray with you at the Virginia mosque.” Awlaki tells Al-Jazeera: “He was asking about killing American soldiers and officers. [He asked] whether this is a religiously legitimate act or not.”
“…the first message was asking for an edict regarding the [possibility] of a Muslim soldier killing his colleagues who serve with him in the American army. In other messages, Nidal was clarifying his position regarding the killing of Israeli civilians. He was in support of this, and in his messages he mentioned the religious justifications for targeting the Jews with missiles. Then there were some messages in which he asked for a way through which he could transfer some funds to us [and by this] participate in charitable activities.”
December 2008: San Diego JTTF opens investigation into intercepted e-mails between Awlaki and Maj. Nidal Hasan. (FBI statement)
Jan. 1, 2009: Awlaki speaks via satellite link at London Muslim Centre. Event organized by Noor Pro Media.
January 2009: In blog post, Awlaki asks: “Today the world turns upside down when one Muslim performs a martyrdom operation. Can you imagine what would happen if that is done by seven hundred Muslims on the same day?!”
February 2009: Awlaki blog post, “I pray that Allah destroys America and all its allies and the day that happens, and I assure you it will and sooner than you think, I will be very pleased.”
Early 2009: E-mail contacts continue between Awlaki and Hassan. FBI San Diego forwards two messages to Washington Field Office. Later e-mail described as “more serious” not shared.
July 2009: Awlaki praises insurgent attack on Yemeni troops in Marib.
Aug. 4: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Nigerian suspected of trying to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253, attends Sana’a Institute for the Arabic Language, according to the Yemeni Foreign Ministry.
August: The U.S. National Security Agency intercepts al-Qaida conversations about an unidentified “Nigerian.”
Sept. 21: Abdulmutallab leaves Sana’a Institute.
Fall: NSA intercepts “voice-to-voice communication” between Abdulmutallab and Awlaki indicating that Aulaqi “was in some way involved in facilitating this guy’s transportation or trip through Yemen.”
October: Abdulmutallab travels to Shabwa province. The 23-year-old engineering graduate probably met with al-Qaeda operatives in a house built by Awlaki.
Fall: Yemeni Foreign Minister Rashad Alimi states Abdulmutallab meets Awlaki at a remote meeting place in Shabwa province. Abdulmutallab tells FBI that Alwaki personally blessed attack.
Nov. 5, 2009: Hasan allegedly kills 13 at Fort Hood.
Nov. 7, 2009: Post on Awlaki’s website praises Hasan as a “hero.”
Dec. 7, 2009: Abdulmutallab leaves Yemen for Ethiopia.
Dec. 23, 2009: Al-Jazeera broadcasts interview with Awlaki.
Dec. 24, 2009: Awlaki falsely reported as killed in Yemeni airstrike. The strike by Yemeni air forces targeted a meeting attended by Nasir al-Whaishi and (former Guantanamo detainee) Said al-Shiri at a hideout of al-Qaida in the Rafdh area of the al-Said districts in Shabwa governorate Yemen. U.S. and Saudi intelligence reportedly provide assistance.
Dec. 25, 2009: Rep. Pete Hoekstra, senior Republican on House Intelligence Committee, suggests there may be a link between Awlaki and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
Dec. 29, 2009: Alwaki became “operational” sometime over past year, senior U.S. official tells Fox News.
Jan. 3, 2010: “Mr. Awlaki is a problem. He’s clearly a part of Al Qaida in Arabian Peninsula. He’s not just a cleric. He is in fact trying to instigate terrorism,” said John Brennan, deputy national security advisor for counterterrorism and homeland security.
Jan. 14: Ali Mohamed Al Anisi, the director of Yemen’s National Security Agency and a senior presidential adviser, said talks were under way with members of Mr. Awlaki’s tribe in an effort to convince the cleric to turn himself in.
John O. Brennan, counterterrorism czar
The Bergen Record ran a profile this weekend of John O. Brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism aka Obama’s counterterrorism czar.
He meets with the president several times a day, he said. He is Obama’s point man, for example, monitoring the military and law enforcement investigation into the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas. He’s also been dispatched to Yemen to deliver private administration messages to leaders.
“My job is to make sure that the White House is doing everything possible … to prevent any type of catastrophe,” Brennan said in the interview, which took place before the Fort Hood shootings. “The president’s priority, first and foremost, is to save lives.”
Other crises that command Brennan’s attention include the H1N1 flu, the arrest of terror suspect Najibullah Zazi
The Record doesn’t say it, but Brennan has one of the most critical jobs in the national security apparatus.
Brennan is the “national continuity coordinator,” which means he’s responsible for agency-wide policy planning to ensure that the U.S. government survives a major catastrophe like a nuclear attack.
In the event of another 9/11, Brennan would be the White House point man. He has “direct and immediate” access to the president.
A 2007 presidential directive defines the kind of events Brennan must prepare for: “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.”
Brennan spent 25 years in the CIA, including a stint as station chief in Riyadh in the 1990s and George Tenet’s chief of staff. He left the agency in 2005 and became a principal intelligence advisor to Obama.
Brennan withdrew his name from consideration as Obama’s CIA director after he was attacked for public statements in support of interrogation. In a speech in August, however, Brennan said tactics such as waterboarding “were not in keeping with our values as Americans, and these practices have been rightly terminated and should not, and will not, happen again.”
Who was Anton Surikov? (Updated)
Several publications are reporting the passing of a former Russian intelligence officer named Anton Surikov, who died at the age of 48.
Axisglobe identifies Surikov as a shareholder of Far West LLC — reportedly a shadowy intelligence/military consulting group. Kavkaz Center, a Chechen website, reports that he was poisoned. Numerous reports link him to the CIA.
Surikov, born 1961 in Moscow, was the son of Victor Surikov, a designer of Soviet ICBMs. Anton Surikov was a man who at one time was apparently trusted by both sides in Russia’s bitter conflict with separatist rebels in Cechnya.
In the early 1990s, Surikov and Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev met when they both fought on behalf of separatists battling the Georgian government. Surikov commanded a detatchment of special forces for Russian military intelligence (GRU).
From 1990-1996, Surikov worked at the Institute of USA and Canada Academy of Sciences of the USSR (ISKRAN), a Russian think tank, according to an archived (Russian) copy of his bio.
In 1994, he was seconded to Department of Defense Studies at King’s College, London University, which published two of his books on various aspects of Russia’s domestic and defense policies. One of Surikov’s books, Crime in Russia: International Implications is based on documents collected by Russia’s Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK).
While at the institute, Surikov become an advisor in 1995 for the Institute of Defense Studies.
In September 1996, Yuri Maslyukov, president of the Duma’s Committee on Economic Policy, hired Surikov as his assistant. When Maslyukov became first deputy prime minister two years later, Surikov went to work in the Kremlin.
In 1999, Surikov used his contacts with Basayev to arrange a meeting between the Chechen rebel leader and a top Russian official, Alexander Voloshin.
Surikov and the two men met in the south of France at the villa of Iran-Contra figure Adnan Khashoggi, a wealthy Saudi arms merchant.
The meeting was secretly recorded by French intelligence and later leaked to the press and been the subject of much speculation ever since. (See this 2004 paper (.pdf) from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.)
When Putin took over as president, Surikov briefly worked into Russia’s Aircraft Corporation, MiG and then became chief of staff to the Duma committee on industry, construction and high technology.
In 2001, Surikov accused Russian military officials of colluding with Afghan drug lords:
In an interview published last week (dated 29 May) in the “Moscow News” (“Moskovskie Novosti”) weekly, former Russian military intelligence officer Anton Surikov charged that a substantial portion of the drugs produced in Afghanistan had been directly shipped from the Tajik capital Dushanbe on board Russian military planes, helicopters, and trains.
Surikov said: “You can come to an arrangement [with custom officials] so that the search of military transport planes remains purely formal. The same goes for train convoys carrying military cargo [to Russia from Tajikistan].”
According to his account, Afghan opium producers usually sold drugs to Tajik citizens who smuggled them into Tajikistan with the active complicity of Russian border guards. The drugs were then put on board military planes or trains en route to Russia, where they were sold to local criminal gangs.
Surikov retired from government service in 2002, according to his bio. He was affiliated with the Institute for Globalisation Studies, a think tank headed by a leftist professor.
He also served on the board of the Swiss firm Far West Ltd., which was closely affiliated with the Internet news site, Pravda-info. Far West said it “specializes in consulting work on questions of security in conducting business in regions of the world with unstable environments and hiring personnel for foreign private military companies.” The company said it had offices in Dubai, Afghanistan, Colombia, Kosovo, Georgia, and Russia.
Most recently, Surikov was providing informed speculation to the Financial Times on the mystery the Arctic Sea, a cargo ship that vanished off the coast of Portugal:
But Anton Surikov, a Russian security expert and former military intelligence officer, advances the theory that smugglers, with the backing of elements in Russia’s security services, may have loaded ammunition and anti-tank missiles bound for Hizbollah in Lebanon, and four Kh-55 cruise missiles to be fitted to Sukhoi-24 bombers for Iran, on to the ship as it underwent repairs in Kaliningrad.
Mr Surikov says he believes that when the the ship was boarded in the dead of night on July 24 off Sweden, the attackers found the weapons cache, photographed it as evidence and left.
His scenario fits with initial reports conveyed by police in Sweden that the crew reported being attacked by about 10 men posing as Swedish policemen who searched the ship and departed in an inflatable dinghy.
The photos were then shown, thinks Mr Surikov, to the UK and US security services – which arranged a second incursion as the Arctic Sea disappeared on August 1. “A behind-the-scenes trade between state powers then began,” he says.
Detecting Border Tunnels
Authorities in San Diego have found a tunnel under construction beneath the U.S.-Mexico border:
SAN DIEGO – Mexican authorities, acting on information provided by federal investigators from the multi-agency San Diego Tunnel Task Force, conducted enforcement actions Wednesday targeting a sophisticated, but still incomplete underground passageway that originates in Tijuana, Mexico, and extends more than 860 feet into the United States.
The tunnel, which measures just under 1,000 feet in length overall and reaches a depth of 90 to 100 feet, did not have an entry point in the United States. The passageway has lighting, electrical and ventilation systems and is equipped with an elevator. When Mexican authorities entered the passageway Wednesday morning on the Mexican side, they encountered more than a dozen individuals who were subsequently taken into custody. All of those arrested are believed to be Mexican citizens.
Initial reports indicate the tunnel has been under construction for approximately two years. So far, there have been no arrests in the United States, but the investigation is ongoing.
The press release credits the inter-agency San Diego Tunnel Task Force, which “uses an array of high-tech equipment and intelligence information to pinpoint the location of underground passageways along the border in the region.”
To date, federal authorities have discovered more than 120 cross-border tunnels along the Southwest border. (The photo above is from 2007)
Truth is, these discoveries are typically the result of good, old-fashioned police work, not technology, according to a recent Science Daily story:
“All of them have been found by accident or human intelligence,” said Ed Turner, a project manager with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T). “None by technology.”
The problem of detecting underground tunnels has frustrated geologists since the 1960s when the Vietcong used them to devastating effect during the Vietnam War. In the 1970s, tunnels were discovered (through intelligence) in Korea’s DMZ. In the 1990s, the Southwest border kept the problem alive, although not a priority.
The terrorist threat, however, has opened the floodgates of money for tunnel detection.
Among the groups at work today on the problem include major defense contractors, the intelligence community, the Department of Homeland Security, numerous components of the Defense Department and unspecified “international partners.”
Technologies under development include a seismic acoustic sensors, infrared sensors and robotics. Tunnel detection systems are being tested on the ground and the air — aboard helicopters and unmanned drones.
The military’s Joint Task Force North conducted nine tactical missions last year to find underground tunnels using some of these technologies.
Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico and NORTHCOM worked with the San Diego Tunnel Task Force to test advanced acoustic technologies in Otay Mesa in 2006 and 2007, according to this PowerPoint presentation.
As even a cursory look at PowerPoint makes clear, the sensor data is extremely difficult for the layperson to understand, a problem that was underscored last year when the Department of Homeland Security put out a call for a tunnel detection system that is “simple to understand.”
Lockheed Martin is testing ground-penetrating radar in a trailer towed by a truck as part of DHS’ Tunnel Technologies Detection Project.
DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has a Cross-Border Tunnel program to root out underground hiding places that can be exploited by terrorists.
An even spook-ier effort is the Counter Tunnel Operations Working Group, which included the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and intelligence community. The group is under the rubric of the inter-agency, anti-terrorism Technical Support Working Group.
At a 2006 Army seminar on tunnel detention, one researcher summed up the state of affairs:
Despite the longstanding effort in the geophysical community under heavy public funding, there is a dearth of success stories where geophysicists can actually claim to have found hitherto unknown tunnels.
Trump / Russia 