Counterintelligence News for the week of: January 28-Feburary 3, 2007

Egypt has charged an Egyptian who holds Canadian citizenship and three Israelis with spying for Israel, a state prosecutor said on Saturday. High State Security Prosecutor Hisham Badawi said the Egyptian, Mohamed Essam Ghoneim el-Attar, 31, had been arrested and charged. The rest of the suspected spy ring, who are in Turkey and Canada, were charged in absentia. Badawi said the Israelis recruited Attar while he was living in Turkey in August 2001 and that intelligence agents assisted him in obtaining a residency permit in Canada under a fake name and found him work in a bank….(Reuters, 3 Feb 07)

The former head of Italy’s military intelligence agency, SISMI, on January 29 asked judges in Milan not to indict him over the alleged kidnapping by CIA and Italian agents of an Egyptian terror suspect, saying he would not be able to defend himself in court without disclosing sensitive state secrets….(New Europe, 3 Feb 07)

Iraq, and Analysis, Revisited
The intelligence community's bleak set of judgments about Iraq, made public yesterday, differs significantly from the flawed assessments of that country's alleged weapons programs that the White House released more than four years ago….(Washington Post, 3 Feb 07)

After spending most of their 12 hours together in a near 50-50 deadlock, jurors in the Coke trade secrets case found Joya Williams guilty Friday. In the end, taped conversations between Williams' two admitted co-conspirators convinced the holdouts that she tried to help sell Coca-Cola secrets to PepsiCo for $1.5 million, jurors told the lawyers in the case….(AP, 3 Feb 07)

Bleak Iraq Report Is Sent to Congress
The U.S. intelligence community yesterday released a starkly pessimistic assessment of the situation in Iraq, warning that even if security improves, deepening sectarian divisions threaten to destroy the government and ultimately could lead to anarchy, partition or the emergence of a new dictatorship….(Washington Post, 3 Feb 07)

…Testifying before the Senate intelligence committee, McConnell was peppered with questions about the administration's perceived reluctance to share intelligence material with members of Congress and about whether the multiheaded spy network can be managed successfully by a director of national intelligence…(AP, 2 Feb 07)

…CIA and State Department documents show that analysts at both agencies became increasingly skeptical about the Niger allegation and tried to warn the White House. A memo from Schmall to Eric Edelman, then Cheney's national security adviser, recalled: "CIA on several occasions has cautioned . . . that available information on this issue was fragmentary and unconfirmed."….(Washington Post, 2 Feb 07)

Murdered Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko's "most likely poisoner" was former KGB officer Andrei Lugovoi, sources have told the BBC. Mr Lugovoi met Mr Litvinenko on the day he fell ill, and radioactive polonium-210 has been found in a string of places he had visited in London…(BBC, 2 Feb 07)

Suspected pro-Taliban militants cut the throat of an Afghan refugee accused of being a U.S. spy in Pakistan's restive North Waziristan region, and dumped the body in a sewer….Reuters, 2 Feb 07)

A federal jury deliberating the fate of a former Coca-Cola secretary charged with conspiring to steal trade secrets from the beverage maker in an effort to sell them to Pepsi told a judge Thursday it is unable to make a decision…Forrester did not declare a mistrial. Instead, he told the jury to take another crack at reaching a verdict Friday in the case against Joya Williams….(AP, 2 Feb 07)

Robert L. Bingham, 76, a nuclear physicist who retired from the Energy Department in 1996 as a senior scientist in the office of nonproliferation and national security, died of pulmonary fibrosis Jan. 28… His career continued with the commission's successor agencies, the Energy Research and Development Administration and then the Energy Department, where in the early 1980s he was a manager in the office of intelligence. He was a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award for exceptional service and contribution to the intelligence community…..(Washington Post, 2 Feb 07)

In his annual press-conference for local and international mass media, the President of Russia Vladimir Putin separately referred to the issue of poisoning the ex-FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko in London, in November 2006….(Axis Globe, 2 Feb 07)

Why is Putin protecting suspects?
When the former Russian KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko died of polonium poisoning in November, many people assumed that his murder, like those of numerous other opponents of Russian President Vladimir Putin, would never be solved…The two men are Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB bodyguard to top Communist apparatchiks, and Dmitry Kovtun, a former army officer in Czechoslovakia and East Germany….(Peninsula Qatar, 2 Feb 07)

…His assertion that he was a scapegoat clashes with the White House stance that he had no role in leaking a CIA operative's identity…..(LA Times, 2 Feb 07)

One of the FBI agents who interviewed I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby during the CIA leak investigation testified yesterday that the vice president's then-chief of staff did not acknowledge disclosing the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame to reporters, asserting that he was surprised when another journalist later told him about her…..(Washington Post, 2 Feb 07)

An F.B.I. agent told a jury Thursday that I. Lewis Libby Jr. “claimed” during formal interviews she conducted that he had not disclosed to two reporters the identity of Valerie Wilson, a Central Intelligence Agency operative…..(New York Times, 2 Feb 07)

The European Central Bank must take action by April to stop the transfer of personal information from Swift, the bank-data consortium, to American authorities for use in antiterrorism investigations, a regulatory agency said Thursday….It has come under scrutiny for taking part in an American program that allows analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies…..(Agence France-Presse, 2 Feb 07)

…The SWIFT case started in June 2006 when press coverage revealed a secret US terrorist financing tracking system….(Business Updated, 2 Feb 07)

…Long revered for defying the former communist regime, the church today is enmeshed in a scandal of code names and secret meetings listed in thousands of files detailing how priests, monks and bishops succumbed to temptation and intimidation….(LA Times, 2 Feb 07)

If not for the pit stops on a Mediterranean resort island, where they relaxed in four-star hotels and went to the spa for a massage, the CIA operatives who now face arrest on kidnapping charges in Germany would have remained safely in the shadows, according to German prosecutors…(Washington Post, 2 Feb 07)

The Bush administration has suspended plans to develop space ventures with China, including joint exploration of the moon, in reaction to Beijing's Jan. 11 test of an anti-satellite weapon that left orbiting debris threatening U.S. and foreign satellites…..(Washington Times, 2 Feb 07)

2 Romanian workers detained in Iraq by coalition forces freed
Two Romanian workers detained by coalition forces in Iraq for the past three months were freed on Friday after an investigation found they had violated rules, but without ill intent, the government said….(AP, 2 Feb 07)

The criminal liability for the dissemination of trade secrets has become more commonplace as the Internet has been growing at a rapid rate and allows for the quick dissemination of this information. Secret information may be traded via the Internet by electronic mail as well as other means such as file transfer protocol or (FTP). There has been an increase in the cases that are being brought under the Economic Econimic Espionage Act of 1996….(Internet Business Law Services, 1 Feb 07)

…Ms. Miller testified on Tuesday that Mr. Libby had told her in those conversations details about the identity of Valerie Wilson, a Central Intelligence Agency operative, days before Mr. Libby said he learned about Ms. Wilson from reporters….(New York Times, 1 Feb 07)

The CIA's clandestine program of abducting suspected terrorists and taking them to secret sites for interrogation unraveled further on Wednesday as German prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 13 agency operatives in the kidnapping of a German citizen in the Balkans in December 2003….(Washington Post, 1 Feb 07)

Romania’s president Traian Basescu said Thursday the Foreign Ministry had informed him on November 13, 2006 about the two Romanian nationals arrested in Iraq, and apologized saying that when journalists asked about the case Wednesday he did not make the association….(Mediafax. 1 Feb 07)

…As head of the New Jersey FBI office, Wiser helped lead counter-terrorism efforts and also spearheaded gang crackdowns in an effort to stem violence in some of New Jersey's biggest cities…In 1992, Wiser led the investigation into the Aldrich Ames espionage case for which he and other investigators were awarded a Meritorious Citation and a National Intelligence Medal of Achievement….(WNBC, 1 Feb 07)

President George W. Bush's choice to be director of national intelligence says he is bothered by recent trends in Russia and supports creation of a special post to focus on Russian intelligence gathering. Asked during confirmation hearings Thursday about the strategic threat posed by Russia, retired Vice Adm. Mike McConnell told the Senate intelligence committee that the former communist adversary's power has risen with energy prices and reinforced the need for monitoring. Russia is a major oil exporter, by far the largest supplier to Europe. He said he would consider creating a "mission manager" position to focus on Russia…..(AP, 1 Feb 07)

President Vladimir Putin, accused by former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko of ordering his murder, said the ex-agent knew no official secrets and had no reason to flee Russia….(Reuters, 1 Feb 07)

…Prosecutors have said they will review the results of the detectives' work and determine whether it is appropriate to file charges. But if the results identify suspects in Russia, it might be moot; authorities there have already said it would be impossible under Russian law to extradite them to Britain for trial…..(LA Times, 1 Feb 07)

…Also seeking to harm Russia, he said, are “oligarchs who have fled” Russia to avoid prosecution and live in Western Europe or the Middle East - clear references to bitter Kremlin critics, including Boris Berezovsky, granted political asylum in Britain, and Leonid Nevzlin, who lives in Israel….(AP, 1 Feb 07)

President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia faces unfair criticism and needless military threats from the West, lashing out in an annual news conference at U.S. plans to deploy missile defenses in Eastern Europe and rejecting grumbling that he is using Russia's gas and oil exports as political weapons…(AP, 1 Feb 07)

…Fitzgerald believes jurors should hear and see Libby's words for themselves. He successfully fought to allow into evidence Libby's full grand jury testimony -- the sworn statements he gave prosecutors during the investigation -- and the prosecutor played a brief clip during his opening statement…(AP, 1 Feb 07)

A former Time magazine reporter said Wednesday that it was President Bush's political advisor, Karl Rove, who first revealed to him that the wife of an administration critic worked for the CIA…(LA Times, 1 Feb 07)

Ex-Time Reporter Testifies in Libby Trial
A former Time magazine reporter said in court yesterday that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby confided that the wife of an Iraq war critic worked at the CIA, becoming the second journalist to testify that the vice president's then-chief of staff disclosed the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame….(Washington Post, 1 Feb 07)

Bowing to bipartisan pressure from lawmakers, the Justice Department announced Wednesday that it was turning over to selected members of Congress secret documents with details of the National Security Agency’s eavesdropping program…The decision on the documents, which Mr. Gonzales confirmed Wednesday, will let members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, as well as a few Congressional leaders, review those court orders to determine whether the administration had significantly changed the program by putting it under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court…..(New York Times, 1 Feb 07)

Three federal judges hearing the first appellate argument about the legality of a National Security Agency domestic surveillance program on Wednesday indicated that they were not that convinced the issue was moot now that the Bush administration had agreed to submit the program to a secret court….(New York Times, 1 Feb 07)

…The agreement follows the administration's announcement two weeks ago that it was replacing NSA's warrantless surveillance program with a plan approved by the secret court that administers the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. The NSA had conducted the domestic spying for more than five years without court oversight….(Washington Post, 1 Feb 07)

…The documents, which include applications for electronic wiretaps and orders from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, will be made available to congressional committees only and not released to the public….(LA Times, 1 Feb 07)

U.S. intelligence watches Iran's meddling outside its borders. Analysts keep an eye on Shiite uprisings in Iraq. There's controversy over how far the government can go in monitoring people's communications at home. Sounds like the present, but that was the situation faced by retired Vice Adm. Mike McConnell in the 1990s when he held high posts in the National Security Agency, the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Intelligence Agency….(AP, 1 Feb 07)

…( Public Safety Minister Stockwell) Day's spokesman Melisa Leclerc would not comment specifically on the case of Mikhail Lennikov, a Russian national who worked for the Soviet spy agency in the 1980s. But she said Ottawa is clamping down on persons deemed "inadmissable" to Canada….(Toronto Sun, 1 Feb 07)

…Fursenko is a prominent Russian historian and a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He has been able to parlay his connections into privileged access to various archives in Moscow, including those of the Soviet military intelligence services. In the mid-1990s he teamed up with Naftali, an American scholar, to research "One Hell of a Gamble," a well-received book about the Cuban missile crisis…..(Washington Post, 1 Feb 07)

…At 4 feet, 7 inches, the 86-year-old Jewish grandmother hardly looks like the James Bond-type. But during World War II, Cohn, then in her 20s, worked as an undercover agent with French intelligence...Cohn said she became a spy purely by chance: She happened to mention to a colonel that she spoke fluent German. He quickly reassigned her to intelligence. It was there that Cohn learned how to fire a gun, interpret military code and decipher Nazi troop movements. She used these skills to interrogate German POWs and sniff out German spies. Cohn's most harrowing missions forced her into Germany….(Jewish Exponent, 1 Feb 07)

…High Court Judge Ismael Moreno issued the order to the National Intelligence Center (CNI) as part of an investigation he began last year to determine whether suspects on CIA flights touching down on the Spanish island of Mallorca were held illegally or tortured….(Reuters, 31 Jan 07)

…The dispute over the $4,000 that Williams deposited into her bank account in June is just one of the key questions jurors will have to answer when they begin deliberating, on Wednesday, the massive federal case against Williams – that she conspired, last year, to try to sell her employer’s trade secrets to a competitor for $1.5 million….(11Alive, 31 Jan 07)

A former employee of the Soviet KGB spy agency has been living in Vancouver for the past decade, but immigration authorities now want to deport him for his past involvement in espionage. Mikhail Alexander Lennikov, 46, is a former Communist youth league leader who took part in spying on Soviet university students and Japanese businessmen on behalf of the KGB, according to a recent judgment by the Federal Court of Canada. A KGB employee from 1981 until 1988….(National Post, 31 Jan 07)

President Bush's choice to be the nation's new spy chief works as a $2 million-a-year private consultant with some of the same senior military and intelligence officials he would supervise as director of national intelligence…The White House promised that McConnell would divest any financial holdings in Booz Allen Hamilton if he is confirmed as intelligence chief. In addition to his $1,999,840 salary, McConnell owns $1 million to $5 million in company stock, plus up to $1.15 million more in other investment funds owned through the company, according to financial reports he submitted to the White House. McConnell would earn $186,600 annually as director of national intelligence….(AP, 31 Jan 07)

Spy program focus of hearing

One of the Bush administration's most controversial initiatives in the war on terrorism is set for its first hearing in a federal appeals court today, but if government lawyers have their way the case will quickly be dismissed. Justice Department attorneys contend that the challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union to the government's warrantless domestic surveillance program is moot since the program is now being monitored by a special court. They are asking that the ruling that the program is unconstitutional be thrown out …..(LA Times, 31 Jan 07)

Analysis: Hayden pushes diversity at CIA

New CIA Director Michael Hayden has made workforce diversity a higher priority, inviting two high profile African-American speakers to address employees this month and touting the agency's success in recruiting minorities….(UPI, 31 Jan 07)

McGill University was unaware that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was funding the 1950s psychological experiments for which former patient Janine Huard is hoping to sue the federal government, say members of the school's psychology department….(Canadian University Press, 31 Jan 07)

Attorneys for former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby will be allowed to narrowly question journalist Judith Miller about other government officials she spoke with regarding an outed CIA operative, a federal judge ruled Wednesday…..(AP, 31 Jan 07)

Deliberately and sometimes defensively offering her account in Libby's perjury trial, Miller told the jury that "a very irritated and angry" Libby told her in a confidential conversation on June 23, 2003, that the wife of a prominent critic of the Iraq war worked at the CIA….(Washington Post, 31 Jan 07)

Journalist Forced to Reveal Her Methods
…She lost a battle of wills with a special prosecutor, surrendered her job at the New York Times and became an unwanted symbol of journalistic coziness with the Bush administration and media missteps in covering an unpopular war…..(Washington Post, 31 Jan 07)

…Words are one thing, but the actual facts of the secret CIA prison program that Bush finally acknowledged -- though did not describe -- are more important. And so it should come as no surprise that the Administration has since been taking aggressive steps to conceal the gap between the President's words and the facts as they occurred. The Administration's attempt to cover up abuses committed against CIA detainees is based on its classification power: its power to deem certain information to be secret….(Findlaw, 31 Jan 07)

Reporter Who Was Jailed Testifies in Libby Case

Judith Miller, a former reporter for The New York Times, testified Tuesday as a witness for the prosecutor who had put her in jail for 85 days, recounting details of her once-confidential interviews with I. Lewis Libby Jr…..(New York Times, 31 Jan 07)

Police sent the results of a two-month investigation of the death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko to prosecutors Wednesday, raising the possibility that a suspect could be charged with his murder. Police declined to comment on whether the file named suspects or recommended that charges be filed. Such files typically are given to prosecutors when officers believe they have built a conclusive case…(AP, 31 Jan 07)

Canada Expels Russian Man Over KGB Past

…Mikhail Lennikov, who has lived in Canada with his wife and son for 10 years, was turned down for permanent residency because of his past involvement with a group that “engaged in acts of espionage or subversion against a democratic government, institution or process.”…(MosNews, 31 Jan 07)

The Mumbai police on Wednesday busted what could possibly LTTE ring by arresting four men, including three from Tamil Nadu, for alleged illegal possession of 65 digital cameras and 500 ball bearings….(Money Control, 31 Jan 07)

The general manager of the Global Affairs Department, Petru Dumitriu, said Wednesday that Romanians Ilie Nelu and Adrian Gancea are under arrest in Iraq for breaking the internal regulations of eth military base they worked in and are not charged with espionage for the time being….(Media Fax, 31 Jan 07)

…The latest speculation about (Dr. Abdul Qadeer) Khan's future provides an opportunity to put the issue of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) trafficking into a perspective, in view of the current international political environment, by recalling the antics and exploits of the man "who nearly blew up the world."…While Khan was trawling and carting compressed death from Singapore to Turkey and onward to South Africa and eventually to Libya and Iran, and God knows where else, what were international intelligence services and their multi-billion dollar infrastructure doing?...(Oh My News, 31 Jan 07)

German prosecutors on Wednesday said they have issued arrest warrants for 13 CIA operatives suspected of kidnapping a German citizen in the Balkans in 2004 and taking him to a secret prison in Afghanistan before realizing several months later that they had the wrong person…..(Washington Post, 31 Jan 07)

German Court Issues Warrants for C.I.A. Agents

The Venezuelan government rejected comments by a senior U.S. official who called President Hugo Chavez a threat to democracy, saying they revealed that Washington's overtures for rapprochement were insincere….(AP, 31 Jan 07)

Litvinenko's 'face' used as target

Russian special forces used images of the poisoned former spy Alexander Litvinenko as target practice. Video footage has been released of elite Spetsnaz troops shooting at a picture of the murdered Russian on a training exercise. It was filmed for publicity purposes at a training camp outside Moscow and shows soldiers from the Interior Ministry's Vityaz brigade competing for the maroon beret of the special forces…The footage has fuelled allegations that the Kremlin was behind the death of Litvinenko, who was poisoned in London with the radioactive substance polonium-210. But last month the defense ministry in Russia said: 'For us Litvinenko was nothing.' …(Metro, 30 Jan 07)

In AIPAC Case, Judge Declines Probe Into Leaks

A federal judge overseeing a criminal case against two former pro-Israel lobbyists has declined to order an investigation into what the defense alleged were repeated leaks of grand jury information by government officials…"Leaks of information from law enforcement investigations that relate to matters under grand jury investigation do not concern 'matters before the grand jury,' unless, of course, they disclose secret details about proceedings inside the grand jury room," Judge Ellis wrote in a 10-page opinion dated Friday…(New York Sun, 30 Jan 07)

…Her father is convicted Cuban spy René González, and she met him for the first time last month. Location: the Federal Correctional Institution in Marianna… Ivette's father is serving a 15-year sentence for failing to register as an agent of a foreign nation and fraudulently obtaining and using U.S. passports to pursue his undercover work. Convicted in 2001, he is one of the so-called ''Cuban Five'' arrested in 1998 as part of a spy team dubbed La Red Avispa -- the Wasp Network….(Miami Herald, 30 Jan 07)

Off Target

Even for bodies as clumsy and vindictive as Russia’s various intelligence organizations, the use of the photograph of a dissident exile, murdered a week earlier, to train special forces in target practice seems extraordinary….(Times Online, 30 Jan 07)

Security Training Center: Russian Spy Pic Used in Target Practice

The head of a private center that trains security personnel and held a competition for Russian special forces confirmed Tuesday that the center has used shooting targets showing the photo of Alexander Litvinenko, the former agent who was fatally poisoned in London last year….(AP, 30 Jan 07)

Joseph Simpson Farland, 92, a former ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Panama, Pakistan and Iran, died Jan. 28… Serving as ambassador to Pakistan from 1969 to 1972, he helped orchestrate then-National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger's secret trip to China in 1971 to prepare for President Richard M. Nixon's historic visit the next year….(Washington Post, 30 Jan 07)

E. Howard Hunt may hold a controversial niche in American history, but mourners at his funeral Monday expressed only admiration for the man who helped organize the Watergate break-in….(Washington Post, 30 Jan 07)

Joya Williams cried Monday as she told jurors she did not conspire to steal Coke trade secrets and sell them to Pepsi… During two hours of testimony Monday, Williams tried to convince jurors she was a victim of two ex-cons who pleaded guilty to trying to sell secret Coke documents to an undercover FBI agent last year for $1.5 million….(AJC, 30 Jan 07)

US anti-terror program subject of constitutional arguments to begin Wednesday
The government is appealing the ruling of a federal district judge in Detroit who said the warrantless surveillance violated rights of privacy and free speech as well as separation of powers. The Justice Department last week urged the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to throw out the case, saying it was no longer at issue….(AP, 30 Jan 07)

Former Press Secretary Says Libby Told Him of Plame
Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer testified yesterday that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby divulged Valerie Plame's identity to him in July 2003, three days earlier than Libby has told investigators he first learned of the undercover CIA officer….(Washington Post, 30 Jan 07)

…Fitzgerald said Judith Miller was to take the stand Tuesday, the first time the former New York Times reporter has testified publicly against the man she went to jail to protect as a source….(AP, 30 Jan 07)

Ex-Bush Aide, in Testimony, Disputes Libby

Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary, recounted to a jury on Monday his experience at an unusual lunch on July 7, 2003, during which he said that I. Lewis Libby Jr. passed on detailed information about the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative…..(New York Times, 30 Jan 07)

The Maine Public Utilities Commission unanimously voted Monday to schedule a hearing next month to allow Verizon to argue why it should not be held in contempt for its response to a commission order stemming from allegations about domestic surveillance by the federal government….(AP, 30 Jan 07)

…Back in the news again this week, a simple English teapot used by Mr. Litvinenko on that grim November day in the Millenium Hotel was found to carry what British sources are calling “off the scale” readings of the radioactive isotope, Polonium 210 (P-210)….(Family Security Matter, 30 Jan 07)

Former Press Secretary Dispels Many Illusions

…Mr. Fleischer disclosed in court testimony on Monday, he only knew what the truly powerful chose to tell him, and sometimes that was not much….(New York Times, 30 Jan 07)

A legal procedure finished in Baku on Azeri Ariz Halilov case, who is Georgian citizen and “was cooperating with Armenian Secret Services against Azerbaijan.”…..(Pan Armenian, 30 Jan 07)

The National Security Council of Armenia denies the accusations on cooperating with Georgian citizen Ariz Halilov, who just the other days was convicted for espionage in favor of Armenia and planning terror acts, the NSC Press Office reports…..(Pan Armenian, 30 Jan 07)

Case Dismissed Against HP Investigator
A judge dismissed state felony charges Monday against a private investigator in Hewlett-Packard Co.'s boardroom spying scandal because he already has pleaded guilty to the same crimes in federal court…..(AP, 29 Jan 07)

…Nicolo Pollari said at a hearing that he was unable to defend himself properly, claiming documents that would clarify his position had been excluded from the proceedings because they contained state secrets, according to his lawyers…..(AP, 29 Jan 07)

Joint Intelligence Operations Center opens in Kabul

The Joint Intelligence Operations Center, a strategic and operational breakthrough in Afghanistan-Pakistan border security, officially opened here Jan. 25 during a ceremony at Headquarters, International Security Assistance Force….(AF News, 29 Jan 07)

…"Our first step is to realign functions within the Headquarters Staff to establish the AF/A2 as the single focal point and lead for all Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance capabilities," said Gen. T. Michael Moseley, the Air Force chief of staff. "To that end I have redesignated the Air Force A2 as the deputy chief of staff for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance…(AF News, 29 Jan 07)

The man reported by British media to be the prime suspect in the radioactive poisoning death of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko said in a television interview Monday that police had told him he was just a witness. Andrei Lugovoi told Sky News in Russia that he had fully cooperated with British authorities investigating the death of Litvinenko and that they had not named him as a suspect. "I want to stress that officially I am a just a witness and not even a suspect," Lugovoi said…(AP, 29 Jan 07)

Spy's waiter 'dead in five years'

A waiter who served a poisoned cup of tea to the former spy Alexander Litvinenko has only five years to live, it was claimed today. Noberto Andrade, 67, was exposed to the lethal polonium- 210 when serving Mr Litvinenko during his meeting with three other former agents….(Metro, 29 Jan 07)

…Cathie Martin, the former spokeswoman for Vice President Dick Cheney who last week discussed the preferred White House strategies for beating back negative media stories, returns to the stand Monday. She'll be followed by another media veteran, former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, who will testify about discussing a CIA operative's identity with reporters before leaving the administration in July 2003….(AP, 29 Jan 07)

A former Hewlett-Packard executive added a countersuit against the company after he claimed that HP snooped into his phone records while he was ordered to keep tabs on Dell's printer business. What started out with Hewlett-Packard's board trying to keep a lid on its trade secrets has escalated into charges of corporate spying against its employees and espionage against rival Dell….(CRN, 29 Jan 07)

The Romanian businessman formerly involved with a company that is one of Australia's largest sporting sponsors has links to the Romanian intelligence community and is a relative of the late dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu…..(Sydney Morning Herald, 29 Jan 07)

Former Italian spy chief opposes CIA abduction trial
The former head of Italy's military intelligence agency, SISMI, on Monday asked judges in Milan not to indict him over the alleged kidnapping by CIA and Italian agents of an Egyptian terror suspect, saying he would not be able to defend himself in court without disclosing sensitive state secrets….(DPA, 29 Jan 07)

Italy's former spy chief told a Milan court on Monday he felt like a scapegoat as a judge considered indicting him along with CIA agents on charges of kidnapping a terrorism suspect in Milan…Nicolo Pollari, who denies wrongdoing, was head of military intelligence agency SISMI in February 2003, when prosecutors believe a CIA team grabbed Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr off a Milan street and flew him to Egypt….(Reuters, 29 Jan 07)

The attorneys of Italy's former military intelligence chief, Nicolo Pollari, asked on Monday that a trial he is facing over the alleged abduction by CIA and Italian agents of a Muslim cleric in Milan in 2003 be halted because evidence proving his innocence is classified information….(AKI, 29 Jan 07)

"We Probably Gave Powell the Wrong Speech"

The former chief of the CIA's Europe division, Tyler Drumheller, discusses the United States foreign intelligence service's cooperation with Germany, the covert kidnapping of suspected terrorists and a Bush administration that ignored CIA advice and used whatever information it could find to justify an invasion of Iraq….(Spiegel, 29 Jan 07)

Libby trial shows unsealed lips in CIA

From their earliest days, U.S. intelligence agencies have made it an article of faith to protect the identity of their secret agents. And in 1982, following a rash of malicious exposures, the CIA prevailed on Congress to make it a crime to knowingly disclose the identity of such operatives…The revelations thus far in Libby's trial suggest that, though U.S. officials — especially within the Bush administration — have publicly insisted that secrecy is crucial in national security matters, there is a backstage world inside the government where even the most basic rules for protecting sensitive information may be ignored….(LA Times, 28 Jan 07)

DG, ISPR Major General Shaukat Sultan has said the opening up of the Joint Intelligence Office in Kabul comprising officials of Pakistan, Afghanistan and ISAF based in Afghanistan would leave no justification for either Afghan Government or the foreign forces deployed there to point fingers towards Pakistan in case of any terrorist attack….(Pak Tribune, 28 Jan 07)

In a Nov. 15, 2006, grand jury indictment, Indian-born engineer Noshir Gowadia was charged with 18 counts of spying. Besides providing China with classified technology relating to the b-2’s engine exhaust system, he was also charged with several other counts of selling top-secret information. Justice Department officials claim that Gowadia was paid approximately $2 million for the b-2 secrets. If true, China got a true bargain—paying pennies on the dollar for technology that took many years and likely cost hundreds of millions or more to develop… Gowadia is also accused of providing China with extensive technical assistance to help it develop and test a radar-evading Stealth cruise missile, and also showing China how to modify the cruise missile to lock on to U.S. air-to-air missiles….(Trumpet, February 2007 Issue)