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Weekly Intelligence Notes #04-02 |
WIN 04-02 dtd 28 Jan 2002 Weekly Intelligence Notes (WINs) are produced by Roy Jonkers for non-profit educational uses by AFIO members and ISIS associates. Don Harvey contributes articles to the WINs. C O N T E N T S of this WIN [HTML version recipients - Click title to jump to story or section, Click Article Title to return to Contents] [This feature does not work for Plaintext Edition recipients. If you wish to change to HTML format, let us know at afio@afio.com. If you use AOL, you would need AOL version 6.0 or higher to receive HTML messages.] SECTION I - CURRENT INTELLIGENCE Senior CIA & USMC Veterans Join NYPD Things Happen -- An Assassination Things Happen -- The Planted Leak Things Happen -- The Headquarters Fire
SECTION II - CONTEXT AND PRECEDENCE Pakistan Airlift from Afghanistan
SECTION III - CYBER INTELLIGENCE Computer Crime Attorneys Wanted White House Cyber Security Strategy FedCIRC Prepares Free Security Tools
SECTION IV - BOOKS AND SOURCES Intelligence and Counterintelligence
SECTION V - LETTERS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS Science and the War On Terrorism Request for Assistance on Hanssen Damage Assessment CHICOM Plane Bugging - A Letter Intelligence Novel - Request for Assistance _______________________________________________________________________ SECTION I - CURRENT INTELLIGENCE
The NYPD has also created another new position, 'Deputy Commissioner for Counterterrorism.' Lieutenant General Frank Libutti, USMC (retired) has accepted this post. Both will report to the chief of police, Commissioner Frank Kelly. (Jonkers) (NYT 25Jan02 // F. Cooper) THINGS HAPPEN -- AN ASSASSINATION -- Just before 10am on Thursday, January 24th in Beirut, Elie Hobeika drove his blue Range Rover from his home on Marroukoz Street with his three bodyguards, Dmitri Ajram, Walid Zein and Faris Suedan, when a white Mercedes 280, parked in a basement garage level with the road, blew up. An estimated 100 kilos of explosives blasted Hobeika's vehicle across the narrow highway, killing all four men instantly. This was no simple murder. It needed at least four men to assassinate Hobeika -- one outside his home 100 meters away to alert the bombers, another to have guarded the car bomb, two more to have "line of sight" and press the detonation switch. Charbel Moussalem, whose sister was wounded on his apartment balcony, says "Elie Hobeika often drove down this road to his office . . . Not every day. But we knew him." So did the assassins. Hobeika, the man who led his Christian Phalangist murderers into the Palestinian refugee camps at Sabra and Chatila some 19 years ago, allegedly with the encouragement or at the behest of the invading Israeli army forces, was dead -- to the jubilation of thousands of Palestinians. "Our blood was not in vain," they screamed yesterday in the refugee camp of Bourj el-Barajneh. Perhaps the murder was long-delayed Palestinian revenge. But in this area of Christian east Beirut, Hizbollah militia men or Syrian agents would have a hard task to set up such a murderous ambush. More likely it was a "targeted killing," which is how the Israelis describe their death squad assassinations of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. By a remarkable coincidence, the former Lebanese Phalangist militia leader and government minister was killed two days after he agreed to give evidence against Israeli Prime Minister Sharon in a Belgian court, which is seeking to try the Israeli leader as a war criminal for the murder of up to 1,700 Palestinian civilians in the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps in September 1982. Less than two days before the killing, at 5pm on Tuesday, to be exact, Hobeika had met two Belgian senators, Josy Dubie and Vincent van Quickenborne, in east Beirut, agreeing to be a witness at any trial for the Sabra and Chatila massacre. The meeting was supposed to be secret: Hobeika reportedly told the Belgians he had been threatened with death, but it was leaked to the Lebanese press. That might have been Hobeika's death certificate. No tears need be shed for Hobeika, a blood-soaked war criminal. As for Sharon and his policies and actions, readers will make their own judgments. (Jonkers) (Beirut, 25 January 2002 //R. Fisk) THINGS HAPPEN -- THE PLANTED LEAK -- Two intelligence items published in mid-January by the New York Times, were reportedly based on "classified reports, which were provided" to the paper. They described Iran's support to a notorious terrorist, Imad Mugniyah, and Iran's attempts to provide Stinger missiles to terrorists. The bulk of the data in the stories dates back a number of years; the reason for the current interest appears to be the implication of Mugniyah in the recent seizure of an arms shipment from Iran to the Palestinians. One of the reports in the paper addresses the history of Iranian Revolutionary Guards purchases in Afghanistan of American-built Stinger antiaircraft missiles in 1994 to be turned over to the Lebanese-based Islamic Jihad terrorists. These Stingers were part of the reported 200 Stingers turned over to the Afghans but not fired before the Russians marched out of the country. The Stingers were found to be defective and eventually returned to the Afghan supplier. The second news story detailed the activities of Imad Mugniyah, a Lebanese and a leader in the Hezbollah guerrilla group as well as the Islamic Jihad. Mugniyah's anti-American violence includes: bombings of the American embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983; torture and murder of the CIA station chief in Beirut in 1984; possible role in the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996; and the hijacking in 1985 of a TWA flight in which an American was killed and 39 Americans were held hostage. Direct Revolutionary Guards support for several of these attacks has been reported. These reports are unusual in the current "no leaks will be tolerated" administration; if the trend continues in the intelligence world, a useful descriptor may become SLARID (senior level authorized release of intelligence data) reporting. (Harvey) (NY Times 12 & 17 Jan '02 by James Risen) THINGS HAPPEN - THE HEADQUARTERS FIRE -- The Shahid-E-Millat building in Islamabad caught fire on Jan. 15, destroying hundreds of records. The building housed the offices of the Pakistani Interior Ministry, including the headquarters of the Pakistan Intelligence Service ( ISI), and is the location of files on Islamic militants in the country. The fire, which began on the top floor of the 16-floor building, may have been set deliberately -- possibly by ISI agents to protect several Islamic networks from being rolled up in the crackdown ordered by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. The Pakistani leader has banned five extremist groups linked to attacks in Kashmir and India. Whodunit? (Jonkers) (B. Gertz backgrounder)SECTION II - CONTEXT AND PRECEDENCE PAKISTAN AIRLIFT FROM AFGHANISTAN -- As reported in a previous WIN, there were unconfirmed reports in November 2001 of an aerial evacuation of Pakistanis from the fighting near Kunduz in northern Afghanistan. The reports were denied in Washington and Karachi. Seymour Hersh has written a piece that gives more credibility to the evacuation. He cites American intelligence officials and high-ranking military officers as saying that Pakistanis were indeed flown to safety, in a series of nighttime airlifts that were approved by the US Administration. Why should this have been approved? By mid-November, however, it was clear, however, that the Northern Alliance would quickly sweep through Afghanistan. There were fears that once the Northern Alliance took Kunduz, there would be wholesale killings of the defeated fighters, especially the foreigners. Musharraf then reportedly won American support for the airlift by warning that the humiliation of losing hundreds Just as Pakistan supported the Taliban in Afghanistan, Pakistan's arch-rival India has supported the Northern Alliance. Operatives in India's main external intelligence unit
� Winning the War Against Terrorism
� Transforming the U.S. Military
� Quality of Life Improvements for Men & Women in Uniform
(Jonkers) (DOD /PublicAffairs (703 697 1254), 25 Jan 02)
HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICE -- The new office, operating out of the White House under former Governor Tom Ridge, has a broad scope that includes intelligence responsibilities. The announced top priorities of the Office include: (1) Intelligence and Information -- a National Center has been set up to analyze and share data, and to coordinate responses during a crisis (2) Secure Borders - on land, air and sea. (3) Protection from Bioterrorism -- planning to respond to future attacks. (4) Quick Response -- ensure that "first responders" are properly trained and supplied (5) Threat Alert system -- when implemented, it will have various levels of alert, as in the military. (Jonkers) (Parade 27 Jan 02, p. 5) SECTION III - CYBER INTELLIGENCE COMPUTER CRIME ATTORNEYS WANTED -- The U.S. Justice Department has begun soliciting hundreds of resumes from attorneys skilled in computer crime and intellectual property law in an effort to keep pace with a growing caseload of cyber crime prosecutions. The Justice Department "is seeking experienced attorneys to fill positions in its Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section," the agency said in a notice recently posted on its Web site. (Levine 29 Jan 02) http://www.newsbytes.com/news/02/174007.html http://www.cybercrime.gov/March2002.htm
KIDNAPPED?? GPS TO THE RESCUE -- Foreign executives and other individuals who are frequent kidnapping targets in Latin America will soon be able to use 'implantable' ID chips and personal GPS devices in an attempt to thwart their abductors. Applied Digital Solutions announced Thursday it had reached an agreement with a distributor to sell its VeriChip and Digital Angel products in three South American countries.
FedCIRC PREPARES FREE SECURITY TOOLS -- Working with its second year of appropriated funding, the Federal Computer Incident Response Center is preparing a range of free security tools for agencies over the next year. Within the next two weeks, vendors will finish submitting proposals for an automatic patch dissemination system, which is intended to make it easier for security managers to handle the abundance of security patches available for commercial software, said Sallie McDonald, assistant commissioner for information assurance and critical infrastructure protection at the General Services Administration's Federal Technology Service. SECTION IV - BOOKS AND SOURCES INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE, by Jack Morris (AFIO member), The Palmer Press, Ca. 2001 (ISBN 0-912479-01-11) http://thepalmerpress.com . AFIO member David Jimenez recommends the book, including some forty articles by noted authors on topics ranging from the Battle of Little Big Horn to contemporary military attaches, and a comparison of the security of the USS Maine in Cuba in 1898 and the USSS Cole in Yemen. Also included are articles by AFIO members Lawrence Sulc (Intelligence, Counterintelligence and Security) and Frederick Martins (The Use, Misuse and Abuse of Intelligence). (D. Jimenez)
GPS VULNERABILITY -- A long-delayed Department of Transportation study found that the Global
Positioning System satellite network is vulnerable to jamming and other forms of disruption, and should therefore not be used as the sole basis for aircraft navigation. The report, entitled "Vulnerability Assessment of the Transportation Infrastructure: Relying on the Global Positioning System," is available in ADOBE ACROBAT format at:
The XXI CENTURY ENCYCLOPEDIA, by Nikolai Spassky (ed), Arms and Technology Publishing House, Moscow. (In the US, available from TommX, Inc., Riverview Professional Plaza, 65 Mechanic St., Suite 205, Red Bank, NJ 07701 @$495 per volume plus S&H) The ten volume series cover, in great detail, armament systems, part of Russia's Arms and Technologies series. The first three volumes are now available, including Vol I - Strategic Nuclear Forces, Vol II - Rocket and Artillery Armament of Ground Forces, and Vol III - Naval Weapons . For researchers, analysts. (DJ) SECTION V - LETTERS AND ANNOUNCEMENTSSAM HALPERN -- We are delighted to report that our friend and colleague, the venerable Sam Halpern, member of the AFIO Board of Directors, has turned the corner and is recovering from a near-fatal attack of peritonitis. Sam served with the OSS in WWII and retired from CIA in 1974. He is the only one of AFIO's original founding members still on the Board of Directors and still active in pursuit of the association's objectives. (RJ) SCIENCE AND THE WAR ON TERRORISM -- DARPA and SOCOM are hosting a by-invitation only conference in March 2002 called "Scientists Helping America" to explore innovative approaches to a variety of military needs from signature reduction to directed energy weapons. See the conference announcement and application information here: http://safe.sysplan.com/scihelpamerica/ad.html REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE ON HANSSEN DAMAGE ASSESSMENT FROM PRIOR COLLEAGUES -- the Damage Assessment Team needs to establish details of Hanssen�s access to classified information, but would also be interested in information on the full range of his official and unofficial activities, including his computer skills, relationships with others, and potential motivation. Anyone who remembers contact with Hanssen, and has not already reported that information to the FBI, call toll free at 1-866-819-5319. The team will arrange interviews to handle all classified information. (Poteat) Len W. writes on CHICOM PLANE BUGGING -- Your piece on the bugging of the Chinese President's airplane seems to imply that American Intelligence had no business doing the bugging. But in reality, if they had not installed the bugs they would have been derelict. The fact that they were caught is a black mark on their capabilities, but there is no question that the bugging was their duty as operatives of American Intelligence. I seem to recall that American Intelligence bugged the limousine given to Premier Brezhnev, and that Soviet Intelligence bugged the gift eagle that was hung on the wall of the American Ambassador in Moscow. AFIO seems to have a tendency to focus on the analysis, administration, organization, and bureaucracy of American Intelligence to the neglect of the operators on the ground tasked with the collection of secrets. Editors' Response: Thank you for your opinion Len. Always welcome. We took it as obvious and a given that we support intelligence collection by all possible means--except the stupid ones that cost more than the likely return. And if we do not focus on substance of collection, it is because, with some 85 years of combined service 'in the business' between us, we do not give away secrets, sources or methods. (DH/RJ) INTELLIGENCE NOVEL - Alan Swenson writes: I have been asked by Macmillan to write on intelligence. It will be in the form of a novel, but my purpose is to depict intelligence in a positive light. Any assistance any of your members may wish to give, in the form of personal anecdotal material, will be useful and appreciated. Tel: 207 985 3216. Email: aswenson@loa.com _________________________________________________________________ WINs are covered by copyright laws and may not be reproduced without permission from the producer. Back issues of WINs are stored on the AFIO Web site <www.afio.com> with a two-month delay. _____________________________________________________________ |