- Paul Ryan’s Russia position is closer to Hillary Clinton’s than Donald Trump’s - The Washington Post
- Donald Trump caps off day of controversy over Putin praise with interview on Russian TV network
- Hillary Clinton Rips Donald Trump for Lauding Vladimir Putin - The New York Times
- White House names retired Air Force general as first cyber security chief | Reuters
- Galaxy S8 features: What if it runs both Android and Windows 10? | BGR
- US feds arrest two for spy bosses account hacks - Security - iTnews
- Analysis: Abbas, the KGB and the world of Middle East espionage - Arab-Israeli Conflict - Jerusalem Post
- Marines face discipline after death of Muslim recruit
- Russia, a Broker With Its Own Agenda, Enters the Israeli-Palestinian Fray - The New York Times
- Democrats rally around Clinton and paint Trump as unfit for office - The Washington Post
- Trump attacks U.S. foreign policy, political press corps on state-owned Russian television network - The Washington Post
- After convention stumble, Melania Trump has largely vanished from campaign - The Washington Post
- The Hillary Clinton email story is out of control - The Washington Post
- How Russia could spark a U.S. electoral disaster - The Washington Post
- Incident in Hangzhou - The Washington Post
- The Trump strategy for success? Fire everyone. - The Washington Post
- Dozens stuck overnight in cable cars on Mont Blanc | World news | The Guardian
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- alpine - Google Search
- The lies Trump told this week: from military spending to his tax returns | US news | The Guardian
- Trump, Clinton Attack Each Other on National Security
- Filmmaker Thomas Colbert sues FBI to prove DB Cooper theory | Daily Mail Online
- Donald Trump appears on Russia Today to cast doubt on U.S. elections interference | Daily Mail Online
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- trump already won elections commercially - Google Search
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Russia - 9.9.16
- How would the candidates navigate high-stakes ties with Russia? | PBS NewsHour
- Big 20 to Big Game: Power Politics Are Returning, Which Suits Russia
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Posts - 9.9.16
TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi authorities are expelling the families of suspected Islamic State members from their homes as the jihadist group loses ground, raising fears of communal violence if people seek to settle old scores.
Air raids on Syria’s Aleppo kill 9 by Associated Press
Volunteer first responders in Syria’s Aleppo say they have pulled the bodies of nine people, including four children, from the rubble following air raids on a rebel-held area.
New York Times |
North Carolina Men Arrested in Hacking Into CIA Director's Email
New York Times Among the group's other victims were James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, and top F.B.I. officials. The hacking group also targeted local law enforcement, the complaint said, making a false bomb threat to the Palm Beach County ... Men accused of hacking top government officials arrestedWashington Post all 37 news articles » |
Baltimore Sun (blog) |
Spy games meet word games as officials warn Russia against ...
Baltimore Sun (blog) When some of the nation's top spies joined each other on stage at a conference Thursday, the question of whether Russia was behind the hacking of the |
and more »
USA TODAY |
FBI director says bureau probing election interference from abroad
USA TODAY WASHINGTON — While careful not to formally name Russia, FBI Director James Comey said Thursday that the bureau is actively investigating whether a "nation-state actor is messing'' with the U.S. electoral system. During a panel discussion featuring ... |
We're in trouble when the FBI director is this controversialAmerican Thinker (blog)
U.S. Voting System So 'Clunky' It Is Insulated From Hacking, FBI
... Wall Street Journal
FBI Director: hackers will struggle to attack US voting system because it is 'clunky as heck'FedScoop
all 13 news articles »
New York Times |
The Black Eyes in Donald Trump's Life
New York Times WASHINGTON — Sexual assault in the military has plagued the Pentagon in recent years as a series of high-profile cases, and new data, revealed the extent of the problem. In response, President Obama and members of Congress demanded that military ... and more » |
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Reuters |
China's Li tells Duterte he hopes ties can get back on normal track
Reuters The two leaders met on the sidelines of a regional summit in the Lao capital Vientiane on Thursday at a time of tension between China and the Philippines over disputed territory in the South China Sea. Li said he hoped bilateral relations could ... and more » |
10News |
FBI says CBP officer let illegal immigrants into U.S. in exchange for sexual favors, cash
10News During an interview with FBI agents, Juarez-Herrera admitted that she smuggled undocumented immigrants through the port of entry and conceded that she paid monetary bribes to Cota and performed sexual favors for him in exchange for his allowing the ... FBI: Customs officer was bribed in smuggling schemeThe San Diego Union-Tribune all 4 news articles » |
The interview came as Trump faced sustained criticism for praising Russian President Vladimir Putin, which he has regularly done on the campaign trail — to the discomfort of many members of his own party.
OregonLive.com |
Lawsuit filed against FBI to make D.B. Cooper investigation file public
OregonLive.com A Los Angeles-based filmmaker has filed a lawsuit Thursday to compel the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice to release the investigative files in the notorious D.B. Cooper hijacking case. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington D ... Self-styled sleuths sue FBI for DB Cooper filesFox News all 4 news articles » |
James Stavridis, who served four years as supreme allied commander for NATO in Europe is among those expected to join Democrat Hillary Clinton on Friday for a working session on strategies to combat terrorism.
Two more members of a computer hacker group that targeted senior United States intelligence officials, including the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, have been arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 
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September 9, 2016, 8:05 AM (IDT)
debkafile reports that Putin virtually shut the door on further cooperation with the United States in Syria. He highhandedly informed Obama that he now holds all the cards for controlling the Syrian conflict, whereas Washington was out of the game. Putin picked up the last high cards in a secret deal with Erdogan for Russia and Turkey to work together in mapping out the next steps for the Middle East.
The Republican candidate has veterans’ support, but insults our service.
Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Here’s today’s news.
IRAQ and SYRIA
Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Geneva today for further talks on a Syrian ceasefire with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, David Brunnstrom reports for Reuters. State Department officials have played down the prospect of a deal being reached today, but said steady progress was being made.
The US has sent 400 additional troops to bolster Iraqi forces preparing to retake the Islamic State-held city of Mosul, report Ben Kesling and Gordon Lubold at the Wall Street Journal.
Turkish airstrikes have destroyed four stationary targets in northern Syria today, reports Reuters.
More than 70 aid groups have suspended cooperation with the UN in Syria, demanding an immediate investigation into the UN’s operations in the country over concerns that President Assad has been manipulating the organization in order to deny aid to people in besieged areas, Emma Beals and Nick Hopkins report at the Guardian.
A senior commander of Syria’s rebranded al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Sham – formerly the Nusra front – has been killed in an airstrike in a rural area of Aleppo province, the group said yesterday. They did not say who carried out the airstrike, reports Reuters’ Suleiman Al-Khalidi.
US-led airstrikes continue. US and coalition forces carried out five airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria on September 7. Separately, partner forces conducted seven strikes against targets in Iraq. [Central Command]
AFGHANISTAN
Afghan forces have successfully retaken most of the southern provincial capital Tirin Kot this morning after the Taliban almost overran it yesterday, a Kabul defense official has confirmed. [AP]
The Taliban were close to taking Tirin Kot yesterday, overrunning all security posts around the city and firing on the police headquarters and the governor’s compound. By afternoon, however, NATO airstrikes began targeting Taliban positions, and reinforcements had started to arrive from a neighboring province. [New York Times’ Taimoor Shah and Mujib Mashal]
Navy SEALs led an unsuccessful attempt to rescue a US and an Australian university professor from the Taliban last month at a compound in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, US officials confirmed yesterday. The professors were taken at gunpoint on Aug. 7 from their vehicle in Kabul, report Matthew Rosenberg and Adam Goldman at the New York Times.
NORTH KOREA
North Korea successfully conducted its fifth underground nuclear test today, this time producing a more powerful explosive yield than ever before, according to South Korean officials. [New York Times’ Choe Sang-Hun and Jane Perlez] Pyongyang confirmed this hours later. [The Guardian]
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg “strongly condemned” the test, telling North Korea to drop all nuclear and ballistic missile activities, which he said were “consistent provocations and violations” of UN Security Council resolutions. [Reuters]
Defense Secretary Ash Carter said he will stay in close contact with South Korea and other allies in the region following the test. [Reuters]
China will formally protest the test with Pyongyang’s ambassador in Beijing, spokesperson Hua Chunying said today, calling the test the latest act to destabilize relations on the Korean Peninsula. [AP]
North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal presents a threat that the next US administration will have to prioritize and may mean that Washington will be forced to bargain with North Korea, suggests Julian Borger at the Guardian.
These missile launches are “adding up to something very troubling,” writes Anna Fifield at theWashington Post. Advances in North Korea’s missile program could enable it to outsmart missile defense systems, making the missiles more attractive to potential customers.
Why did North Korea wait till now to test this device, ready since May? Gordon G. Chang at The Daily Beast suggests that the Kim regime tested at this time because it realized China – more upset with Seoul’s plans to install a US THAAD missile defense system – would not impose costs for the detonation.
Notable developments in North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile program this year have been provided by the AP.
GUANTANAMO BAY
President Obama is not ready to concede that Guantánamo Bay detention center will remain open after he leaves office, he said yesterday. Kathleen Hennessey reports for the AP.
“The United State is not, should not be the policeman for the world,” death penalty defender for accused terrorist Abd al Rashim al Nashiri, Richard Kammen, argued yesterday in the first hearing at Guantánamo Bay in the USS Cole attack case, asking the judge once again to dismiss the part of the case involving al-Qaeda’s 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker. [Miami Herald’s Carol Rosenberg]
FRANCE
A French police officer was stabbed and a suspect was shot yesterday while detaining three women in connection with the terrorist investigation into a car containing gas cylinders found earlier this week close to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, report Inti Landauro and Stacy Meichtry at the Wall Street Journal.
The women were planning an attack on Paris railway station the Gare de Lyon on Thursday, the French interior ministry has said today. Reuters’ Gérard Bon reports.
A total of seven individuals have now been detained in connection with the apparent plans for “imminent” violence, the AP’s Phillipe Sotto and Lori Hinnant report.
RUSSIA and UKRAINE
A “tenuous” ceasefire has held for a week along the front lines in eastern Ukraine after months of intense combat between Ukrainian soldiers and Russian-backed separatists, according to Ukrainian officials. [Wall Street Journal’s Nathan Hodge]
Ukraine cannot get back Crimea, even though Russia took it by annexation, Czech President Milos Zeman – who has often spoken out against EU sanctions against Russia – is reported to have said. [Reuters]
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
America is spending on more missions to send more elite US forces to train alongside foreign forces in more countries around the world, according to documents obtained by The Intercept’s Nick Turse.
US airstrikes across Asia, Africa and the Middle East over the Labor Day weekend highlight the diffused terrorist threats that have persisted throughout President Obama’s tenure and are likely to continue under the next president, Missy Ryan writes at the Washington Post.
Israeli and Palestinian leaders have agreed in principle to meet in Moscow in an effort to relaunch peace talks two years after they last broke down, according to Russia’s foreign ministry. [Al Jazeera]
Iran has begun manufacturing rotor tubes for centrifuges, the spinning machines used to enrich uranium, the International Atomic Energy Agency has said in a review issued yesterday. Although Iran is allowed to make these parts, it is only allowed to do so under certain circumstances, reports George Jahn at the AP.
All parties in Yemen’s civil war must halt all military activity and abide by the terms of a Cessation of Hostilities agreed in April, the UN has said. [AP]
The Turkish military is conducting its largest ever operations against Kurdish PKK fighters in the southeast, President Erdoğan has said. [Al Jazeera]
Four British men have been charged with planning to carry out acts of terrorism almost two weeks aver they were arrested in a series of raids in Birmingham and nearby Stoke-on-Trent, Alexis Flynn reports at the Wall Street Journal.
Read on Just Security »
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· · · · · ·
Politico |
GOP insiders: Maybe Trump can win
Politico Once resigned to a November defeat, swing state Republicans are increasingly optimistic about Donald Trump's chances now that the GOP presidential nominee has closed a once-yawning deficit in the polls against Hillary Clinton. That's according to The ... Coasting is no longer an option for Hillary Clinton, given Donald Trump's resilienceLos Angeles Times Former intel briefer: 'Wildly unlikely' Trump account correctCNN The bashing of Matt Lauer: Why many of the attacks are driven by partisanshipFox News Washington Post -New York Times -The Boston Globe -National Review Online all 624 news articles » |
Mirror.co.uk |
At least two dead as train derails in northern Spain
Reuters MADRID At least two people have died after a train derailed in Galicia, in northern Spain, a spokesman for the local emergency services said on Friday. Local newspaper La Voz de Galicia said the accident took place at a station. In 2013, 80 people were ... At least three dead as train derails in SpainTelegraph.co.uk Spain train derailment: At least three dead in northern province of Galicia, local media reportsThe Independent Spain train derailment: At least two dead in northern province of Galicia - reportsIrish Independent Mirror.co.uk all 49 news articles » |
40 years after death, Mao’s mixed legacy looms over Chinaby Christopher Bodeen | AP
Friday marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Mao Zedong, who founded the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and ran it virtually uncontested until his death on Sept. 9, 1976.
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OBAMA LEGACY: Outreach to Asia still a work in progressby Kathleen Hennessey and Josh Lederman | AP
President Barack Obama’s final trip across the Pacific this week wasn’t just a valedictory tour through Asia. It was a tour through the good, the bad and the ugly of his Asia policy.
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· · ·
Russia has deployed cruise missiles, multiple rocket launchers, tanks and its latest anti-aircraft system at massive military drills in Crimea.
Read the whole story
· · ·
The commander of
al-Qaeda’s former Syrian division has been killed by an airstrike in rural Aleppo,according to reports from Reuters.
al-Qaeda’s former Syrian division has been killed by an airstrike in rural Aleppo,according to reports from Reuters.
The militant group, which changed its name in July from
the Nusra Front to Jabhat Fateh
al-Sham ,has been battling the Syrian
army and Iranian-funded Shi‘ite militias in the region’s war-torn city, Aleppo.
the Nusra Front to Jabhat Fateh
al-Sham ,has been battling the Syrian
army and Iranian-funded Shi‘ite militias in the region’s war-torn city, Aleppo.
Abu Hajer
al-Homsi, also known as Abu Omar Saraqeb, was a founding member of Jabat Fateh
al-Sham, and the top military commander. The group confirmed that he was killed in the area around Aleppo.
al-Homsi, also known as Abu Omar Saraqeb, was a founding member of Jabat Fateh
al-Sham, and the top military commander. The group confirmed that he was killed in the area around Aleppo.
A source in the area told Reuters the attack was likely to have come from a
U.S. warplane.Al-Homsi
had fought U.S. forces since the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. Reuters quoted an Islamist source as saying that he was at a hideout in the village of Kafr Naha when the strike occurred.
[Reuters]
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· ·
At least two people are killed as a train derails near the town of Pontevedra in north-western Spain.
BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian army secured a road into the government-held side of Aleppo that was captured by rebels last month and was expected to soon open it for civilians, state-owned al-Ikhbariya TV reported on Friday.
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A Mississippi police chief who had just been suspended shot and killed himself Thursday in the police department's parking lot, officials said, in what was described as "a bad day for law enforcement."...
U.S. officials are urging the American public to start a dialogue to determine the right balance between privacy and security. Speaking at an annual summit this week in Washington, intelligence and security officials said that absolute privacy is not in the public interest as authorities try to fight cybercrime and terrorism. Zlatica Hoke reports.
Washington Times |
Donald Trump already negotiating with Russia
Washington Times I think Mr. Trump is doing the same thing with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He is laying the groundwork for what he believes will be future success dealing with Moscow. Mr. Trump has spent time in Russia. He has done business with Russians. Meet The Man Who Is Spinning For Donald Trump In RussiaDaily Beast Donald Trump's answer on Russia and Vladimir Putin at the NBC forum was totally bananasWashington Post Paul Ryan, Other Republicans Take Distance From Donald Trump After Russia CommentsWall Street Journal RT -Daily Mail -New York Times all 537 news articles » |
Fox News |
Can Uzbekistan's new leader balance China, Russia, and the U.S.?
Chicago Tribune During Karimov's lavish funeral, state TV showed footage of Mirziyoyev assuming official duties, including organizing the massive event and interacting with foreign dignitaries in attendance; that included his meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin ... Uzbekistan's new leader pledges better ties with Russia, USFox News all 88 news articles » |
PBS NewsHour |
How would the candidates navigate high-stakes ties with Russia?
PBS NewsHour What kind of relations should the U.S. have with Russia and President Vladimir Putin? It's a question that could affect the future of the Syrian conflict and European security, and the two candidates have strikingly different takes. Judy Woodruff ... and more » |
Trump’s Love for Putin: a Presidential Role Modelby By STEVEN LEE MYERS
Donald J. Trump emphasized in his NBC interview that he did not necessarily endorse the political system Mr. Putin has erected, but respected the way Mr. Putin is perceived.
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Passengers Trapped Overnight in Cable Cars in Alps Are Finally Rescued by LILIA BLAISE and CHRISTOPHER MELE
All 110 people left hanging 12,500 feet in the Mont Blanc massif near Chamonix, France — including 33 who were stranded until morning — were safely evacuated.
In the forum, Mr. Trump said of Mr. Putin that he had been a leader “far more than our president,” and he praised Mr. Putin’s firm grip on Russia.
And after Mr. Lauer highlighted Mr. Putin’s record, Mr. Trump shot back, “But do you want me to start naming some of the things that President Obama does at the same time?”
Such talk is a remarkable break from the traditional boundaries of American political speech. And, as with his past provocations, Mr. Trump once again left his fellow Republicans scrambling to defend what many effectively conceded was indefensible.
“Vladimir Putin is an aggressor who does not share our interests,” Speaker Paul D. Ryan told reporters on Thursday in Washington, accusing the Russian leader of “conducting state-sponsored cyberattacks” on “our political system.”
Mr. Ryan was referring to the hack of the servers of the Democratic National Committee, which American officials believe was conducted by Russian intelligence services. At the NBC forum, Mr. Trump disputed Russia’s guilt, telling Mr. Lauer the culprits were not definitively known.
Mr. Trump went even further on Thursday, saying in an interview on the Kremlin-backed Russia Today network that it was “probably unlikely” Russia was trying to interfere in the election and that Democrats “are putting that out.”
In a fashion that would have been unheard-of for a Republican during or immediately after the Cold War, Mr. Trump has made improved relations with the Kremlin a centerpiece of his candidacy. And Russia has been a subplot of the campaign that Tom Clancy and John le Carre together may have been unable to conjure, complete with the apparent Russian hack of one of America’s political parties, a threat that Russian hackers may try to tamper with electronic voting machines, and Mr. Putin’s unsubtle preference for Mr. Trump over Mrs. Clinton.
While railing against Asian, Latin American and Middle Eastern countries, Mr. Trump has continually praised Mr. Putin’s government: He has hailed Mr. Putin’s tight control over Russian society, hinted that he may not defend the NATO-aligned Baltic nations formerly in Moscow’s sphere of influence, and for a time employed a campaign chief with close ties to Ukraine’s pro-Russian forces.
Most extraordinarily, he used a news conference over the summer to urge the Russians to hack into Mrs. Clinton’s emails to find messages the F.B.I. might have missed.
It is all rather confounding — unless Mr. Trump is simply eyeing postelection business interests — for congressional Republicans, who evince little doubt that Moscow was behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee. On Thursday, they volunteered the sort of hard-edged criticism of Mr. Putin more typical of conservatives discussing an adversary of the United States.
“He’s a thug,” said Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. “He’s a dangerous and bad guy.”
But Mr. Rubio, who is running for re-election, has gotten behind Mr. Trump since withdrawing from the presidential primary, and he declined to say whether Mr. Trump’s comments were out of bounds because, he said, he did not want to “be a commentator.”
Even Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, perhaps Mr. Trump’s closest ally on Capitol Hill, appeared ill at ease when pressed about Mr. Trump’s statements.
Asked whether political combat should stop at the water’s edge, Mr. Sessions paused for nearly 10 seconds before saying, “I’ve tried to adhere to that line pretty assiduously, but less and less does that get adhered to in the modern world.”
Democrats were at once dumbfounded over Mr. Trump’s latest verbal excess, gleeful over a fresh opportunity to portray him as unpresidential and irritated that he had not been pressed more aggressively by Mr. Lauer.
Mingling outside the Capitol on a broiling day, the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid, and Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, two of the longest-serving and bluntest-speaking members of Congress, found themselves uncharacteristically at a loss for words.
“If Rangel or Reid had said that, 15 years ago or five years ago, we would be through,” Mr. Reid said of Mr. Trump’s Putin praise. “Can you imagine somebody running for president who has acknowledged publicly that he likes Putin better than Obama? How about that one?”
Mr. Rangel interjected: “A communist leader that’s a potential enemy!”
Other Democrats, though, saw Mr. Trump’s comments about Mr. Putin as a bonanza, given the scrutiny of Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state. Representative Joseph Crowley of New York called Mr. Trump’s suggestion that Russians should hack into Mrs. Clinton’s emails “verbal treason” and said Mr. Trump’s “diarrhea of the mouth” would be his undoing.
Democrats and even some Republicans said the fury would have been unceasing on the right had a Democratic presidential candidate held up the leader of a hostile power to deride a Republican president.
Scholars could recall few parallels in modern American history. Only the campaign of Henry Wallace, the Progressive Party nominee in 1948, was so willing to align itself with Russia, the historian Richard Norton Smith said. “We’ve become to some degree numbed to this, saying, ‘That’s just Trump,’” he said. “And that’s dangerous.”
In her news conference Thursday, Mrs. Clinton invoked the right’s most venerated president, from whose library Mr. Pence appeared on CNN. “What would Ronald Reagan say about a Republican nominee who attacks American generals and heaps praise on Russia’s president?” she asked.
After the news conference, Mrs. Clinton flew to North Carolina to rally African-American voters, and seized the chance to assail Mr. Trump’s comments again. “He prefers the Russian president to our president,” Mrs. Clinton said in Charlotte.
But Mr. Trump showed no sign of regret. His aides did not reply to an email asking if the campaign wanted to clarify his comments about Mr. Putin, and deemed Mrs. Clinton’s assault “the desperate attacks of a flailing campaign sinking in the polls.”
Mr. Trump himself appeared mostly focused on news coverage of the NBC forum. “Wow, reviews are in — THANK YOU!” he wrote on Twitter.
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The revelation that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah nom de guerre is Abu Mazen, was a KGB agent shouldn’t surprise those knowledgeable of the PLO movement and Soviet Union methods.
Since its creation in 1959, the Fatah group and later the PLO were influenced and supported by various Arab intelligence communities, the KGB, and its satellite security services in the communist bloc. Beyond solidifying ideological bonds, the cooperation was a marriage of convenience.
Since its creation in 1959, the Fatah group and later the PLO were influenced and supported by various Arab intelligence communities, the KGB, and its satellite security services in the communist bloc. Beyond solidifying ideological bonds, the cooperation was a marriage of convenience.
The PLO needed financial support, military training and weapons. The Soviet Union, entangled in the Cold War with the West, wanted to increase its influence in the Middle East.
The Soviet Union and its client states in Eastern Europe supported “progressive” movements and groups around the globe, including those who were involved in terrorism.
While the Soviet Union tried to keep its hands clean, it instructed the security services of its client state to do the dirty work. The East German Stasi and also the Hungarian and Bulgarian agencies trained PLO officers, gave them weapons and documents, and hosted notorious terrorists such as Abu Nidal, Carlos and Wadi Haddad. The Black September terrorists who killed the 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics traveled via East Berlin.
Yasser Arafat himself was photographed by the Securitatii, the Romanian security service, in an intimate position in his hotel room in the company of his bodyguards while visiting Bucharest.
The Soviet Union gave grants to and hosted thousands of students from Asia, Africa, South and Central America at its universities.
The Soviet generosity was also a tool to recruit agents of all sorts among the foreign students.
Based on the belief that “quantity will turn into quality,” the KGB method was to recruit as many agents as possible, hoping that some of them would reach the top of their countries or organizations and be a quality agent.
Was Abu Mazen one of them? It shouldn’t be ruled out,
despite his denials
. In such circumstance a denial is expected.
If it’s true, it happened when he studied at Moscow’s Oriental University, where he submitted his PhD thesis. But we still don’t know from the document when he was recruited, how long he was run as an agent, how often he met with his controller, whether he was a paid agent and if so how much was he paid, or whether he was just an agent of influence who from time to time shared bits of information or estimates with his Soviet contacts.
If indeed he was a full-fledged agent, it was a good catch for the KGB. Abu Mazen was among the founding fathers of Fatah and a close friend of Arafat’s and the other top leaders of the group. Although throughout his career he mostly dealt with political and diplomatic matters, he must have known at least about some of the terrorist attacks carried out by the PLO against Israel, Jewish targets and Western targets.
One can assume that if he was an agent he passed some of his knowledge on to the Soviets.
The KGB was a successful professional intelligence agency.
It managed to recruit and plant good agents in many Western countries, including the US and the UK. It also reached the Israeli top echelon, having agents in the Mossad, Shin Bet, IDF, the Foreign Ministry, the Ness Ziona Biological Institute and probably in other government ministries. It can be assumed that not all of them were arrested.
One more interesting observation regards the intriguing relations between the Middle East and the world of espionage.
KGB and its satellites were not alone in the game.
The CIA, the British MI6, and French intelligence also went on fishing expeditions and their catch was not bad at all.
Many Arab leaders were either paid agents or agents of influence for these services.
King Hussein, for example, was a paid agent of the CIA and also worked closely with MI6. And so were Syrian leaders in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Even Ali Hassan Salameh, who was Arafat’s chief of security and responsible for the planning of the Munich killing turned out to be a CIA agent in Beirut. In 1979 Mossad operatives killed him in the Lebanese capital.
The Israeli intelligence community, Mossad and military intelligence didn’t stand idle.
It also was very successful in penetrating the Arab world and the PLO and recruiting leaders, top government officials, scientists and senior military officers. It is interesting to note that, during the Israeli-PLO negotiations in the ‘90s, it was revealed that the Mossad managed to plant a listening device in Abu Mazen’s desk in his office in Tunis.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent testified on Thursday that a probe of two nephews of Venezuela's first lady began after a drug trafficker cooperating with authorities told him of a meeting arranged by her brother, a top police official.
