Wednesday, September 2, 2009

The Israeli Spy Network (And Russia in the Midst)

If you read all three Articles, RUSSIA IS ALL OVER THE MIDDLE EAST

Hizballah names two Israeli Internet "spies" amid horse-trading over Lebanese cabinet

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

September 2, 2009, 7:34 AM (GMT+02:00)

Ronen Neuhaus - alleged by Hizballah to be Israeli Internet spy

Ronen Neuhaus - alleged by Hizballah to be Israeli Internet spy

Hizballah high-up Ibrahim al Amin claimed Tuesday night, Sept. 1, that he knew the names of two Israelis who he said had been covertly diverting Lebanese Internet network traffic through the Haifa exchange center in Israel. The names he mentioned were Jerry Orenstein and Ronen Neuhaus, both of whom he said are back in Israel.

According to DEBKAfile's sources, Orenstein is an ultra-religious is business man whose firms in Israel, the UK and Cyprus deal with a variety of trades - from Internet and telecommunications to organizing European tours for ultra-religious travelers.

Ronen Neuhaus is the Middle East director of Tinet, formerly known as Tiscali International Network, which operates in Scandinavia, the Eastern Mediterranean and Africa. As such, he has vast experience in the telecommunications industry, specifically Internet Service Providers.

Hizballah sources claim that the pair, using their Cyprus firms as their base of operations and a Jordanian middle man called Nasser Farhan, persuaded a number of Lebanese Internet companies that running their services through the Haifa Exchange offered them a considerable saving of expense.

DEBKAfile first broke the story of the Lebanese data center on Mt. Barukh found to be routed to an exchange center in Haifa on Aug. 14. To read the story click HERE.

Hizballah now claims that among the users of the clandestine network were the presidential palace, the defense department and select security and financial institutions in Beirut. Senior Hizballah officials and the UN peacekeepers HQ were also offered the cut-rate service. If this information is correct, Israeli intelligence was able to tap into the most sensitive Internet correspondence from the highest Lebanese official quarters.

According to our sources, since the affair broke, it has been used as a political football among the various parties negotiating the formation of a unity government in Beirut. The incumbent communications minister is Jubran Basil, brother-in law of former president Michel Aoun, who is currently Hizballah's senior ally.

This gave designated prime minister Saad Hariri good reason to veto Basil as a cabinet member.

Hizballah is paying him back with leaked reports about the alleged Israeli Internet spy ring and innuendo suggesting the pro-Western Hariri is an Israeli intelligence collaborator.

Lebanese Army's shock: National Internet routed through… Haifa

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

August 14, 2009, 12:41 PM (GMT+02:00)

A large Lebanese army force which raided the Lebanese Internet network center on Mt. Barukh east of the Lebanese town of Jezzine Saturday, Aug. 8 was dismayed to discover the exchange center which carries all of Lebanon's Internet links using equipment made in Israel. An intelligence sweep found the servers were routed to an exchange center in Haifa.

The soldiers impounded piles of equipment and rounded up several detainees at the mountain center and several Lebanese Internet companies.

Upon learning of the discovery, Hizballah demanded an immediate and thorough investigation of how all of Israeli intelligence acquired free access to all Lebanese internet communications like an open book.

In recent months, Lebanon has seen one suspected Israeli spy network after another exposed across the country. Wednesday, Aug. 5, DEBKAfile first disclosed that the spy rings were not busted by Lebanese intelligence but by agents of the Russian Federal Security Service - FSB working undercover in Lebanon since early this year at the invitation of the Lebanese Shiite Hizballlah.

To read this article click HERE

Russian agents may also have led the Lebanese army to their discovery of the Israeli data center on Mt. Barukh.

Russian secret service helped Hizballah bust Israel's Lebanese spy rings

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

August 13, 2009, 9:30 PM (GMT+02:00)

Russian FSB agent in action

Russian FSB agent in action

Western intelligence sources in the Middle East have disclosed to DEBKAfile that a special unit of the Russian Federal Security Service - FSB, commissioned by Hizballah's special security apparatus earlier this year, was responsible for the massive discovery of alleged Israel spy rings in Lebanon in recent months with the help of super-efficient detection systems.

Those sources report that the FSB and Hizballah have amassed quantities of undisclosed data on Israel's clandestine operations in Lebanon and are holding it in reserve in order to leak spectacular discoveries as and when it suits their purpose.

This disclosure, if borne out, would indicate that the Russian agency, which specializes in counterespionage, is engaged for the first time in anti-Israel activity in the service of an Arab terrorist organization. An Israeli security source describes this turn of events extremely grave. It also cast an ominous slant on Moscow's deepening strategic involvement in Syria.

It was generally assumed until now that new electronic devices supplied by France to the Lebanese army were instrumental in uncovering the suspected Israeli spy rings. It now transpires that the Lebanese army was not directly involved; it only detained the suspects handed over by the Shiite Hizballah.

Those same sources disclosed that FSB agents, by blanketing every corner of Lebanon with their sophisticated surveillance systems, were able to detect the spy rings one by one and additionally hack into Israeli intelligence data bases.

The Russians dated Israel's massive clandestine infiltration of Lebanon to shortly after its 2006 Lebanese conflict. The Lebanese Shiites sustained heavy casualties and, fearing an Israeli surprise attack at that point, began conscripting thousands of young Shiites as fighters pell mell, without checking their backgrounds. In their haste, they also rounded up Syrian and Egyptian migrant laborers in Lebanon.

Israel used the opportunity to recruit large numbers of agents in both these groups, especially among the conscripts sent to Revolutionary Guards camps in Iran and Syrian military facilities for training.

Afghan U.S. Embassy patrol in 'deviant' parties with booze, hookers: Is this 'Nam and Abu all Over again? Obama's Vietnam (Afghanistan)

Afghan U.S. Embassy patrol in 'deviant' parties with booze, hookers - report

Wednesday, September 2nd 2009, 4:00 AM

Private guards at U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan party hearty.
Private guards at U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan party hearty.

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Clinton ordered an investigation on Tuesday into the Animal House revels of private guards at the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan - including booze, hookers and other "deviant behavior."

"These are very serious allegations, and we are treating them that way," State Departmentspokesman Ian Kelly said of photo and e-mail evidence of the "climate of fear and coercion" at the living quarters of ArmorGroup guards.

The investigation by the State Department's inspector general follows a shocking report to Clinton by the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight detailing a "Lord of the Flies environment" at the Camp Sullivan compound a few miles from the embassy in Kabul. Prostitutes allegedly were brought in for birthday parties, drunken guards engaged in brawls and boozy lawn parties turned into naked affairs where guests urinated on one another, according to photos and videos obtained by the nonprofit group.

Clinton has "zero tolerance" for the behavior described and has directed a "review of the whole system" for farming out security to private contractors that may have threatened the safety of embassy personnel, Kelly said.

Earlier, hearings in June by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), head of the subcommittee on contractor oversight, questioned whether the contract with ArmorGroup, now owned byWackenhut Services Inc., should be renewed.

In a separate letter to Clinton, McCaskill said the Project on Government Oversight report "calls into question the ability of the contractor to provide sufficient security for the embassy."

Wackenhut did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The report found sleep-deprived guards regularly logging 14-hour days, language barriers that impair critical communications and a failure by the State Department to hold the contractor accountable.

About 300 of the 450 ArmorGroup guards employed to protect 1,000 personnel at the embassy are Nepalese Gurkhas and the rest are a mix of Australian, South African and American expats, the oversight project report said.

Although the Gurkhas were described as "serious about their jobs," their difficulty with English had forced the English speakers to "use pantomime in order to convey orders or instructions," the report said.

"One guard described the situation as so dire that if he were to say to many of the Gurkhas, 'There is a terrorist standing behind you,' those Gurkhas would answer 'Thank you, Sir, and good morning,'" the report said.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/09/02/2009-09-02_afghan_embassy_patrol_in_deviant_parties_report.html#ixzz0Pyz5riCm

Afghanistan is VIETNAM...we lost, Can we get out now?

23 die in Taliban suicide blast; Afghanistan's spy chief Abdullah Laghmani killed

Updated Wednesday, September 2nd 2009, 6:57 AM

An Afghan officer walks towards a damaged U.S. Humvee armored vehicle after a car bomb suicide attack on Thursday Kabul, Afghanistan, on Thursday.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/09/02/2009-09-02_23_die_in_taliban_suicide_blast_spy_chief_killed.html#ixzz0PyxAvCHK

KABUL

- A Taliban suicide bomber detonated his explosives as Afghanistan 's deputy chief of intelligence visited a mosque east of Kabul on Wednesday, killing the Afghan official and 22 others.

The attack struck at the heart of Afghanistan's intelligence service and underscored the Taliban's increasing ability to carry off complex and targeted attacks.

The explosion ripped through a crowd in Laghman province just as officials were leaving the main mosque in Mehterlam, 60 miles (100 kilometers) east of Kabul. Two top provincial officials from Laghman were among the dead, and the blast destroyed several government vehicles.

A Taliban spokesman said a suicide bomber on foot targeted Abdullah Laghmani , the deputy chief of Afghanistan's National Directorate for Security. The spokesman for Laghman's governor, Sayed Ahmad Safi, confirmed Laghmani was killed.

The National Directorate for Security , or NDS, is headed by an ethnic Tajik, and the killing of Laghmani, a Pashtun, could further exacerbate ethnic tensions as the country counts the results of the Aug. 20 presidential election. With about half the results in, President Hamid Karzai , an ethnic Pashtun, leads Abdullah Abdullah , who is half Pashtun and half Tajik but is seen as a Tajik candidate.

The blast killed Laghmani, the executive director of Laghman's governor's office, the head of Laghman's provincial council, two of Laghmani's body guards, and 18 civilians, said Sayed Ahmad Safi, the spokesman for Laghman's governor.

U.S. troops cordoned off the blast site, right outside Mehterlam's main mosque, which sits in a crowded market area.

Safi said Laghmani was visiting the mosque to discuss plans to rebuild it.

Taliban suicide attacks frequently target high-ranking government officials. Militants have warned Afghans for years not to work as government officials, teachers, or in the country's armed forces.

The Taliban is made up of ethnic Pashtuns, and the targeting of a top Pashtun security official could serve as another warning for Afghans to avoid government employment.

Taliban attacks have spiked the last three years and insurgents now control wide swaths of territory, momentum that forced

President Barack Obama to send 21,000 additional troops to the country this year.

U.S. military officials may soon ask for even more troops to be sent to the country, but American public opinion is starting to turn against the almost eight-year war as U.S. troop deaths have reached an all-time high.


The National Directorate for Security suffered a second attack in the country's north. An intelligence officer kidnapped a few days ago by Taliban militants in Kunduz province was found Wednesday hanging from a tree on the outskirts of Baghlan city, said Kabi Andarabi, the provincial police chief.


In other violence, four militants were killed overnight when a roadside bomb they were planting detonated, said Fazel Ahmad Sherzad, the deputy police chief of Kandahar

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2009/09/02/2009-09-02_23_die_in_taliban_suicide_blast_spy_chief_killed.html#ixzz0PyxVS8Kk