Two former US officials have confirmed to National Public Radio that the seven CIA agents and one Jordanian agent killed in Afghanistan the last week of December 2009 were the victims of an Al-Qaeda double agent. NBC News had earlier identified him as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year old doctor from Zarqa, Jordan, arrested by Jordanian intelligence a year ago and who was considered by his government and the US secret service to have been turned into their own agent. The identity of the killer is prompting numerous questions in the media about undercover operations and their effectiveness, just as a report published by the Washington think tank, Center for a New American Security, questions the work of the CIA in Afghanistan.
Links to other sites: Center for a New American Security report, BBC, NPR
Alinghi in less contentious waters. Photo: © Dinah Roberts
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The oldest, most prestigious sailing competition may be decided in a New York courtroom instead of in the Persian Gulf waters off the Arabian peninsula. The defending team Alinghi, representing Geneva’s Société Nautique de Genève (SNG) put their huge catamaran into the water off Ras al-Khaimah (RAK), United Arab Emirates Saturday 17 October, but a New York judge must still decide whether the venue, traditionally chosen by the defender, may be allowed to stand.
On Saturday, Ernesto Bertarelli, the billionaire backer of Alinghi, called on the BMW-Oracle team to get down to business and start sailing.
UN pin for San Francisco conference
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Architect Donal McLaughlin, who designed the symbol that was adopted by the United Nations, has died at his home in Maryland, USA, aged 102. He graduated from Yale University where his thesis was on circular graphics.
After working for the CIA’s forerunner, the OSS, where he was chief of graphics during the war, he was commissioned to come up with a pin that could identify delegates to the first UN conference in San Francisco, USA in 1945. The symbol of the continents seen from above the north pole, surrounded by olive leaves, was adopted by the new organization as its own. He also designed the courtroom for the Nuremburg war crimes trials.
Link to other site: NZZ (Ger), Yale Alumni Magazine
The number of questions is growing about former US Vice-President Dick Cheney’s orders to the CIA to hide some of their activities from Congress. By law, congressional subcommittees must be informed of covert activities but CIA Director Leon Panetta testified to the Senate and House intelligence committees that he had been directed by Cheney to withhold information. Diane Feinstein, who chairs the Senate committee, confirmed Sunday 12 July on Fox News that Panetta had testified, CNN reports in its latest update on the unfolding story, which was broken late last week by the New York Times. Cheney has not been available for comment. Bloomberg
Bern, Switzerland (NZZ, Ger) – Switzerland has forbidden contact between the chief investigator of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Douglas Frantz and Urs Tinner’s lawyer, reports Zurich newspaper NZZ.
US President Barack Obama released classified government information on the use of torture as an interrogation technique on al-Qaeda suspects and Tuesday former Vice-President Dick Cheney replied saying that the CIA should release memos showing waterboarding works. BBC Obama told CIA employees that he released legal memos because the contents had already been publicly acknowledged. “Now, I have put an end to the interrogation techniques described in those OLC memos, and I want to be very clear and very blunt. I’ve done so for a simple reason: because I believe that our nation is stronger and more secure when we deploy the full measure of both our power and the power of our values.” The documents include memos from the Justice Department in 2002 and 2005 approving the use of waterboarding which simulates the sensation of drowning. Obama has banned the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques that were legal under George W Bush. Related: Al Jazeera, Obama speech to CIA employees
The Munk Center for International Studies in Toronto, Canada, has uncovered a huge Internet spy network that appears to be mainly operating out of China, but one of its researchers says this doesn’t mean the Chinese government is behind it – it could well be the CIA or Russia, he noted. The Toronto Star, reporting on the highly sophisticated operation the researchers called GhostNet, writes “The malware is remarkable both for its sweep – in computer jargon, it has not been merely ‘phishing’ for random consumers’ information, but ‘whaling’ for particular important targets – and for its Big Brother-style capacities.”
US President-elect Barack Obama has named Leon Panetta as his choice to lead the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), a surprise pick because Panetta, a former White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, has no direct intelligence background. BBC
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The New York Times/IHT today are both running a major story on the Swiss Tinner family of engineers and their CIA connections, focusing on the dismay in Europe over files destroyed by the Swiss government, in connection with the case. The story is a long and complicated saga of spying and black market dealings in nuclear power that centres around the current legal investigation in Switzerland of Friedrich Tinner and his two sons Urs and Marco, who are suspected of having too-close ties to Pakistan’s Abdul Qadeer Khan, described by the New York Times as the country’s “bomb pioneer turned nuclear black marketeer.” They were arrested in 2006 and the father was later released but the two sons are still in prison pending the investigation – but no charges have been pressed. The thrust of the New York Times story is that they were in the pay of the CIA and that Switzerland, under pressure from the US government, not only destroyed the files but could well free the brothers.
Swiss President Pascal Couchepin announced in May that the Swiss government had indeed destroyed files related to the case, confirming rumours to that effect. One sources of the rumours appears to have been the Swiss judged assigned to investigate the case. Couchepin gave as a rationale that it was important the files never fall into the hands of terrorists. But, according to the newspaper’s team, which has continued to interview European diplomats and nuclear experts since May, there are strong fears throughout Europe that the CIA is covering its tracks and Switzerland has been too quick to help.
- Background blog post at ArmsControlWonk (Jeffrey Lewis, director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation: personal blog)
- “Did Switzerland give in to US pressure?” 30 May 2008, swissinfo
- “Cabinet comes under fire over shredded documents,” 3 June 2008, swissinfo, featuring the reaction of Dick Marty, best known for his uncovering of the CIA secret “rendition” flights over Europe
- Related story, WRS radio interview with Doug Frantz, author of The Nuclear Jihadist, a book about the Tinners, May 2008
