Archive for the ‘Terrorism’ Category

« Older entries
Newer entries »

Hezbollah Identifies Undercover CIA Officers

By Dawn in MSI Detective Services, Surveillance Services, Terrorism at December 13th, 2011 | No comments

The militant group Hezbollah has revealed the identities of CIA officers working undercover in Lebanon, a blow to agency operations in the region and the latest salvo in an escalating spy war.

Hezbollah made the names public in a broadcast Friday night on a Lebanese television station, al-Manar. The station used animated videos simulating meetings purported to have taken place between CIA officers and paid informants at Starbucks and Pizza Hut.

So how did Hezbollah crack the identities of these covert operatives? Just like right out of an old Cold War movie – they ran a double agent against the CIA according to former and current U.S. intelligence officials who wished to remain anonymous.

In June, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah bragged that his group had identified at least two spies working for the CIA. It is not clear whether one of those spies was, in fact, the same double agent working for Hezbollah, which is considered a terrorist group by the U.S. It is reported that Nasrallah has referred to the U.S. Embassy in Beirut as a ”den of spies.” Read the full article »

Tags: , , ,

‘Please Help Me’: Ex-FBI Agent Kidnapped in Iran Says

By Dawn in Locate Investigations, Missing Persons, Missing Persons Investigations, MSI Detective Services, Private Investigator, Terrorism at December 9th, 2011 | No comments

Visiting Iran, in whatever capacity, is always a huge risk considering how many Americans and citizens of other countries have been held hostage there.

You may recall the recent release of two American hikers from an Iranian prison in September. They were lucky, but former FBI Agent Robert Levinson has been missing after a visit to Iran for nearly five years now. The U.S. worked behind the scenes to secure the release of the hikers but officials said Levinson was not part of those discussions.

In the nearly five years that Levinson has been missing, the U.S. government has never had solid intelligence about what happened to him. Levinson had been retired from the FBI for years and was working as a private investigator when he traveled to Iran in March 2007. His family has said an investigation into cigarette smuggling brought him to Kish, a resort island where Americans need no visa to visit.

Long after he vanished in Iran, retired FBI agent Robert Levinson reappeared in a video and a series of photographs sent to his family over the past year, transforming a mysterious disappearance into a hostage standoff with an unknown kidnapper, The Associated Press has learned.

In the video emailed to his family in November 2010, Levinson pleaded with the U.S. government to meet the demands of his unidentified captors.

“I have been treated well. But I need the help of the United States government to answer the requests of the group that has held me for three and a half years,” Levinson says. “And please help me get home.”

The 54-second video showed Levinson looking haggard but unharmed, sitting in front of what appeared to be a concrete wall. He had lost considerable weight, particularly in his face, and his white shirt hung off him. There were no signs of recent mistreatment. But Levinson, who has a history of diabetes and high blood pressure, implored the U.S. to help him quickly.

“I am not in very good health,” he says. “I am running very quickly out of diabetes medicine.” Read the full article »

Tags: , , , , ,

NYPD Eyed U.S. Citizens in Intel Effort

By Dawn in invasion of privacy, MSI Detective Services, Police Records, Politics, Terrorism at October 7th, 2011 | No comments

The New York Police Department put American citizens under surveillance and scrutinized where they ate, prayed and worked, not because of charges of wrongdoing but because of their ethnicity, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Documents obtained describe in specific detail a secret program designed to study everyday life inside Muslim neighborhoods as people immigrated, got jobs, became citizens and started businesses. The documents undercut the NYPD’s claim that its officers only follow leads when investigating terrorism.

It began with one group, Moroccans, but the documents show police intended to build intelligence files on other ethnicities as well.

Undercover officers snapped photographs of restaurants frequented by Moroccans, including one that was noted for serving “religious Muslims.” Police documented where Moroccans bought groceries, which hotels they visited and where they prayed. One officer, after visiting an apartment used by new Moroccan immigrants, noted in his report that he saw two Qurans and a calendar from a nearby mosque.

The information was recorded in NYPD computers, officials said, so that if police ever received a specific tip about a Moroccan terrorist, officers looking for him would have details about the entire community at their fingertips.

The documents show how New York’s rich heritage as a place where immigrants traditionally have blended in and built their lives now clashes with today’s New York, where police see blending in as one of the first priorities for would-be terrorists.

The intel program was called the “Moroccan Initiative.”
Read more@ msnbc

 

Tags: , , ,

Saudi Family in Fla. Part of 9/11?

By Dawn in Investigations, MSI Detective Services, Politics, Security, Terrorism at September 20th, 2011 | No comments

A news report about a Saudi family that disappeared from their home in Sarasota, Fla., just two weeks before the 9/11 attacks has brought an angry response from the co-chair of a congressional Sept. 11 committee. A former senator from Florida, Bob Graham, who also co-chaired the panel at the time he was senator, says he contacted President Barack Obama’s terrorism adviser after hearing about the news report, that reported the family had had contact with three of the 9/11 pilot hijackers.

“I … urged him to pursue an investigation of these matters, both in Sarasota and elsewhere … and then hopefully release that information to the American people,” Graham said Monday on The Dylan Ratigan Show, suggesting that other Saudi families in the U.S. might have also had contact with the terrorists, most of whom were Saudi.

The FBI office in Tampa issued a statement Monday saying the Sarasota case was one of many leads that “were resolved and determined not to be related to any threat nor connected to the 9/11 plot.” Graham said he had no reason to doubt the news report, which said the couple and their two children abruptly abandoned their luxury home, leaving behind a full refrigerator, clothes, furnishings and a new car in the driveway. However, if true, it reveals another Saudi terrorism connection that the FBI never disclosed to the public or to the 2002 joint Congressional intelligence committee investigating the attacks, said Graham.

Read full story@msn

Tags: , ,

« Older entries
Newer entries »