CHICAGO NEWS BENCH: CIA

Showing posts with label CIA. Show all posts

Updated With Video: Taliban Attack On Afghan Presidential Palace Ends, All Attackers Killed

June 24, 2013 - 11:00 PM EDT - The Presidential palace ("the Arg") in Kabul, Afghanistan was attacked by four Taliban suicide bombers Monday morning. None breached the palace's security walls. One bomber blew himself up and three others were shot by Afghan security forces. Casualties were reported but the number is not known.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai was in the palace compound when the attack began around 6:20 AM local time (0200 GMT). Karzai had a scheduled meeting with journalists.

Karzai "never appeared to be in danger," reports The Guardian. He was "behind several more walls inside the heavily fortified palace itself. One source who was inside the complex, which has outer walls several dozen metres thick in places, said the fighting never approached the inner area."

The attack was put down entirely by Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). Earlier this month, ANSF took the lead in providing security for Afghanistan, with NATO now in a support-only role.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, and said their targets included the Ariana Hotel, which is home to the CIA station in Kabul.

Afghan security officials said they believe the attack was actually executed by the Taliban-linked Haqqani Network, reports Reuters. "The Haqqani Network is accused of masterminding high-profile attacks in Kabul and is believed to have close links to al Qaeda."

Earlier Reports, as it was happening:

Former CIA Officer, HuffPo Contributor, Charged With Violating Espionage Act

John Kiriakou, left, and his attorney John Hundley, leave
federal court in Alexandria, VA. Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Source: The Guardian (UK)

January 23, 2012 - Former CIA officer John Kiriakou was arrested and accused of leaking classified information to reporters.

The Justice Department today charged Kiriakou, 47, with leaking classified information to reporters repeatedly, "including the identity of a covert officer and details about the capture of terrorism suspect Abu Zubaydah," the U.S. Justice Department said.

The Justice Department's actions agains Kiriakou, notes Don Grandoni at The Atlantic Wire, is "the second time this month the agency is sending the message that it doesn't like its ex-agents to be talking to reporters." However, added Grandoni, "the leaks do involve the identities of two CIA officiers."

A federal grand jury charged Kiriakou with one count of violating the Intelligence Agencies Protection Act, two counts of violating the Espionage Act and one count of lying to the CIA about his actions.

NBC reported today that Kiriakou surrendered to the FBI this morning. "In an initial court appearance in Alexandria Monday afternoon," wrote NBC's Michael Isikoff, "Kiriakou waived a preliminary hearing and was released on a $250,000 bond after surrendering his passport and agreeing to stay in the Washington area and not to contact any witnesses in the case. His lawyer, Plato Cacheris, did not immediately respond to a request for comment."

The "Lawfare" blog notes today that Kiriakou, 47, of Arlington, VA, "was a CIA intelligence officer between 1990 and 2004, serving at headquarters and in various classified overseas assignments. He is scheduled to appear at 2 p.m. today before U.S. Magistrate Judge John F. Anderson in federal court in Alexandria." Lawfare also posted the full criminal complaint against Kiriakou (filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia).

Kiriakou has been a busy journalist himself. In addition to being a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post. According to his bio post at HuffPo, "John Kiriakou is an intelligence and counterterrorism consultant for ABC News and a former senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, focusing on the Middle East, South Asia, and international terrorism."

Kiriakou also co-authored a book (with Bruce Riedel and Michael Ruby) called "The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA's War on Terror." In fact, much of what Kiriakou is charge with involves the time during which he was writing it. (See a video interview of Kiriakou about his book at booktv.org.)

NBC Washington notes that the U.S. Attorney's office "also said that while Kiriakou was writing his book, he lied to agency investigators in an attempt to secure permission to write about a confidential surveillance technique. Kiriakou wanted to include information about the 'magic box,' a device that could locate any switched-on cell phone, and allegedly told investigators lies about his knowledge of the device and whether or not it was confidential."

Oddly, his bio at HuffPo omits the fact that his tenure with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was actually as an investigator for Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) between 2009 and 2011. It's also odd that his HuffPo bio does not mention that he is one of their own frequent contributors.

U.S. Plot to Kill Al-Awlaki Included Fighter Jets, Special Ops

September 30, 2011 - U.S. forces killed two U.S. citizens who had become important Al Qaeda operatives. Dead are senior Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki Samir Khan, plus two others who were traveling with them in Yemen early this morning. The terrorists were taken out by "a CIA-led U.S. drone strike, marking the highest-profile takedown of terror leaders since the raid on Usama bin Laden's compound," reports Fox News. The operation involved two Predator drones. They flew over al-Awlaki's convoy and fired Hellfire missiles, killing al-Awlaki. Fox News says that a senior U.S. official claims that the operation "was carried out by Joint Special Operations Command, under the direction of the CIA."

A CBS News report late today notes that the U.S. military and intelligence forces tracked Anwar al-Awlaki for a number of years. "Awlaki," says CBS, "who apparently inspired the Fort Hood major who killed 13 service members and whose ties to al Qaeda may go back as far as the 9/11 hijackers, was tracked down leaving a funeral in Yemen and killed by a rocket fired from a U.S. drone aircraft." "Al-Awlaki would be the most prominent Al Qaeda figure to be killed since bin Laden's death in a U.S. raid in Pakistan in May," says Fox News, which also notes that U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in July that Al-Awlaki was on the most wanted list, which included Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden's successor as the terror network's leader." The FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist List says that "Ayman Al-Zawahiri has been indicted for his alleged role in the August 7, 1998, bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya." Al-Awlaki, says the FBI, was designated by the United States as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist” on July 12, 2010. (Also see Terrorism Designations Press Releases, U.S. Dept. of State)

CBS reports that while Samir Khan two fellow convoy passengers were also killed, Awlaki was the real target. "He had narrowly escaped an earlier drone strike the week after the Bin Laden raid," said CBS, "and this time the U.S. was taking no chances." Fox News notes that "Al-Awlaki was a U.S.-born Islamic militant cleric who became a prominent figure with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the network's most active branch." One of Al-Awlaki's most important roles within Al Qaeda was propagandist. As a native English speaker and one who had first hand knowledge of American culture, he was especially effective at recruiting jihadists from within the U.S. "Awlaki has become a prominent cyber-jihadist," reported Long War Journal in July. "Combining his ability to communicate in English with his charisma with young, radical Muslims and his presence on the Web, Awlaki has developed a large following. He gives numerous lectures and speeches via the Internet and teleconferences. US law enforcement agencies and intelligence services consider Awlaki to be a prime recruiter for al Qaeda as well as a provider of the needed religious justifications, or fatwas, for jihadis to carry out attacks." That deadly voice has been silenced. There will be others.

Fort Hood Shooter and Prior Classified Investigations

STRATFOR security expert Fred Burton discusses the possibility that Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the suspected gunman in a massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, became the target of a classified FBI investigation months before the shootings occurred. (Source)

Conservative Caps, Shirt and more! Leave a Comment - Chicago News Bench RSS Feed Visit us on Twitter!

CIA's Panetta Counters Pelosi

As mentioned yesterday, Pelosi the Psychopath can't lie very well. She's busy lying about her previous knowledge of waterboarding, and she continues to lie badly. Today, this from the Washington Post: CIA Director Leon Panetta today rejected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's charge that the agency misled her in 2002 about its use of waterboarding and other coercive interrogation methods on suspected terrorists. Panetta, who took office as President Obama's CIA chief in February, reasserted the agency's claim that it told congressional leaders about the use of such methods during a closed-door briefing in September 2002. Pelosi (D-Calif.) has acknowledged attending the briefing but says she was told only that the CIA was considering the use of waterboarding, or simulated drowning. Full Story at Washington Post... KARL ROVE weighed in on this hot topic, with a May 15 column in the Wall Street Journal: If Mrs. Pelosi considers the enhanced interrogation techniques to be torture, didn't she have a responsibility to complain at the time, introduce legislation to end the practices, or attempt to deny funding for the CIA's use of them? If she knew what was going on and did nothing, does that make her an accessory to a crime of torture, as many Democrats are calling enhanced interrogation? Full Column at Wall Street Journal... RELATED: Nancy Pelosi Can't Even Lie Well Leave a Comment on our Guestbook! CommieBama Hats and More Chicago News Bench RSS Feed Follow ChiNewsBench on Twitter

CIA Proves Pelosi Lied

Nancy Pelosi has been caught in yet another lie. She has claimed that she was never told about "harsh interrogation" methods used on terrorist combatants. But she was told about it. The thought of a Democrat lying might shock two or three of you, but to many of us this is just more of the same. The Washington Post: Intelligence officials released documents this evening saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda prisoners, seemingly contradicting her repeated statements over the past 18 months that she was never told that these techniques were actually being used. So, Pelosi knew about the interrogation methods well over six years ago but said nothing until it served her politically to say something. In other words, Democrat Pelosi was enabling the Bush Administration, apparently having no problem with the methods that she was told about. Only when it seemed politically expedient did she begin to criticize the methods. This is reminiscent of other Democrat lies concerning the general subject of the war on terror. Democrat "leaders" who given full briefings before and after the invasion of Iraq publicly pretended that the knew nothing. Democrat leaders act like Sergeant Schultz in Hogan's Heroes, the bumbling, cowardly German prison guard who pretended to "know nothing" even when he did. Republicans have accused her of knowing for many years precisely the techniques CIA agents were using in interrogations, and only protesting the tactics when they became public and liberal antiwar activists protested. Full Story at The Washington Post... Nancy Pelosi has proven again and again that she is little more than an opportunity whore, an ideoligically vapid husk of a woman. For Nancy Pelosi, her own political career is more important than any true political beliefs. We can respect someone for their heartfelt politics, if they are sincere and not hypocritical. Nancy Pelosi is insincere, hypocritical, and should resign for the good of both the nation and her own party. RELATED: Panic Time for Pelosi - Human Events CIA Says It Briefed Congressional Leaders - Wall Street Journal Feingold, Sensenbrenner embody partisan debate on detainee torture - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Pelosi's crumbling credibility on torture - Kansas City Star Obama should halt 'torture' frenzy on left - Pottstown Mercury Have You No Sense of Decency, Ms. Pelosi... - National Review Online Blogs CommieBama Hats and More Chicago News Bench RSS Feed Follow ChiNewsBench on Twitter

Flash: Obama Picks Leon Panetta for CIA Director

Breaking: Obama to nominate Leon Panetta as CIA director, reports MarketWatch. Additionally, reports AP, retired Admiral Dennis Blair is Obama's pick for Director of National Intelligence. There may be controversy about Blair. RELATED: Leon Panetta Tapped to Head CIA, Sources Say - FOX News Panetta to Be Named CIA Director - New York Times It's Gonna Take More Than The Perfect DNI Appointment To Fix Our Broken Spy Culture - Huffington Post Subscribe to Chicago News Bench

Pages