Results tagged “Qaeda” from SpyTalk

CIA Woman Outraged by Belated U.S. Legal Help

By Jeff Stein | August 28, 2009 7:27 PM | | Comments (3)

Sabrina DeSousa, an alleged CIA agent charged with kidnapping in Italy, says that a Justice Department decision to pay her legal costs is much too little, much too late.

"Unbelievable!  The United States Department of Justice just 'approved' an attorney to defend me, a month after the trial ended, knowing full well that an attorney at this stage will make little or no difference to the outcome or verdict," DeSousa said via e-mail Friday.

Tags: Berlusconi, CIA, counterterrorism, diplomatic_immunity, extradition, foreign_service, Italy, Justice_Department, kidnapping, legal_affairs, Qaeda, rendition, State_Department, trial_in_absentia

Continue reading CIA Woman Outraged by Belated U.S. Legal Help.

Liberals Deserting Obama on Afghanistan

By Jeff Stein | August 20, 2009 12:01 AM | | Comments (0)

A new poll says liberal support for President Obama's war strategy in Afghanistan is "cratering" -- down 20 points since he took office in January.

The yawning rift has potentially lethal political consequences for a White House already struggling to shore up liberal Democratic support for its health care overhaul.

Tags: Afghanistan, American_foreign_policy, Congress, conservatives, counterinsurgency, health_care_reform, international_affairs, iraq, liberals, Middle_East, military_strategy, neo-conservative, opinion_poll, Pakistan, partisanship, political _science, politics, public_opinion, Qaeda, Republicans, Taliban, war, war_documentrary, Washington Post-ABC poll

Continue reading Liberals Deserting Obama on Afghanistan.

Interrogator: 'Intolerance' Led to Torture

By Jeff Stein | August 11, 2009 6:56 PM | | Comments (0)

Former Air Force Maj. Matthew Alexander, whose questioning of a captured terrorist led to the elimination al Qaeda's top man in Iraq, said a pervasive "intolerance" of Arabs and Muslims among American interrogators led to abuses at Abu Ghraib and other prisons.

"Soldiers referred to them as rag heads and so on," Alexander said during a Monday talk at the International Spy Museum, in Washington, D.C. to promote his book, "How To Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq."

Tags: Afghan_War, Al_Qaeda_in_Iraq, interrogators, Iraq, Matthew_Alexander, Qaeda, Spy_Museum, terrorism, Zarkawi

Continue reading Interrogator: 'Intolerance' Led to Torture.

Official: Assaults on Pak Nukes No Threat

By Jeff Stein | August 11, 2009 2:38 PM | | Comments (0)

Recent jihadist attacks on Pakistan's nuclear facilities did not threaten the security of the weapons inside, an American intelligence official says.

Tags: CIA, Combatting_Terrorism_Center, nuclear_black_market, nuclear_security, nuclear_weapons, Pakistan, Qaeda, terrorism

Continue reading Official: Assaults on Pak Nukes No Threat .

Georgetown Lawyers to Urge New Geneva Convention for Terrorism

By Jeff Stein | June 3, 2009 11:13 PM | | Comments (2)

U.S. and European officials have been at war over the wording of the Geneva Convention ever since American forces invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 and began rounding up terrorist suspects and Taliban fighters.

Maybe it's time for a new Geneva Convention for the age of terrorism.

Tags: Additional_Protocol_No._2, Afghanistan, Center_on_National_Security_and_the_Law, civilian_casualties, Common_Article_3, Geneva_Convention, Georgetown_University, human_rights, interrogation, Matthew_Gerke, Neil_Katyal, Pakistan, prisoners_of_war, Qaeda, Taliban, terrorism, torture, victims_of_war, war, war_crime

Continue reading Georgetown Lawyers to Urge New Geneva Convention for Terrorism.

Ex-Saudi Spy Chief: Kill Bin Laden Then Leave Afghanistan

By Jeff Stein | June 1, 2009 4:21 PM | | Comments (0)

Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal, an influential member of the Saudi royal family and former head of its intelligence service, says the U.S. should kill Osama Bin Laden and then " get the hell out" of Afghanistan.

Turki, who was also Saudi ambassador to the United States from 2005 to April 2009, likened al Qaeda to a "cult"  and its leader to a  "hydra head with venomous snakes."

To destroy the cult, he said, "you have to cut off the head."

"After that," he advised, "declare victory...then get the hell out of  Afghanistan."

Tags: Afghanistan, Afghan_War, assassination, crown_prince, Faisal, hydra-head, intelligence operations, interrogation, iran, iraq, Karzai, King_Faisal_Center_for_Research_and_Islamic_Studies, NATO, NPR, Osama_Bin_Laden, Pakistan, peace_talks, Prince_Turki, Qaeda, Saudi_Arabia, Special_Operations, Sylvia_Poggioli, terrorism, Zawahiri

Continue reading Ex-Saudi Spy Chief: Kill Bin Laden Then Leave Afghanistan.

Iran Secretly Helped U.S. Bomb Taliban Units, Find Al Qaeda

By Jeff Stein | May 28, 2009 9:39 PM | | Comments (9)

Iran supplied U.S. diplomats with the location of Taliban military units in Afghanistan after the initial bombing campaign in the fall of 2001 failed to rout them, according to former officials in the George W. Bush administration.

The Islamic regime also gave the Bush administration "really substantive cooperation" on al Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, at one point providing Washington with a list of 220 suspects and their whereabouts, said one official, former White House National Security Council Iran expert Hillary Mann Leverett.

Tags: Afghanistan; Colin_Powell, Air_Force, back_channel_diplomacy, BBC, Bush, CENTCOM, CIA, classified, counterterrorism, diplomacy, espionage, Esquire, Flynt_Leverett, Hillary_Mann_Leverett, hypocrisy, Iran, Iran_and_the_West, Iraq, Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad, Mohammad_Khatami, Northern_Alliance, Qaeda, Richard N. Haass, Ryan_Crocker, secret_talks, skullduggery, State_Department, Taliban

Continue reading Iran Secretly Helped U.S. Bomb Taliban Units, Find Al Qaeda.

Italian Prosecutor: Enough Evidence for CIA Convictions

By Jeff Stein | May 21, 2009 6:14 AM | | Comments (0)

FLORENCE, Italy -- The chief prosecutor in a trial related to the U.S. "rendition" of a suspected terrorist believes there is more than enough evidence to secure a conviction of over two dozen Americans charged in the case despite a ruling that excludes key Italian documents and testimony under  "state secrecy" laws.

Tags: Armando_Spataro, Aviano, CIA, Egypt, Italy, kidnapping, Milan, Qaeda, rendition, Robert_Seldon_Lady, Sabrina_De_Sousa, State_Department, status-of-forces agreement

Continue reading Italian Prosecutor: Enough Evidence for CIA Convictions.

Woman Charged in Italy Rendition Says U.S. 'Abandoned' Her

By Jeff Stein | May 15, 2009 4:35 PM | | Comments (1)

Sabrina DeSousa is as cool as you'd expect a CIA operative to be in a hot spot.

CQ Photo
Sabrina DeSousa (Jeff Stein/CQ Photo)

DeSousa's predicament is that she's wanted on kidnapping charges in Italy, along with two dozen other Americans connected to the CIA's "rendition" of an al Qaeda suspect from a Milan street to an Egyptian torture chamber in 2003.

Three years later, Italian authorities monitoring the missing man's home phone broke open the case, eventually filing kidnapping charges against DeSousa and the others, all but one CIA undercover operatives.

In spy-speak, it's called maintaining your cover.

Tags: Armando_Spataro, CIA, cover, espionage, Italy, kidnapping, Qaeda, rendition, State_Department, status-of-forces agreement

Continue reading Woman Charged in Italy Rendition Says U.S. 'Abandoned' Her.

Young Pakistan Army Officers May Be Turning to Taliban, Insiders Say

By Jeff Stein | May 11, 2009 5:31 PM | | Comments (2)

A retired Pakistani general confided a deep worry to a friend in Washington last week: that some young officers in Pakistan's regular army have become increasingly sympathetic over the past few years to the Taliban and their brand of radical Islam.

While he had no numbers or percentages of officers sympathetic to the Taliban, the possibility of any defections raises questions about the reliability of these officers during any sort of push against the Taliban by the Pakistani army.

Tags: Afghanistan, Arthur_Keller, Center_for_International_Policy, CIA, civil_war, ISI, Islam, Pakistan, Pakistani_army, Pashtun, Punjabi, Qaeda, Selig_Harrison, Southwest_Asia, Taliban, treachery, WorldFocus

Continue reading Young Pakistan Army Officers May Be Turning to Taliban, Insiders Say.

Rice: "We were deaf, dumb and blind" on al Qaeda on Sept. 11, 2001

By Jeff Stein | May 4, 2009 6:03 PM | | Comments (0)

School visits seem to have a strange effect on Condoleezza Rice's brain.

The former secretary of state and White House national security advisor has made more controversial remarks in the few months since she's been out of office than the eight years she was in it.

Last week was her attention-getting elocution on torture at Stanford. Now comes a transcript of her remarks on Sunday, May 3, at an event sponsored by Jewish Primary Day School in the nation's capital.

Revisiting the events of Sept. 11, 2001, Rice said top Bush administration officials were ignorant about al Qaeda when the terrorists struck the World Trade Center towers and Pentagon. 

Tags: Bush, Condoleezza_Rice, Jewish_Primary_Day_School, national_security, Osama_Bin_Laden, Qaeda, terrorism, WJR

Continue reading Rice: "We were deaf, dumb and blind" on al Qaeda on Sept. 11, 2001.

Repetitive Interrogations Reveal CIA's Lack of Spies, Agency Veterans Say

By Jeff Stein | April 23, 2009 8:45 PM | | Comments (4)

In the continuing cacophony over what torture is and whether it "works," an important point has gone missing, say current and former counterterrorism operatives.

The CIA's reliance on repeated, and brutal, "enhanced" interrogation techniques shows how few spies the spy agency had before and after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

That made the agency's reliance on squeezing new information out of captured terrorist suspects all the more desperate, many say.

Tags: Afghanistan, case_officer, CIA, counterinsurgency, enhanced_techniques, human_rights, interrogators, Predator, protest, Qaeda, terrorism, torture, whistle_blower

Continue reading Repetitive Interrogations Reveal CIA's Lack of Spies, Agency Veterans Say.

Lahore Attack May Signal New Terrorist Partnership

By Jeff Stein | March 30, 2009 2:59 PM | | Comments (0)

Fingers are pointing every which way in the wake of Monday's blood-soaked assault on a police academy in Lahore, Pakistan, that left 27 cadets dead and twice that number wounded.  

But according to the usually reliable Asia Times Online, the attack represented an ominous development in the already perilous Pakistan security situation.

Quoting "militant sources," the magazine said the raid was "the first major operation of the new nexus comprising al-Qaeda, Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud and Punjabi militants."

Tags: Asia_Times_Online, Jalaluddin_Haqqani, Lahore, Lashkar_e_Jhangvi, neo-Taliban, Pakistan, Pashtun, Qaeda, Sirajuddin_Haqqani, Sunni, terrorism

Continue reading Lahore Attack May Signal New Terrorist Partnership.

Fighting Styles of Sunni and Shi'a Terrorists Differ, Study Finds

By Jeff Stein | March 24, 2009 2:02 AM | | Comments (0)

Only two-plus years ago some members of the House Intelligence Committee and top FBI counterterrorism officials didn't know that there were important differences between the Sunnis and Shi'a battling for control of Iraq, or what side al Qaeda is on. 

Now it might behoove them to learn that the objectives and tactics of Sunni and Shi'a terrorists also differ widely, according to a fascinating new study from the Combating Terror Center at West Point, N.Y.

Tags: Afghanistan, Hezbollah, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Qaeda, shi'a, Silvestre_Reyes, sunni, Thomas_F._Lynch, West_Point

Continue reading Fighting Styles of Sunni and Shi'a Terrorists Differ, Study Finds.

Nonpartisan Commission Urged as Court Blocks Gitmo Resettlement

By Jeff Stein | February 18, 2009 8:17 PM | | Comments (0)

With the latest attempt to resettle Guantanamo prisoners stymied in court, a group of prominent American law enforcement, military, diplomatic, judicial and religious figures is urging President Obama to appoint a non-partisan commission to study the detention, treatment, and transfer of terrorist suspects.

Tags: Abu Ghraib, Antonio_M._Taguba, Armando Spataro, Center_for_Constitutional_Rights, detainee, Emi MacLea, FBI, Guantanamo, human_rights, Italy, Juan_E._Méndez, Leo_Sisti, l'Espresso, Milan, Qaeda, rendition, Rev._John_H._Thomas, Silvio_Berlusconi, United_Church_of_Christ, William_Sessions

Continue reading Nonpartisan Commission Urged as Court Blocks Gitmo Resettlement.

Rumsfeld Spokesman, CIA Agent Skirmish Over 'Botch' Allegation

By Jeff Stein | October 8, 2008 2:03 PM | | Comments (1)

Lawrence Di Rita, former spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, escalated his attack today on a CIA officer's charge that Pentagon dithering wasted a chance to wipe out top al Qaeda figures in northern Iraq back in 2002.

In my original story, published late last night, I quoted Di Rita's objection to the allegation by Charles "Sam" Faddis, who led a CIA team into northern Iraq following the 9/11 attacks, that  the Pentagon's "endless planning and delays" foiled a chance to wipe out a band of al Qaeda leaders who were fleeing American bombs in Afghanistan.

After reading that piece online, Di Rita had this further comment:

Tags: Charles "Sam" Faddis, CIA, intelligence, Iran, iraq, Lawrence Di Rita, Qaeda, Rumsfeld, terrorism

Continue reading Rumsfeld Spokesman, CIA Agent Skirmish Over 'Botch' Allegation.