Category Archives: Espionage

Iran, Venezuela Plotting Attacks “Worse than 9/11”

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From Stonegate:

by Anna Mahjar-Barducci
January 13, 2012 at 4:30 am

Tensions are mounting between the U.S. and Venezuela as the State Department decided to expel Livia Acosta Noguera, the Venezuelan consul in Miami, declaring her “persona non grata.” The Venezuelan consul was implicated in an alleged plot to launch cyber attacks on U.S. nuclear power facilities. The decision was taken as a direct result of the revelations made by the documentary The Iranian Threat, aired by the U.S Spanish language channel Univision.

In the film, the Venezuelan consul was caught on camera backing Iranian-sponsored cyber-attack against U.S. targets in 2007, when she was vice-secretary in the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico. According to the documentary, these cyber-attacks would be “worse than 9-11.” The State Department did not want to comment on this decision. However, a U.S. high official stated that this expulsion is a serious issue, as “we do not take it lightly when we declare somebody persona non grata.”

Before the expulsion, four members of the Congress — Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Republican), Mario Diaz-Balart (Republican), David Rivera (Republican) and Albio Sires (Democrat) — wrote a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, expressing their “grave concern” over the “diplomatic credentials” of the Venezuelan Consul. “According to a documentary by Univision Network titled ‘The Iranian Threat‘ […] [the Venezuelan consul] interacted with members from the Iranian and Cuban embassies and with students posing as extremists […] in order to coordinate a cyber attack against the United States Government and our critical infrastructure systems at the White House, FBI, and CIA. If true, these actions demonstrate [Venezuelan consul’s] willingness to undermine U.S. interests and potential threat to our national security posed by [Venezuelan consul’s] activities. With this is mind, we respectfully request the Department of State to investigate these allegations, and if found true, declare her a persona non grata and require her immediate departure from the United States,” they wrote.

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Some important updates on Iran:

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First, what is commonly known:

Report: Iran nuclear scientist killed in car bomb blast:

By the CNN Wire Staff
January 11, 2012 — Updated 1529 GMT (2329 HKT)
A view of Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility in Isfahan province. It is said to have 8,000 centrifuges in operation.
A view of Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility in Isfahan province. It is said to have 8,000 centrifuges in operation.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • The scientist’s driver also died in the bombing, state-run Press TV reports
  • A former IDF intelligence officer says the attack is part of broader pressure on Iran
  • First vice president says the attack, which is similar to others in recent years, will not stop Iran
  • Iran: “This is the work of the Zionists”

Tehran, Iran (CNN) — A nuclear scientist was killed in a blast in a Tehran neighborhood Wednesday morning, an Iranian news agency reported, the latest in a string of attacks against such scientists that Iran has blamed on Israel.

A motorcyclist placed a magnetic bomb under Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan’s Peugeot 405, the state-run IRNA news agency said. The blast also wounded two others, IRNA said.

State television channel Press TV reported later Wednesday that Roshan’s driver, named as Reza Qashqaei, had died in a hospital from his injuries.

Roshan, 32, was a deputy director for commercial affairs at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in Isfahan province and a graduate of Iran’s Oil Industry University, according to the semi-official news agency Fars.

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My own sources have told me there will be more and better information coming shortly on this event from witness at site. However, my sources also tell me that information is getting increasingly difficult to send out of Iran. Below I’ll paste what was sent to me just now:

From here on Iranians can only use email for communication. (Yahoo and Gmail only HTML). VPN services provided from outside soon  will end too and Internet is extremely slow and . almost non.

Facebook and everything else is filtered.

Iranians are all very concerned that soon they will be cut-off from the outside world and will be unaware of what is going
on with this government and how its irresponsible actions will impact everyday security, safety, and daily lives of them (the people).
As you know the satellites dishes are being destroyed.
You may want to use this article as a resource:
There is plenty of good information in this article and it gives a very clear picture of current and future human rights violations
by a state-controlled internet.

Musharraf Will Be Arrested on Arrival in Pakistan, PTI Reports

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Bloomberg

By Jeanette Rodrigues – Jan 7, 2012 9:01 AM ET

    Pervez Musharraf, who resigned as Pakistan’s president in 2008, will be arrested on arrival in the country later this month, the Press Trust of India reported, citing a prosecutor.

    Musharraf is a “proclaimed offender” and there’s no need for a warrant for this arrest, PTI reported today, citing Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali, prosecutor at the Federal Investigation Agency. Musharraf lives in Dubai and London and plans to return to Pakistan on Jan. 25 or Jan. 27, according to the report.

    A Pakistani court issued an arrest warrant for Musharraf in February over allegations he played a role in the 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, the AP reported at the time, citing prosecutors. He hadn’t been charged in the case, AP said.

    To contact the reporter on this story: Jeanette Rodrigues in Mumbai at jr**********@*******rg.net

    To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Tighe at pt****@*******rg.net

    Hackers set to publish stolen emails after Stratfor breach

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    The National Post:

      Dec 27, 2011 – 6:56 PM ET | Last Updated: Dec 27, 2011 8:09 PM ET

    Youtube

    Youtube

    In the past year, hacker group Anonymous has launched attacks on companies perceived to be enemies of the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

    • Hackers affiliated with the Anonymous group said they are getting ready to publish emails stolen from private intelligence analysis firm Strategic Forecasting Inc, whose clients include the U.S. military, Wall Street banks and other corporations.

    Strategic Forecasting Inc, which is also known as Stratfor, disclosed over the weekend that its website had been hacked and that some information about its corporate subscribers had been made public.

    The hacking group known as Antisec has claimed responsibility for the attack and promised to cause “mayhem” by releasing stolen documents.

    Antisec has already published what it claims are the names of thousands of corporate and government customers, as well as email addresses, passwords and credit card numbers of individual subscribers to its services. Customers on the list published by Antisec include Bank of America, Exxon Mobil Corp, Goldman Sachs & Co, Interpol, Thomson Reuters, the U.S. military and the United Nations. Continue Reading →

    U.S. authorities probing alleged cyberattack plot by Venezuela, Iran

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    Washington Times:

    U.S. officials are investigating reports that Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats in Mexico were involved in planned cyberattacks against U.S. targets, including nuclear power plants.

    Allegations about the cyberplot were aired last week in a documentary on the Spanish-language TV network Univision, which included secretly recorded footage of Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats being briefed on the planned attacks and promising to pass information to their governments.

    A former computer instructor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico told Univision that he was recruited by a professor there in 2006 to organize a group of student hackers to carry out cyberattacks against the United States, initially at the behest of the Cuban Embassy.

    In an undercover sting, instructor Juan Carlos Munoz Ledo and several selected students infiltrated the hackers and secretly videotaped the Iranian and Venezuelan diplomats.

    Reports about Iran’s involvement in the suspected plot come amid the Islamic republic’s refusal to return a sophisticated, unmanned U.S. spy plane that crashed inside its borders this month. Iranian officials have laid claim to the drone, vowing to research it for its technology.

    Calling the reports “disturbing,” State Department spokesman William Ostick said federal authorities are examining the cyberplot allegations but added that U.S. officials “don’t have any information at this point to corroborate them.”

    Sen. Robert Menendez, New Jersey Democrat and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, called for hearings in the new year about Iranian activities in Latin America.

    Some House lawmakers called for the expulsion of a Venezuelan diplomat in the U.S. who is implicated in the suspected plot.

    The Univision documentary fanned fears among lawmakers that Iran’s recent diplomatic outreach in the region, particularly to Venezuela’s anti-American leftist President Hugo Chavez, might be a front for nefarious activities.

    Earlier this year, U.S. prosecutors charged an Iranian official based in Tehran with trying to recruit a Mexican drug cartel to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States by bombing a Washington restaurant.

    “If Iran is using regional actors to facilitate and direct activities against the United States, this would represent a substantial increase in the level of the Iranian threat and would necessitate an immediate response,” Mr. Menendez said.

    An aide to Mr. Menendez told The Times that the Univision report, which also said that Iranian extremists were recruiting young Latin American Muslims, is “one of a variety of concerns we have about Iran’s efforts to engage with countries and other actors in the region.”

    Next year’s hearing will examine Iran’s “political and commercial outreach, as well as more nefarious activities,” the aide said.

    “We monitor Iran’s activities in the region closely,” Mr. Ostick said. “That vigilance led to the arrest of the individual responsible for the recent assassination plot” against the Saudi ambassador.

    “We constantly monitor for possible connections between terrorists and transnational criminals.”

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    The MEK, Iran, and US terrorist watch list.

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    I get a lot of conflicting information about the group known as the MEK. (Mujahadeen E Kalk) I have even met several of them and interviewed one. They seem very personable, express a desire for a secular state that would be a state among nations like all others, with freedom and reason ruling the day. But then if you talk to Christians or Bahai in Iran, you get a different story, some saying that “The MEK hunt down Bahai like dogs” as one example.

    I do know one thing.

    The MEK are the one group the Islamic Republic of Iran are actually afraid of.

    Below, a recent video clip from a former commander of Camp Ashraf in Iraq on the MEK and below that, a recent video of an MEK ceremony.

    The clip below was sent to me by a good friend who was Persian (I use the term ‘Persian’ to distinguish people from that country who in fact are part of the excellent tradition of advancement and liberalism which was Iran before the revolution) and it is apparently the MEK conducting a ceremony of a religious nature.

    Another more knowledgable friend of mine expressed it thusly:

    “The MEK should be supported to help overthrow the IRI, but no one wants to see them in power”

    Fair enough. It should be noted that they are on the terrorist watch list, only because Bill Clinton agreed to place them there to do the IRI a favor during a brief moment of false hope in negotiations with Iran.

    Two stories concerning what looks like a fake doctor and the theft of strategic materials from a US research facility for Iran

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    Like many spy stories, this one is complex and takes some effort. I haven’t mucked through it all yet but here are the two links that deal with it that I have so far.

    Thanks Shab as always, for the great watchful eye on all things IRI (Islamic Republic of Iran)

    Link 1: American Thinker

    Link 2: New York Post

    ‘Iran planning to attack US bases in Germany’

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    From YNET News

    Confidential document leaked to German paper claims authorities arrested German businessman on suspicion that he helped plan strike against dozens of US Air Force bases in western Germany

    Assaf Uni

    Published:12.01.11, 15:27 / Israel News

    The aim of the attack, the report noted, is to thwart American logistic activities needed in order to carry out a military operation against Iranian nuclear facilities.

    In a confidential document leaked to the paper, the German chief prosecutor’s office claimed that the businessman is suspected of involvement in “espionage and sabotage” activities. The paper estimated that the suspect engaged in intelligence gathering for possible attacks on dozens of American military bases in western Germany. Continue Reading →

    Press release from Confederation of Iranian Students.

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    I received this in email. I have no link for it or confirmation of it’s contents or its sender whatsoever. Even so, the contents seem reasonable, likely, and one of the claims they make has already been confirmed by CNN and is here a few posts down. So I will post this press release anyway, hoping that it is legit, and if it isn’t, it certainly should be.

    Eeyore for Vlad:

    Iranian Freedom Institute

    And

    Confederation of Iranian Students Press Release

     Basiji-led Attack on the British Embassy in Tehran

     As the U.S. and its European allies begin to impose effective sanctions on the Islamic Republic, the western democracies should anticipate that the regime will initiate more of these fully-authorized, staged incidents under the guise of a student movement.  The so-called students, of course, are plain-clothed basiji following orders from the regime. Even Moussa Ghornani, a member of the legal committee of the Iranian Parliament, admitted unwittingly in a statement that “the students who entered the British Embassy yesterday were members of one of the official and effective organizations within the regime.” The basiji “students” published an announcement in the Raja News (the official news agency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) that railed against the government of Britain because “this evil government had the audacity to sanction our Central Bank.”

    The western democracies should take this incident as evidence that the recently imposed sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) have infuriated the regime. And for good reason. The CBI sanctions will disrupt the smooth flow of revenue to the regime that is essential to pay its loyalists, the basiji, and the Revolutionary Guard Corps leadership.  The Iranian Freedom Institute (IFI) and the Confederation of Iranian Students (CIS) applauded the imposition of CBI sanctions noting that this is a major step in the right direction. Continue Reading →

    ‘Blast in Iran struck uranium enrichment facility’

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    h/t Tundra T

    By JPOST.COM STAFF AND YAAKOV KATZ

    11/30/2011 12:30

    Satellite imagery confirms Isfahan facility rocked by blast was a nuclear facility, ‘The Times’ reports, citing Israeli intel officials.

    Talkbacks (17)

    Satellite imagery “clearly showing billowing smoke and destruction” has proven that an explosion Monday damaged a nuclear facility in the Iranian city of Ifsahan, according to a Times of London report Wednesday.

    The report quoted Israeli intelligence officials saying that there was “no doubt” that the blast damaged and uranium enrichment site, and asserted that it was “no accident.”

    More at JPOST

    UPDATE: A well placed source tells the Tundra Tabloids that the Esfahan plant isn’t an “enrichment” facility, that takes place at the Natanz facility. Esfahan is a facility where yellowcake is converted to several compounds, including uranium hexafluoride, or UF6, which is then sent to Natanz for enrichment. The issue of UF6 containment is also significant there. The possibility of hydrofluoric acid contamination in the metro area is very real.

    The source remains unconvinced that a responsible government would choose to create an explosion at Esfahan. First, it’s pointless, and second, it is more likely to contaminate the environment and endanger civilians than at any other facility except Natanz.

    So this looks like the work of local saboteurs.

    Iran denies explosion, claims it was a kitchen appliance

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    Wow I thought Japan was advanced but Iran must have fusion powered espresso machines.

    Here is a report from PRESS TV denying  any explosion took place and STRATFOR just reported that a FARS news source claimed it was a kitchen appliance although I can’t find that link yet.

    Thanks Tundra for the excellent image

    An artists impression of an Iranian coffee machine,

    Hundreds of Muslims Pray in New York Park, March to NYPD Headquarters in Protest

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    I would have hoped that a peace loving, pro-American Islamic population would be willing to assist in any terror investigation of its own community whole heartedly.

    To be fair, a lot of the people who have been caught before they did anything were turned in by fellow Muslims. But this is still an interesting demonstration for those who might claim to be all American.

    Below is some of the article from…

    From the Blaze:

    NEW YORK (The Blaze/AP) — Hundreds of Muslims prayed in a lower Manhattan park and marched to New York Police headquarters Friday to protest a decade of police infiltrating mosques and spying on Muslim neighborhoods.

    Bundled in winter clothes, men and women knelt as the call to prayer echoed off the cold stone of government buildings.

    “Being Muslim does not negate our nationality,” Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid told the crowd of about 500 gathered in Foley Square, not far from City Hall and local courthouses. “We are unapologetically Muslim and uncompromisingly American.”

    The demonstration was smaller and more subdued than the Occupy Wall Street protests that led to clashes with police and made headlines worldwide. Police wore windbreakers, not riot gear, and protesters called for improved relations with police.

    “We want for you to respect us,” Abdur-Rashid said, “and we will respect you.”

    It was the first organized opposition to the NYPD’s intelligence tactics since an Associated Press investigation revealed widespread spying programs that documented every aspect of Muslim life in New York. Police infiltrated mosques and student groups. Plainclothes officers catalogued Middle Eastern restaurants and their clientele. Analysts built databases on Arab cab drivers and monitored Muslims who changed their names.