SUMMARY VERSION FULL COPY ON REQUEST INTELLIGENCE ISSN 1245-2122 N. 85 New Series, 21 September 1998 Every Two to Three Weeks Publishing since 1980 Editor Olivier Schmidt (email intelligence-adi@wanadoo.fr; web http://www.blythe.org/Intelligence; tel/fax 33 1 40 51 85 19) TABLE OF CONTENTS, N. 85, 21 September 1998 SPECIAL REPORT SWITZERLAND - BUPO & NEW LAW ON INTERNAL SECURITY p.1 TECHNOLOGY AND TECHNIQUES INFORMATION "OVERLOAD" AT "INTELLIGENCE" p.2 ROBOT TO CLEAN UP THE NUCLEAR MESS p.3 CS SPRAY FOR SELF-DEFENSE, NOT FOR CONTAINMENT p.4 TECHNOLOGY AND TECHNIQUES - Open Source Intelligence. p.5 PEOPLE GREAT BRITAIN - JOSEPH PHILLIP YORKE p.6 NORTHERN IRELAND - MARTIN MC GUINNESS p.7 ISRAEL - MARCUS KLINGBERG p.8 PEOPLE - Open Source Intelligence. p.9 AGENDA COMING EVENTS THROUGH 1 NOVEMBER 1998 p.10 INTELLIGENCE AROUND THE WORLD USA - "ANTI-TERRORISM" AT THE TOP OF THE AGENDA p.11 - ISRAEL'S "MEDIA ENFORCER" EMERSON "BLOWN" p.12 - Walker, "USS Pueblo" & World War III. p.13 - Open Source Intelligence - CIA. p.14 - Open Source Intelligence. p.15 GREAT BRITAIN - NATIONWIDE ANTI-CRIME VCP OPERATION p.16 NORTHERN IRELAND - PROVOS PUT REAL IRA "ON NOTICE" p.17 FRANCE - SHAYLER REVIVES THE "MESENTENTE CORDIALE" p.18 - GENDARME OFFENSIVE AGAINST ... THE POLICE p.19 GERMANY - HEAVY BARRAGE OF BOOKS AGAINST INTELLIGENCE p.20 WESTERN EUROP - "COCA NEGRA" HITS THE STREETS p.21 - Open Source Intelligence. p.22 RUSSIA - KILLERS KILL ROKHLIN'S KILLERS p.23 EASTERN EUROPE - Open Source Intelligence. p.24 CUBA - "DOWN AND OUT" SPIES IN MIAMI ROLLED UP p.25 LATIN AMERICA - Open Source Intelligence. p.26 AFRICA - Open Source Intelligence. p.27 ISRAEL - Strange Escape to Real Death. p.28 IRAQ - SADDAM'S US/ISRAELI-MADE "WMD THREAT" p.29 IRAN - Fighting Islamic Radicals ... in Afghanistan. p.30 MIDDLE EAST - Open Source Intelligence. p.31 ASIA - Open Source Intelligence. p.32 --------------------------------------------- SPECIAL REPORT Intelligence, N. 85, 21 September 1998, p. 1 SWITZERLAND BUPO & NEW LAW ON INTERNAL SECURITY A unique referendum vote on the abolition of Switzerland's internal security service ended in bitter defeat for the opponents of political policing. A new law on internal security came into force in July. In 1989, it was learned that 900,000 people out of a total population of 6.5 million had been registered by internal security only because of their political opinion. Almost ten years later, the Swiss seem to have forgotten the lessons of the "snooping scandal". In a 7 June referendum, the Swiss electorate rejected by a crushing 75 percent a proposal, probably unique in a western country, for the simple abolition of the "political police", Switzerland's internal security service. The proposal was submitted as an obligatory referendum question in accordance with the Swiss Constitution because it was request by more than 100,000 citizens, supported by the Social Democratic Party, the Greens and labor unions. The defeat means the end, at least for the time being, of the country's largest opposition movement since the end of World War II. In 1989, it was revealed that during the Cold War, the Swiss Bundespolizei (Bupo) federal police, assisted by the police of the Cantons (member states of the Swiss Confederation) had kept under surveillance and registered some 900,000 persons on the sole grounds of their political opinions. Foreign residents and people suspected of Communist or leftist sympathies were the prime targets of this extraordinary state-sponsored snooping activity. But it gradually came out that even leading figures of the Swiss establishment, such as editors of large circulation newspapers, had Bupo files. (end of extrait) --------------------------------------------- Intelligence, N. 85, 21 September 1998, p. 12 USA ISRAEL'S "MEDIA ENFORCER" EMERSON "BLOWN" John Sugg, editor of the "Weekly Planet", recently wrote a rebuttal on the Internet to a column by Jeff Jacoby in the "Boston Globe" defending very pro-Israeli US journalist, Steven Emerson. The following is a version of Sugg's rebuttal. Most of the media look at Emerson and find him wanting -- because of his numerous mistakes and because of his anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias. The recent terrorist events have given him a new life -- but mostly in media that don't know his record or with media with little credibility, such as Geraldo Rivera and the "New York Post". To point out his record is not, as Jacoby states, "cowardly" or "corrupting," but, rather, consistent with the highest values of journalism. The Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics states: "The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources' reliability." Moreover, as I point out below, no one is more cowardly in attempts to silence critics than Emerson. I am a journalist in Tampa, Florida -- senior editor of the "Weekly Planet", similar to the "Boston Phoenix". I have covered matters relating to Steven Emerson, whose 1994 video, "Jihad in America" prompted a series in the "Tampa Tribune", which in turn led to a federal investigation of an Islamic think tank at the University of South Florida. After almost three years, there have been no indictments, although one Palestinian scholar has been held in an INS jail for 15 months based on "secret evidence" that he has ties to terrorist groups. Thus, I was amazed when I read Jeff Jacoby's column on an attempt to "blacklist" Emerson. No person who describes himself as a journalist has, to my knowledge, tried harder to silence his critics than Emerson. I have personal knowledge of Emerson's tactics. In the first column I did on local events, I made a mistake. I condensed my writing and, in doing so, said that an Arabic quote was contained in one video when it actually appeared on another. My point remained valid: Many independent people, when they examine Emerson's translations, find them faulty. I had no reason to like Emerson -- he already had broken his word to me and to the "St. Petersburg Times" to supply documentation for claims he had made at a forum in Tampa. Still, I called his office and left a message acknowledging the mistake. A few days later, I received the first of three outrageous lawyer letters that tried to intimidate me from further comments about Emerson. That got me interested in Emerson's role within the media. Here is a partial list from my files: -- Three Associated Press (AP) journalists -- including Richard Cole, lead writer on a 1997 terrorism series -- state that Emerson tried to pass off his own work as FBI material. When the reporters then stripped much of Emerson's information from the series, Cole says Emerson responded with a "multi-page rant." AP certainly has been intimidated by the episode. The wire service has tried to bury the events as "an internal matter," but AP President, Louis Boccardi, and his subordinates have never disputed what happened. -- The respected "Miami Herald" senior writer, Martin Merzer (who is Jewish and who has been the paper's Middle East correspondent) in May wrote a lengthy article that debunked many of the claims by Emerson and the "Tampa Tribune". Prior to publication, Emerson sought to derail the story with a letter to the paper and prominent Jewish leaders, which accused Merzer of being "nothing short of racist." Subsequently, Emerson printed an item in a magazine that purports to be his dialogue with Merzer. It depicts Merzer in a highly unflattering manner. Merzer described the alleged interview as "a couple of tiny grains of truth surrounded by a mountain of lies." -- When the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations published a newsletter that gave a balanced perspective on certain issues in the Middle East, Emerson attacked the Council in an attempt to radically alter or cease publishing the newsletter. CFR's Leslie Gelb accused Emerson of attempted censorship and referred to Emerson as the "grand inquisitor." This was originally reported in the 10 May 1996 "Forward". I have subsequently verified the report with Gelb. -- The Howard University television station delayed running a program that featured Muslim points of view for several weeks. The reason: threats from Emerson. -- In December 1994, Emerson sent a scathing letter to the Voice of America (VOA) demanding an apology and retraction. VOA's sin? It had included Muslims on a program. What apparently really upset Emerson was the VOA comment that Emerson has "close ties to Israel's Likud Party." That statement, Emerson said, "caused me serious damage as a journalist." However, as detailed by investigative reporter Robert Friedman, in the "Nation", not only does Emerson have close ties to Likud, but when two members of the party's ultra- right-wing "Gang of Three" came to Washington to attempt to derail the peace process, they stayed at Emerson's home. Emerson carts around one of the "gang," Yigal Carmon (a ranking member of Israel's intelligence establishment) and introduces him to reporters as a terrorism expert. The "Jerusalem Post", certainly no radical Islamic mouthpiece, even has described Emerson as close to Israeli intelligence. -- Emerson, in Merzer's Herald article, gloated that he had silenced the Muslim academics in Tampa. He said of one: "Sami Al-Arian cannot speak and propagate his message to young students, because it is militant doctrine under a false veneer." I checked with the dean of the University of South Florida College of Engineering (as Emerson could have done), where Al-Arian is a respected computer science professor, and was told that there had never been any allegations that Al- Arian brought politics into the classroom. Such charges had never even been suggested by any student or faculty member. -- Others who have been threatened or smeared by Emerson include Friedman, the "Nation", Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), and investigative reporters Jane Hunter and Robert Parry. I have about two dozen letters Emerson and his lawyers have authored attempting to silence their critics. According to Friedman, Emerson threatened sources with financial ruin for talking to Friedman. Friedman commented in 1995: "Intellectual terrorism seems to be part of Emerson's standard repertoire. So is his penchant for papering his critics with threatening lawyers' letters." In Emerson's barrage of missives, his most common weapon is distortion. On 23 April, he wrote about me that I have "championed militants who have issued exhortations to kill Jews and attack the West, and has tarred (Emerson, "Tampa Tribune" reporter, Michael Fechter) and the FBI as part of a fabricated Zionist conspiracy." The truth, of course, is far from that. I have opposed "secret evidence" (and have been joined by columnists and editorial writers from the "St. Pete Times, "Orlando Sentinel", "Miami Herald" and other papers in doing so). I have commented as a media critic on Emerson and what I perceive as unfair reporting by the "Tribune" (as has the "Miami Herald" and the "St. Pete Times"). I have never used the words "Zionist" or "Zionism" in my columns. Also, on 23 April, Emerson wrote that I had been "publicly forced to recant and apologize to Emerson for publishing fabricated allegations." I correct mistakes, as any honest journalist does -- and as far as this issue goes, my errors are a drop compared to Emerson's tidal wave of mistakes. Nothing I have ever written could be remotely construed as recanting or apologizing to Emerson. So, who is guilty of trying to silence other voices? I think if anyone is carrying around a blacklist, it's Emerson. --------------------------------------------- Intelligence, N. 85, 21 September 1998, p. 18 FRANCE SHAYLER REVIVES THE "MESENTENTE CORDIALE" Since former British MI5 officer, David Shayler, 32, was arrested in Paris on 1 August, the long smoldering "Mesentente Cordiale" between British and French intelligence has flared up with new life. Following the arrest, Great Britain immediately applied for Shayler's extradition to face charges under the Official Secrets Act. But, as one French intelligence contact told "Intelligence", "in strictly legal terms, the British Official Secrets Act doesn't apply on French soil". Indeed, as we go to press, French investigating judge, Elisabeth Chauvin, has made no official statement indicating that France would extradite Shayler, nor that Shayler would be tried under French laws for spying. A year ago, the "Mail on Sunday", published the first disclosures by Shayler who left MI5 frustrated with the organization's incompetence, mismanagement and lack of accountability. He claimed MI5 had kept files on several members of the current Labour government -- including Peter Mandelson, the Trade and Industry secretary -- when they were active in 1970s student movements. Shayler also claims to have worked at the MI5 Libyan desk and was in regular contact with MI6 counterparts, learning through them that MI6 had given a large sum of money to a "Libyan Islamist extremist group" that mounted a failed assassination attempt against Libyan strongman, Col. Moammar Gadhafi, but killed many innocent people. Shayler repeated this accusation in a BBC interview this summer. The British government quickly obtained a civil injunction barring the British media from treating Shayler's allegations and tried to obtain an injunction against his web site in the US. Shayler soon fled the country and went into hiding in France, living on very little money before he was arrested in a cheap hotel room in Paris. That's "when the fun began". Shayler's lawyer, John Wadham, director of the British civil liberties group, Liberty, and the British press insist that Shayler is being held in Paris at the La Sante prison as a spy and awaiting extradition. French intelligence contacts have told "Intelligence" an entirely different story of "exchanges" and "negotiations" with Shayler to "protect him" from the British government and his former intelligence service colleagues. The insistence of British authorities that Shayler is being held in La Sante as a spy soon to be returned to England, and French official silence and extensive unofficial descriptions of the "coquette situation" the British intelligence services are in, tends to make us at "Intelligence" believe there is more truth to the French story than the British version. COMMENT -- To lay out the French story in full, we should add that the French intelligence is letting it be known that Shayler, once arrested in Paris, decided to talk and "has been singing like a canary" in order to "save his hide". Indeed, French intelligence says Shayler wants to stay in France, wants protection and might even be open to changing his identity. Shayler's stories, which interest French intelligence most, apparently center around what Shayler knows concerning British intelligence operations in France and possibly those of British intelligence's "joined-at-the-hip" US intelligence partners. The British have been active leaking too, saying, for example, that an AFP journalist supposedly interviewed Shayler in La Sante, but ... neither the journalist, nor the interview has been forthcoming. The French deny any such interview, adding there's no "Quartier de Haute Securite (QHS)" for holding spies at La Sante which is "specialized" in thugs, criminals and corrupt politicians: no top secret terrorists or spies. French intelligence sources say Shayler spent his first 72 hours -- the limit for national security and terrorism cases -- in DST internal security headquarters in Paris before being installed in a protected residence in the Saint Cloud suburbs of Paris under a form of "house arrest", but supposedly with the right to leave French territory at will. When "Intelligence" told this story to a British colleague over the telephone, it took less than 24 hours for MI6 to hear it and get the Foreign Office to demand that the representative of French intelligence explain what it meant that "Shayler was free to leave France". Since then, things have calmed down a bit, but the "Mesentente Cordiale" now has a new lease on life. --------------------------------------------- Intelligence, N. 85, 21 September 1998, p. 23 RUSSIA KILLERS KILL ROKHLIN'S KILLERS On 3 July, leading opposition figure and former State Duma Defense Committee Chairman, Lev Rokhlin, was murdered in his dacha. His wife, Tamara, soon confessed to the murder, but many say she was pressured into confessing. Cracks in the government's case soon started to appear. In addition to the bullet that killed Rokhlin, another bullet was found embedded in a wall of another room at Rokhlin's dacha, implying there had been a fight and not a quick single shot by Mrs. Rokhlin. A bodyguard, who was at the dacha that night, did not hear any shots fired, but no silencer was found at the dacha. Military coroners performed an autopsy on Rokhlin, but his friends and allies -- the Movement to Support the Army -- were "bewildered" that civil coroners did not perform the autopsy (INT, n. 83 24). The plot thickened on 23 July when Aleksandr Zvyagintsev, a senior aide to Prosecutor General, Yurii Skuratov, stated there was no connection between Rokhlin's murder and three burned corpses found in the woods about one kilometer from Rokhlin's the dacha. There was speculation that the corpses were Rokhlin's killers who were "taken out" after performing their job. However, Zvyaginstev insists that forensic tests showed that the three men died two weeks before Rokhlin's murder. He also claims that two men have already been arrested for killing the men found in the woods and have confessed ... just like Mrs. Rokhlin. Certain Russian media reports argued that the bodies were near several dachas and could not have gone undetected for weeks. COMMENT -- In organized crime and covert operations, two well-known "rules of thumb" are "Dead men don't talk" and "One generation of hitmen 'replaces' another". Indeed, mafia and special forces hitmen very often have "fatal accidents", carrying with them to the grave information concerning who ordered whom to be eliminated. In the case of the murder of Rokhlin, the KGB or other "old structures" seem to have pushed this to the extreme with Rokhlin's murderers being "replaced on the spot" by a new team. ---------------------------------------------