Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit excerpt from ... INTELLIGENCE ISSN 1245-2122 N. 43, New Series, 9 September 1996 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; post ADI, 16 rue des Ecoles, 75005 Paris, France) Copyright ADI 1996, reproduction in any form forbidden without explicit authorization from the ADI. A one year subscription (23 issues with full index) is US $315. INTELLIGENCE AROUND THE WORLD USA: FIRING MISSILES AT CIVILIAN AIRLINERS FBI and CIA agents in the Middle East are investigating claims made by a senior Iranian official in Teheran that Islamic activists smuggled three Stinger ground-to-air missiles into the United States, last January, one of which was used, on 17 July, to shoot down TWA Boeing Flight 800. According to a report in the "Sunday Times" on 25 August, the missiles were bought by Iran from Afghan Islamic guerrillas and were shipped from Karachi, Pakistan, via Rotterdam to the Canadian port of Halifax. They were supposedly smuggled across the Canadian/U.S. border by members of Gama'a Al-Islamiya, the Iranian-backed Egyptian fundamentalist organization accused of bombing the World Trade Centre in New York in 1993. The London-based newspaper claims details of the smuggling operation were confirmed by a senior White House official involved in collating intelligence relating to the TWA inquiry. The paper also reported that a previously unknown Iranian- sponsored group called Falakh, "may have as many as 50-highly trained terrorists" in the U.S. COMMENT -- The investigation into the destruction of TWA Flight 800 is being conducted by a 200-strong FBI task force, led by ex-mariner James Kallstrom, which has yet to find sufficient evidence to conclude that either a bomb or a missile caused the crash. A Pentagon computer simulation of the incident determined that is was "possible but unlikely" that a Stinger could have blown up the plane and a number of eye- witnesses have spoken of "two fireballs" which engulfed the Boeing 747, but most investigators believe that a device was smuggled aboard the Jumbo jet, a theory which appears influenced by the trial in New York of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, described as a "master bomb-maker" who was found guilty on 5 September of conspiring to destroy a dozen U.S. airlines over the Pacific with on-board bombs. Unfortunately, the limited range of the Stinger means that it would have had to have been fired from a boat in order to have hit Flight 800. The other possibility is that a "heavier" missile was used, but this would implicate not "terrorists" but a U.S. military exercise "mistake". For the incredulous, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is now investigating a report a week ago by an American Airlines 757 pilot who reported, on 29 August, off the Virginia coast, that he saw "a missile of the right wing" at twice the altitude at which Flight 800 was flying. Nearby, there is a U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sounding rocket facility at Wallops Island, and naval installations at Norfolk and Lexington Park. Moreover, in the 1980 destruction of an Italian airline DC-9 by missile near the island of Ustica north of Sicily, the leading likely culprits are U.S. and French naval aviation which were both in the area (see pages 237-240 of our book, "Intelligences Secretes", 1988, Hachette, Paris). The U.S. authorities continue to downplay suggestions that mechanical failure might have caused the plane to drop rapidly from 4,800 meters to 3,000 meters before exploding and falling into the sea off Long Island, despite the fact that a similar incident occurred in May 1976 when an Iranian Air Force 747 -- the same model as TWA Flight 800 -- exploded in mid-air near Madrid airport, killing 17 crew members. After widespread speculation that a bomb on board had caused the crash, an inquiry later concluded that a fuel leak in one of the wings was responsible. * Also in this issue... FRONTPAGE U.S.A. - POOR MANAGEMENT & INADEQUATE TECH AS "CYBERTERROR" p.1 TECHNOLOGY AND TECHNIQUES SECURITY RESOURCES ON MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN p.2 EAVESDROPPING ON GSM DIGITAL CELL PHONES p.3 COMPUTER CRIME COUNTERMEASURES, GUIDES AND "TOOL KITS" p.4 MAPS - Chicago Fights Crime with Maps. p.5 OLYMPICS - Almost IBM's "Waterloo". p.6 NAMES - CIABASE & NAMEBASE Updates. p.7 DATA BASES - Washington's Fall Harvest. p.8 EAVESDROPPING - Practical Primer. p.9 TERRORISM - List of Major Conventions. p.10 DRUGS - Enforcing the Enforcers. p.11 STEALTH - Tamara Hard to Sell Anywhere. p.12 SELF-DESTRUCT - More "Bombs" in Gaza. p.13 PEOPLE DANILO BLANDON - U.S.A./NICARAGUA p.14 JOSE MARIA SISON - NETHERLANDS/PHILIPPINES p.15 SADIQ SADAH - IRAQ/GREAT BRITAIN p.16 KHALID IBN MAHFOUZ - SAUDI ARABIA p.17 U.S.A. - Kevin Lee Poulsen. p.18 U.S.A. - Ed Cummings. p.19 U.S.A. - Peter Junger. p.20 GREAT BRITAIN - Richard Tilt. p.21 NORTHERN IRELAND - HUGH TORNEY. p.22 GERMANY - Bruno Breguet. p.23 GERMANY - Berge Balanian. p.24 SLOVAKIA - Oskar Fegyveres. p.25 POLAND/U.S.A. - Ryszard Kuklinski. p.26 BULGARIA - Mikhail Dobrev. p.27 RUSSIA/SWEDEN - Hans Peter Nordstrem. p.28 RUSSIA - Anatolii Kuznetsov. p.29 PERU - Vladimiro Montesinos. p.30 PALESTINE - Amin Abdel Salaam. p.31 AGENDA COMING EVENTS FROM NOW TO 31 OCTOBER 1996 p.32 INTELLIGENCE AROUND THE WORLD U.S.A. - FIRING MISSILES AT CIVILIAN AIRLINERS p.33 No Smoke, No Drink, But Intelligence at Legion Fete. p.34 The CIA's "Niche" Recruiting Campaign. p.35 FBI Everywhere, Even in the "Backyard". p.36 Barron's FBI-KGB Story. p.37 NRO "Openly" Selling Its Wares. p.38 GREAT BRITAIN - GUN CONTROL OPTIONS COMING UP p.39 PUBLIC BALANCING OF THE TORY'S SECRET BOOKS p.40 NORTHERN IRELAND - LOYALIST POLITICAL & MILITARY UNITY SHATTERS p.41 FRANCE - NO SUMMER "TIME OUT" IN INTERNECINE WARFARE p.42 NETHERLANDS - Executive Order Changes Spies' Names. p.43 GERMANY - HAM-HANDED TACTICS GALVANIZES WORLD AUTONOMOUS LEFT p.44 PROSECUTORS STILL GOING AFTER MARKUS WOLF p.45 WESTERN EUROPE - Sheep Call in the COMSEC Wolf. p.46 POLAND - "Getting the Works" in Security & Intelligence. p.47 SLOVAKIA - JUSTICE VERY SLOWLY GRINDS DOWN MECIAR & LEXA p.48 BULGARIA - CIA Visit Followed by Results. p.49 RUSSIA - Plots Galore. p.50 MEXICO - The "Mordita" Bites Back at Cops. p.51 COLOMBIA - Latin Heroin Replaces Asian. p.52 HAITI - Cooler Heads Get Down to Intelligence Exchange. p.53 GUATEMALA - Intelligence Oversight Board Report on CIA. p.54 ARGENTINA - Progress on Anti-Jewish Bombings. p.55 PALESTINE - U.S. Intelligence Cooperation On Track. p.56 Eleventh Security Force Created. p.57 IRAQ - SADDAM WINS ANOTHER ONE BY LOSING p.58 SAUDI ARABIA - A "Hot" Western Intelligence Academy. p.59 CAMBODIA - Kidnapped Brit Military Expert Causes Concern. p.60 HONG KONG - A QUIET RETREAT AFTER INTELLIGENCE EVACUATION p.61 ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org =================================================================