Posts Tagged With: FBI

‘Safe Haven for Hitler’s Men’: US Used Nazis as Cold War Spies

A new US book has arrived at bookstores which reveals that the country’s intelligence agencies used up to 1,000 Nazis as spies and informants in its Cold War against the Soviet Union.

29/10/2014
 MOSCOW, October 29 (RIA Novosti) – The CIA and FBI used at least 1,000 ex-Nazis of all ranks, from concentration camp guards to high-level officers in the Third Reich, as anti-Soviet spies during the years of the Cold War, according to a new book by Eric Lichtblau, “The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler’s Men,” which was published on October 28.

Newly-declassified records and interviews put together by investigative reporter Eric Lichtblau reveal how the CIA, the FBI, and the military “all put Hitler’s minions to work as spies, intelligence assets, and leading scientists and engineers, whitewashing their histories.”

Even though it is not the first book on the topic, it is the first time when declassified government records have revealed the story of not only the Nazi scientists who were brought to US, but of the German spies and con men who followed them and lived for decades as ordinary citizens, Melvin Goodman, Director of the National Security Project of the Center for International Policy and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University, explained to Radio VR.

As a division chief and senior analyst at the Office of Soviet Affairs of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1976 to 1986, Melvin Goodman says the book “Project Paperclip” (1971) by Clarence Lasby and “Secret Agenda”, by Linda Hunt win 1991 also revealed that right after the World War there were Nazi scientists who were recruited by the US to engage in weapons research.

While many former Nazi scientists such as Werner von Braun hadn’t been involved in the Nazi’s infamous war crimes and contributed greatly to the development of rockets and jet planes, Hunt describes how others were actively engaged in “Dachau-like experiments on over seven thousand US soldiers”, whom they exposed to LSD and other chemicals at Englewood, Maryland between 1947 and 1966.

Goodman adds new information, stressing that the CIA and the FBI actively sabotaged the efforts of the Justice Department to hunt down Nazis who had committed crimes against humanity during the Holocaust. According to Goodman, these agencies continued to block efforts to bring these war criminals to justice until as late as 1994.

Despite the moral quandaries the agencies were able to overlook in their attempt to protect American interests from the Soviet Union, Mr. Goodman states that the spy work conducted by the repurposed war criminals was effectively worthless at providing any insight into the inner workings of the Soviet Union or its leadership. Goodman used to get the FBI reports from their sources, including the German recruits, and he states that they mostly consisted of trivial information.

But the mere fact of their cooperation makes it a “shocking and shameful story of America becoming a safe haven for Hitler’s men.”

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FBI Investigating if Three US Teen Girls Attempted to Join Islamic Slate: Reports

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is probing if three American teenage girls were attempting to join the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group in Syria, CBS News reported Wednesday.

 22/10/2014

MOSCOW, October 22 (RIA Novosti) – The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is probing if three American teenage girls were attempting to join the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group in Syria, CBS News reported Wednesday.

According to the news agency, the FBI said it is investigating the possibility that the girls from the Denver area tracked down in Frankfurt, Germany tried to travel to Syria to join the militants.

A law enforcement official told ABC News that the teenagers planned “to fulfill what they believe is some vision that has been put out on a slick media campaign” by Jihadists groups in Syria.

The FBI confirmed the incident on Tuesday.

“FBI Denver Division is aware of the situation and assisted with bringing the individuals back to Denver,” Suzie Payne, a spokeswoman for the FBI, said. “The juveniles are safe and reunited with their families.”

A US official told The Associated Press that the girls headed toward Turkey en route to Syria and that investigators are reviewing evidence, including the girls’ computers.

The three girls, all under the age of 18, were reported missing last week. They vanished from their homes and traveled from Colorado to Chicago, and then Frankfurt. Two of the girls are of Somali descent and one is of Sudanese descent.

The IS jihadist group, which is also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), has fought the Syrian government since 2012. It extended attacks to north and west Iraq in June and declared the creation of an Islamic caliphate.

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US intelligence: 300 Americans fighting alongside Islamic State

                                             

 
 
AFP Photo/HO/ISIL

AFP Photo/HO/ISIL

 

The United States government is tracking as many as 300 Americans supposedly fighting with Islamic State, the jihadist group with a heavy presence in parts of Syria and Iraq, according to senior US officials.

Washington is worried that radicalized foreign fighters could become a risk to the US if they return to employ skills learned overseas to carry out attacks, anonymous US officials said, according to the Washington Times.

“We know that there are several hundred American passport holders running around with ISIS in Syria or Iraq,” a senior US official said. “It’s hard to tell whether or not they’re in Syria or moved to Iraq.”

Past reports have put the possible number of Americans who have flocked to the fundamentalist extremist group Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS and ISIL) at around 100. IS, a former Al-Qaeda affiliate, gained strength fighting Bashar Assad’s forces in the Syrian civil war before turning to cross the border into Iraq, where they have made swift gains in western and northern sections of the volatile country.

The US State Department did not respond to the Washington Times when asked to comment on Americans fighting in Iraq or Syria.

The news of as many as 300 Americans fighting with IS comes one day after reports that a 33-year-old American, Douglas McAuthur McCain, was killed over the weekend in Syria while battling alongside Islamic State against members of a separate opposition group. Family members confirmed his passing to NBC News, and senior US officials acknowledged that they were aware of the man’s death.

Other IS supporters have taken to social media to inspire anxiety among the US government. In recent weeks, photos were posted on Twitter showing the Islamic State flag unfurled in front of the White House, and, in front of the Old Republic building on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, a message in Arabic was shown, reading, “We are in your state, we are in your cities, we are in your streets, you are our goals anywhere.”

The Obama administration believes any potential attack by American jihadists returning to the US would likely be carried out on a small scale, such as suicide bombings, and not a time-consuming long-range plan such as the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

Senior US officials said, according to the Washington Times, that intelligence agencies will put any Americans affiliated with IS on an appropriate watch list or no-fly list.

“I know that law enforcement agencies in Homeland Security are mindful of some Americans who have become radicalized, and some have taken up with [the Islamic State],” an official said.

An image grab taken from YouTube video 'ISIS Beheading of Journalist James Foley Captures World's Attention'

An image grab taken from YouTube video ‘ISIS Beheading of Journalist James Foley Captures World’s Attention’

How the Department of Homeland Security would track such Americans was not immediately clear, according to the report.

Despite all the consternation in official Washington over such potential threats, observers note that IS has gained strength from the financial backing of United States’ allies in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar.

Elite donors of American allies in the Persian Gulf region have poured an immense amount of resources into rebel groups like IS in efforts to advance on three general goals: opposing Iran, its ally Bashar Assad and his government in Syria, and fomenting the Sunni-Shia divides in the region.

Meanwhile, the United States has also supported so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels with both lethal and non-lethal aid, lending to fears that arms sent with the help of the Gulf states were channeled to the likes of IS.

In addition, Western incursions in the region, namely the 2003 invasion of Iraq that ushered in a brutal sectarian war that still divides the country today, have led to extreme instability, creating a power vacuum for militant groups to fill.

In light of IS advances across Syria and Iraq, the US Department of Defense is considering a number of options for President Obama to consider, including airstrikes against militant positions in Syria, similar to those the US has recently carried out against IS in Iraq. The US insists, though, that there are no plans to coordinate anti-terror attacks with the Syrian government.

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Dozens of FBI, CIA agents in Kiev ‘assisting Ukraine security’

Dozens of FBI, CIA agents in Kiev 'assisting Ukraine security'

Numerous US agents are helping the coup-appointed government in Ukraine to “fight organized crime” in the south east of the country, the German newspaper Bild revealed.

According to the daily, the CIA and FBI are advising the government in Kiev on how to deal with the ‘fight against organized crime’ and stop the violence in the country’s restive eastern regions.

The group also helps to investigate alleged financial crimes and is trying to trace the money, which was reportedly taken abroad during Viktor Yanokovich’s presidency, the newspaper said.

The head of the CIA, John Brennan, visited Kiev in mid-April and met with the acting Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and first Vice-President Vitaly Yarema to discuss a safer way to transfer US information to Ukraine.

Jen Psaki, spokeswomen for the United States Department of State, said that there was nothing to read into Brennan’s visit to Kiev, and that the head of the CIA did not offer support to the coup-appointed government in the country to help them conduct tactical operations within Ukraine.

However, following the visit the toppled President Viktor Yanukovich linked the CIA chief’s appearance in Kiev to the first stage of the new government’s crackdown in Slavyansk.

Brennan “sanctioned the use of weapons and provoked bloodshed,” Yanukovich said.

Bild’s reports comes as US President Barack Obama rules out that Washington will interfere in the situation in Ukraine.

“You’ve also seen suggestions or implications that somehow Americans are responsible for meddling inside Ukraine. I have to say that our only interest is for Ukraine to be able to make its own decisions. And the last thing we want is disorder and chaos in the center of Europe,” he said speaking in the White House after meeting the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, just two days ago.

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Snowden Dismisses Claims He Was Spying for Russia

Snowden Dismisses Claims He Was Spying for Russia

MOSCOW, January 22 (RIA Novosti) – National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has denied allegations he was collaborating with Russian intelligence services when he exposed details of US surveillance programs by disclosing thousands of classified documents, the New Yorker reported Wednesday.

“It won’t stick … because it’s clearly false, and the American people are smarter than politicians think they are,” Snowden told the New Yorker magazine from Moscow.

Snowden, who is wanted by US authorities and has been in Russia since June, was responding to allegations recently made by US Congressional leaders that he was possibly working for the Russian government at the time of his flight from the United States.

Snowden said the claims were baseless, noting that spies are better treated than being left to live in a Moscow airport for more than a month while in legal limbo.

“It’s not the smears that mystify me. It’s that outlets report statements that the speakers themselves admit are sheer speculation,” he said.

The New York Times reported Sunday that a senior FBI official told the newspaper the agency still believes Snowden acted alone.

Commenting on the widespread reporting on the statements, Snowden added “the media has a major role to play in American society, and they’re really abdicating their responsibility to hold power to account.”

Snowden’s lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, dismissed the accusations made by the chairman of the House of Representatives intelligence committee as baseless and said they were intended to besmirch Russia.

“[Mike] Rogers presented no evidence. His words are intended to discredit Russia,” he said.

Snowden’s lawyer said on Tuesday that the former contractor was planning to ask Russian law enforcement for protection after having received death threats, including from a US intelligence officer.

He said that currently Snowden is protected by private security guards.

Russia granted Snowden temporary asylum in August and he said in an interview last month that he is now residing in a Moscow suburb.

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Snowden slams Obama over interfrence in asylum bid

Snowden slams Obama over interfrence in asylum  bid

MOSCOW, July 2 (RIA Novosti) – Edward Snowden has accused US President Barack Obama of “pressuring the leaders” of countries where the fugitive former US intelligence contractor sought political asylum.

“On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic “wheeling and dealing” over my case,” Snowden said in his first public statement since fleeing Hong Kong eight days ago and posted late Monday on the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

“Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President [Joe Biden]to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions,” Snowden said.

“This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me,” he added.

Snowden, a former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who has a US warrant out for his arrest on charges of disclosing details of a secret government surveillance program, has reportedly been hiding out in a transit zone at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport together with Sarah Harrison, a lawyer with the WikiLeaks.

Snowden’s statement came amid reports that he had applied for political asylum in Russia and several other countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Snowden could stay in Russia, if he wanted to, but must stop leaking secrets and doing other activities to harm the United States.

Nikolai Patrushev, head of Russia’s Security Council, told the state-owned Rossiya-24 television network Monday that Alexander Bortnikov, head of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), and US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller were ordered by their respective presidents to “remain in constant contact and find ways” to resolve the standoff.

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FBI called spying on Gmail as their top priority

FBI called spying on Gmail as their top priority

lenta.ru

FBI adviser Andrew Weissman (Andrew Weissmann) named a top priority of the FBI in 2013 the monitoring over the largest Internet-based services. Expert made his statement at a meeting of the American Association of Jurists. His words carry the portal Slate

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