Al Jazeera, a news broadcasting agency owned by the government of Qatar, has reported they have obtained hundreds of confidential and hidden documents, which the agency are calling the “Spy Cables.”
The report from Al Jazeera announcing the cables says the documents offer “an unprecedented insight into operational dealings of the shadowy and highly politicised realm of global espionage.” Al Jazeera also says they will release the documents over the next couple of days alongside the newspaper the Guardian.
The leaked documents, according to the Business Insider, come from many government agencies around the world, including Russia’s FSB, South Africa’s SSA, Britain’s MI6, and others. Documents from any American intelligence agencies though seem to be absent from the Spy Cables.
Even though documents from American intelligence agencies are not included, some of the documents point to the CIA working in correspondence with South Africa’s SSA agency. The documents also allegedly say the CIA had attempted to contact the group HAMAS, even though the U.S. government has labeled the group a terrorist organization.
Other documents say MI6 had attempted to recruit a spy in North Korea with the help of the South African government. MI6 reportedly met with a North Korean man and offered him an “undisclosed amount of money” for the man’s cooperation in a “long term clandestine operation.”
Another document claims Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu had exaggerated Iran’s nuclear production levels in a 2012 declaration made in front of the UN. A secret Mossad document released in the leak, however, says Iran was not at the time “performing the activity necessary to produce weapons.”
Al Jazeera writes they will only publish documents which they believe serve the public interest. They also write, “We believe it is important to achieve greater transparency in the field of intelligence…. Publishing these documents, including operational and tradecraft details, is a necessary contribution to a greater public scrutiny of their activities.”
More leaked documents will be released in the next few days on Al Jazeera and the Guardian.
WASHINGTON—February 15, 2015 – When Naghmeh Abedini married her husband Saeed in Iran, she never dreamed she would raise their future children as a single mother in Boise, Idaho, while her husband languished for years in an Iranian prison.
A native of Iran, Naghmeh and her family left when she was nine years old and spent a year in California before relocating to Boise. Her father was educated in the United States and obtained his master’s degree at Oregon State University prior to taking his family out of Iran. “He had a green card,” says Naghmeh, “We were not refugees.”
The real reason they left Iran, however, was due to the radicalization of their Muslim faith in the school system. “My brother was being brainwashed in elementary school,” says Naghmeh, “They started war recruiting for Jihad when he was eight years old.” Students were told that if they died for the cause they would “get to meet God.” They were forced to run through active mine fields as a school exercise. The land mines would occasionally detonate. “The government arrested any parents who complained,” says Naghmeh, “So our parents quietly packed up and left.”
Her parents were unhappy with the school system in California, also, and hoped a move to a smaller city would help preserve their culture and Muslim faith. Within ten years in Boise, however, both of Naghmeh’s parents, along with herself, her brother, and a sister had converted to Christianity.
In 2001, Naghmeh spent a year in Iran. Just before she returned to Boise, her cousin invited her to a government-approved Christian church service. She heard Saeed Abedini speak and was intrigued by his passion, so she introduced herself and asked him if he would watch out for her cousins. Later, she learned that Saeed was a pastor and a leader of the growing house church movement. He was also a former Muslim who once desired to kill Christians, but he converted in 2000. When she returned to Iran in 2003 for another visit, the sparks flew between them. He proposed marriage in June of that year, and they were married in Iran the following June in a government-sanctioned Christian church.
The Abedini’s life together in Iran was cut short when the country experienced a regime change in 2005 and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rose to power. Known for his religious hardline stances, Ahmadinejad was a main figure in the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran party, usually shortened to Abadgaran and widely regarded as the political front for the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution (Revolutionary Guards.) The latter group was designated as a terrorist organization by the United States in 2007.
After Ahmadinejad was elected, the church the Abedinis married in was forced to close, as were other Christian churches in Iran, despite current law allowing the peaceful gathering of religious minorities. Overnight, Christians were seemingly not welcome or tolerated in the country, so the couple moved together to Boise. Their daughter Rebekka was born in 2006 and their son Jacob arrived in 2008, the same year Saeed became an ordained minister through the American Evangelistic Association.
In 2009, the entire family decided to visit Iran together and see Saeed’s family, as it had been four years since he had seen his parents who had yet to meet their grandchildren. When the Boise-based Abedini family arrived at the airport to fly home to Idaho, Saeed was arrested by Iranian intelligence police. “Please leave Iran,” Saeed told his wife and children, “It will make it easier on me.”
The Abedinis are American citizens. Saeed, age 35, has not seen his children or his wife since June 2012.
Saeed was placed on house arrest for a month in his parents’ home while investigators determined whether or not he was still establishing Christian church groups. Before he was released, the police advised him to focus on humanitarian efforts—a move that inspired Saeed to use his grandfather’s land and an existing building to open an orphanage in the Iranian city of Rasht.
Back in Idaho, Saeed began a three-year process riddled with paperwork hurdles and setbacks in an attempt to open the orphanage he envisioned. He visited Iran ten more times in an effort to complete the approval process for the orphanage. Naghmeh, Rebekah, and Jacob joined him in October 2011, as the Abedinis were convinced that the orphanage was close to being opened. “We really wanted our kids to be able to meet the orphans,” Naghmeh recalls. However, by February 2012, the approval was still pending. The Abedinis returned to Boise once more. Four months later, Saeed traveled to Iran to finish the orphanage once and for all. “That was the last time I saw him,” says Naghmeh.
He was due to return to Boise on July 29. However, on July 27, Saeed was arrested on a bus in Turkey after looking at land in Georgia. He was placed under house arrest once again. The Iranian government seized his U.S. Passport and he was questioned for months about his activities, without being charged with a crime.
He thought he would be able to resolve his detainment with one last interrogation, scheduled for September 26 at a location to be determined by a 9:00 a.m. phone call that same day. However, Revolutionary Guards forces raided his parents’ house in Tehran at 6:00 a.m. and took Saeed to an unknown location. Four days later, it was revealed that he was in solitary confinement at the notorious Evin Prison. Saeed was accused of “corrupting a whole generation against Islam,” a reference to his pre-Revolution house church activities.
Saeed was charged with undermining the national security of Iran. At his trial on January 21, 2013, Saeed and his attorney were only given one day to make their defense. He was convicted by Judge Pir-Abassi of Branch 26 of the Islamic Revolutionary Court, and sentenced a week later to eight years in prison. Revolutionary Court trials are not public, there is no jury, and a single judge decides the cases—which are final and not eligible for appeal. Details about court proceedings are revealed at the sole discretion of the court. The government says it will release Saeed if he converts back to Islam, but he refuses.
The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) is representing Naghmeh and her children. “This is a real travesty—a mockery of justice,” said ACLJ’s Executive Director Jordan Sekulow. “From the very beginning, Iranian authorities have lied about all aspects of this case, even releasing rumors of his expected release. Iran has not only abused its own laws, it has trampled on the fundamentals of human rights.”
Naghmeh Abedini has received tremendous support from both Rand Paul and Ted Cruz as she seeks her husband’s release from a dangerous Iranian prison.
Saeed Abedini has been reportedly beaten and tortured during his incarceration and is now housed in the Rajaei Shahr prison in Karaj, his sudden move a possible indication of defiance toward President Hassan Rouhani by the Revolutionary Guard. Saeed is denied any electronic or voice communications with the outside world, but his parents visit him almost weekly, bring him letters from home, and send his letters out—including one to President Obama just before this year’s National Prayer Breakfast.
Naghmeh is hopeful due to extensive support from Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, as well as remarks made by President Obama, that her husband’s release will be secured during upcoming negotiations with Iran. “We’re in a good place,” she says, “If Iran wants to make a deal, I want to make sure Saeed is not left behind.”
A former scientist who worked for the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, has been sentenced to five years in prison for attempting to give nuclear secrets to Venezuelan operatives.
Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni, 79, pleaded guilty in 2013 to charges of espionage for delivering the nuclear plans to FBI agents. Mascheroni, who thought the FBI agents were with the Venezuelan government, also said he would build 40 nuclear bombs for Venezuela in exchange for “money and power,” according to St. Louis Today.
“I’m going to be the boss with money and power,” Mascheroni, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen from Argentina, reportedly said in recordings the FBI released Wednesday. “I’m not an American anymore. This is it.”
According to the BBC, Mascheroni said Venezuela would be able to establish a secret underground nuclear reactor in order to enrich plutonium, and he said the country would be able to produce a nuclear power plant as well.
John Carlin, the assistant attorney general for national security, told the Telegraph, “The public trusts that the government will do all it can to safeguard ‘Restricted Data’ from being unlawfully transmitted to foreign nations not entitled to receive it.”
The “Restricted Data” included information concerning the manufacturing, design, and use of atomic weapons, as well as information involving the production of special nuclear material to create energy.
New Mexico US Attorney Damon Martinez also said, “Those who work at our country’s national laboratories are charged with safeguarding that sensitive information, and we must and will vigorously prosecute anyone who compromises our nation’s nuclear secrets for profit.”
Mascheroni is sentenced to five years in jail, while his wife Marjorie, who also worked for LANL and pleaded guilty to similar charges, will face one year is jail.
While the origins of the Sony hack is still a point of contention, with some people claiming it was a company insider named Linda and many claiming it was North Korea, President Obama has put up new sanctions against three North Korean organizations as well as 10 individuals.
These sanctions, according to the BBC, are believed to be the first time the U.S. has punished a country over cyber-attacks against a company based in the U.S.
While all the new sanctions are believed to not be against those directly involved with the Sony hack, White House officials are saying the sanctions are meant to isolate North Korea’s defense industry to prevent future cyber-attacks.
“This is really an example of where you’ve had a country really cross a threshold in terms of its attack due to its destructive and coercive nature,” said an official according to Politico.
The sanctions are mostly centered on North Korea’s military intelligence agencies, while the 10 individuals who are affected by the sanctions are, according to Reuters, involved in the sale and proliferation of weapons.
In a letter written by President Obama to House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the president wrote, according to ABC News, “The order is not targeted at the people of North Korea, but rather is aimed at the Government of North Korea and its activities that threaten the United States and others.”
Whether or not these sanctions will have the desired results the White House hopes for is still unknown. However, given the U.S. placed sanctions on North Korea’s nuclear program in 2008, 2010, and 2011, all of which North Korea ignored, one can assume these sanctions will not be taken seriously by the government of North Korea.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands, March 26, 2014— President Obama declared Tuesday that a security summit took “concrete steps” in order to prevent nuclear material from falling into the hands of terrorists. Although, Russia and China failed to sign the agreement to beef up inspections.
According to Fox News, the trip was also plagued with embarrassment. The administration had to send home three secret service agents who spent a night out drinking before Obama’s arrival. One was so intoxicated he couldn’t get the hotel room key to work, so he passed out in the hallway by his room door.
Top officials claim to be furious this happened in the wake of the 2012 Obama administration’s secret service prostitution scandal in Colombia.
AP is reporting that six people involved in the theft of radioactive materials are hospitalized in Pachucha, Mexico, with police blocking the hospital so they cannot escape arrest.
Direct exposure to the radioactive isotope could result in death within minutes stated IAEA
On Monday night thieves stole a cargo truck loaded with a shipment of radioactive cobalt-60. Monday’s theft triggered alerts in Mexico, as well as at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Authorities did warn that whoever stole the materials was probably contaminated and would die.
The original intended truck driver said he left Tijuana on Nov. 28 and was headed to the storage facility in another part of Mexico. On Monday night he was sleeping in the truck while parked at a gas station in Tepajaco. Two armed men approached the truck around 1:30am, Tuesday morning. The thieves forced the driver out, tied his hands and feet, and left the driver in a vacant lot near the gas station.
Concerns went up this week that the stolen materials could have been used to make a dirty bomb. Dirty bombs are conventional explosives that disseminate radioactive materials.
Later in the week the truck was abandoned in an empty rural field, with the radioactive shipment container open. The radioactive cobalt-60 pellets are a risk to the surrounding population. Sources report the materials were from antiquated chemotherapy therapy equipment, and were to be transported to a nuclear waste facility.
Police now believe the truck was stolen for the crane and a movable platform, and the thieves likely initially were not aware of the radioactive cargo.
For a few days this week the truck and thieves whereabouts were unknown, and concern in the international atomic community was very high.
United Nations says their nuclear watchdog division receives more than 100 reports of unauthorized activity of nuclear or radioactive materials annually. their nuclear watchdog division receives more than 100 reports of unauthorized activity of nuclear or radioactive materials annually.
This article was submitted by guest contributor Jason Ditz.
The first confirmation came shortly after 3 AM on Sunday morning Geneva time, when French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announced that the P5+1 talks with Iran had concluded, and an interim deal has been reached on Iran’s civilian nuclear program. Other P5+1 leaders, including President Obama, have since confirmed it.
Full details of the final pact are still not a matter of public record, but are said to include a halt of 20 percent enrichment, continue enrichment at 3.5 percent, and $4.2 billion in Iranian assets will be unfrozen, along with unspecified easing to sanctions. Comments throughout the pact few weeks suggested that most of the deal was already finalized, and it was only a few minor issues of wording that had yet to be settled.
Interestingly, Iran and the US are disputing what the pact says about Iran’s right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes, as Iran insists the deal does grant that right, but the White House has claimed it does not.
The Saturday talks never ended, but continued overnight into Sunday before the pact was reached. It is intended to cover six months, involving some limitations to Iran’s civilian enrichment of uranium and other aspects of its program in return for sanctions relief.
The six months is intended to give both sides time to work out a permanent agreement on ending the sanctions as well as international complaints about the nuclear program.
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In an unprecedented move, reports of the Obama administration firing a second military commander of the U.S. Nuclear Weapons system have surfaced. These officers have some of the highest clearances you can get, and have been in charge of the nation’s most sensitive nuclear arsenals.
Reuters reported on Friday, Oct 11th that Major General Michael Carey was fired from his job as Commander of the 20th Air Force. The role is responsible for three wings of intercontinental missiles, a total of 450 missiles at three different US bases. He has served for 35 years per his Air Force bio, with numerous awards.
The Air Force is reporting the firing is due to the current administrations “loss of trust” in . A Pentagon official told Reuters on Friday that the decision to fire the 2 star general was made by Lieutenant General James Kowalski. Kowalski has replaced him with Major General Jack Weinstein.
On Wednesday, October 9th, President Barack Obama himself fired the Navy head of nuclear weapons, according to ABCNews Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz. Navy Vice Admiral Tim Giardina, the second-in-charge at US Strategic Command, was fired by the President. Official statement indicates firing was due to use of counterfeit poker chips at an Iowa casino.
Some say the firings of these two, along with two Marine Corp Generals, an Army Brigadier General, an Army 2-star General, and a Navy 1-star General are part of an effort to clean up operational failures, such as the 2007 incident of the Minot missing nukes.
According to a wide range of reports, several nuclear bombs were “lost” for 36 hours after taking off August 29/30, 2007 on a “cross-country journey” across the U.S., from U.S.A.F Base Minot in North Dakota to U.S.A.F. Base Barksdale in Louisiana. Reportedly, in total there were six W80-1 nuclear warheads armed on AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missiles that were “lost.” The story was first reported by the Military Times, after military servicemen leaked the story
The rare firings of military nuclear chiefs follows another recent incident of nukes making headlines.
As reported by CBS local Charlotte affiliate station on September 3rd, Senator Lindsay Graham told reporters in Goose Creek that if the US didn’t invade Syria, and launch a first strike war against Iran, that nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists could result in a bomb coming to Charleston Harbor. After the US Congress refusal to authorize war in Syria, Senator Lindsay Graham has not provided clarification for that statement made on September 3rd.
War Hawks are getting so desperate that they are using fear tactics in order to motivate constituents to support the war in Syria. Syria and Iran maybe allies, but Sen. Lindsay Graham’s analysis of their connection is simplistic and misguided. According to the senator, if the US does not intervene in Syria, Iran will not take the US seriously and will have a nuclear weapon by the end of 2014. If Iran gets nuclear weapons, such weapons will end up in the hands of terrorists. He ended his analysis by describing the fear-inducing-if-unrealistic situation of a nuclear bomb dropping on Charleston Harbor.
The graphic above is from nuclearsecrecy.com which projects a rough estimate of how devastating a nuclear attack would be in Charleston harbor.
At an invitation-only breakfast at Mount Pleasant this week, Graham offered his assessment of the Syria situation, saying that it will destabilize the entire Middle East, and that “if we get Syria wrong, within six months – and you can quote me on this – there will be a war between Iran and Israel over their nuclear program.”
He also said that any terrorist nuclear device “won’t come to America on top of a missile, it’ll come in the belly of a ship in the Charleston or New York harbor.” The prospect of Iran acquiring a nuclear device is a legitimate threat, not a fear-mongering talking point to justify hasty foreign policy decisions.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are the two main powers in what could be seen as a regional Cold War (and indeed Russia and the US come down on opposite sides of the conflict). Both countries’ regimes are brutal, oppressive and fundamentalist, and both wish to become the dominant regional power. Syria is merely the current battleground. Iran supports Assad, while Saudi Arabia supports the rebel forces, which include Al Qaida and Chechen extremists.
As for Graham’s statement that Syria will destabilize the Middle East, that happened two years ago with the Arab Spring, which again was US-backed. Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, Algeria, and even Pakistan, which had admittedly been ruled by brutal governments in the past, were plunged into revolution followed by extremist Islamic governments, though the majority of the populations haven’t supported them.
Indeed the best way to oppose Iranian acquisition of nuclear devices would have been to support the Iranian Green Revolution in 2009. Iran’s fundamentalist government is immensely unpopular amongst its younger generation, and is itself the product of a revolution which overthrew the more secular Shaw in the 1970s. Obama, however, failed to do that.
In a statement responding to Graham’s analysis, a high ranking military officer told blogger Joshua Cook, “Graham is going off the deep end with this rhetoric about nuke strikes in Charleston. What a crock.” He continued, “He has a deep insecurity complex due to many personal issues and that causes his attachment to John McCain and the attempts to appear like ‘Mr. Tough Guy.’ He really needs to go.”
