Intelligence: November 2006 Archives

November 30, 2006

Former Russian PM Gaidar 'poisoned'

Telegraph | News | Former Russian PM Gaidar 'poisoned'

Former Russian PM Gaidar 'poisoned'

By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Last Updated: 4:24pm GMT 30/11/2006
Page 1 of 4

# Fourth plane caught up in radiation alert

Doctors treating Yegor Gaidar, the former Russian prime minister who is seriously ill, believe he was poisoned, an aide has said.

“Doctors don’t see a natural reason for the poisoning and they have not been able to detect any natural substance known to them” in Mr Gaidar’s body, spokesman Valery Natarov said. “So obviously we’re talking about poisoning (and) it was not natural poisoning.”

Mr Gaidar, prime minister in the 1990s under Boris Yeltsin, fell ill on a business trip to Ireland last week. He was unconscious for three hours and vomited blood and bled from his nose.

His condition stabilised and he was returned to Moscow, where he was hospitalised again.

Meanwhile two Russians who met former KGB colonel Alexander Litvinenko on the day he may have been poisoned have confirmed that they flew on at least one of the British Airways flights that police believe could have been subjected to low level radiocative contamination.

Both Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB officer who claimed he had been Mr Litvinenko’s business partner for 12 months, and Dmitry Kovtun, another associate initially identified as 'Vladimir’, have visited a Moscow hospital to undergo radiation checks.

The two men, neither of whom are treated as suspects, have been told their results will be available next week. They said they were happy to cooperate with British police.

Mr Kovtun, a consultant for European companies looking to invest in Russia, confirmed he flew back to Moscow aboard a British Airways flight on Nov 3. He arrived in London on Oct 31, the day before his meeting with Mr Litvinenko, from Hamburg.

Authorities have asked passengers aboard British Airways flights between Moscow and Heathrow on October 25, October 28, October 31 and November 3 to come forward.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph last week, Mr Lugovoi said he took the British Airways flight from Moscow on Oct 31 and flew home on Nov 3.

Both men met Mr Litvinenko for afternoon tea at the Millennium Hotel in Grosevnor Square, where radiation has also been found. It was also found at the Itsu restaurant in Piccadilly, which it is believed Mr Litivinenko visited before the hotel. The former spy died last Thursday.

Mr Kovtun and Mr Lugovoi said they had hoped to have been interviewed by Scotland Yard detectives on Tuesday but that contact with British authorities was proving difficult.

Both men have already handed in written statements to the British embassy in Moscow.

“We are now impatiently waiting for British police to arrive,” Mr Kovtun said in Moscow. “For some reason they failed to find us so we had to find them. They have promised to come over but have not told us when.”

Meanwhile, one of the British Airways aircraft remains on the tarmac at Moscow’s Domodedo Airport awaiting examination by experts. Airport officials said they had received no request from the airline to allow the team of experts on board.

A British Airways spokesman in Moscow said staff were waiting for authorization from head office to allow the plane to return to Heathrow. When it does, it fill fly back without passengers.

A Boeing 737 owned by the private Russian carrier Transaero was briefly held in London on suspicion of radioactive contamination. An airline spokesman said the plane had been cleared to return, with its passengers, to Moscow.

“We will conduct checks on all of our eight Boeing 737s that fly the Moscow London route to reassure the public,” said Sergei Buykhal.

The Russian transport authorities have announced additional radiation checks for all foreign airlines flying into the country. Russian aircraft, however, will not be examined.

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November 30, 2006 at 12:07 PM in KGB | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

In quotes: Kendall Myers on US-UK relations

Telegraph | News | In quotes: Kendall Myers on US-UK relations

By Toby Harnden
Last Updated: 7:29am GMT 30/11/2006

Comments by Kendall Myers, US State Department official, at the SAIS lecture in Washington DC on 28th November 2006
# Britain's special relationship 'just a myth'
# Toby Harnden's blog: An American View of Tony Blair

On 'the myth of the special relationship':

"There never really has been a special relationship or at least not one we've noticed."

"As a State Department employee, now I will say something even worse: it has been from the very beginning very one-sided."

"The State Department and the American Embassy in London, by God they'll be pushing the special relationship till the end of time."

"The last prime minister to resist American pressure was Neville Chamberlain who was a much more brilliant figure in British diplomacy [than Winston Churchill]."

"We typically ignore them and take no notice. We say, ‘There are the Brits coming to tell us how to run our empire. Let's park them'. It is a sad business and I don't think it does them justice."

On what happens next:

"It's hard for me to believe that any British leader who follows Tony Blair will maintain the kind of relationship he has. There'll be much more of a distant relationship and certainly no more wars of choice in the future."

On Vietnam:

"Harold Wilson was a great deal more clever in my opinion than Tony Blair. He managed to fool us all on Vietnam."

"The deal was not one cent, not one Bobby, not one Johnny, nobody, not one participant in the Vietnam war. Wilson succeeded by sounding good but doing nothing… Blair got it the other way round and in the end joined in this Iraq adventure."

On Tony Blair's legacy:

"I would have to say that one of the most brilliant prime ministerships of modern times was brought a cropper by the Iraq war. He'll never recover in my opinion. It's been ruined for all time. That is tragic."

Why did Blair go into Iraq?

"You would have to say that the key fact was the British perception of the special relationship that when the Americans decide a major issue of national importance the British will not oppose. The way that Iraq developed it would have been extremely difficult for Tony Blair to have done a Harold Wilson."

"Tony Blair's a modern Gladstone. He really believes it. He may not have believed WMD – I don't know anybody knew that – he essentially believed this was in the West's interest to remove this evil dictator."

"Unfortunately, Tony Blair's background was as an actor and not an historian. If only he'd read a book on the 1920s he might have hesitated."

"I think it was probably a done deal from the beginning. It was a one-sided relationship and that one-sided relationship was entered into I think with open eyes. Tony Blair perhaps hoped that he could bring George Bush along, that he could convince him but of course George Bush has many other dimensions politically and intellectually."

What did Blair get from the Iraq war?

"I can't think of anything he got on the asset side of the ledger."

On Blair's verbal skills versus those of Bush:

"I suppose he [Blair] explained the war better than us. Whenever the two…would appear together it was always Tony Blair who sort of made sense. When Tony said it, at least the words were strung along eloquently."

On David Cameron

"He's taken some distance from the US and politically it's a shrewd, astute move."

"This one sounds right and looks good and even sounds a bit like Tony Blair, shockingly."

On Rumsfeld's March 2003 comments that British military help was not essential:

"That was sort of the giveaway. I felt a little ashamed and a certain sadness that we had treated him like that. And yet here it was – there was nothing, no payback, no sense of a reciprocity of the relationship."

On Britain's 'fundamental ambivalence' towards Europe:

"The more serious issue that confronts Britain is not the strength of the special relationship but the strength of ties to Europe."

"In a certain sense I hope they break it with us because rather personally I want to see the British more closely attached to Europe."

"Tony Blair could sound European on a good day, could occasionally pronounce French well and he wears blue jeans with the best Americans. I just think the role of Britain as a bridge between Europe and the United States is vanishing before our eyes."

"What I fear is, and what I think is, that the British will draw back from the US without moving closer to Europe. In that sense, London's bridge is falling down."

On Blair and the Labour Party:

"The Conservative party has a long and distinguished tradition of knifing its leaders in the back the moment a leader looks like a liability. Otherwise they remain absolutely loyal. While the Labour party belittles, attacks its leaders in and out of power from day one to the end as it turns out they'll never remove a leader."

"I would say that Tony Blair will become the Ramsay McDonald of the Labour party and the legacy will go on for a long time. But the difference is that the Labour party lacks the sense of the jugular. They will not remove him."

"He stood up to the Labour party and they haven't had the courage or audacity to remove him, to do what the Conservative party did when Margaret Thatcher became a liability. She had to be removed and they did it."

On the ascendancy of Scots in British politics:

"It's like Sicily taking over Italy."

When accused by an audience member of sounding negative:

"We're talking about post-Iraq and it's very difficult if one is being realistic not to sound pessimistic. This is a bad moment, let's face it. To be realistic we have not only failed to do what we wanted to do in Iraq but we have greatly strained our relationships with others."

"If you're looking at this from the moon it's Iraq, Iraq, Iraq and it does not look too pretty."

The silver lining:

"There is one quite brilliant achievement. It's Northern Ireland."

"Clinton delivered on it with Sinn Fein and I think in a way Bush is helping to deliver the Protestants."

"Northern Ireland is a success story of Britain and Anglo-American policy."

November 30, 2006 at 08:01 AM in Special Relationship | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Lop-sided alliance has lasted 60 years

Telegraph | News | Lop-sided alliance has lasted 60 years

ast Updated: 1:59am GMT 30/11/2006

Speaking in the American heartland of Missouri after the Second World War, Winston Churchill coined the phrase "special relationship" that has both blessed and dogged affairs between Britain and the United States ever since.

There was, he said, a "fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples", a "growing friendship and mutual understanding" between the two countries. "This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States."

Churchill's experience had been forged with President Franklin Roosevelt through the war.

By the time he reached Fulton, Missouri in March 1946 to deliver his famous speech about the emergence of an "Iron Curtain" across Europe, Churchill had been rejected by the British electorate and Roosevelt had succumbed to a brain haemorrhage.

Churchill's point was that the "special relationship" went beyond any friendship between two leaders. But there has always been dispute about exactly how much Britain has gained from the relationship.

In Russia in July, an unguarded conversation near an open microphone between Tony Blair and President George W Bush cemented the popular view of the Prime Minister as a poodle.

"Yo Blair!" greeted Mr Bush. "How are you doing?" When Mr Blair indicated he was leaving, Mr Bush responded: "No, no, no not yet." He asked if he was going to make a statement and Mr Blair said: "If you want me to."

The extraordinarily frank comments by Kendall Myers, who works for Condoleeza Rice in the State Department's Bureau of Research and Intelligence, will confirm accusations by Mr Blair's critics that he has sacrificed Britain's independence for nothing in return.

His broad thesis is supported by a significant strain of American diplomats who see the "special relationship" as an outdated concept useful chiefly because it helps guarantee that the White House can count on unswerving loyalty from Downing Street.

Mr Myers argued that the "special relationship" had been an illusion from the beginning. Even Churchill and Roosevelt had "constantly been at odds".

President Dwight Eisenhower had stood in the way of Britain over the 1956 Suez crisis, Mr Myers said, and there was still "strong resentment" among British elites because of this. Harold Wilson, he commented, had returned the favour by "sounding good but doing nothing" over Vietnam.

Despite the close affinity between Margaret Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan, America did not offer overt support for the Falklands war in 1982. The following year, the US invaded Grenada, a Commonwealth country, without informing Britain.

By the time of President Bill Clinton there was a certain disdain for Britain.

There was a furious transatlantic row over Mr Clinton's decision to grant Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, a visa. Afterwards, John Major refused to take the president's telephone call.

Yet the continuing emotional ties between Britain and America were epitomised when the Coldstream Guards played the "Star Spangled Banner" outside Buckingham Palace after the September 11th atrocities.

And even today a British accent in the Mid-West often prompts a heartfelt expression of gratitude for the sacrifices of UK troops and Mr Blair's unstinting support over Iraq.

November 30, 2006 at 07:56 AM in Special Relationship | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

US panel on Iraq to recommend 'gradual pullback'

US panel on Iraq to recommend 'gradual pullback' - World - Times Online

Philippe Naughton and agencies
Ned Parker in Iraq: thoughts on al-Maliki
US choices laid bare
Video: Why a key Iraq meeting is delayed

A heavyweight bipartisan panel is to recommend a gradual pullback of American forces in Iraq that will transform the US role from one of combat to one of support, major US newspapers reported today.

The reports on the conclusions of the Iraq Study Group, headed by James Baker, the former US Secretary of State, said that the ten-strong panel had stopped short, however, of setting a firm timetable for an eventual exit from Iraq.

The panel's report is to be delivered to President Bush next week, but Mr Bush said today after a meeting in Jordan with Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, that US forces would remain on the battlegrounds of Iraq as long as necessary.

Mr Bush did say, however, that the two men had agreed to speed up the handover of security responsibility to Iraqi forces. He also spoke out against talk of Iraq's eventual partitioning.

The Amman summit had been due to kick off last night with a three-way meeting also including their host, King Abdullah.

But that was called off at the last minute, apparently because of Iraqi anger at a leaked memo from Stepehn Hadley, Mr Bush's National Security Adviser, criticising the Shia politician as being overly partisan and either weak or ignorant of the situation in Iraq.

At a joint press conference this morning, Mr Bush was at pains to praise the Iraqi leader as the "right guy" for the job.

"He is the right guy for Iraq," Mr Bush said. "We are going to help him and it is in our interest to help him for the sake of peace... He is a strong leader and wants a free and democratic Iraq to succeed."

Mr Bush added: "The first thing that gives me confidence is that he wants responsibility. What I appreciate is his attitude. Instead of saying America you go solve the problem we have a prime minister who says: ’Stop holding me back, I want to solve the problem'.

"I appreciate his courage -- he has got courage and has shown courage for the past six months" since he took power. He has shown a deep desire to unify his country."

The New York Times reported today that the Iraq Study Group, headed by Mr Baker and Lee Hamilton, had agreed on a compromise between distinct paths that it had debated since March. It had avoided a specific timetable, which was opposed by Mr Bush, but will make clear that the American commitment should not be open-ended.

"I think everyone felt good about where we ended up," one person "involved in the commission's debates" told the newspaper. "It is neither 'cut and run' nor 'stay the course'."

Although the group's report is expected to be given serious consideration by the White House - especially given Mr Baker's role as a long-standing Bush family confidant - the panel's members have been constrained by the President's repeated declarations that US forces would remain in Iraq until their mission was complete.

Mr Bush continued on that tack today after his 2-1/2-hour meeting with Mr al-Maliki. "It’s in our interests to help liberty prevail in the Middle East, starting with Iraq - and that’s why this business about graceful exit simply has no realism to it at all," he said.

The Baker commission is also expected to call for a regional conference on Iraq, which would involved directly involving both Syria and Iran on their neighbour's future.

Mr al-Maliki said that his country wanted good ties with its neighbours but warned them against external meddling. "Iraq is for Iraqis. Its frontiers are defended and we will not allow them to be violated or let people interfere in our internal affairs," he said.

November 30, 2006 at 07:53 AM in Iraq | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

'London's bridge is falling down'

'London's bridge is falling down' - Britain - Times Online

Tom Baldwin in Washington and Philip Webster, Political Editor
# Damning verdict on one-sided US-UK relations after Iraq
# State Department official says Blair is ignored by Bush

See pictures of the Bush/Blair "special relationship" from first meeting to "Yo, Blair"

Timeline

In a devastating verdict on Tony Blair’s decision to back war in Iraq and his “totally one-sided” relationship with President Bush, a US State Department official has said that Britain’s role as a bridge between America and Europe is now “disappearing before our eyes”.

Kendall Myers, a senior State Department analyst, disclosed that for all Britain’s attempts to influence US policy in recent years, “we typically ignore them and take no notice — it’s a sad business”.

He added that he felt “a little ashamed” at Mr Bush’s treatment of the Prime Minister, who had invested so much of his political capital in standing shoulder to shoulder with America after 9/11.

Speaking at an academic forum in Washington on Tuesday night, he answered a question from The Times, saying: “It was a done deal from the beginning, it was a onesided relationship that was entered into with open eyes . . . there was nothing. There was no payback, no sense of reciprocity.”

His remarks brought calls from British politicians last night for the special relationship to be rethought, but also attracted scathing criticism from one close supporter of the Prime Minister.

Dr Myers had hard words for his own Administration’s record in the Iraq war: “It’s a bad time, let’s face it. We have not only failed to do what we wanted to do in Iraq but we have greatly strained our relationship with [Britain].”

Dr Myers, a specialist in British politics, predicted that the tight bond between Mr Bush and Mr Blair would not be replicated in the future. “What I think and fear is that Britain will draw back from the US without moving closer to Europe. In that sense London’s bridge is falling down.”

The extraordinarily frank remarks will be seen as further evidence of the long-standing unease felt within some parts of the State Department over the direction of White House policy. They may also be an indication of the weakness of President Bush as he struggles to stop Iraq sliding into civil war and faces a Democrat-dominated Congress elected this month.

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: “These remarks reflect a real sense of distaste among thinking Americans for Mr Blair’s apparent slavish support for President Bush . . . The special relationship needs to be rebalanced, rethought and renewed.”

But Denis MacShane, Labour MP for Rotherham and a former Foreign Office minister, who supported the Iraq war, said: “After the Republican defeat in the midterm election, every little rat who feasted during the Bush years is now leaving the ship. I would respect this gentleman, who I have never heard of, if he had had the guts to make any of these points two or five years ago.”

Last night Dr Myers, who is thought to have attended the discussions over the infamous Downing Street memo in 2002 before the Iraq war, was disowned by the State Department. Terry Davidson, a spokesman, said: “The US-UK relationship is indeed a special one. The US and the UK work together, along with our allies in Europe and across the world, on every issue imaginable. The views expressed by Mr Myers do not represent the views of the US Government. He was speaking as an academic, not as a representative of the State Department.”

Privately, US officials are furious about the comments made by a man not even involved in the policymaking process, which can only rock relations at a time of high-wire tension in international diplomacy. Dr Myers himself was said to be considering early retirement.

He said on Tuesday that Mr Blair had been left “ruined for all time” by the Iraq war and that if he had “only read a book” on the last British invasion of Iraq in the 1920s, “he might have hesitated”.

November 30, 2006 at 07:50 AM in Special Relationship | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

November 27, 2006

United Press International - Security & Terrorism - Eye on Iraq: Enter the Saudis

By MARTIN SIEFF UPI Senior News Analyst WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- The collapsing security situation in Iraq is producing a dramatic realignment of nations in the Middle East, with the United States is being pushed to protect Sunnis in Iraq against Shiites by an unlikely combination of its allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Elliot Abrams, the U.S. deputy national security adviser and one of the most influential policymakers in the Bush administration, is now energetically pushing boosted security cooperation with the Saudis, U.S. and Middle East intelligence sources have told UPI.

Source: United Press International - Security & Terrorism - Eye on Iraq: Enter the Saudis

Abrams was a driving force in the policy of toppling Saddam Hussein and creating a new, democratic government in Iraq.

Abrams, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and David Welch, the assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, wants to encourage the Saudis to play a more active role in trying to stabilize Iraq, the sources said. Welch's growing influence is a triumph for traditional Arab and Middle East experts at State and it reflects the confusion as well amid the loss of prestige that neo-conservative activists in the administration are experiencing.

The fall of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his announced replacement by former CIA Director Robert Gates is also expected to boost intensified U.S.-Saudi cooperation. Gates served as Director of Central Intelligence under President George Herbert Walker Bush, the current president's father, in the early 1990s during what was a golden age of U.S.-Saudi strategic cooperation.

The new policy is part of the sweeping turnaround in U.S. policy on Iraq and the Middle East. Until this summer, Rice was still driving hard for a policy of spreading democracy throughout the Arab world. That policy has never been formally abandoned, but the growing mayhem in Iraq and finding ways to contain it and dampen it down has now becoming the overriding strategic priority for administration policymakers.

Ironically, it was the Bush administration's democracy-building policies in Iraq that created a chaotic power vacuum there, bogged down 135,000 U.S. troops there in an exhausting and escalating civil war and emboldened Iran. Iran's growing power and potential nuclear capabilities now alarms both Israel and Saudi Arabia.

As previously reported in these columns, Saudi Arabia is building a high-tech, state-of-the-art multi-billion dollar fence to try and protect its country from infiltration by Islamist extremists in Iraq.

But privately, Saudi leaders and their advisers now say that will not be enough. If the United States pulls out of Iraq, or if it fails to protect the 5.5 million Sunni minority community in Iraq from escalating Shiite retaliation attacks, the Saudi sources told UPI that Riyadh would be forced by its own public opinion to intervene with financial and possibly other aid for the endangered Sunni community in Iraq.

Such a course of action could bring the Saudis into conflict with the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. But Maliki's government has close ties with the increasingly assertive Shiite militias in Iraq and is increasingly dependent upon them. Maliki has also energetically been strengthening his ties with both Iran and Syria, nations that the Saudis and the Israelis both fear.

Syria remains the one major conventional military threat that Israel faces. By itself, the Syrian army is regarded by almost all U.S. and Middle Eastern military analysts as no match for the Israeli army. But if Hezbollah in Lebanon could use its refilled inventories of Katyusha rockets and mortars to try and disrupt an Israeli Army military mobilization for a head-on clash with Syria, it to could pose a serious problem. Iran supports and equips Hezbollah via Syria, and the Iranian nuclear threat alarms the Israelis even more than it does the Saudis.

On the positive side, the alarm that Israel and Saudi Arabia share about the growing Iranian threat and the collapse of any pretension to effective stable government in Iraq should be a boon for U.S. policymakers. But ironically, Israel and the Saudis are alarmed precisely because previous U.S. policies in Iraq have failed so disastrously, leading to the current crisis.

The Saudis hope that their growing influence on the Bush administration may reduce the risk of the United States going to war with Iran over Tehran's nuclear program.

"There is great concern (in Riyadh) that the United States could stumble into a war with Iran," Nawaf Obaid, managing director of the Saudi National Security Assessment Project, told UPI.

The Saudis therefore, want the United States to succeed in deterring and containing Iran and stabilizing Iraq without seeing the crisis there escalate out of control into a wider conflagration that could engulf the entire region.

November 27, 2006 at 11:55 PM in Middle East, Muslim background | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

United Press International - Security & Terrorism - Eye on Iraq: Enter the Saudis

By MARTIN SIEFF UPI Senior News Analyst WASHINGTON, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- The collapsing security situation in Iraq is producing a dramatic realignment of nations in the Middle East, with the United States is being pushed to protect Sunnis in Iraq against Shiites by an unlikely combination of its allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Elliot Abrams, the U.S. deputy national security adviser and one of the most influential policymakers in the Bush administration, is now energetically pushing boosted security cooperation with the Saudis, U.S. and Middle East intelligence sources have told UPI.

Source: United Press International - Security & Terrorism - Eye on Iraq: Enter the Saudis

Abrams was a driving force in the policy of toppling Saddam Hussein and creating a new, democratic government in Iraq.

The Saudis hope that their growing influence on the Bush administration may reduce the risk of the United States going to war with Iran over Tehran's nuclear program.

"There is great concern (in Riyadh) that the United States could stumble into a war with Iran," Nawaf Obaid, managing director of the Saudi National Security Assessment Project, told UPI.

November 27, 2006 at 11:52 PM in Middle East, Muslim background | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Poisoned spy visited Israel with oil dossier

Spy visited Israel to pass on secret dossier - World - Times Online

Daniel McGrory and Tony Halpin
# Litvinenko file on Yukos 'victims'
# Scotland Yard to be handed details

Leonid Nevzlin: providing file

A dossier drawn up by Alexander Litvinenko on the Kremlin’s takeover of the world’s richest energy giant will be given to Scotland Yard today as police investigate the former KGB spy’s secret dealings with some of Russia’s richest men.

It emerged yesterday that Mr Litvinenko travelled to Israel just weeks before he died to hand over evidence to a Russian billionaire of how agents working for President Putin dealt with his enemies running the Yukos oil company.

He passed this information to Leonid Nevzlin, the former second-in-command of Yukos, who fled to Tel Aviv in fear for his life after the Kremlin seized and then sold off the $40 billion (£21 billion) company.

Mr Nevzlin told The Times that it was his “duty” to pass on the file. “Alexander had information on crimes committed with the Russian Government’s direct participation,” he said.

“He only recently gave me and my attorneys documents that shed light on the most significant aspects of the Yukos affair.”

Investigators have told The Times that Mr Litvinenko had apparently uncovered “startling” new material about the Yukos affair and what happened to those opposing the forced break-up of the company.

Several figures linked with Yukos are reported to have disappeared or died in mysterious circumstances while its head, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and others have been jailed.

Originally it was Mr Litvinenko’s vocal opposition to President Putin’s rule that led to accusations of Russia’s secret service involvement in his death, but police are investigating whether he made enemies through his links with a number of oligarchs.

Detectives involved in what they admit is one of the most complicated inquiries Scotland Yard has faced say that they are working through Mr Litvinenko’s formidable list of friends and foes, which includes some of the world’s wealthiest men.

One figure close to the investigation said: “At present we have a bewildering number of theories and names put to us, and we must establish some firm evidence.”

Friends of the former spy have claimed that on his deathbed Mr Litvinenko named a number of men linked to the Kremlin who he claimed were targeting him.

They reportedly include a diplomat based at the Russian Embassy in London until last year who is now back in Moscow. Mr Litvinenko reportedly complained that the man was harassing him after his home was firebombed a fortnight before he was poisoned.

Police are still piecing together how Mr Litvinenko spent the last 72 hours before he fell ill and searching for any further traces of the radioactive isotope, polonium-210, that is thought to have poisoned him.

A post-mortem examination is expected to be carried out today on the former KGB colonel, who acquired British citizenship last month.

Forensic scientists are hoping that polonium-210 found in the Itsu sushi bar in Piccadilly and the Millennium Hotel, both of which Mr Litvinenko visited on November 1, may yield a fingerprint that could help investigators to track down where it came from.

Experts have begun decontaminating the sushi bar, but police were last night still examining guest rooms at the hotel in Grosvenor Square and Mr Litvinenko’s North London home.

His wife, Marina, 44, and 12-year-old son, Anatole, have been examined and neither has been contaminated.

Boris Berezovsky, the exiled oligarch, who employed Mr Litvinenko and who has accused the Kremlin of having a hand in his poisoning, is also reported to have been tested.

More than 300 people have contacted a helpline set up by the Health Protection Agency to be checked for contamination. So far nobody has proved positive.

John Reid, the Home Secretary, said that the Government was doing all it could to warn the public of possible health risks, but added that he had no plans to make a statement to MPs about Mr Litvinenko’s death.

David Davis, the Shadow Home Affairs spokesman, will raise the matter in the Commons today. He said: “It is essential that other dissidents living in Britain are reassured about their safety and there are also questions about how polonium-210 came to be used in Britain.”

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, said that the Government should have been “much tougher” on Mr Putin and relations would have to be carefully considered if Mr Litvinenko’s death turned out to be the result of “state terrorism”.

Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, admitted in a BBC TV interview yesterday that relations with the Kremlin were now “very tricky”. He accused Mr Putin of “huge attacks” on liberty and democracy. He told Sunday AM on BBC One that the President’s record had been “clouded” by events including the “extremely murky murder” of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials have asked Yuri Fedotov, the Russian Ambassador, to have the authorities in Moscow make available any information that might assist in the investigation.

The London trail
london trail.jpg

Energy giant
# Yukos was formed by the Russian Government in April 1993 with the merging of hundreds of state-owned oil industry entities

# It became Russia’s first fully-privatised oil company in 1996

# It employs 100,000 people and is involved in every aspect of the oil industry from drilling to the filling station

# In the past five years it has increased its overseas operations, acquiring significant stakes in Slovakian and Lithuanian oil pipeline operators. It is also involved in a proposed Russia-China pipeline

Source: Yukos

November 27, 2006 at 10:05 AM in KGB | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Minister attacks Putin and 'murky murders'

Telegraph | News | Minister attacks Putin and 'murky murders'

By Duncan Gardham and George Jones
Last Updated: 11:42am GMT 27/11/2006

Tensions between Britain and Russia over the death of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent, burst into the open yesterday when a Cabinet minister condemned the "murky murders" clouding Vladimir Putin's regime.

Peter Hain's hint at possible Kremlin involvement in Mr Litvinenko's death from radiation poisoning four days ago came as John Reid, the Home Secretary, said the police were now treating the death as "suspicious".

An inquest into the former spy's death is expected to open on Thursday at St Pancras Coroners' Court, Camden Council said today. Dr Andrew Reid, London's inner north district coroner, is still assesssing whether it is safe to conduct a post mortem on Mr Litvinenko's body.

Meanwhile, the Home Secretary is hosting emergency talks this morning with the Cobra committee, which brings together ministers, officials and experts, to discuss the latest developments in the case.

Until now police have referred to it as an unexplained death although they previously said they suspected deliberate poisoning. A formal request has been submitted to Moscow for any information that might help the police.

While Downing Street and the Foreign Office have carefully avoided suggesting direct Russian involvement, Mr Hain, Northern Ireland Secretary and a contender for Labour's deputy leadership, delivered an outspoken attack on Mr Putin.

Mr Hain, interviewed on BBC Television's Sunday AM programme, said relations between London and Moscow were "tricky" following Mr Litvinenko's death.

He criticised the Russian leader's "huge attacks" on liberty and democracy. "The promise that President Putin brought to Russia when he came to power has been clouded by what has happened since, including some extremely murky murders," Mr Hain said.

He referred to the earlier shooting of Anna Politkovskaya, a prominent journalist critical of President Putin's human rights record in Chechnya.

Mr Hain said the attacks on democracy and individual liberty in Russia had overshadowed President Putin's success in "binding a disintegrating nation together" and achieving stability from an economy which had been collapsing into "Mafioso-style chaos".

"It's important he retakes the democratic road in my view," Mr Hain said. His remarks do not appear to have been sanctioned by Downing Street and are likely to embarrass Mr Blair, who has courted Mr Putin as an international friend and ally.

A Downing Street spokesman said last night: "While there is an ongoing police investigation and Health Protection Agency investigation, we don't have anything to say on this."

Mr Hain is an outspoken minister, who is prepared to go further than other Cabinet colleagues and officials in speaking his mind. Government officials insisted last night, however, that they would not point the finger of suspicion without evidence of Russian involvement.

Mr Litvinenko, who was granted asylum in this country and had recently become a British citizen, died from suspected poisoning with the radioactive element polonium 210.

His friend, Alex Goldfarb, welcomed Mr Hain's comments. He said it was "long overdue" that western governments raised concerns about "the twist of Russia towards an uncontrollable and unaccountable police state which poses a danger to the rest of the world".

The Government's emergency planning commitee, Cobra, met over the weekend to discuss the implications of his death, which is threatening serious diplomatic repercussions.

The Foreign Office has spoken to the Russian Ambassador, Yuri Fedotov, asking authorities in Moscow to make available any information which might assist police with their inquiries.

Shortly before his death on Thursday, Mr Litvinenko blamed his mysterious poisoning on Putin. The Russian president has dismissed the accusation.

The weekend papers canvassed various conspiracy theories — including suggestions that he had been murdered by dissident Russians seeking to discredit Mr Putin.

Police are trying to piece together Mr Litvinenko's movements on Nov 1, the day he was taken ill.

They have focused their attention on the Itsu sushi restaurant in Piccadilly, where he met Italian investigator Mario Scaramella for lunch. Investigations are also continuing at the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square where Mr Litvinenko met two former KGB colleagues, Andrei Logovoi and Dimitry Kovtun.

Searches have taken place at the hotel's Pine Bar and a room on the fourth floor. Traces of radioactivity have been found at both the hotel and sushi restaurant, along with Mr Litvinenko's home in North London, but police are still trying to work out in which order and by whom the traces were deposited.

Mr Reid refused to be drawn on the progress of the police investigation, apart from confirming that murder was a possible line of inquiry. "As at this stage, they're saying to me that they now regard the death as suspicious. That wasn't the case yesterday, for instance. "They're now saying, however, that they keep all possible options and avenues open," he said.

The Tories will be seeking a Commons statement from the Government today.

David Davis, Tory home affairs spokesman, called on the Russian authorities to cooperate with police inquiries. He said: "It is essential that other dissidents living in Britain are reassured about their safety and there are also questions about how polonium 210 came to be used in Britain."

November 27, 2006 at 10:00 AM in | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Living in fear: dwindling band of Kremlin critics

Telegraph | News | Living in fear: dwindling band of Kremlin critics

By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Last Updated: 1:28am GMT 27/11/2006

When the Russian newspaper Kommersant revealed that the son of the country's spy chief had landed a plum job with the state-owned oil giant Rosneft, its editor Vladislav Borodulin might have expected congratulations from his new boss. Instead he got the sack.

Russia's dwindling band of Kremlin critics drew two conclusions from the demise of Mr Borodulin. Firstly, with the acquisition of Russia's most prestigious newspaper by a Kremlin-friendly oligarch, the state's control of the print press was, like the television media before it, now virtually complete.

Secondly, the appointment of 25-year-old Andrei Patrushev, whose father Nikolai runs the FSB, the successor to the KGB, was another example of the power struggle within the Russian hierarchy for control of the country's most lucrative resources before presidential elections in 2008.

It is in the context of those polls, analysts in Moscow argue, that the death of former KGB colonel Alexander Litvinenko must be understood.

A spate of repressive laws, each designed to close off avenues for Kremlin criticism, had led many pundits in Russia to predict that the run-up to the election would be marred by high profile killings and a general rise in lawlessness. Initially dismissed, those pundits are now claiming to have been vindicated.

In the past two months, three prominent figures in the public sphere — including Mr Litvinenko — have been murdered.

When Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, contract killings were very much the norm in Russia. The chaotic lawlessness allowed to flourish under his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, meant that business disputes were generally settled in drive-by shootings. Under Mr Putin, Russia has — until now -- been much more stable.

But many critics argue that the way in which he bought short-term stability — primarily by clamping down on democratic institutions and centralising power in the Kremlin -- has created the conditions for potential chaos in the next 18 months.

As government critics have been silenced, the FSB has grown vastly stronger over the past six years.

Senior members of the Putin administration, many of whom share the president's KGB background, also hold dominant and probably highly lucrative positions in the oil and gas sector, much of which is once again under state control. As a result, corruption flourishes.

With Mr Putin constitutionally obliged to step down in 2008, many newly enriched officials have begun to panic, believing that a new man at the Kremlin could sweep them from their posts or — worse — order an investigation into how they acquired their wealth.

Diplomats and analysts say that competing factions within the FSB and the Kremlin are virtually at war as they try to consolidate their wealth and maintain the upper hand in terms of who wields the most authority.

One of the factors contributing to the unease is the uncertainty over Mr Putin's future plans. Although he has stated that he will not change the constitution to stand again, many in powerful positions believe he is the best man to ensure their security.

Various options are being considered, Kremlinologists believe, ranging from Mr Putin re-emerging as a powerful prime minister to his staying on because of an engineered national crisis — possibly a war with Georgia.

In this febrile atmosphere, Kremlin critics say it is not a surprise that assassinations have again become a feature of Russian life. All three of the principal theories surrounding Mr Litvinenko's murder have one thing in common, analysts say.

If the Kremlin is the culprit, the motivation would appear to be to intimidate further those still willing to speak out against the government. Whoever was behind the killing, that seems to be what is happening. Leaders of Russia's tiny opposition have become far more circumspect about what they say in public.

"We are all worried we could be next," said one.

November 27, 2006 at 09:59 AM in KGB | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Was he sacrificed to embarrass Putin?

Telegraph | News | Was he sacrificed to embarrass Putin?

By Caroline Davies
Last Updated: 2:48am GMT 27/11/2006

Conspiracy theories have abounded since the death of Alexander Litvinenko as detectives struggle to make headway in this unprecedented case. Some point to President Putin and the Kremlin, others to Litvinenko's dissident allies, some even suggest suicide or, perhaps, an accident. Here are some of the most popular theories.

1. It was Putin

Litvinenko, in his death-bed statement, pointed his finger at President Vladimir Putin, former member of the FSB, the Russian security service. Kremlin officials deny any involvement. Russia's media pour scorn on the theory that Putin ordered Litvinenko's elimination. He was simply too unimportant, a small-time fantasist it was easier to put up with than to bump off, they say.

The idea Putin would order his death – particularly this drawn-out, agonising death guaranteed to attract world-wide attention – and risk an international furore is seen as preposterous. Such a slow and public assassination could only play into the hands of those who wished to compromise Russia in the world arena.

2. Putin's enemies

The most popular theory in Moscow is that Litvinenko was "sacrificed" in order to embarrass Putin. This is the second time Putin has been embarrassed by an opponent's death just before a major international meeting.

The death of outspoken journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot outside her Moscow apartment block, overshadowed Putin's German visit. Litvinenko's public death-bed agonies came just before a major summit meeting between Russia and the EU in Finland.

Putin himself powered this view following Politkovskaya's death, saying in a statement then: "We have information, and it is reliable, that many people who are hiding from Russian justice have long had the idea of sacrificing someone in order to create a wave of anti-Russian sentiment".

3. Putin's enemies outside

Boris Berezovsky has not escaped suspicion in Russia's papers. An academic turned businessman who made a fortune after the fall of communism, he was an ally of Putin until they fell out. He fled to Britain from where he has battled extradition. Opposed to Putin's regime, he has helped other exiles and was giving Litvinenko financial support in Britain.

Litvinenko, when with the FSB, once saved Berezovsky's life by warning him of an assassination attempt and the two became friends. Those close to both men believe it is ludicrous to suspect Berezovsky of harming the man who saved him from a possible assassination attempt.

"Boris owes his life to Litvinenko and would never do anything to harm him," Oleg Gordievsky, friend and KGB defector is reported as saying.

4. Putin's enemies inside

Of the main factions within the Kremlin, one is a group of nationalistic and hardline elements in the military and security forces dubbed the "siloviki". Some of them are said to believe Putin is dangerous for Russia because the country is collapsing and Russia is losing control of parts of its territory like the Caucasus. Embarrassing Putin could help as they battle for control with Putin's term due to end in 2008, say some.

5. Putin's friends

"Dignity and Honour" are said to be a group of ex-KGB spies waging their own war on dissidents trying to embarrass Putin.

One theory is he was killed by a veteran of Russia's Spetsnaz special forces - dubbed "Igor the Poisoner" by one paper - and named in a hitlist passed to Litvinenko by Italian academic Mario Scaramella on the day he was poisoned, and then to the police. Apart from Litvinenko, the list is said to include Berezovsky, Politkovskaya and Scaramella.

6. Enemies beyond

Litvenenko was known to have plenty of enemies beyond the Kremlin. In the late 1990s, he had accused two of his bosses at the FSB of planning assassinations.

He also wrote a book claim the FSB were behind the blowing-up of several apartment blocks in Moscow, then blaming it on Chechneya. A rogue enemy from his security service past, perhaps? Or was he the victim of a mafia plot from enemies made whilst working for the FSB?

7. Suicide

Perhaps the most desperate theory, but, one still touted in Moscow by those who would depict Litvinenko as a man who so detested Putin he was willing to end his life in this appalling way in a last attempt to discredit him.

8. An accident

There has long been a black-market trade in radioactive materials being stolen from poorly – protected Russian nuclear sites. The International Atomic Energy Agency estimates about 40kg of weapons-usable uranium and plutonium were stolen from facilities in the former Soviet Union between 1991 and 2002.

Did Litvinenko somehow come into contact with smuggled radioactive material? According to one expert, pure polonium 210 cannot be contained in ordinary glassware and could not be administered in liquid form as the drink would bubble and the heat would be too intense.

November 27, 2006 at 09:57 AM in KGB | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

November 26, 2006

Poisoned spy was the victim of state terror

Poisoned spy was the victim of state terror - Britain - Times Online

Michael Evans, David Charter and Daniel McGrory
# Intelligence services blame foreign agents
# Dissident died from radioactive polonium

Britain's intelligence agencies last night claimed that the poisoning of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko bore the hallmarks of a "state-sponsored" assassination.

A senior Whitehall official told The Times that confirmation that the former Russian spy, who had become a British citizen, had been poisoned with radioactive polonium-210 and other evidence so far not released pointed to the murder being carried out by foreign agents.

Last night the Foreign Office said that officials had met with the Russian ambassador in London and had asked the Kremlin to hand over any information that it had which could help the Scotland Yard investigation.

Cobra, the Cabinet's emergency security committee, met yesterday after toxicologists confirmed that the 43-year-old former KGB colonel had a large dose of alpha radiation in his body. The committee chaired by John Reid, the Home Secretary, considered the risk to the public after the discovery of radioactive material in a Central London sushi bar and at the Millennium Hotel, near the US embassy in Grosvenor Square, where Mr Litvinenko held meetings on November 1. Radioactive traces were also found at his family home in Muswell Hill, North London.

The quantity of polonium-210 used could only have been obtained from a nuclear instillation, scientific experts said.

A senior Whitehall official said: "Cobra met because thousands of people have passed through the sushi bar in the past three weeks and there is a potential risk for the public and we have to examine all the implications."

Experts from the Government's Health Protection Agency tried to allay public fears by stressing that it was unlikely that friends, family and medics who were with Mr Litvinenko at University College Hospital had been contanimated.

Security sources said that MI5 and MI6 were engaged in a "joint enterprise" with Scotland Yard in what was "an unprecedented death" in Britain. Anti-terror squad Continuedetectives refused to say where the deadly element was placed, or in what quantities they found it at the Itsu sushi bar in Piccadilly or the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel, where the dissident met two Russians on November 1.

Mr Litvinenko's father, Walter, openly accused the Kremlin of murdering his son. They also released a statement that Mr Litvinenko dictated 48 hours before he died, blaming President Putin for his death.

Mr Litvinenko told the Russian President: "You may succeed in silencing one man, but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life.

"May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me, but to beloved Russia and its people."

Mr Putin interrupted preparations for an EU/Russia summit in Helsinki to deny involvement. He criticised Mr Litvinenko's entourage, the media, the British secret service and even the Italian Mafia. He claimed that the letter accusing him of being "barbaric and ruthless" was a forgery concocted by Mr Litvinenko's wife and father: "If this note was produced before the death of Mr Litvinenko, I wonder why it was not published when he was alive?"

Mr Litvinenko's funeral will be held in London.

November 26, 2006 at 12:46 AM in KGB | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

November 21, 2006

Muslim world's great divide

TheStar.com - Muslim world's great divide

U.S.-led invasion of Iraq set a Shia revival in motion
It's rattling Sunnis and making waves across the region
Nov. 21, 2006. 05:23 AM
OLIVIA WARD
FEATURE WRITER

On the eve of the American invasion of Iraq, the ancient city of Karbala was awash in Shia pilgrims, the black robes of the women sending up sprays of dust. And the language that prevailed in the street of the second-holiest shrine of Islam was not Arabic, but Farsi — the language of Iraq's neighbour, and often bitter enemy, Iran.

"It's true we fought a war and we all suffered terribly," said Zainab Emami, an Iranian woman with a deeply lined face and startlingly blue eyes. "But as Shiites there are no boundaries between us. Only the politicians have tried to divide us."

Her words were prophetic. For the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq has evoked both old and new divisions, turning the country into an earthquake zone, with aftershocks rebounding throughout the Middle East.

"When the U.S. government defeated Saddam Hussein it helped to set in motion a Shiite revival that will upset the sectarian balance in Iraq, and in the region, for many years to come," says Vali Nasr, author of The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future.

As Iraq's Shiite majority struggles for power it has long been denied, nearby Lebanon emerges from a war with Israel that has also torn open old wounds, with the Hezbollah militia staking a new claim to speak for the country's Shiite majority.

Aided by Iran, Shiites are seeking power, and changing the landscape of Sunni domination for the first time in decades. It is a landscape that Iran increasingly influences, through the radical regime of the ambitious Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"It is important for the Iranian regime to fulfill its political agenda in the Middle East by connecting all the Shia groups to each other," says Mehdi Khalaji, a visiting fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and former seminarian at Qom, the centre of Iran's clerical establishment. "The destiny of the Shiites is connected to the destiny of Iran."

The colonial carve-up of the Middle East strengthened the hand of the Sunnis, with an Arabian ruler, King Faisal, on the throne of Iraq. In Saudi Arabia, the extremist Saud clan founded a royal dynasty that has entrenched Wahhabism in the country and exported it throughout the region, marginalizing the Shiite minority.

Iran's large Shia population fell under the influence of the West, after a coup that restored the Shah in 1953. But the Islamic revolution that followed 26 years later, under the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, radicalized Iran's leadership and established a strict religious regime.

Sunni leaders of the surrounding countries viewed it as a threat, and hardened their attitudes to Shiites as well as tightening their political control. The U.S. strengthened its alliances with Sunni leaders to combat a feared Iranian influence. When Iraq won the catastrophic Iran-Iraq War, with losses totalling more than 1 million overall, Sunni power in the region was consolidated.

Now, experts say that is beginning to unravel. Iraq's meltdown into chaos and sectarian violence is part of a power struggle rather than a religious war, they point out. But the balance of Sunni-Shia power in the region has been jolted, something Shia moderates, who are in the vast majority, say is overdue — and regional leaders fear will endanger their regimes.

"When the ethnic-religious break occurs in one country, it will not fail to occur elsewhere too," Syrian President Bashar Assad told Germany's weekly Der Spiegel.

Already changes are surfacing. Shiites in Saudi Arabia have turned out to the polls in record numbers, following the Iraq invasion. Those in Lebanon and Bahrain are feeling a new sense of power. Although Shiites form a minority in the Muslim world, Nasr points out, they have an impressive presence in the Middle East, representing an overwhelming number of Iranians, about 70 per cent of people in Persian Gulf countries, and 50 per cent of those "in an arc from Lebanon to Pakistan."

And, says Khalaji, Iran's leadership is making the most of the new landscape.

"Khamenei has achieved a build-up of a very large network covering different groups in the region. It has transformed the unorganized traditional Shiite clerical establishment into a systematic, highly effective political and financial network."

A "primitive but complicated" system ships money to and from Iran outside the banking system, using ports and transit points in the region, Khalaji says.

And, Khalaji and other experts say, even moderates like Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali Hussein al-Sistani — hailed as the Shia stabilizing force in Iraq — have financial interests in Iran and are compelled to co-operate with its regime. Meanwhile, Iran is winning friends by supporting a network of social welfare institutions throughout the region.

"By contrast, secular democratic forces have no institutions, no economic base," Khalaji says. "They have no way of expressing themselves. So in Shiite communities you see strong, rich, powerful radicals and poor, disadvantaged moderates. The real catastrophe is that it has empowered the radicals at the expense of the majority, who are moderate."

Experts say that ironically, the strengthening of Shia radicalism has decreased the chance that the moderates, who have longed for a fair share of power, will be able to gain it through peaceful transition. Whether that happens, and whether the "birth pangs of the new Middle East" are also a harbinger of death, depends on Iran's ability to temper its radicalism in dealing with the West, and Washington's adherence to diplomacy rather than military retaliation.

Much also depends on Iraq: "If (it) were to collapse, its fate would most likely be decided by a regional war," Nasr wrote recently in the journal Foreign Affairs. "Iran, Turkey and Iraq's Arab neighbours would likely enter the fray ... the whole Middle East could be at risk of a sectarian conflict between Shiites and Sunnis."
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November 21, 2006 at 10:07 AM in Muslim background | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

November 20, 2006

Slow-acting killer that was Saddam's favourite instrument of vengeance

Slow-acting killer that was Saddam's favourite instrument of vengeance - Britain - Times Online

On New Year’s Day in 1988, Abdullah Ali, an Iraqi businessman who had been living in London for eight years, joined three compatriots for dinner at a restaurant called Cleopatra in Notting Hill.

The next morning, he was taken ill with flu-like symptoms and was admitted to hospital. There his condition rapidly deteriorated — his hair fell out, he developed excruciating skin and joint pain, and paralysis and respiratory failure began to set in

Fifteen days later he was dead — but not before he had begun to wonder whether something had been added to his vodka. He was right: the Westminster Coroner recorded the cause of his death as bronchiopneumonia due to thallium poisoning.

Abdullah Ali is thought to have been a victim of Saddam Hussein’s secret service, which used thallium sulphate as its poison of choice. Detectives believe he was an undercover agent who became disillusioned and was murdered before he could defect.

Hundreds of Iraqi dissidents met their end in similar fashion. Thallium’s slow action enabled the poisoners to adopt a particularly sinister tactic: dissidents would be released from prison, and even allowed to emigrate, but not before their food or drink had been laced with a fatal dose. Sometimes, it was administered during a “reconciliatory” drink with the prisoner’s former guards.

In his recent book, The Elements of Murder, the chemist John Emsley recounts the case of Majidi Jehad, who was given orange juice at a Baghdad police station while collecting the passport he needed to travel to Britain. He died of thallium poisoning when he arrived at his destination.

Salwa Bahrani, a Shia activist, was killed with yoghurt that had been laced with thallium. In 1992 two army officers, Abdallah Abdellatif and Abdel al-Masdiwi, escaped to Damascus where they fell ill. They were flown to Britain, where they were treated successfully.

France also used the poison to kill a guerrilla leader in Cameroon in 1960, and the United States is suspected of using thallium in one of its many attempts to kill President Castro of Cuba. Sidney Gottlieb, a CIA chemist, conceived a plan to poison the Cuban leader by putting thallium powder in his shoes. This method would have caused his hair to fall out, robbing him of his iconic beard, as it destroys hair follicles.

Thallium was used medically and cosmetically before its lethal effects became known. Though the fatal dose for an adult is 800 milligrams, or less than a quarter of a teaspoonful, 500 milligrams would be prescribed to treat ringworm. Thallium depilatory creams were popular in the 1930s.

Thallium is a metal that is usually administered as a poison in the form of one of its salts, typically thallium sulphate. Its toxicity derives mainly from the fact that charged thallium atoms are almost exactly the same size as potassium ions, which are critical to many bodily functions. It essentially mimics the action of potassium, replacing working ions with inert ones that cripple the nervous system.

Early symptoms are similar to flu and gastroenteritis. This is followed by extreme band-like pain around the body, particularly in the feet and joints. The cause of death is usually heart or respiratory failure, as the nervous system collapses.

It is an attractive tool for murder because it is soluble in water, colourless and virtually tasteless and odourless. A fatal dose can also be given in one go and the body is not good at excreting the toxin by itself. The most effective antidote is potassium ferric ferrocyanide, a chemical better known as the dye Prussian blue.

The toxin has also been used by many murderers, of whom the best known was Graham Young, “the St Albans Poisoner”. In 1962 Young, then 15, used a selection of poisons to kill his stepmother and attempt to kill other members of his family.

He was committed to Broadmoor but released in 1971 and found a job in a photographic studio in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire. Soon afterwards, his foreman, Bob Egle, 59, fell ill and died. Another colleague, Fred Biggs, 60, then died with similar symptoms, and other became unwell.

Young was arrested after asking the company doctor whether he had considered thallium poisoning as a possible cause of the mystery illness. Thallium was found at his flat, along with a diary in which he had noted the doses given to his workmates, together with their effects. He was given four life sentences in 1972.

November 20, 2006 at 01:52 AM in KGB | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Kremlin gave order to kill dissident and former spy, claims top defector

Kremlin gave order to kill dissident and former spy, claims top defector - Britain - Times Online

Michael Binyon
# Putin angered by Chechnya criticism'
# 'Assassin used to be victim's friend'
Read how the Times covered the London assassination of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in 1978

Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned on the direct orders of the Kremlin because of his biting mockery of President Putin, according to a former Soviet spy now living in Britain.

Oleg Gordievsky, the most senior KGB agent to defect to Britain, said that the attempt to kill Mr Litvinenko had been state-sponsored.

It was carried out by a Russian friend and former colleague who had been recruited secretly in prison by the FSB, the successor to the KGB. The Italian who allegedly put poison in Mr Litvinenko’s sushi “had nothing to do with it”.

“Of course it is state-sponsored. He was such an obvious enemy. Only the KGB is able to do this. The poison was very sophisticated. They have done this before — they poisoned Anna Politkovskaya (the campaigning journalist murdered on October 7) on a plane last year. Who else would know where she was sitting and could poison her food? Probably also it was the KGB that shot her.”

Mr Litvinenko, who fled to Britain in 2001, was a target because of the Kremlin fury at his sarcastic attacks on President Putin, Mr Gordievsky said. “There are three people they hate: Boris Berezovsky, Akhmad Zakayev and Sasha (Alexander) Litvinenko, who was writing article after article for the Chechen press, laughing at Putin.”

Mr Gordievsky, a former KGB station head in London, who still refers to the FSB by its former name, insisted that he did not know the identity of the Russian would-be killer.

But he assumed that the man was a former associate of Boris Berezovsky, the former oligarch and Yeltsin confidant, who has been granted political asylum in Britain.

“He used to be in Mr Berezovsky’s entourage and was imprisoned in Moscow. Then suddenly he was released, and soon after that he became a businessman and a millionaire. It is all very suspicious. But the KGB has recruited agents in prisons and camps since the 1930s. That is how they work.”

The man came to London, posing as a businessman and a friend. He met Mr Litvinenko at a hotel and put poison in his tea. That was before Mr Litvinenko had lunch at a Japanese restaurant with the Italian he knew as Mario, who had arranged to meet him because he said he had information about the murder of Ms Politkovskaya, a close friend.

“Why should this Italian do it? I know him. He is a solid, respectable man. And Sasha was already feeling unwell before the lunch. He was poisoned before he met the Italian.”

Mario Scaramella, a consultant for a commission investigating FSB activities in Italy, was last night reported to be in protective custody “terrified for his life”.

Mr Gordievsky is a close friend of the victim, who lived in North London and regularly visited Mr Gordievsky’s house in Godalming, Surrey. Talking exclusively to The Times, he painted a sad picture of the former lieutenant-colonel in the FSB. “He is rather lonely, like me. But he has a tremendous respect for me, as a British agent. He used to report to me, asking for my advice.

“He said Britain was a solid, intelligent and beautiful state, with no corruption as in Russia, and he was very dedicated to it.”

Mr Gordievsky said he could not go into the details of why Mr Litvinenko had agreed to meet his would-be killer. “His wife, Marina is reluctant to speak about it. It is all very hurtful, as he was a former friend. But now all that has been left to the police, and they have told his family not to talk about it.”

According to Mr Gordievsky, Mr Litvinenko began to feel ill that evening. His wife called an ambulance. The crew thought that he had food poisoning and give him pills.

But his condition deteriorated so the next morning they called an ambulance again. “It was only on the tenth day in hospital that the doctors realised it was not food poisoning. When his hair began to fall out they did toxicology tests, and found that his body contained three times the fatal dose of thallium,” he said. Mr Litvinenko lives close to Mr Zakayev, a close friend who suspected poisoning. It was Mr Zakayev who put the details of the case on the internet, Mr Gordievsky said.

Why did it take so long to report the poisoning to the police? “Because British doctors are not familiar with such poisons. He went to the doctor, who gave him antibiotics. His wife and son kept telling the doctor that he had been poisoned, but the doctor said it was just a reaction to the antibiotics. But now he has had very good treatment for the past three days in the hospital.”

John Henry, a clinical toxicologist who examined Mr Litvinenko on Saturday, said that the former spy was quite seriously sick. “There’s no doubt that he’s been poisoned by thallium, and it probably dates back to November 1, when he first started to get ill,” he told the BBC.

Mr Gordievsky said those planning the murder would have to have had permission from the top.

Mr Litvinenko fled to Britain after being imprisoned for a second time. In May 2005 The Times reported how someone pushed a pram containing petrol bombs at the front door of his London home. The attempted assassination left him “shaken but unhurt”.

Mr Gordievsky said he was fourth — now third — on the Kremlin hitlist. The KGB had not been able to reach Boris Berezovsky as he was always surrounded by bodyguards.

Mr Zakayev, the Chechen actor whom Moscow wants to extradite on terrorism charges, had no protection at home, Mr Gordievsky said, but was protected by Mr Berezovsky’s bodyguards when he went out.

What about Mr Gordievsky’s own safety? “What can I do? They can always get me by shooting. But this is a small community in this country. We look after each other. So probably that is my only hope.”

Blacklisted: the men wanted by Moscow

Oleg Gordievsky

Former deputy head of the KGB at the Soviet Embassy in London and a highly successful double agent for MI6. He joined the KGB in 1963 and was posted to Copenhagen, where he became disenchanted — a fact noticed by MI6, which recruited him. He was the KGB’s Resident-designate in London in 1982, but he was suddenly ordered back to Moscow and arrested in 1985. Although suspected and interrogated he was allowed to go home and contacted MI6, which managed to smuggle him out

Boris Berezovsky

Fugitive billionaire living in a Surrey and wanted in Moscow on massive fraud charges. A mathematician who began selling cars under perestroika and after the collapse of communism became Russia’s first billionaire. He became close to President Yeltsin and used his influence to increase his holdings in Aeroflot and several oil properties. Helped to finance Yeltsin’s second election campaign, then backed Putin in 2000 but the latter resented Berezovsky’s interference and opened investigations into his business dealings

Ahmad Zakayev

Former actor who became Minister of Culture in Chechnya — and at the start of the first Chechen war a general in the Chechen army. A political moderate, he negotiated with Russia to end the first war, and then became deputy prime minister. He was wounded in the second Chechen war and was granted political asylum in Britain in 2003. Now lives in London and is acting vice-premier of Chechnya’s underground government. Was accused by Russia of planning the Moscow theatre siege. A court turned down an extradition request, saying he was at risk of torture

Leonid Nevzlin

A right-hand man of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former owner of the Yukos oil company and now in a Siberian labour camp. He has been charged in Russia of a plot to kill individuals who posed a danger to Yukos. He claims that Putin is taking revenge for supporting his political opponents. Lives in Israel

Vladimir Gusinsky

Former theatre director who became one of Russia’s most powerful media magnates. Fell out with the Kremlin when NTV, his independent television station, became critical of the Chechnya war. In 2000 Gusinsky was accused of embezzlement and money laundering and was forced into exile in Israel, where he holds citizenship

November 20, 2006 at 01:47 AM in KGB | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

November 18, 2006

Al-Qaeda's airport bomb plot - the Irish connection

Al-Qaeda's airport bomb plot | UK News | The Observer

An Islamist explosives expert now in a Northern Ireland prison conducted dummy runs for terror attacks at Dublin and Knock

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Sunday November 19, 2006
The Observer

A convicted al-Qaeda bomb-maker serving a jail sentence in Northern Ireland carried out dummy runs for a potential terrorist plot at Dublin and Knock airports, The Observer can reveal.

Last Tuesday the expelled Islamist cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed was seen exhorting young British Muslims in an online broadcast from Beirut to target Dublin because he incorrectly believed US troops used the airport as a transit centre on the way to Iraq and Afghanistan. Now it has emerged that key al-Qaeda bomb-making expert Abbas Boutrab visited both Dublin and Knock airports. Information on the airports was found at his north Belfast flat three years ago, according to evidence at his trial in Belfast Crown Court last November.

Boutrab lived in the Irish Republic for four years after successfully applying for political asylum using a fake identity. He left Lucan, Dublin, in 2002 after becoming the main suspect in a knife attack on an asylum seeker and moved to Belfast, where he lived under another false ID.

He was arrested after a joint MI5-PSNI operation in 2003 and information on his PC showed he had advanced a method of adapting ordinary electronic devices - including a cassette recorder - to detonate explosives in an aircraft.

Boutrab was convicted of possessing information on bomb-making and sentenced to six years' imprisonment. Evidence given at his trial stated that he was part of the al-Qaeda plot to smuggle the bomb on to an aircraft and detonate the device as it circled over a major American city.

While Boutrab lived in Lucan, under the alias 'Yocef Djafari', he attracted no suspicion. Papers discovered in Belfast showed that he entered the Republic unchallenged and successfully applied for asylum status in 2001.

It was also discovered that he stole a passport in Dublin airport in September 2001 from an Italian tourist named Fabio Parenti, and had used this in Northern Ireland.

The origins of Boutrab have yet to be established, though it was discovered that his first trace in Europe was in 1992 when fingerprints matching his were found in Holland belonging to a man travelling under the alias Maured Benali. When he was arrested in Belfast three years ago he was found to have nine separate sets of identity papers.

Al-Qaeda's presence in Ireland became apparent last August when the Garda seized a DVD with lectures on how to construct detonators and bombs while it was on its way to Britain. One senior officer in the Garda Siochana described the content of the training DVD as 'brilliant and terrifying'.

November 18, 2006 at 08:59 PM in Ireland | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Religion on campus

Religion on campus - Comment - Times Online

A secular society that demands tolerance should also show tolerance

The renewal of interest in religion in recent years applies as much to Christianity as to other faiths such as Islam. The decline in church attendance in Britain has slowed, there are signs of an increase in applications to be Church of England clergy or Roman Catholic priests, and the young, who had abandoned religion in droves, are more inclined to opt for religious studies in the sixth form. The extent of this shift should not be exaggerated but, nevertheless, the fashionable thesis that religion would die an inevitable death through natural wastage appears to be unfounded. Spirituality, in various forms, and faith have returned to Britain’s campuses.

This trend, as we report today, has been met with a secular backlash that it might fall to the courts to settle. A series of student unions have sought to regulate, restrict or simply ban what were previously recognised as official societies that practised Christianity.

Three cases have acquired prominence. Birmingham University Christian Union was banned from the list of accredited societies after it refused to amend its constitution to permit non-Christians to become executive committee members. The Exeter Univers-ity Christian Union has been ordered by its student union to rename itself the Evangelical Christian Union and has been suspended until it complies. At Edinburgh University, the Christian Union faces sanctions after it was accused of adopting a Bible-based programme on human relationships that deems homosexuality to be un- desirable. These prohibitions mean that the organisations concerned are denied access to money, union facilities and a forum to publicise their activities.

This clash between uncompromising secularism and faith is partly the result of a change in style. Many university Christian unions were once reticent institutions for those who were secure in their own faith, but less inclined to convert the heathen masses on campus. Partly because of the rise of evangelism in Protestantism, but mostly because of the confidence and visibility which religion has regained, believers on campus are increasingly determined to defend themselves and recruit members. This has led to charges of “brainwashing” and to a conflict best described as distinctly un-Christian in its character.

Tolerance is, or rather should be, a street in which the traffic flows in two directions. Universities are establishments in which ideas are supposed to be incubated and exchanged, cham- pioned and challenged. A student union should be a forum in which that philosophical debate takes place and not a body that takes it upon itself to determine which arguments are acceptable or sufficiently “right” to be allowed an audience. A blinkered secularism is no better than theological dogmatism.

There must also be the legitimate suspicion that Christianity is regarded as a “soft target” by union activists. It is doubtful whether student bodies of other faiths would be informed that they had to accept those who did not wish to uphold their beliefs as executive committee members or have their termcards scrutinised for perceived slights against homosexuality. The revival of religion in the universities is being treated as, at best, an unwanted anachronism or, at worst, an outright threat, instead of being seen as a contribution to a continuing dialogue about the nature of the modern world. Student unions should be stimulating that intellectual debate, not suppressing it.

November 18, 2006 at 08:13 PM in UK | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

I was an LeT member: Former military official

I was an LeT member: Former military official: South Asia : Hindustan Times.com

A former Pakistan military official who is now the Parliamentary Secretary of Defence startled the National Assembly on Wednesday by disclosing that he was an activist of the banned militant outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba.

"I want to inform the house that I have been a member of this (LeT) organisation," retired Major Tanvir Hussain Syed who later joined ruling pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League-Q said in the Assembly on Tuesday.

Hussain was taking part in the Assembly debate on the Pakistan army attack on a madrasa in Bajaur tribal area killing 80 persons and the subsequent suicide bomb attack on Pakistani troops in Dargai in which 42 soldiers were killed.

"The government wanted to resolve all disputes through dialogue, but if someone opens fire on the army, our jawans will reply," he was quoted as saying by Daily Times.

Hussain, however, did not explain what role he played in LeT whose leader, Hafeez Sayeed has started yet another outfit called Jamat-ud-Dawa, which was also kept under the watch list by Pakistan government.

Another newspaper, The Post, quoted him as saying that he was still a member of LeT even though it was banned. "I am still a member of the LeT. I go to its congregations and deliver speeches," he said.

He said he has no hesitation in "swimming against the tide" even though the government in which he is a part was trying to wash away the pro-jihad past from the memories of its people.

He added that he extends support to jihadi activists when they approach him, though he did not clarify the nature of support.

Press Trust of India

Islamabad, November 15, 2006|18:56 IST

November 18, 2006 at 08:10 PM in Lashkar-e-Taiba | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

November 15, 2006

Gates May Rein In Pentagon Activities

Gates May Rein In Pentagon Activities - washingtonpost.com

Nominee Has Opposed Defense Department's Dominance in Intelligence Efforts

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 14, 2006; Page A12

The nomination of Robert M. Gates as secretary of defense has begun to ease concerns in the intelligence community about the rapid growth of Pentagon intelligence activities since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, said experts inside and outside the government and on Capitol Hill.

Gates, a former CIA director, has a long history of opposing expansive Pentagon intelligence activities. He has voiced unease about roles being taken over by Pentagon personnel, in part because more than 80 percent of all intelligence spending is now done by Defense Department agencies.

Donald H. Rumsfeld, the outgoing defense secretary, has vastly expanded Pentagon intelligence activities, increasing operations overseas and creating a new position and a new agency to handle military intelligence.

In 1991, after being confirmed for the dual role of director of central intelligence and CIA director, Gates tried to rein in Pentagon activities by getting a White House directive from then-President George H.W. Bush that created the Community Management Staff to help oversee all intelligence activities. A CIA history of that period says Gates, whose background was as an analyst, saw the Defense Intelligence Agency "as 'feeling [its] oats' and 'moving to expand in every direction,' including pushing some 'crazy ideas' " on the collection of human intelligence.

Gates's 1991 initiative "caused some heartburn in DOD, partly because he used the word 'management,' " requiring him to send out an explanatory joint statement signed by himself and then-Defense Secretary Richard B. Cheney.

More recently, Gates watched Rumsfeld create the position of undersecretary of defense for intelligence, whose role is to coordinate and expand worldwide military intelligence activities in the post-Sept. 11 world. In an op-ed piece in The Washington Post in May, Gates wrote that he and other CIA veterans were "unhappy about the dominance of the Defense Department in the intelligence arena" at a time when "close cooperation between the military and the CIA in both clandestine and intelligence collection is essential."

The article supported Gen. Michael V. Hayden becoming CIA director in part because Hayden, while director of the National Security Agency, opposed Rumsfeld keeping control of the NSA instead of having it move to the new director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte. Gates went on to say that the combination of Negroponte and Hayden would establish "a strong civilian institutional counterbalance and alternative strategic intelligence perspective to the historically strong Defense Department intelligence arm."

John E. McLaughlin, a former acting CIA director, said yesterday that Gates "understands more than anyone the appropriate balance between the military and civilian intelligence agencies."

One quick indication of how Gates will deal with interagency tensions will be whether Rumsfeld's undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Stephen A. Cambone, and his top deputy, Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, remain in their current positions. They have backed the growth of the Counterintelligence Field Activity, the controversial new agency that in three years has spent nearly $1 billion to gather data to be used in the protection of defense facilities at home and abroad.

Both have supported the increased roles for the military in sending Pentagon intelligence collectors abroad to gather information that could be needed if military operations against terrorists were initiated in various countries. Some conflicts arose in past years when Defense agents turned up in countries without notice to U.S. ambassadors and CIA chiefs of station.

A Pentagon spokesman said Cambone had no comment on the Gates nomination. Spokesmen for Negroponte and Hayden said neither would discuss the impact that Gates may have on the intelligence community.

McLaughlin noted yesterday that Negroponte's office has taken steps to create a system of transparency, easing some of the tensions. Gates "understands better than anyone that confusion overseas has to be stopped," he said, adding that the Pentagon "is not an alien world to him."

Another former senior intelligence official, who has worked closely with Gates, said that from his experience, Gates knows what the military needs in human intelligence and analysis as well as the best way to obtain it. Having come from the analytic side of the CIA, Gates is a great believer "in established clear lanes in the road, where each agency has its own responsibilities and knows the 'crosswalks' where there is a need to work together," the official said.

November 15, 2006 at 12:09 AM in US | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

November 14, 2006

Markus Wolf, East German Spymaster, Dies at 83

Markus Wolf, East German Spymaster, Dies at 83 - New York Times

By MARK LANDLER
Published: November 9, 2006

FRANKFURT, Nov. 9 —Markus Wolf, the famously elusive spymaster of Communist East Germany whose feats of espionage were the stuff of Cold War legend, died today. He was 83.

Known as “the man without a face” because, for years, Western intelligence agencies did not even possess a photograph of him, Mr. Wolf died in his sleep in his apartment in Berlin, according to his stepdaughter, Claudia Wall. She did not specify a cause of death.

Mr. Wolf had lived quietly in the German capital since 1997, when the last of several efforts to punish him for his role in spying against the former West Germany ended with a two-year suspended sentence.

For 34 years, Mr. Wolf headed the foreign intelligence service of East Germany’s feared Ministry of State Security, or Stasi. He ran a network of 4,000 spies who infiltrated NATO headquarters and the West German chancellery. and even brought down a chancellor, Willy Brandt.

Tall, suave and impeccably dressed, Mr. Wolf was the antithesis of the colorless apparatchiks who mainly ran East Germany. He was long rumored to be the model for Karla, the shadowy spymaster in John le Carre’s novels — something the writer denied today, as he has before.

Among Mr. Wolf’s innovations in tradecraft was the “Romeo method”: he sent young agents to romance lonely secretaries in Bonn, the former West German capital, for access to the confidential files of their bosses. A few of these affairs, he later noted, blossomed into happy marriages, though the more common outcome was betrayal and broken hearts.

The disclosure that one of his spies, Günter Guillaume, had managed to become Brandt’s personal aide toppled a man who had done more to reach out to the east than any German leader.

Mr. Wolf burnished his legend in 1997 by publishing a well-received memoir, “Man Without a Face” (Times Books). But he never escaped the taint of his association with the Stasi, East Germany’s reviled instrument of repression, or the judgment in a reunified Germany that he had been on the wrong side of history.

“His greatest success was also his greatest failure,” said Karl-Wilhelm Fricke, an author and expert on the Stasi, referring to the Brandt affair. “He never accepted moral responsibility for his actions. On the contrary, he felt wrongly persecuted. He complained of victor’s justice.”

Mr. Wolf acknowledged the moral ambiguity of his role, but chalked it up to the exigencies of his time and trade.

“One may wonder at times if the end justifies the means,” he said in 1998 in a CNN documentary, “Cold War.” “It would certainly be the simplest thing to say, ‘No, certainly not.’ But that wouldn’t be the full truth. With intelligence methods, you can’t apply the same yardstick as with ordinary morals.”

Mr. Wolf was born in 1923 in Hechingen, in southwest Germany. His father, Friedrich Wolf, a Jew, was a doctor, writer and member of the Communist Party of Germany. A decade later, the family was forced to flee by the Nazis, first to Switzerland and eventually to Moscow. In the Soviet Union, Mr. Wolf was educated at elite party schools and joined the Comintern, where he was trained for undercover work. After World War II, he went to the Soviet-occupied zone of Berlin, where he worked as a radio reporter covering, among other things, the Nuremberg war-crimes trials.

“It was ingrained in my character that if the party asked something of us, we responded obediently,” he wrote in his memoir. “They said ‘Jump’ and we said ‘How high?’ ”

After a stint as a diplomat back in Moscow, Mr. Wolf was present at the creation of the East German foreign intelligence service in 1951. Taking it over a few years later, he was able to demonstrate his loyalty to the Communist regime in all sorts of ingenious ways.

West Germany, with its economic riches and NATO military backing, was East Germany’s abiding obsession. Mr. Wolf sent his agents on an unceasing campaign to ferret out information about its plans.

He lured politicians and businessmen with sex and money. He “turned” West German agents, sending them back to spy on their masters. One of his agents, Rainer Rupp, code-named “Topaz,” worked for 25 years at NATO headquarters in Brussels and was only unmasked in 1993.

Among his few setbacks was the defection of Werner Stiller, who turned over 20,000 pages of microfilmed documents to the West Germans, as well as the first picture in decades of the “man without a face.”

Willy Brandt’s downfall could have been Mr. Wolf’s undoing, since the chancellor’s policy of rapprochement, Ostpolitik, was a momentous opportunity for East Germany. Mr. Wolf himself said later that he regretted the episode. But since his boss, the Communist Party leader, Erich Honecker, was suspicious of Brandt’s overtures, the affair had no lasting consequences for Mr. Wolf.

Mr. Wolf always drew a distinction between his work and that of the rest of the Stasi, which spied on East Germany’s own citizens. In later years — too late for critics — he expressed distaste for the Stasi’s hated leader, Erich Mielke.

By the 1980’s, Mr. Wolf was disillusioned by the Communist system. When he spoke out in favor of reform during anti-Communist rallies in 1989, however, few were willing heed an aging spy.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the legal noose drew tighter around Mr. Wolf. In his memoir, he wrote that in May 1990, the Central Intelligence Agency sent an emissary to his summer cottage with an offer of safe haven in the United States if he informed on his old colleagues. He refused.

That poisoned any goodwill he might have received from Washington. The government turned down his subsequent applications for an entry visa, rejections that the American editor of his memoir, Peter Osnos, said deeply rankled him.

In late September 1990, days before Germany’s formal reunification, Mr. Wolf fled to Moscow. He lingered there about a year, before surrendering to the Germans, who charged him with treason.

In 1993, a Dusseldorf court sentenced Mr. Wolf to six years in prison. A higher court overturned the ruling, pointing out that he had been acting for a sovereign state at the time he was intelligence chief. He was later convicted on a lesser charge of ordering illegal kidnappings.

Besides his stepdaughter, he is survived by his wife, Andrea, and three sons.

Invisible for most of his career, Mr. Wolf embarked on a rather public retirement. He wrote a book of recipes, “Secret of Russian Cooking,” and contracted with Mr. Osnos to write his memoirs.

“Getting a real, full, revealing story out of Markus Wolf was very much an act of editorial gymnastics,” Mr. Osnos said from New York. “The only real leverage I had over him was he needed the money.”

Mr. Wolf’s memoir is far from a confessional. There is much he did not disclose, and which he has now taken to the grave.

“For many men,” Mr. Osnos said, “the Cold War was a game, and he was very good at the game.”

His death came 17 years to the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the symbolic end of that war.

November 14, 2006 at 11:10 PM in Cold War | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

The memoir of Markus Wolf, the former head of East German intelligence

Spy vs. Spy

Markus Wolf, East Germany's intelligence chief for 34 years and one of the legendary spy masters of the cold war, is best known for bringing down the West German Government of Willy Brandt. But it is an irony of history -- and emblematic of both Wolf's career and the spy business in general -- that Brandt's downfall was unintended.

Wolf, head of the foreign intelligence arm of the Stasi, East Germany's Ministry of Security, from 1952 to 1986, was a master at planting moles inside the Government in Bonn. He dispatched young ''sleeper'' agents across the border and waited patiently for years as their careers advanced in the West. One such sleeper was Gunter Guillaume, who was sent west with his wife in the mid-1950's. In time, he wormed his way up to become a top staff assistant to Brandt, a Social Democrat and a liberal whose Ostpolitik, looking toward reconciliation of the two Germanys, made him East Germany's favorite West German chancellor.

But Guillaume was caught, because the Stasi, with Teutonic precision, always remembered to radio birthday greetings to its mole; they also sent a congratulatory message when his son was born. The traffic was analyzed by Bonn's counterintelligence sleuths, who eventually figured it out and arrested Guillaume in April 1974. Ten days later, Brandt resigned.

Markus Wolf, a spy once known to the West as "the man without a face," after receiving a suspended sentence for crimes committed during the Cold War. (The Associated Press)

In ''Man Without a Face'' (written with Anne McElvoy), Wolf insists that Brandt really quit because his own party used the spy scandal to blackmail him over his many sexual liaisons; the Chancellor apparently never saw a Fraulein he didn't like. But Wolf admits that the destruction of Brandt was a disaster for East Germany and the Stasi. It was, he says, ''equivalent to kicking a football into our own goal.''

Throughout his account, Wolf has a great deal of difficulty coming to terms with his own actions, and with the Stasi's Orwellian, police-state methods and its murky operations. He defends his own role by drawing a distinction between his foreign intelligence service and the Stasi branch that acted as East Germany's own Gestapo. But the lines were often blurred.

Wolf, to be sure, comes across as a clever and cultivated man, a dedicated Communist who was perhaps a tad less rigidly ideological than his masters. But he chose to follow a dark star. Try as he may, he cannot undo the past.

Did the Stasi carry out widespread repression of its own people through a network of tens of thousands of informers? Well, yes, Wolf admits. Did the Stasi harbor international terrorists? Afraid so, Wolf says. But that was not my department, Wolf insists. It was the other guys, in Department XXII.

One is reminded of the old Tom Lehrer song:

''Once the rockets are up,

''Who cares where they come down?

''That's not my department,'' says Wernher von Braun.

Although Wolf struggles to distance himself from terrorists, elsewhere in the book he contradicts himself and concedes that the ministry ''and my department'' were, after all, involved with Carlos the Jackal, one of the world's most notorious terrorists, as well as with the murderous Red Army Faction that terrorized West Germany, and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The P.L.O. was trained in hidden camps in East Germany in ''guns, explosives and guerrilla tactics.'' One Red Army Faction group ''was instructed in firing weapons at the passenger seat of a Mercedes. A live sheepdog had been tied down as a target; the animal was killed, the car was blown up and the trainee terrorists were shown how to dispose of the wreckage.''

Wolf was amused when the C.I.A. came calling in 1990 to seek his help in uncovering the mole in its ranks who eventually turned out to be Aldrich Ames. According to Wolf, Gardner (Gus) Hathaway, the former C.I.A. counterintelligence chief, asked if Wolf knew the identity of the mole. Wolf said he did not. At the time, the Berlin wall had come down, Germany was about to be reunited and Wolf, the former spy master, was not safe. His visitor, Wolf writes, urged him to defect and cooperate with the C.I.A. He says Hathaway offered him money, plastic surgery and a pleasant life in California, all of which he politely declined.

Instead, he slipped away to Moscow, the city where he had grown up. A German Jew, Wolf was born in 1923 in rural Hechingen, near Stuttgart, the son of a Communist who was also a holistic healer, nudist, vegetarian, author, fitness freak and world-class philanderer. When the Nazis came to power, the family fled and took refuge in the Soviet Union. At the age of 11, Wolf suddenly found himself in a strange land speaking a new language. Much later, after he became chief of the East German intelligence agency, his Moscow roots and fluent Russian helped him maintain cordial relations with the K.G.B. and the Soviet leadership.

Back in East Germany after the war, Wolf joined the spy service and became its director just before he turned 30. Those were heady days: Berlin had become the world's espionage center, supplanting the Vienna of ''The Third Man.'' There were double and triple agents, defectors, kidnappings and so many betrayals that the Russians concluded it was ''impossible to know with certainty for which side any German agent was working.'' Wolf's book has caused a stir in Germany because of his charge that senior West German political leaders were also working both sides of the street and maintaining clandestine contacts with the Stasi.

Wolf penetrated the BND, West Germany's foreign intelligence service, and the C.I.A. After the collapse of East Germany, the C.I.A. was chagrined to discover, when it analyzed the Stasi files, that its agents in East Germany were actually under East German control. Wolf says flatly that all of them were working for him.

Wolf also claims that he planted two spies in the United States, code named ''Maler'' (''Painter'') and ''Klavier'' (''Piano''), both now dead, both Jewish refugees from Hitler who had served in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. One, he maintains, was a prosecutor at Nuremberg. According to Wolf, he also inserted a handful of ''illegals,'' spies without benefit of diplomatic cover, into the United States. They were, he says, ''doppelgangers,'' who took the identities and names of real Americans who were unaware of their doubles' existence.

Wolf, who prided himself that his face was unknown in the West until 1979, when he was finally photographed and identified by a defector, had a close call when his Aeroflot plane ran short of fuel en route to Havana in 1965 and made an unscheduled landing at Kennedy Airport. He was not unmasked, but he says that two Chinese couriers aboard the flight began eating their secret documents.

The jig seemed up for Wolf, however, in October 1990, when the two Germanys became one. With his wife, he fled to Austria, then Moscow, but later he returned to Germany, where he was tried, found guilty of treason and sentenced to six years. In 1995 a higher court agreed with Wolf's argument that he could not be tried as a traitor to West Germany since he had worked for East Germany. But in January of this year, prosecutors put Wolf on trial again, this time on kidnapping charges. On May 27, the court delivered its verdict. Markus Wolf was found guilty -- but received a two-year suspended sentence. The old spy master had, once again, slipped out of the trap.

David Wise is the author of ''Nightmover: How Aldrich Ames Sold the CIA to the KGB for $4.6 Million.''

November 14, 2006 at 11:09 PM in Cold War | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

Former East German intelligence chief Markus Wolf died last week

United Press International - Intl. Intelligence - Atlantic Eye: The spymasters' spymaster

By MARC S. ELLENBOGEN

CALGARY, British Columbia, Nov. 14 (UPI) -- His face was unknown for over 30 years. He was believed to be the archetype spy in John Le Carre's novels. He brought down powerful men and their governments.

Former East German intelligence chief Markus Wolf died last week, exactly 17 years after the fall of the Berlin wall. As a child of the Cold War -- as a U.S. Army dependent raised in Germany and later as an Army cadet -- few captured my imagination more than Col. Gen. Wolf, the spymasters' spymaster.

Markus Johannes "Mischa" Wolf was head of the GRA, the Foreign Intelligence Unit of East Germany's Ministry of State Security (MfS or Stasi). For 34 years he was the number two in the Eastern German security apparatus, known as "the man without a face" for his ability to avoid being photographed. It was only revealed in 1978, when he was finally fingered by an East-German defector.

From 1958 to 1987, Wolf ran a network of 4,000 operatives outside East Germany, infiltrating NATO HQ and the administration of Chancellor Willy Brandt of Germany. "We used traditional methods to gather information, to recruit -- pressure, sex and human weakness. But, our greatest strength was a target approach, and to take advantage of the West's Achilles heal -- money," the colonel-general once said. Wolf developed one of the most effective espionage operations of the Cold War, sending shivers down the spine of Western intelligence.

In 1998, in a rare German interview, Wolf said "...our experience was that a simple Sergeant in the U.S. Army, or a technical employee in the ministry in Bonn, where not many abilities were needed apart from a willingness to furnish information, was perhaps more important and resulted in better, more secret information than a high official or a high officer. What we wanted from an agent depended on a series of factors: he had to be willing to do it, and to accept certain risks and dangers and a variety of different psychological preconditions as well. One person can take papers, photograph them without getting excited, return them, and give them away without any scruples. Finding the right people for the right job was key to our operation."

Born in what is today Baden-Wurttemberg, where I spent part of my youth and parts of my adult life, Wolf was the son of a writer and physician. His father was a member of the Communist Party of Germany and of Jewish ancestry. After Hitler took power, the family emigrated to Moscow via Switzerland. During his exile, Wolf studied at the Moscow Institute of Airplane Engineering and joined COMINTERN, where he prepared for undercover work behind enemy lines. He covered the Nurnburg Trials on behalf of the Soviet Zone Radio News Service.

In 1953, at the age of 30, he helped found the foreign intelligence service within the East German Stasi. Wolf achieved great success in penetrating the government, political and business circles of West Germany. His most famous spy was Günter Guillaume. Wolf once said, "With intelligence methods, you can't apply the same yardstick as with ordinary morals. And surely, one or the other means is justified."

Wolf continued, "The atmosphere in Berlin in the 1950's, early 1960's was a hard, it was a tough fight. It wasn't fun; it was a difficult fight for all those involved ... It was an exciting time. I lived in a small settlement at the time, which was surrounded by guards. Leading politicians of the GDR used to live only a few hundred meters away from the French sector in West Berlin. We could freely move to and fro. There were abductions -- people got kidnapped from the West to the East. We had to expect retaliation. The regime felt I might become a target. I didn't have a personal bodyguard, although I had been offered one. But I didn't like that. But of course, I had a pistol, I was armed."

Wolf retired in 1987, and sought political asylum in Russia and Austria, which was rejected. He refused an offer by the CIA to defect to the United States, and instead turned himself in to West German authorities. After German reunification Wolf was sentenced to six years in prison for espionage and treason, a decision which was later overturned, and he received a suspended sentence on lesser charges.

For many East Germans, Wolf was a symbol of the ongoing changes. He supported Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika. Many dissidents saw him as a high-ranking petty criminal, a man who should have been punished severely. For others, he was, and remained, a divisive and complicated figure -- a man who propped-up a despicable system.

On a purely objective level, Markus Wolf was the best in his field, a man who did not suffer fools gladly. I acknowledge this with all due respect to those prisoners' of conscience who were tortured and imprisoned, or just abused, during the darkest years of the Cold War. Some are personal friends and colleagues.

In the words of one ranking member of Israel's Mossad: "We wanted to target him, but he had unanimous respect within the services. It would have been like culling a golden eagle. Nobody was prepared to take that step. He was the master spy."

Wolf was, as Churchill famously said about Russia, " ... a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." Indeed, he represented the last of a very rare breed.

(UPI Columnist Marc S. Ellenbogen is chairman of the Berlin-based Global Panel Foundation and president of the Prague Society for International Cooperation. He may be reached at ellenbogen@globalpanel.org)

November 14, 2006 at 11:07 PM in Cold War | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home

November 06, 2006

'Dirty bomb' mastermind plotted wave of atrocities across Britain

'Dirty bomb' mastermind plotted wave of atrocities across Britain - Law - Times Online

By Sean O’Neill
A HINDU convert to Islam admitted yesterday to plotting to build a radioactive “dirty bomb” and carry out a series of attacks in Britain.

Dhiren Barot’s key plan, which he called the Gas Limos Project, was to commit mass murder by packing three limousines with propane gas cylinders and explosives and detonating the giant bombs in underground car parks beneath crowded buildings.

He intended to follow those attacks with a “synchronised” dirty bomb explosion designed to contaminate hundreds of people with radiation sickness and cause nationwide panic.

Barot, 34, from Willesden, northwest London, also admitted to planning a wave of “no warning” attacks against buildings in the United States, including the headquarters of the World Bank and the New York Stock Exchange.

He wanted “to kill as many innocent people as possible”, Woolwich Crown Court was told.

His guilty plea and limited details of his case can be reported only after a joint application by The Times and the BBC to relax reporting restrictions.

The conviction of Barot, the mastermind of a major conspiracy, is regarded by police and the security services as one of their most significant successes in the fight against Islamist terrorism.

There was intensive security around the courthouse in southeast London, with armed police inside and outside the building. Everyone entering had to pass through two search points where they and their bags were checked and X-rayed.

Barot was arrested during a series of anti-terrorist raids in August 2004 and has been held in custody since then at Belmarsh high-security prison.

Wearing a brown cardigan and open-necked black shirt, Barot appeared relaxed and confident in the dock, taking his own notes of the proceedings on a laptop computer.

He stood to enter a plea to the first count on an indictment containing 23 charges.

The clerk of the court read the charge, alleging his involvement in a conspiracy to commit murder conducted between January 2000 and his arrest in August 2004, to which Barot plead guilty.

Edmund Lawson, QC, for the prosecution, informed Mr Justice Butterfield, the trial judge, of the details of the plea.

Mr Lawson said that Barot had admitted planning terrorist murders in the US and Britain.

Many of Barot’s plans for attacks in Britain were written down in notebooks. In one he outlined a “Rough Presentation for Gas Limos Project” which, he wrote, was “the main cornerstone [main target] of a series of planned attacks”.

Mr Lawson said: “The principal planned attack involved packing three limousines with gas cylinders and explosives then detonating the devices in underground car parks.”

There were to be three other attacks which, he wrote, would be “synchronized, concurrent [back-to-back]” with the limousine bombs.

The most important of these was his “Radiation (Dirty Bomb) Project”. Mr Lawson said: “That project was designed to achieve a number of further and collateral objectives such as to cause injury, fear, terror and chaos.”

Evidence from experts concluded that the dirty bomb would not have caused death but, if constructed to Barot’s plan, would have spread enough radioactive material to make 500 people sick.

The intention was to create “fear, panic and social disruption”.

Mr Lawson said the Crown had accepted that the investigation had not found any evidence that Barot had obtained money to finance his plot nor ac