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New AMC Spy Show: Seriously Smart S...

If you’re on the prowl for a new action-packed, fast-paced spy series, this is not the one for you. However, if you’re curious about what sort of person, with what sort of past and psychology, goes into the spy line of work anyhow, AMC’s Rubicon might just be up your alley.

A word of caution: The …

Texas Girl Arrested for Attempted S...

A 24-year-old Texas beautician was arrested on July 15 after trying to smuggle three night-vision rifle scopes into Russia aboard a JFK-Moscow flight in March. Although rifle scopes, which allow riflemen to see more precisely at further distances, are widely available in the U.S., exporting them without a license is illegal.

Anna Fermanova, born in Latvia …

Russian Spy Infiltrates Czech Milit...

Turns out the U.S. is not the only country targeted by post-Cold War Russian spies. A Czech newspaper just reported that in 2009, three Czech generals were forced to leave the army as a result of the activities of a Russian spy who infiltrated their respective offices.

The Czech Republic, once a Soviet satellite state and …

Iranian Scientist Shahram Amiri Ans...

By Haggai Carmon

I don’t purport to suggest that Shahram Amiri or the Iranian intelligence services read my July 13 Op Ed (in which I posed ten questions following Amiri’s public surfacing in the U.S.) and then rushed to respond. That said, Amiri’s July 15 appearance on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting’s public television offered …

One Dead Israeli Spy, Two Theories ...

By Haggai Carmon

In June 2007 Ashraf Marwan, an Egyptian businessman, fell to his death from the balcony of his London apartment.

Did he fall, jump or get a push? These questions have lingered for the past three years and remain unanswered. If he was murdered, then his death could help us figure out whether Marwan …

Israeli spies arrested in Lebanese ...

Lebanon has arrested a telecoms company transmissions engineer, Tareq Raba, on suspicion of spying for Israel. His arrest follows on the heels of last month’s arrest of Charbel Qazzi, a telecoms technician at the same state-owned cellphone company, Alfa.

It seems very likely that Qazzi gave up Raba’s name during interrogation by Lebanese security and intelligence …

Ten Questions Regarding the Case of...

By Haggai Carmon

Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist, went missing in May 2009 during a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Other than the fact that Amiri subsequently resurfaced in the U.S., almost everything else in the espionage-thriller style case is disputed publicly. The barrage of information offered during the past 5 weeks makes it difficult to …

U.S. v. Iran: Winds of War or Psych...

By Haggai Carmon

Did Brigadier-General Mehdi Moini, who commands Iran’s Islamic Revolution’s Guards Corps (IRGC) in the Iranian West Azerbaijan province, fail to read events through, or was he conducting psychological counter-warfare? Moini was interviewed by the Iranian television channel Press TV, following media reports on the presence of American and Israeli forces in Azerbaijan …

A Russian-U.S. Spy Swap: What’...

By Haggai Carmon

At this very moment, there are growing rumors about plans for a prisoner swap that would return ten suspected Russian spies to Russia, in exchange for an imprisoned Russian military researcher Igor Sutyagin, who was convicted of espionage in 2004. The rumors also suggest that the U.S. has compiled a list of 11 …

Perhaps Gaza Should Send Humanitari...

By Haggai Carmon

Is there a humanitarian crisis in Gaza that needs Turkish or Iranian support? Not according to Nicholas D. Kristof of the New York Times, who wrote just last week, “Visiting Gaza persuaded me, to my surprise, that Israel is correct when it denies that there is any full-fledged humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” Based …

The Russian Sleeper Spy Ring in the...

By Haggai Carmon

This week the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York filed criminal complaints against ten alleged Russian sleeper agents in the U.S. Although the cases concern U.S. national security, the sleepers were not indicted for espionage but rather for lesser charges of money laundering related felonies and for failure to register as foreign agents, …

The Sick Man Upon the Bosphorus: D�...

By Haggai Carmon

On May 14, 1876, the New York Times ridiculed the Ottoman Empire, reminding its readers that “It is now some twenty years since we began to hear about the ‘sick man upon the Bosphorus,’ yet the same sort of talk, under somewhat different conditions, is current today. The Ottoman Empire seems to have …