Category: An Operative’s Perspective

It’s one thing to stay on top of all the international espionage news – it’s another thing all together to read between the lines and figure out what’s really happening. Below you’ll find the incisive thoughts, musings and analysis of an operative who used to work undercover for the U.S. government. For two decades, Haggai Carmon, an international lawyer and the author of the Dan Gordon Thriller Series, chased multimillion dollar, white-collar fraudsters (and sometimes terrorists) to thirty countries around the world. For the perspective of an insider, you’ve come to the right place.

An Iranian Spy in Israel? Hardly a ...

The SHABAK — Israel’s internal security service, has announced that on September 11, 2013, it captured Ali Mansouri, a/k/a Alex Manes, a suspected Iranian spy. The revelation came as part of Israel’s effort to provide solid proof that while Iran is publicly sweet-talking President Obama, its Revolutionary Guards continue with their effort to plan “black operations” …

Featured Turkey Telling on Israeli Mossad Ag...

Did Turkey give Iran the names of Israeli Mossad agents allegedly operating in Turkey? David Ignatius of the Washington Post writes that “early last year the Turkish government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is said to have disclosed to Iranian intelligence the identities of up to 10 Iranians who had been meeting inside Turkey with …

Reluctant Spy Reluctantly Prepares ...

John Kiriakou, author of “The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA’s War on Terror”, pleaded guilty to charges of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and was sentenced to 30 months in Federal Prison.

Initially, Kiriakou thought he was assisting in an FBI investigation, and only too happy to offer his services. About an …

A Spy’s Story Revealed

Israeli citizen Massoud Bouton isn’t who everyone around him—from government officials to fellow businessmen—thought he was. As an Israeli spy in Israel’s military intelligence service, he was known to all as Mustafa Taleb, a Lebanese businessman of Algerian descent. Residing in Beirut, his real work was to recruit operatives in enemy countries. In 1962, after Algeria’s …

To Waterboard or Not to Waterboard?

Waterboarding by the military has been front and center in the news media. For nearly 10 years, American officials have been criticized for waterboarding and have been accused that waterboarding interrogation techniques are a form of torture. A former CIA intelligence officer has revealed insights on this practice.

Jose Rodriguez, Jr. is the former chief of …

Pentagon Pushes For Greater Spy Pow...

Picture this spy: A Syrian soldier, wearing mufti, dressed in a suit, fluent in Syrian and Iraqi Arabic. He’s in a rattletrap taxi in Syria going to meet an agent who says he can offer rebels the Syrian government’s order of battle. The spy, from Army intelligence, has spent 18 months cultivating this connection. The source …

Featured Hints for Asset Hunters

Haaretz Op Ed 02/25/2011

The Swiss government’s decision, on February 12, to freeze Hosni Mubarak’s assets in Swiss banks will probably cause sleepless nights to other Middle Eastern rulers who liked to keep themselves in the sun and their assets in the dark. (Cynics will wonder what the Swiss government suddenly discovered that it didn’t know …

A Cyber War Against Iran: Whodunit?

By Haggai Carmon

The Iranians are frantically looking for those responsible for infecting their nuclear and industrial facilities with Stuxnet, an extremely sophisticated and dangerous viral computer malworm.

The Iranians should also worry what could come next in this cyber war. Their country’s electrical system may fail. Valves and spigots of a sewage treatment facility could …

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 …

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, …