Omid Kokabee, an Iranian Ph.D. candidate in physics at the University of Texas in Austin, is standing trial on espionage charges in his homeland, after being held in custody since the end of January or February. It is believed he was picked up at the Tehran airport en route to continuing his graduate studies in the United States. Physics World reports that Kokabee allegedly divulged Iranian scientific data and was a CIA operative. The specific charges against him encompass unlawful earnings and contact with a hostile nation, a veiled reference to the CIA. The adviser for graduate studies in Kokabee’s department, John Keto, scoffed at Internet accounts that depicted the accused as a renowned nuclear physicist and maintained he was instead a beginning doctoral student in optics and photonics. His friends and colleagues suggest a likely motive for the arrest is to deter student involvement in the pro-democracy Green movement disputing the 2009 election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Sources close to Kokabee gave his whereabouts while awaiting trial as Tehran’s Evin Prison, which has gained an infamous reputation for the many academic and political prisoners there as a result of Iran’s backlash against suspected spies for Western countries. The presiding judge at the trial is Abolghasem Salavati who, according to Eugene Chudnovsky of the Committee of Concerned Scientists, an international human rights organization, is noted for the severe penalties he imposes. Chudnovsky theorizes that a death sentence is within the realm of possibility, as a means to frighten Iranian students overseas. His organization has petitioned Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, to grant clemency to Kokabee, while the accused’s attorneys feel that international pressure and the media spotlight might aid their client.

The BBC reported the episode marked the first instance of journalists charged with espionage in Georgia. An unconnected spy incident occurred recently there, when nine arrests were made of suspected operatives for Russia, according to a Russian state newspaper. Four of the nine accused were Russian.

Pakistan is countering these statements with claims of their own. The two men killed, say anonymous officials, were not robbers but employees of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence. The officials stated that after tracking calls made from Davis’ cell phone, they were able to ascertain that he was in contact with people in the Waziristan tribal areas, where the Taliban and other militant groups have a safe haven. The men had been assigned to tail Davis because he was thought to be spying and that they did so for two hours before they came face to face with Davis.

The State Department’s spokesman, P.J. Crowley, says that “we don’t find the reports credible”. The U.S. maintains that Davis’ detention is illegal and is applying steadily increasing pressure to have him released. Secretary Clinton cancelled a meeting with the Pakistani Foreign Minister this week and threats are being made to cut off Pakistan’s military funding – about $2 billion in aid a year. The U.S. believes that Davis is being held only because releasing him may cause unrest in Pakistan, where anti-U.S. sentiments are common. The Pakistani officials partially agreed with that, acknowledging that Davis’ release could at least temporarily weaken the federal government and spark protests in Lahore, where the shootings took place, and perhaps across the country.

Recently, Davis appeared in court without a translator and without prior notification to the U.S. Officials say those events convinced them Davis could not receive a fair trial in Pakistan, although his diplomatic immunity excludes him from any trial at all. A Pakistani judge has extended his detention for another eight days while the government and judicial systems decide their next move.

So-in is believed to have been in charge of North Korea’s nuclear and missile development sector and is given credit by the North Korean state media for the country’s first satellite launch. He is accused of assisting his father, Kim Song-il, in delivering top secret documents on nuclear development to a foreign agency. Song-il was also a nuclear researcher, working at the Yongbyon Nuclear Complex.

So-in’s arrest follows several other high profile detainments in North Korea. Pak Kyong-chol, an official in the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, was also sent to a labor camp for spying. Kim Won-bom, a chief in a North Korean military bureau, was arrested after $1.5 million in U.S. currency was found in his home and a senior official of the Majon Mine was arrested after allegedly selling government information for $100,000.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry expressed angry at the arrests, accusing Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili of having “chronic spy mania”. Despite this response, no direct denials were made about any intelligence links. The Russian ministry did say that Georgia is using the arrests to hard Russia’s relations with the West ahead of two major summits: the NATO-Russia Council meeting in Portugal and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s meeting in Kazakhstan.

Georgia’s Interior Ministry said its counterintelligence department had successfully planted its own agent into the military agency, known by its Russian initals, GRU. This agent led to the exposure of dozens of people working undercover for GRU and the recent arrests. Two other people were arrested, but released under plea-bargain agreements. A video released by Georgia’s Interior Ministry shows one of the recently arrested citizens, business man Pyotr Devrishadze, explaining how he was recruited when a Russian Embassy official gave him the options of cooperation or arrest in 2006.

Otar Ordzhonikidze, deputy chief of Georgia’s counterintelligence department, said about 60 people total have been arrested in Georgia on suspicion of spying for Russia in the past six years.

The arrested Palestinian was a resident of the Bourj A-Shimali refugee camp in southern Lebanon. He has supposedly been supplying Israel with information for the past five years. Officials who raided his home reported finding advanced communications and spy equipment, used for gathering information and sending it to Israeli forces.

A Lebanese newspaper also reported the arrest of three other suspected spies, all allegedly part of a spy ring in collaboration with Israel. There are no current details on their arrests, so be sure to keep an eye out for an update!

It is believed by many that Stuxnet was made specifically with the intention of sabotaging Iranian nuclear operations, and several accusatory fingers have been pointed Israel’s way, but Moslehi’s announcement seems to hold European countries and/or the U.S. accountable for the virus as well.

Stuxnet did indeed infect hundreds of the computers helping to keep Bushehr, Iran’s first nuclear power plant, humming, resulting in a lot of damage control necessary on the part of the Iranians. Even though the plant’s official launch ceremony was held on August 21, 2010, it seems that Bushehr’s ability to generate power and electricity has been severely compromised and its true launch delayed.

Moslehi, however, has reported that appropriate counter measures to the worm have been developed and implemented: “I assure all citizens that the intelligence apparatus currently has complete supervision on cyberspace and will not allow any leak or destruction of our country’s nuclear activities… Our domination of virtual networks has thwarted the activities of enemies in this regard.”

Like anything coming out of the mouths of Iranian leadership, Moslehi’s words cannot be taken at face value. Complete supervision on cyberspace? Domination of virtual networks? Seems hard to believe given the cyberspace sprawl and the mega attack recently suffered.

The identity of the arrested “spies” is unknown. Are they really spies, or just more hikers, nabbed under the ‘spy’ pretense, so they can be used as bargaining chips later on? Perhaps they are simply Iranians who disagree with the autocratic methods of their government. Any excuse for a crack-down.

Either way, Iran believes it has been the target of electronic warfare, and fully intends to up its defenses. Are the U.S. and Europe on the offensive?

As reported earlier, Germany wanted Brodsky for his connection to the January 2010 assassination of important Hamas figure Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. It is believed that Brodsky, who was working in Germany at the time under the name of Alexander Werin, supplied Mossad agents with some of the forged passports they used to enter Dubai unnoticed and carry out their mission.

As soon as Brodsky was arrested in Poland, German officials called for his extradition. Despite Israel’s request to Poland and Germany – Israel being on good terms with both – to stop proceedings, Germany held firm. Prosecutors involved in the case insisted that the illegal use of official German documents in an assassination operation called for trial.

However, instead of facing the expected espionage charges in Cologne, Germany, Brodsky seems to have been let off with a slap on the wrist. The morning after his extradition to Germany on August 12, his trial for the forgery of official documents – which carries a significantly lighter maximum sentence of three years in prison – began with his release. Release on bail that is. Brodsky quickly made his way back to Israel, while Dubai officials protested, demanding Germany explain why it had released on bail a suspect in a murder case.

Israeli sources say that Brodsky will be represented in court by his attorneys – naturally. In Germany, a court official explained to reporters that “[t]he matter can now be dealt with by written proceedings.”

Anna Fermanova, born in Latvia but raised in Texas, claims she was just doing a favor for her husband who lives in Moscow and wanted the so-called hunting gear for his friends. Prosecutors believe there’s more to the story; Anna’s husband Alexander was recently deported to Moscow following a conviction on charges of fraud and identity theft. Furthermore, Anna recently received several thousand-dollar wires from her husband, none of them exceeding $10,000, which is the tipping point at which banks must report transactions.

Anna allegedly hid the rifle scopes in a pair of UGG boots in her suitcase (though any good packer knows she could have been doing so just for cushioning protection). The rifle scopes were detected and removed before she left, but she was allowed to make the flight to Moscow. It was assumed she would not return to the U.S., but when she did on July 15, she was arrested.

Law enforcement officials find the hunting line hard to buy. A former NYPD detective Bo Dietl said, “These are used specifically for an assassination. You’re not going to hunt deer with a super scope. That’s crazy. You could take someone out with one of these scopes in the dead of night from up to a mile-and-a-half-away. I have friends in Iraq who use these. These are the real deal.”

Weapons expert Dan Wasserbly confirmed Dietl’s assertion, saying the scopes Fermanova purchased – $7,000 Raptor 4X Night Vision Weapons Sight – are intended for machine guns, not for hunting rifles. If they are indeed “serious military hardware” that even “the average American soldier wouldn’t use,” why exactly are they available for general public consumption in the U.S.?

Anna’s lawyer Scott Palmer says any assertion that his client is in some way linked to terrorism or Russian spies is absurd. She was unaware that she was not allowed to take the gear her husband had requested out of the country, and she had no idea she would be arrested upon her return. (Didn’t she think to ask why the equipment was confiscated?) Apparently, she was simply back in town to celebrate her birthday with her family.

Released on $50,000 bail, Anna is currently under house arrest in Plano, Texas.

It seems very likely that Qazzi gave up Raba’s name during interrogation by Lebanese security and intelligence agents, even though authorities in Lebanon have declined to comment on this point.

They have, however, described Raba as even more of a threat to Lebanon than Qazzi was, who allegedly gave Israel access to the entire company. With this level of access, the Israeli Mossad could reportedly monitor and trace all mobile phone users. Qazzi is also accused of allowing Israel to infect Lebanese communication systems with viruses to paralyze the system and delete entire files of data from it. Of course, this leaves us wondering how Raba could possibly have been “more dangerous.”

Raba, 40, started working for Alfa in 1996 and is accused of spying for Israel since 2001, which upped his income by at least $20,000 a month. A local newspaper reported that he had access to all sorts of confidential technical details, including transmitter locations.

Since April of 2009, Lebanon has made a string of spy arrests. Over 50 Lebanese and Palestinians living in Lebanon have been accused of operating on behalf of Israel, specifically helping Israel to identify targets during the 2006 war with the terrorist group Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon.

Israel has not commented on the arrests, but Lebanon’s beginning to wonder just how far Israel has managed to infiltrate given that the telecoms companies are so closely connected to and monitored by the government. On the other hand, Lebanon feels its arrests over the past 15 months are sending the right warning signals to Israeli spies and are making dents in Israel’s intelligence pipeline. Furthermore, it seems that Lebanese authorities concur that those convicted of spying for Israel should be sentenced to death.

While the government is busy sending harsh messages, the telecommunications ministry is trying to plug up the leaks in its industry. Apparently a third telecoms spy has been arrested, though details of his identity are not yet available, and a fourth spy fled to Israel to escape arrest.

In a recent interview, the value of these efforts was confirmed, as the intelligence services were able to spot a couple of fake defectors, who were really North Korean spies. Their mission? To assassinate a defector who was once a senior official in North Korea’s government; indeed, he was the teacher of Kim Jong Il, the so-called “Supreme Leader” of present-day North Korea.

87-year-old Hwang Jang-yeop defected to South Korea in 1997. Given his once high ranking in Pyongyang’s government, his scathing critiques of North Korea have clearly hit a pretty sensitive nerve. He’s become more vocal on the international arena since the more conservative government of President Lee Myung-bak came into power in South Korea…when he defected, the government was going through a stage of reaching out to North Korea, trying to smooth out disagreements.

Obviously, the North decided it was time to fight Hwang’s words with fire. The two men charged with the mission of doing away with Hwang never got the chance to aim, however. Identified as spies upon arrival, the two men, both 36, confessed to their assassination mission.

No shock to Hwang, who knows there’s a price on his head. The location of his home is a carefully-guarded secret, and he lives under heavy police security.

Tensions mount, as North Korea employs terrorist tactics despite the so-called truce that has existed between the two countries for over 50 years. Many in South Korea believe that the sinking of a naval vessel last month – and the subsequent death of 46 sailors – was the North’s doing. Although this suspicion has yet to be confirmed by investigation, the ship went down due to an external explosion close to a maritime border that the North disputes.

Other attacks attributed to the North – though never admitted to – include the bombing of a Korean Air plane in 1987 that killed 115 people, and a bombing in Burma in 1983 that killed three South Korean cabinet officials.

The China-North Korea border is a hotbed of activity for North Koreans looking to escape the clutches of an authoritarian government that offers little more than poverty and starvation to its citizens. From this area, South Korean activists and missionaries help North Koreans with defection, shelter, food and relocation to nations like South Korea and the U.S.

Of course, North Korea’s not too happy about the refugees streaming out of its supposedly wonderful state (more than 18,000 since 1953, when the war between the two Koreas ended in a tense truce). That’s where the recently arrested Kim (last name released only) comes in.

It all started when Kim was spending time in China’s eastern Shandong province in the late 90s, trafficking drugs. There he met a female North Korean agent, who recruited him to spy on behalf of North Korea in exchange for money and narcotics.

In 2000, Kim allegedly spent two weeks in North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang, where he received spy training plus $10,000 plus 2 kilos of drugs. Kim’s spy job? To head back to China, identify and kidnap South Korean activists, who would then be sent to North Korea with the help of the aforementioned female agent. Kim also allegedly kidnapped North Korean defectors who were still in hiding in China, en route to safer havens, and reported on the activity of South Korean intelligence in the area.

While Kim denies all charges, the prosecution has made it clear that he is suspected of having violated South Korea’s National Security Law, which could mean the death sentence.

In a nutshell, Iran is under an international UN arms embargo, so they’re having a tough time getting their hands on the bomb-building materials they need over the table. They swear up and down that their only motivation for nuclear development is civil and infrastructural improvement…, but the free world is fairly certain that’s just another line, especially given the ties between Tehran and the internationally recognized terrorist group Hezbollah.

On Wednesday, Italian officials arrested seven people suspected of conspiring to illegally export weapons to Iran, 5 Italians and 2 alleged Iranian intelligence officers. According to media reports, two additional Iranians, for whom arrest warrants have been issued, are on the run.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has repeatedly called for tougher commercial sanctions against Iran as a way to force the country to quit nuclear development, though the chances of embargos being effective seem slight. Once an active trader with Iran, Italy has now joined many other countries in isolating the Iranian regime.

Italian antiterrorism prosecutor Armando Spataro said Operation Sniper’s successful investigation and bust involved the collaboration of officials from Switzerland, Romania and the UK, tracking the movement of black-market merchandise through the UK, Eastern Europe and Dubai.

Among the intercepted paraphernalia were tracer bullets, incendiary bombs and other explosive materials, in addition to optical equipment, scuba-diving jackets and oxygen tanks.

One of the Italians arrested is a lawyer from Turin who owns an arms trading business.

President Obama labeled the narrowly avoided terrorist attack an intelligence and security “screw up,” berating his spy chiefs for not putting together the pieces until after the Nigerian was on board. Officials did identify him for extra questioning in Detroit, but had his explosives operated according to plan, neither he nor the other 289 people on board would have been around to hear – let along answer – any extra questions.

Obama intends to release the report that explains what went wrong on the inside – that is, which pieces of data were not analyzed properly. Apparently the connection between the various strands of intelligence is pretty evident, and the public will be surprised that it slid by the country’s top intelligence professionals. Given the information the U.S. had on Abdulmutallab, he should have been on a no-fly list and should never have been allowed to board flight 253.

One of these pieces of information is that Abdulmutallab’s father recently paid a visit to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, warning them that his son was becoming a radical. Abdulmutallab was allegedly recruited by Al Qaeda in London.

Obama is likely choosing to be so candid about the mistake to save himself trouble later on. A congressional committee investigation is expected to follow, so the truth would have come out sooner or later. Republicans already depict Obama as soft on national security, and this example is just what they need to back up the statement.

Although Obama believes the intelligence community should be held accountable for the error, it doesn’t look like anyone’s about to resign or get the boot due to the oversight. No re-orgs needed either…we’re told it wasn’t so much a case of poor infrastructure and lack of info-sharing (like 9/11), but rather a case of not pulling the right data together to get the big picture – data mismanagement, so to speak.

Abdulmutallab was indicted on December 26, 2009 and now faces trial for bringing a destructive device onto an airplane, attempting to blow up an airplane, the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and the attempted murder of 289 people.