WikiLeaks has been strongly criticized for publishing about 77,000 secret U.S. documents in July about the war in Afghanistan. The U.S. Attorney-General Robert McClelland said that the leak, made “from the comfort of an office,” endangered the lives of many soldiers and others who are risking their lives for their countries’ security.

McClelland’s criticism hasn’t exactly discouraged WikiLeaks in its mission to expose clandestine government activity indiscriminately. Indeed, there’s buzz that WikiLeaks intends to publish a second round of sensitive U.S. government documents on October 18, this time about 400,000 documents pertaining to the war in Iraq.

Don’t think anyone’s going to wade through all those documents for golden nuggets of information that could jeopardize U.S. military and intelligence operations overseas? Think again…the world is crawling with terrorists itching to get their hands on every one of those hundreds of thousands of documents.

In fact, the October 18 date of release was leaked by several ex-WikiLeaks members who believe releasing the information so early will have serious repercussions for U.S. collaborators and informants in Iraq, whose covers may be compromised as a result.

On the flip side, how much government cover-up is too much? Topics like Guantanamo, the use of waterboarding and civilian death tolls are along the lines of what WikiLeaks aims to expose. But how selective is WikiLeaks about what it publishes…does the team weigh the potential dangers of releasing each document?

It’s not such a stretch to suggest that Assange – computer programmer, hacker (who got in trouble with the law back home in Australia) and whistleblower – is on the radar of intelligence agencies around the world. Assange certainly thinks so…he keeps his whereabouts on the DL, operates on a ‘need to know’ basis and often believes he is being followed. Indeed, he keeps on the move, never staying in one place for too long. Sounds paranoid, but he might just have good reason to be.

When Attorney General McClelland was asked to confirm rumors that Assange was being tracked by Australian intelligence, and that U.S., Britain and Sweden had access to that information, he responded vaguely, saying that he couldn’t comment, but that the U.S. does in fact cooperate internationally on a number of matters. No kidding!

In Australia, the Defense Signals Directorate, the intelligence agency responsible for SIGINT (signals intelligence) and information security, said formally that they have not been monitoring Assange, but ASIO (like the FBI), ASIS (like the CIA) and the federal police declined to comment on the topic.

Canada, like the U.S., has opened its doors to many immigrants over the years, and CSIS Director Richard Fadden says that his spy agency’s most pressing concern is the peril of second and third generation Canadians who have become radical, adopting fanatic and extreme views. Despite seeming to fit well into the social and economic fabric of Canadian life, some, as is the case in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia, have “become appallingly disenchanted with the way we want to structure our society.”

Fadden spoke to a parliamentary committee on Tuesday, May 11, saying that “For one reason or another they develop connections with their former homeland, they become very, very disenchanted and they are led to contemplate doing violence.”

No question as to which brand of 2nd and 3rd generation Canadian Mr. Fadden is singling out here, and he confirmed by continuing, “They reject the rule of law, they want to impose Sharia law.”

The CSIS is currently investigating several groups like the Toronto 18, people who have been in Canada for a while, who are ostensibly Canadian, but choose to rebel violently against what the country stands for. Toronto 18, for example, was planning to use three 1-ton truck bombs to blow up the Toronto Stock Exchange, the CSIS offices on Front Street and a military base off Highway 401.

There’s no evidence that the militants also figured out how to block or scramble the data en route to the U.S., from where many of the drones are computer-controlled and -operated. Now it’s too late for that next step, as the U.S. plans to encrypt all its drones, whose air strikes play a large — if somewhat controversial — role in the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

So how did the insurgents do it? Check out this video from the Associated Press to find out more:

Although this number is not exact (shared by an unnamed U.S. government official), it’s starting to resemble the size of the huge spy forces stationed in Iraq and Vietnam at the height of their respective conflicts.

Troop numbers are going up, so it makes sense that spy and analyst numbers follow. The military cannot have enough intelligence on the Taliban, whose growing stronghold and increasing attacks are extremely worrying. The Taliban is said to be at its strongest – since it got the boot from Afghanistan in 2001 – with an estimated 15-20,000 insurgents.

One of the areas that the Taliban seems to have down is the recruitment and training of suicide bombers. It is believed that some of these recruits are farmed out to other insurgent organizations.

Of course, the CIA didn’t go from a handful operatives to 700 overnight. A ‘handful’ was just post-9/11, a number that quickly grew to 150 by the close of 2001 and then gradually doubled to 300 over the course of the next four years.

The push for extra spies comes from the military but also from the Obama Administration, where the belief is widely held that come next summer, public support for the war will have all but disappeared. The pressure is on to wrap things up – an end which as of now is nowhere in sight.

Some U.S. spies – instead of focusing on Taliban movements and activities – have been asked to keep an eye on the currently U.S.-backed Afghani government. It is accused of being extremely corrupt, with senior officials involved in drug cartels and election fraud. So on the one hand there’s the Taliban insurgency to deal with, but on the other, there’s the hope of cleaning up the government and protecting civilians from the fanatic rule of the Taliban and the corrupt rule of the present government.

The blast serves as further confirmation that the Taliban is plotting and carrying out more sophisticated, extremely targeted attacks that require both organization and intelligence on their part.

Abdullah Laghmani, the late deputy chief of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security, had been exiting the main mosque in Mehterlam with fellow officials, when they were caught in the explosion that went off in the crowded market area just outside the mosque. The Taliban has announced that Laghmani was targeted on foot by the suicide bomber.

Formerly the spy chief for Kandahar, a Taliban-controlled region, Laghmani was, in his most recent position, directing intelligence operations across the country and especially in eastern Afghanistan, where among other things, he appointed local defense and security officials.

Other victims of the suicide attack include two of Laghmani’s bodyguards, the executive director of the province’s governor’s office, the head of its provincial council and 18 civilians.

The attack not only aimed at the heart of Afghanistan’s security services but also at the heart of many Afghani civilians, who, during Ramadan, are praying and fasting for a peaceful end to the violence that racks their nation.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that the Taliban – the “enemy” – aims to kill “brave and hardworking” officials, but that there will be others with similar characteristics to take their place and continue their good work. Indeed, Laghmani had been visiting the Mehterlam mosque to discuss plans to rebuild it.

The loss of Laghmani is not the only blow Afghanistan’s security services have suffered recently. A few days ago, an intelligence officer was kidnapped by Taliban insurgents in the northern Kunduz province. Today, he was found dead, hanging from a tree outside Baghlan City.

images courtesy of cbc.ca and rushprnews.com

Spy planes serve multiple purposes; not only do they provide aerial espionage on insurgent movements, they can also intercept communications and pick up on soil disturbances, which are good indicators of where bombs are buried.

Comparative spy plane distribution data from a year ago shows pretty plainly that there’s been a shift in focus from Iraq to Afghanistan. According to numbers released by the Pentagon, in July 2008, 75% of U.S. spy planes went to Iraq and 25% to Afghanistan…now the figures are almost reversed, with 66% devoted to Afghanistan and 33% to Iraq.

Part of the shift comes from an overall increase in spy planes, which means percentages can change without lowering the actual number of planes in Iraq, although a decrease should not cause alarm given that attacks in Iraq have dropped to 2003 lows. In Afghanistan, meanwhile, they are at an all time high.

Every day, armed Predator and Reaper spy drones carry out 36 patrols in Afghanistan and Iraq, a fairly big jump from the 27 patrols they were carrying out this time last year.

Don’t worry – we’ve got some stats for you as well. The UN Office of Drugs and Crime originally estimated that the Taliban was getting about $400 million/year of the cash brought in by Afghanistan’s poppy fields, which supply approximately 90% of the world’s heroin. U.S. intelligence reports that the number’s closer to $70 million – a huge difference, obviously, but still a rather hefty sum, especially considering that Al Qaeda gets no significant funding from drugs.

Obviously the Taliban insurgents get funding from other sources as well (think rich patrons in the Gulf), but the Senate report also reminds us that the Taliban’s war is “relatively cheap.”

As for the whole narcotics industry powered by the Afghani poppy fields, U.S. intelligence is committed to getting a handle on that as well. Gone are the days of attacking the fields themselves, which was the tactic during Bush’s administration. No poppies, no drugs, no drug money, no drug problem, right? Apparently not as effective an approach as one would think.

Now the focus is more on the people involved – the network of people who harvest, package, sell and transport the stuff, and the drug lords who pull all the strings. A dedicated Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) intelligence unit has been established at the U.S. air base in Bagram to improve intel on the criminal drug networks in Afghanistan.

Fighting the illegal drug trade with intelligence helped to capture and convict the mastermind behind the third largest drug network in Afghanistan earlier this year; evidence procured by monitoring cell phone conversations was extremely helpful in securing the conviction.

images courtesy of salem-news.com, kennedy121.wordpress.com

It is said that Mr. Janko – the name by which he is now known – was eager to share his nightmarish stories of Al Qaeda with the Americans, but he wasn’t given much of a chance. Instead, he was shipped off to Guantanamo because the Americans had him pegged as an Al Qaeda operative. At Guantanamo, he went through another round of severe interrogations, this time at the hands of the very folk he was previously accused of spying for.

But after 7+ years in Guantanamo, Mr. Janko may finally be released from the nightmare in which he’s been accused of being an enemy of both Al Qaeda and the U.S. – not an enviable position.

Last Monday, a Washington federal judge ruled in favor of Mr. Janko’s release, stating that the U.S. government should “take all necessary and appropriate diplomatic steps to facilitate his release forthwith.”

It was unclear whether Mr. Janko had gotten word of the ruling as even though he was supposed to be listening to it in real-time via telephone, the line apparently went dead just before the crucial news was delivered.

Janko is originally from Syria but was living with his family in the UAE when an argument with his dad prompted him towards Afghanistan, where he spent 18 days in an Al Qaeda training camp before having the misfortune of being taken for a U.S. spy. But if this twist of fate hadn’t occurred, wouldn’t he now be a bona fide anti-American member of Al Qaeda…?

The battle to win his freedom from Guantanamo has been a long one, and his lawyers have argued that he cannot be an enemy combatant of both the U.S. and Al Qaeda. U.S. government lawyers, meanwhile,  maintain that the 2.5 weeks spent in an Al Qaeda training camp constitute sufficient reason for Janko’s continued detention.

Given that these 18 days were followed by 18 months of torture at the hands of Al Qaeda, the judge said that the government’s argument “defies common sense.” Ouch.

In fact, in a 13-page order, the judge wrote that the evidence “overwhelmingly leads this court to conclude that the relationship that existed in 2000 – such as it was – no longer existed whatsoever in 2002 when Janko was taken into [US] custody.”

image courtesy of cagle cartoons

Officially, the base is used to supply foreign troops in Afghanistan, but when Kyrgyzstan got a $2 billion economic support package from Russia, they asked the U.S. to close the base. The request was made in February, and the Americans are, as things stand now, scheduled to leave in August. Obviously having to close the base would be a setback for the U.S., especially as it gets ready to send more troops into Afghanistan.

The documentary – simply called Base – reports that Manas base has a high-tech surveillance system hidden on the premises, which can “eavesdrop on the whole world – every fax, every e-mailed letter. Every call from a mobile or landline phone is being recorded and processed. Billions of messages are being intercepted.”

Following Friday’s clip, a U.S. defense official commented that the accusations are not only absurd but also conveniently timed to coincide with the revival of discussions between the U.S. and Kyrgyzstan over the base’s future.

The documentary accuses the U.S. of using the base as an intelligence headquarters “in a treacherous way, without being endorsed by the Kyrgyz authorities.”

In addition to showing a two-storey building with no windows – allegedly home to an advanced intelligence surveillance system at Manas, the film shows images of a woman who supposedly works at the U.S. embassy in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek but is in reality an undercover CIA agent. She is later shown dressed (read: disguised) as an older woman. According to the documentary, the Americans have a team of spies in Bishkek whose aim is to keep Kyrgyz counterintelligence in the dark about CIA agents operating in the area.

The film was made by Arkady Mamontov, who has a history of making accusatory documentaries of this nature. In 2006, he was responsible for tensions between London and Moscow over a documentary that claimed to show British spies in the process of gathering information electronically with a fake rock.

Rossiya is known to be the media outlet of the Russian government, so the fact that it’s chosen to air a documentary so clearly anti-American so soon after Russian President Medyedev’s first meeting with Obama has people wondering about divisions within Russia’s ruling class.

image courtesy of www.centralasiatravel.com

Passaro, a former CIA contractor who also held a civilian job as a medic with the U.S. Army in Fort Bragg (North Carolina), was the very first American civilian charged of abusing a detainee in connection with Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s also the first person with a connection to the CIA to have been convicted in a post-9/11 abuse case.

Passaro is now appealing the sentence of eight years in a federal prison for beating detainee Abdul Wali, which included hitting him repeatedly with a metal flashlight and kicking him in the groin. Wali was a local Afghan farmer suspected of being involved in a series of rocket attacks aimed at the U.S. military base in Afghanistan where he was later interrogated. The mistreatment took place while Wali was being interrogated over the course of two days in June 2003. Wali later died – allegedly as a direct result of the internal injuries caused by Passaro’s assault.

Last Friday, the U.S. government and David Passaro’s lawyers presented arguments before a panel of three Court of Appeals judges in Richmond, Virginia.

image courtesy of www.thewe.cc

The Pakistani government has promised to cut off ties with various militant groups in Afghanistan in past, especially after the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul in July 2008, which killed 54 people. Evidence showed that Pakistani operatives working for the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, had helped to plan the bombing.

American officials say that despite these promises, Pakistan’s ties to the Taliban have not lessened.

Make no mistake, the sort of support we’re talking about here is not just a boost in morale. Apparently, Pakistani spies are providing the Taliban with money, military supplies and guidance on their military strategy. This is the same Taliban that is getting ready to combat international troops in Afghanistan – a force that will soon include American reinforcements 17,000 strong. Evidence suggests that Pakistani spies are meeting with Taliban leaders on a regular basis to decide whether to notch up or decrease the violence as Afghan elections approach.

The Taliban is not the only group Pakistan is supporting in this way. American officials say that the secretive S Wing of the ISI has provided direct support to three major groups carrying out attacks in Afghanistan: the Taliban based in Quetta, Pakistan, as well as two other militant groups run by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani.

Pakistani spies also allegedly shared information with and protected Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group suspected of carrying out the deadly attack on Mumbai in November 2008.

The NY Times reports that at least six security officials in the U.S. and Pakistan were recently interviewed in Washington, D.C. and Islamabad, Pakistan and all confirmed that the ISI does maintain contact with the Taliban. All those interviewed asked that their identities be kept confidential given the classified and sensitive intelligence information being discussed.

The American officials interviewed said evidence of allegiance between the Taliban and Pakistani operatives comes from electronic surveillance and trusted informants. Meanwhile, the Pakistani officials say that they have primary knowledge of the ties, but that the spies’ connections with the insurgents are not actually strengthening the Taliban’s campaign in any way.

Publicly, military and civilian leaders in Pakistan deny allegations of ties to militant groups, and American officials do concede that it’s unlikely top officials in the capital have hands-on involvement with insurgent networks. In fact, the ISI is known for having a mind of its own and operating accordingly, and midlevel ISI operatives developing relationships that have not been approved by their supervisors is not unheard of.

That said, the interviewed Pakistani officials’ take on the situation is that what’s being done is necessary to protect Pakistan in the long run. They say the contacts are a lot less dangerous that the Americans make them out to be, and that Pakistan needs to maintain those relationships for the day America pulls out of Afghanistan and leaves the country free and clear for India to move in. A senior Pakistani military officer said, “In intelligence, you have to be in contact with your enemy or you are running blind.”

It does seem undeniable that the ISI – whether operating with the approval of higher authority or not – is very much in the midst of a duplicitous game.

And it seems some in the West are coming to terms with this fact and are trying to use it to their advantage. One interviewed official shared that the British government has asked operatives, in their talks with the Taliban, to encourage a scaling back of attacks before this summer’s presidential elections.

Of course from the American perspective, officials in the Obama administration are frustrated by the militant group ties that Pakistan seems unable or unwilling to sever. It’s difficult enough to combat this sort of an insurgency without worrying about your allies sneaking off to help the enemy!

Pakistan did play a significant part in building up the Taliban in the 90s, when they had hopes that the group would help to stabilize a country ravaged by civil war. Now, Afghani officials plead with Pakistan to stop its support of the violent insurgents while American officials are threatening to put conditions on the $1 billion in military aid they send to Pakistan every year.

Currently, the money going to Pakistan from the U.S. could be used, via the ISI, to support the Taliban’s attacks against American troops. The Taliban could also be getting intelligence tips from Pakistani spies that help them to stay one step ahead in the conflict.

images courtesy of Reuters (via www.spiegel.de), www.loganclub.in, and www.themoderatevoice.com

The report – based on dozens of interviews with British, Canadian, Dutch, and U.S. army, intelligence and diplomatic officials – criticizes the U.S. for not sharing intelligence effectively with allies in the field, to the detriment of counterinsurgency operations.

Several interviewees also shared that often, they felt that an overall strategy for what they were supposed to be doing was completely lacking. Brigadier General Theo Vleugels described his 2006 command experience in southern Afghanistan in words worthy of post-modern literary acclaim: “We didn’t have a campaign plan when we started, but we later got one from my higher headquarters that was close to ours, which is not surprising as they told us to do what we told them we would do.”

Apparently there’s a lot of disinformation floating around in the field, where money generates fabricated tips, and some officials are quantifying the intelligence effort by the amount of money being spent to purchase said tips. U.S. military commanders, overwhelmed by intel-overload coming in from hundreds of different databases, are reluctant to take on board even the intelligence offered to them by the CIA.

Interviewees further believe that the U.S. military has become uncompromisingly dependent on progress indicators that offer little reliable information regarding economic, military and political progress in the area. Some complain that commanders seem to measure success by body count, a method discredited following the war in Vietnam. An anonymous source points out that more Taliban dead is likely an indication that there are simply more Taliban fighting.

A couple poignant examples from the report:

[1] Dutch F-16 pilots in Afghanistan were ordered to hit certain targets by the U.S. When after the mission, the pilots requested to view American ‘battle damage assessments’ relating to the targets, the Dutch, apparently lacking the necessary security clearance, were denied access.

[2] Coalition forces based at Camp Holland in southern Afghanistan have thirteen different intelligence units, none of them collaborating with each other above nominal level.

It’s no secret that the situation in Afghanistan is intensifying, that the Taliban and its allies are growing in confidence and strength. The hefty report suggests that the armed forces tasked with quelling the insurgency are not sufficiently trained/equipped to do so.

The RAND report urges a change in the way intelligence is gathered, disseminated and acted upon. It also points out that (according to senior officials), daily operations including weapons searches and killing or arresting wanted persons have thus far served to alienate the local population without leading to appreciable gain.

British Lieutenant General Sir John Kiszely, a top military rep in Iraq, is quoted in the report as follows: “There were some operations taking place in Iraq where the success of the operation… was judged solely against whether tactical success had been achieved; tactical success in terms of attrition of enemy forces, numbers killed or captured, numbers of weapons seized, amounts of explosives captured, extent of area controlled. By these criteria… a given operation would be judged a success, regardless of the fact that it had seriously alienated the local population, and the fact that, within a few months, other insurgents had re-infiltrated and regained control.”

Apparently, the same can be said of Afghanistan.

Finally, the RAND report issues a reminder that military personnel are not only responsible for countering the insurgency but also protecting the civilian population from being caught in the crossfire.

photos courtesy of www.defensetech.org and www.nrc.nl

But given recent events and endorsements, it doesn’t seem that Obama is giving up on Bush’s War on Terror, per se. It’s just that the global economic crisis – and its potential threat to U.S. security – has displaced terrorism somewhat, as U.S. intelligence agencies reported to Congress in February.

You can rest assured, Obama’s keeping himself well in the know when it comes to threats to security generated by economic difficulties. Every day, he receives a special economic report compiled by the intelligence community, which specifically calls out potential changes to the foreign policy of countries facing economic instability, countries like China and Russia, Argentina, Ecuador and Venezuela, said new CIA Director Leon Panetta.

Panetta goes on to appease those concerned about Obama’s allegedly relaxed approach to fighting terrorism, saying that when it comes to Islamic militants, President Obama intends to be just as aggressive and persistent as his predecessor in the struggle to prevent a repeat of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Panetta later confirmed that President Obama has endorsed the CIA’s stepped-up offensive against Al Qaeda, which includes missile strikes carried out by unmanned drones and aimed at Al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Reports indicate that eight Al Qaeda leaders have been killed as a result of the strikes since they began in June 2008.

Within a few days of Obama taking office this January, the U.S. launched two missile attacks, and soon after Panetta’s appointment as Director of CIA this February, additional strikes were made in the tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Panetta has told members of the Pakistani military and intelligence community that the CIA has no intention of easing up its attack, bent on seriously debilitating Al Qaeda’s central leadership, also known as Osama Bin Laden’s lieutenants.

In the face of a worsening situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s hesitance to do anything about the insurgents spilling over into its territory, the United Stated increased their missile offensive last year.

photo courtesy of www.patdollard.com

The BBC reported yesterday on the unveiling of the UK’s new stealth surveillance aircraft. The plane, built by BAE Systems, is a UAV – an unmanned aerial vehicle – and goes by the names Corax and Raven. It apparently resembles a never-built US military spy plane referred to as DarkStar.

Bill Sweetman, Aerospace and Technology Editor of Jane’s International Defence Review, spoke with the BBC: “it’s very reminiscent of something that’s designed to fly fairly high, fairly slow and have quite a long endurance. It looks rather typical for a surveillance aircraft.” But they’re not going to stop there. The plan is to have numerous models – all with a similar central operating system, but with differing wing types to cater to the requirements of different sorts of missions. “If you take those long outer wings off and put on shorter swept wings, you have a somewhat faster aircraft that would be more of a penetrating strike platform.”

Both the US and the UK plan to invest time and money in developing better stealth UAVs, and the Corax is the start of it all. Stealth in this context refers to making the vehicles less visible, if not completely invisible, to radar detection. With the Corax, the UK will be able to test what works and what doesn’t when it comes to plane stability, control and performance.

This is certainly not the first time robot spy planes have been in the news. In 2006, we heard of a ‘spies in the sky’ program, in which tiny drone airplanes with powerful cameras were to patrol EU borders against smugglers and illegal immigrants. A previously-built UK sky spy was used in the US to scout the Mexican border, and the US has also deployed UAVs widely in Afghanistan and Iraq. Belgium used spy planes to catch and prosecute tankers that were illegally dumping oil in the North Sea. Israel too has been a key player in the UAV game, allegedly using them extensively for surveillance and targeting known terrorist leaders.

Improved stealth technology is key – combine it with weapons engineer and manufacturer Jerry Baber’s AA-12 technology (a gun which shoots five shells per second with next to no recoil and can fire thousands of rounds without cleaning) – and you’ve got yourself the real future of warfare.

photo courtesy of BAE Systems