'It's clear that this administration has engaged every possible agency, from the Pentagon to NSA to the FBI, to engage in spying on Americans.' The US Army uses “human terrain mapping”. What it came down to was using anthropologists and other social scientists to develop maps of the local population showing attitudes and loyalties. This is pretty standard stuff for marketing researchers. Want to put a new fast food outlet somewhere? Call in the market research experts to build and study maps showing who (in terms of what they eat and where they prefer to eat it) live there and what food outlets are already there. The military applications are more concerned with identifying the "opinion leaders." This is another marketing innovation, based on the idea that it's more effective to pitch the few people who most influence everyone else than it is to try and reach everyone with your message. https://thehill.com/policy/international/3269911-ukraine-has-used-facial-recognition-tech-to-notify-hundreds-of-russian-families-of-dead-soldiers-report/ https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2022-04-15/ukraine-scanning-faces-dead-russians-contacting-mothers-5697611.html
India never had a covert policy of assassination campaign. Former head of RAW has said, just like David Headley, Nikhil Gupta is also an undercover US agent who set a trap to lure in an overconfident senior Indian govt. CRPF officer, who was fishing for assassins for hire. He was ready to brag, which gave the US enough recorded evidence. India's NSA Ajit Doval is highly experienced professional and would not leave his fingerprints, which means any approval given to senior Indian govt. CRPF officer must have been not through the normal RAW route/system. Here are the major highlights of the indictment:
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-spavor-kovrig-china-intelligence-background/ https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/canada-michael-spavor-claim-used-intelligence-gathering-china-3935386 https://www.wjsu.org/2023-11-21/a-canadian-jailed-in-china-wants-compensation-from-the-canadian-government https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/freed-china-detainee-michael-kovrig-breaks-silence-says-allegations-linked-to-michael-spavor-are-baffling/article_ac78b14c-cba7-5043-894d-ee5aee6679b1.html Blood For Blood by Terry Milewski Secret World : A History of Intelligence by Christopher Andrew How To Stage A Coup: And Ten Other Lessons from the World of Secret Statecraft by Rory Cormac and Disrupt and Deny: Spies, Special Forces, and the Secret Pursuit of British Foreign Policy by Rory Cormac The Secret History of MI6 by Keith Jeffery The Mitrokhin Archive by Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence by Douglas London Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations by Ronen Bergman RAW : A HISTORY OF INDIA’S COVERT OPERATIONS by Yatish Yadav The Mammoth Book of Covert Ops: True Stories of Covert Military Operations, from the Bay of Pigs to the Death of Osama bin Laden by Jon E. Lewis https://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2023/dec/01/us-senate-likely-to-hold-hearing-over-indian-nationals-alleged-plot-to-kill-sikh-separatist-pannun-2637831.html https://www.telegraphindia.com/world/us-foils-plot-to-assassinate-sikh-extremist-gurpatwant-singh-pannun-warns-india-says-ft-report/cid/1981877 https://www.livemint.com/news/world/us-thwarts-plot-to-kill-sikh-separatist-issues-warning-to-india-report-11700650091904.html https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2023-11-22/u-s-thwarts-plot-to-kill-sikh-separatist-issues-warning-to-india-ft https://www.voanews.com/a/india-alleged-to-have-plotted-assassination-on-us-soil/7365996.html https://www.livemint.com/news/india/who-is-nikhil-gupta-arrested-for-planning-to-kill-khalistani-leader-gurpatwant-singh-pannun-in-us-11701307876954.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/29/india-us-sikh-separatist-leader/9d37b50a-8ea1-11ee-95e1-edd75d825df0_story.html https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/world/story/5-anglosphere-countries-band-together-new-zealand-slammed-for-post-on-india-canada-row-403335-2023-10-26 https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230922-blinken-calls-on-india-to-cooperate-on-canada-killing-probe https://fox5sandiego.com/news/world-news/ap-international/ap-us-diplomat-says-intelligence-from-five-eyes-nations-helped-canada-to-link-india-to-sikhs-killing/ 'What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not! They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: little men, drunkards, queers, hen-pecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong?' Similar to Stuxnet and Duqu (both created by a joint U.S.-Israeli effort for use against Iran), the new spyware was called Gauss, and it was used to monitor Hezbollah (an Iran backed Lebanese terrorist group) financial activity. In late 2014 another high grade Cyber War weapon has been found. This one is called Regin and it joined illustrious predecessors like Stuxnet, Duqu, Flame and several others that have been discovered since 2009. Regin, like its predecessors, was extensive, apparently built by skilled and well organized professionals and designed to stay hidden. This it apparently did for over six years. Regin has numerous modules and the ability to do a lot of spying on its own without much, if any, human intervention. Malware like this is royalty of hacker software, built with care and abundant resources by top talent. The 2015 version is called Duqu 2.0 and it is much improved over the 2011 original. Duqu 2.0 uses a new communications system making it very difficult (and often impossible) to determine where it is sending data and getting orders from. Duqu 2.0 also hides itself much more efficiently, making it more difficult to detect and remove. Duqu 2.0 uses more powerful encryption, making it more difficult to even examine portions of it that are captured. Duqu 2.0 uses all of this, especially the stealth, to compromise entire networks, including routers and “smart” devices (like printers) attached to the network. This makes it much more difficult to remove because parts of Duqu 2.0 are all over an infected network and well hidden. Clean out one server and surviving Duqu 2.0 components will note this and quietly re-infect the “cleaned” computer or server. Internet security companies continue to study older major league Cyber War weapons like Stuxnet and keep finding new angles to these powerful weapons. It was that kind of research that led to the discovery of Regin and similar (like Duqu 2.0) high end hacking tools. Stuxnet was different in that it was developed specifically to damage Iran’s uranium enrichment equipment. All high-end cyber weapons like Stuxnet are designed to keep their activities hidden, and some have done so for up to a decade, or more. Apparently a beta version of Stuxnet was at work as early as 2005. After the 2005 beta version, there were several more improved versions released. Whoever created Stuxnet probably knows the extent of the damage because Stuxnet also had a "call home" capability even though it was designed to operate in systems without Internet access (by travelling via memory sticks or DVDs). There are probably more than three of these stealthy Cyber War applications in use and most of us will never hear about it until, and if, other such programs are discovered and their presence made public. Few other details were released, although many more rumors have since circulated. The U.S. and Israel were long suspected of being responsible for these "weapons grade" computer worms. Both nations had the motive to use, means to build, and opportunity to unleash these powerful Cyber War weapons. This stuff doesn't get reported much in the general media, partly because it's so geeky and because there are no visuals. DEFENCE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (DIA) was established in 2002 and it reports to the Chief Of Defence Staffs (CDS). It is supposed to be the nodal agency for all defence related intelligence, thus distinguishing it from the RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS WING (R&AW). The DIA has control over some of the Army's prized technical intelligence assets – the Directorate of Signals Intelligence and the Defence Image Processing and Analysis Centre (DIPAC). While the Signals Directorate is responsible for acquiring and decrypting enemy communications, the DIPAC controls India's satellite-based image acquisition capabilities. The DIA also controls the Defence Information Warfare Agency (DIWA). DIWA handles all elements of the information warfare repertoire, including psychological operations, cyber-war, electronic intercepts and the monitoring of sound waves. Much of the agency's budget and operations are classified. The defence ministry has the DEFENCE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (DIA), and the intelligence agencies of the three services. Of the three services, only the army has a dedicated cadre of intelligence officers and personnel below officers' rank. The Indian Army (IA), for instance, has a cadre of military intelligence officers comprising former high-ranking, intelligence officers with decades of experience in the field. There are other intelligence establishments like the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, the Coast Guard etc that come under various departments/states. The Indian government also sanctioned the DEFENCE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (DIA) of the Integrated Defence Staff under the Ministry of Defence. However, it failed to address the strategic gaps of the military dimensions of intelligence, struggling to remain relevant with India’s intelligence community. A drastic revamping of India's defence intelligence is on the cards, but the exercise could spell problems in the ranks of the three services. The Kargil Review Committee (KRC) was set up by the Government of India on 29 July 1999, three days after the end of the Kargil War. The Committee found serious deficiencies at various levels of intelligence collection. It noted, for instance, thus: “There is no institutionalized mechanism for coordination or objective-oriented interaction between agencies and consumers at different levels. Similarly, there is no mechanism for tasking the agencies, monitoring their performance and reviewing their records to evaluate their quality. Nor is there any oversight of the overall functioning of the agencies.” Two decades later, it is apparent that little has changed since the KRC’s observations in 2000. Currently, India's total Intelligence Bureau (IB) manpower consists of 3,500 to 4,500 personnels. The broad structure of our current intelligence consists of the RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS WING (R&AW) mandated to look after external intelligence, while the Intelligence Bureau (IB) looks after internal intelligence. The former operates under the ministry of external affairs while the later is under the home ministry. The Joint Cipher Bureau works closely with the IB and R&AW. It is responsible for cryptanalysis and encryption of sensitive data. The directors of R&AW and IB technically report to the NSA rather than the Prime Minister directly. Simply copying existing models in Western countries, has also lead to mismatches with India's political and bureaucratic system. After Intelligence Bureau (IB) failed to make a correct assessment of China's intentions that would eventually lead to the Sino-Indian Border War of 1962 and Pakistan's Operation Gibraltar that led to the 1965 war. In 1968, the foreign intelligence division of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) was hived off to create India's external intelligence agency RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS WING (R&AW), modelled on Israel's external intelligence agency called Mossad and technically only a cabinet secretariat wing, started taking shape and was functional under the PM Indira Gandhi. An Aviation Research Centre (ARC) is attached to RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS WING (R&AW). Before R&AW, there was the Intelligence Bureau (IB) , responsible to the Home Ministry, was established by the British to check a Russian invasion through Afganistan and later its responsibilities included India's internal security. It is said to be the world's oldest intelligence agency and was later modelled after UK's counter-intelligence and internal security agency i.e. MI5. (after Mumbai attacks and rise of naxal movement, it has recently added a nerve centre for muliple intelligence agencies, where each security agency has to according to the law, share all vital security info with each other). The failures in intelligence, whether in collection, analysis or processing, led to a recognition of the need for a dedicated technical intelligence agency modelled after the US National Security Agency (NSA). Like the creation of the RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS WING (R&AW), following the Kargil War of 1999, the National Technical Research Organization (NTRO) was created for the collection and dissemination of data received from the satellites and other installations in space. Telephone, internet connection services and mobile satellite communications and emails from India that go through or over the Pacific Ocean can be intercepted by Chinese and Western intelligence. Indian government has designated Multi Agency Centre (MAC) set up in 2001 after the 1999 Kargil conflict, as the nodal point for sharing of intelligence with Bangladesh and Myanmar and underwent an overhaul in December 2008 after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack. Repeated failures following the reports of the Kargil Review Committee and the Group of Ministers point to a deeper and systemic failure. For instance, although there was available intelligence on possible terror attacks on Mumbai in 2008, India’s intelligence agencies and networks failed to identify the threat and prevent the attacks. Following is the chronology of major blasts in the country:
India faced more than 4,100 terrorist attacks between 1970 and 2004, accounting for about 12,540 fatalities, according to the Global Terrorism Database, maintained by the University of Maryland and the US National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). It makes an average of almost 360 fatalities per year. These fatalities peaked in 1991 and 1992, when 1,184 and 1,132 individuals (respectively) were killed in such incidents. Of course, the official figures in India are much higher than this count and place the toll at around 70,000 deaths. In 26/11, as per the latest figures, there were in all 163 casualties and 293 wounded, which may not make it particularly special. The earlier attack on 11 July 2006 in the form of serial blasts at seven places in local trains, the life line of Mumbai, executed within a short time of 11 minutes, the death toll was far higher at 200 and 714 wounded. In terms of potential, if one may say so, the 2001 attack on the Parliament of India in New Delhi, symbolizing our national sovereignty, in which 5 terrorists, 6 police and 1 civilian were killed was far more perilous than the 26/11 attack. To recall a few of those gruesome experiences, even as we go ahead and do what we are the best at, bury our dead and move on, is necessary sensitisation for the reader before the core issues are dealt with. In 2003, Mumbai recorded two attacks. The first one was on April 13, when the mangled remains of 13 people were retrieved after a bomb blew up in a commuter train. A few months later, on August 25, a car bomb accounted for 60 more. By July 11, 2006, the terrorists seemed to have developed a far superior network. Seven bombs blew up in trains and railway stations leaving behind a terrible head count of 160 men, women and children. Less than two months later, on September 8, though Mumbai was spared, 32 people were killed in a series of explosions in not too distant Malegaon. The tsunami was experienced on September 26, 2008, when Islamist terror proved its reach and we finally perceived how fallible our intelligence community is. These days, the Centre cited constitutional difficulties – the fact that “police” and “public order” lie within the law-making competence of States – as the major obstacle in the way of floating a new Central agency on the model of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. The Central Bureau of Investigation traces its origin to the Special Police Establishment (SPE), which was set up in 1941 by the Government of India, and its function was to investigate cases of bribery and corruption in transactions with the War & Supply Deptt. Of India during World War II. (Not many know that even the CBI is at the mercy of State governments for consent to function outside Union Territories. For instance, the CBI may have an office at Shastri Bhavan, Chennai, but this will be a mere ornamental structure unless the Tamil Nadu government notifies its consent for the CBI to function in the State to deal with corruption among public servants working for the Central government. The CBI has no authority to deal with State government officials unless a State government conveys its consent or the High Court/Supreme Court directs it to do so. Even the authority of courts directing a CBI investigation has been recently challenged, and the matter is pending in the Supreme Court.) Now the Centre seems to have found a way to overcome constitutional constraint to create a national police agency. While there is no official clarification on this point, it is believed the Ministry of Home Affairs is banking on item 1 on the Union List, which refers to “Defence of India and every part thereof including preparation for defence”, as justification for setting up an anti-terror investigating body. This is a valid and genuine reason that courts can be expected to uphold if the matter is taken to that forum. Moreover, the Multi Agency Centre (MAC), acting as a nodal agency on all terror-related intelligence, has become operational around the clock. The JIC is entrusted with the tasks of coordinating intelligence between all government agencies, civilian and military. Now formed as a part of the third tier of the National Security Council Secretariat, it consists of experts on several issues who analyse intelligence inputs. It was realised that the maze of organisations that are working in the field of intelligence in India today are inadequate and lack proper coordination, if not efficiency and effectiveness. (after the proxy war of Kargil, we have added a common armed-force defence intelligence agency, an advance technical and cyber counter-intelligence agency.) For co-ordination there is a National Security Advisor to whom most intelligence agencies report. The directors of R&AW and IB technically report to the NSA rather than the Prime Minister directly. There is also an all powerful coordinating group which reports to the super-agency National Security Council (NSC) with intellectuals and private functionaries as members and a Secretariat with three Deputy NSAs. The NSA is a member of the NSC and its primary job is to be the PM's personal advisor. Battle over intelligence by PRAVEEN SWAMI, Frontline magazine Volume 18 - Issue 01, Jan. 06 - 19, 2001 The Union government is due to table in Parliament in the Budget session the findings of the four task force s set up to restructure the security and intelligence apparatus. The findings, finalised in November, have been under intense scrutiny by a Group of Ministers (GoM), including Home Minister L.K. Advani, who is its Chairman, Defence Minister George Fernandes, External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh and Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha. The GoM's report could lead to a drastic transfiguration of the intelligence establishment, the most comprehensive one in decades. The Task Forces were set up in response to the findings of the Kargil Review Committee led by defence analyst K. Subrahmanyam, which had been submitted in January 2000. The Review Committee had claimed that intelligence failures were central to bringing about the Kargil war and suggested a series of reforms. The four Task Forces were then set up to deal with issues concerning the intelligence apparatus, internal security, border management and management of defence. They were, led respectively by Girish Saxena, Jammu and Kashmir Governor and a long-term intelligence officer, N.N. Vohra and Dr. Madhav Godbole, former bureaucrats, and Arun Singh, former Union Minister of State for Defence and now an adviser to the Defence Minister. Through their four-month-long proceedings, the task forces focussed on the 25 recommendations made by the KRC. The committee had declared that there were deficiencies in the collection, reporting, collation and assessment of intelligence. "There is no institutionalised system for coordination or objective-oriented interaction between the (intelligence) agencies and consumers at different levels," it declared. "A generalist administration culture would appear to permeate the intelligence field," it said. The Task Forces sought to address these problems and forwarded their findings to the GoM. National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, Cabinet Secretary Prabhat Kumar and National Security Council Secretary Satish Chander participated in the GoM's subsequent meetings. Just what the GoM has in mind is not clear, but the debate that will break out in February is certain to be acrimonious. For one, the Intelligence Bureau (I.B.) and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) have made no secret of their dislike of the KRC Report. Officials of the I.B. and RAW claim, with some justification, that more than sufficient intelligence on Pakistan's plans to initiate hostilities in the summer of 1999 was available. A myopic political leadership believed the nuclearisation of South Asia that officials suggested, and therefore chose to ignore these warnings. Through the meetings of the Task Forces, there were more than a few signs of feuding between the civilian-run intelligence establishment and the Army, much of which could become public in the course of debates during and after the Budget session. WITHOUT dispute, the Saxena-led Task Force on revamping the intelligence network is certain to be the most controversial. Sources say its 244-page report has recommended the establishment of an integrated National Intelligence Board (NIB), headed by the National Security Adviser. The NIB will have as its members the I.B. Director, the head of the RAW, and the Director of Revenue Intelligence. The defence forces would be represented by the head of a new Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), which is to be staffed by the Army, Navy and Air Force intelligence chiefs. While the Army's intelligence establishment, the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DGMI), is currently run by a three-star General, the smaller operations of the Air Force and Navy are under the command of a two-star officer in the rank of a Major-General. Complaints by the Army, which is dependent heavily for cross-border intelligence on RAW and the I.B., lie at the heart of the new proposals, which would place the military at the top of the intelligence set-up. The Army claims that civilian intelligence outfits do not understand their needs and are not professionally equipped to gather military information. This claim is, predictably enough, rebutted by both RAW and I.B., which argue that the Army is just trying to find scapegoats for its pre-Kargil failures in 1999. As things stand, RAW is the principal provider of intelligence to the military, drawing up regular six-month threat projections with a 30-day warning of imminent hostilities. The defence services now want a monthly forecast, but their intelligence wings now lack the resources, equipment and expertise to generate one. None of these complaints is particularly new. Two years ago, a Navy analysis recommended instituting a separate DIA, which appears to be the precursor of the nascent body. The Navy's Strategic Review suggested that intelligence inputs at the strategic, operational and tactical levels left "much to be desired". It declared that despite the existence of the Joint Intelligence Committee, established in the 1970s as a nodal agency to analyse strategic intelligence from various sources, there was "inadequate " interaction between it and the service headquarters. More recently, Army officials said that RAW was unable to assess the relevance of Pakistan acquiring large quantities of high-altitude equipment including boots, tents and snow scooters from European suppliers just months before the Kargil war. Part of the problem also lies in historical tensions between the Army and RAW. Although RAW has a significant proportion of Army personnel on secondment, they often complain of being left out of the information loop by the organisation's highly-secretive cadre officials. In the early 1990s RAW had torpedoed the DGMI's proposal that it be given charge of tactical intelligence gathering 50 km beyond India's borders. RAW had been training and arming the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the 1980s, even as the Army was trying to disarm the Tigers. For years, RAW also reportedly supplied arms to Karen rebels in Myanmar, arms which ultimately found their way to Indian separatist groups fighting the Army in the northeastern region. The web of deceit and intrigue blew open in 1998 after military operations led to the seizure of RAW-authorised weapons meant for rebels in Myanmar. EMPIRES are at stake in the battle between the DGMI and RAW. The Army, for example, wants desperately to take control of the RAW's Aviation Research Centre (ARC), the principal agency for air-borne communications and electronic surveillance. Sources say the Army put forward formal claims before the Saxena Task Force, arguing that RAW had failed to use its not-inconsiderable resources to detect Pakistan's pre-Kargil build-up. RAW operatives denied these allegations stoutly, claiming that the ARC provided the Army better images and analysis than the DGMI, but that it chose to interpret Pakistani troop movement along the frontier and its stockpiling of arms and equipment as routine. The ARC, which operates a mid-size fleet of specially equipped spy aircraft, provides the RAW aerial reconnaissance, communications and electronics intelligence as well as imagery analysis. These are then disseminated to other departments, including the military. The ARC is headed by an Air Vice-Marshal deputed on a near-permanent basis, and a large proportion of its staff are on secondment from the defence forces. The Army runs its own Defence Image Processing and Imagery Centre, which has the ability to obtain and process satellite images. But it also depends on RAW's technical resources, as also the signals intelligence capabilities of the I.B. for a complete technical picture of events across India's borders. The Air Force and the Navy, which use varied aircraft including MiG 25s, HS-748s or AVROs and Dorniers to carry out surveillance, do not seem to have endorsed the Army's desire to take over the ARC. The dispute over the ARC merely mirrors a broader set of conflict of resources. Should the DIA come into being, for example, there is certain to be pressure on the NIB to sanction foreign postings for the new military intelligence organisation. The DIA, sources told Frontline, would wish for dedicated military intelligence officials to be posted abroad, just as military attaches, along with I.B. and RAW personnel, now are. This could in the future lead to pressure over budgets, not to mention wasteful duplication of resources. There are also likely to be firefights over allocations of unaudited intelligence funds. Should the DIA gain control over cross-border intelligence, that in turn would lead it to demand more assets for tasks currently performed by the I.B. and RAW. "The answer that is being put out," notes one I.B. official wryly, "is just to create yet another organisation and yet another layer of bureaucracy." RAW officials are bitter about the Army's posture. "The army just wants scapegoats to cover up its own failures," a senior RAW official said. Clearly, the DGMI would do well to address some of its own internal problems. It is well known within the intelligence community that the DGMI is staffed largely by officers with little or limited prospects of promotion. That, in turn, has meant the organisation has generally gathered intelligence of little value, and the shortage of resources as an alibi for gross inefficiency. During the Kargil crisis, the DGMI spent weeks acting as the public relations arm of the Army, and subsequently, tried to silence publications critical of the conduct of the war. The then DGMI head, Lieutenant-General R.K. Sawhney, reportedly lobbied the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to launch legal proceedings against those less than effusive in their praise of the conduct of the Kargil operations, including Frontline. THE turf battle on intelligence could be mirrored by a similar war among the three services if the Arun Singh-led Task Force's proposals for the appointment of a Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) in a restructured MoD are implemented. Should the restructuring proposals be accepted by the GoM, the size of the existing service headquarters is likely to be reduced and it may be merged with the MoD. The single service chiefs would retain their operational commands and responsibilities, but joint operations would be handled by the CDS, a four-star General as in the case of the service chiefs. Chief of the Army Staff General Ved Prakash Malik had proposed the creation of the post of a CDS in the post-Pokhran-II situation. This, however, fuelled fears in the Air Force and the Navy about the Army's hegemonic ambitions in the military establishment. Arun Singh's report, which sources say runs to over 300 pages, was presented to Advani on September 30. It suggests that the CDS should have overall charge of the proposed strategic nuclear command, defence intelligence, air defence and service promotion s. Empowered with a fixed two-year tenure, the CDS would have under him a Vice Chief of Defence Staff and a secretariat comprising members from each service to coordinate responsibilities. The recommendations also reportedly include granting the services more financial authority, as well as freeing them further from the civilian-dominated MoD by allowing them to promote Brigadiers and their equivalents in the Air Force and the Navy without clearance from the powerful Committee on Cabinet Appointments, which process is often a time-consuming one. Proposals for a restructured MoD under review by the GoM suggest that the CDS would act as an interface for enhanced coordination between the military, civilian and political establishments. At present, India has only one tri-services joint command, located on the Andaman and Nicobar islands. But the Andaman Fortress, headed by a Vice-Admiral, is Navy-dominated. The Army has just one battalion based in Port Blair, while the Air Force operates a single Mi-8 helicopter squadron. The establishment of new theatre commands has been rejected, given the service rivalries evident in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Following resistance from the Navy and the Air Force, the Task Force has also recommended that the post of CDS be held on a rotational basis by the three services. Given their doctrinal differences, that is unlikely to ensure an abiding peace among the services. It is near-impossible to attempt a cogent critique of the Task Force reports until they are made public. It is evident, however, that the GoM has before it a series of bureaucratic answers to the problems that became evident during the Kargil war. "There is already a good field apparatus," suggests one Army officer, "the real problem is the complete unwillingness of officials at the top to listen to their own field operatives." None of the persistent problems between the services, or between the service s and the MoD, are likely to be resolved simply by setting up the NIB or the CDS. If and when the GoM gets down to implementing the recommendations of the Task Forces, the real problems faced by India's intelligence and defence establishments could be no closer to resolution than they have been at any time in the last three decades. 2012 update An ambitious plan of Home Minister P. Chidambaram to set up an intelligence hub that will integrate and analyse inputs on terror threats in India was finally accorded government approval Jan 12 after hanging fire for almost two years. The National Counter-Terrorism Centre agency, worked out on the model of the US' National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), is aimed at combating terrorism by collecting and analysing threats, sharing the inputs and information with other agencies and converting these into actionable data. The counter-terrorism agency will be a separate body under the control of the ministry of home affairs. Chidambaram said the government will soon appoint its head, an additional director general-level police officer, and other officials who will form the core team of the agency. The NCTC will report to the union home secretary. The full NCTC team consisting of officers drawn from intelligence, security agencies and state police would be formed after getting clearance for funds, the home ministry said. He said the NCTC would be the nodal agency for all counter-terrorism activities of the government and the Multi-Agency Centre (MAC) of the Intelligence Bureau will be subsumed into it. It would have to coordinate with agencies such as the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) and state intelligence agencies, the sources said. Chidambaram had floated the idea to set up the NCTC after the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack in 2008. Intelligence agencies and state police had complained in the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks that sharing of information among them was one of the biggest worries. Despite intelligence inputs given prior to the attack, the Mumbai police had said the information was not good enough for them to act upon. In the wake of this complaint and also because there was no agency to integrate the inputs, the home minister had proposed a centre aimed at putting the intelligence in the right place at the right time. The main job of this agency would be to warn and also pre-empt terror strikes after all other agencies dealing with counter-terror measures provide their information to the NCTC. A panel of experts at the centre would then analyse the inputs with the help of a data base about suspected terrorists and terror outfits. The National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID), approved by the government in June last year with a data bank of nearly 20 types of database, will work separately. But it will also provide terror inputs to the NCTC. The agency will be set up through an executive order to be issued soon. Under that hat, he played a commendable role in detecting, with the help of his junior colleagues, the penetration of the R&AW by the USA’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) through Maj Rabinder Singh, a retired officer of the Army who joined the organisation in the 1980s. Rabinder was the one that got away evading the surveillance that had been mounted on him. His getting away was made possible by the active assistance reportedly given by the CIA to him and his family. One does not know when Rabinder became a mole of the CIA? Was he already a mole when he was in the Army? Or was he recruited by the CIA after he joined the organisation? If so, when? Only in the case of Rabinder, even at the risk of an adverse impact on the State-to-State relations with India, the CIA seems to have moved heaven and earth to help him get away into the safe sanctuary of the US. Why did it do so? Was it in gratitude for the invaluable services that he might have rendered to the CIA? Or was it due to fears that if arrested and interrogated by the Indian counter-intelligence, he might under duress reveal the identities of other CIA moles in the Indian intelligence community of whom he possibly had knowledge? What role his sister, who was a US citizen and who was a US Government public servant, played in facilitating the penetration of the R&AW by the CIA through her brother? Was it wise and professional on the part of the R&AW to have taken into the organisation someone many of whose relatives were US citizens and at least one of whom was a public servant of the US? What damage did he cause to the organisation and the country during the period he was a CIA mole in the sanctum sanctorum of the R&AW? Penetration by a foreign intelligence agency is an occupational hazard in the intelligence profession. Rabinder was not the first mole of the CIA in the Indian intelligence community. We had another in the Chennai office of the R&AW detected in the 1980s. He was allegedly being run by a CIA officer working under Consular cover in the US Consulate-General in Chennai. We had one at a very senior level in the Intelligence Bureau detected in the 1990s. If he had not been detected in time, he might have become the head of the IB. A woman officer of the CIA working under cover in the US Embassy in Delhi for maintaining liaison with the Indian intelligence had allegedly become close to him by exploiting her frequent meetings with him for sharing intelligence on counter-terrorism. We reportedly found a mole even after the detection of Rabinder in the National Security Council Secretariat, which is part of the Prime Minister’s Office. A woman cyber security expert of the US had allegedly played a role in this case. These were the detected cases. One does not know how many undetected cases are there. China's MSS: Ministry of State Security (or State Security Ministry) established in 1983 Pakistan's ISIstrategypage.com, 2014 Pakistan's ISI was created in 1948 as a reaction to the inability of the IB (Intelligence Bureau, which collected intelligence on foreign countries in general) and MI (Military Intelligence, which collected intel on military matters) to work together and provide useful information for senior government officials. The ISI was supposed to take intel from IB and MI, analyze it and present it to senior government officials. But in the 1950s, the government began to use the ISI to collect intel inside Pakistan, especially on those suspected of opposing the current government. This eventually backfired, and in the 1970s, the ISI was much reduced by a civilian government. But when another coup took place in 1977 and the new military government decided that religion was the cure for what ailed the country and that ISI would be expanded to make this work. That meant encouraging Islamic clergy and groups to become even more active in politics and for Islamic terrorist groups to accept cash and other help from the government. The deal with the devil was made. Civilian governments tend to be hostile to the ISI, and apparently they are making a real effort to clear out many of the Islamic radicals in the ISI this time around. Typically, the Pakistani generals seized control of the government every decade or so, when the corruption and incompetence of elected officials becomes too much for the military men to tolerate. The generals controlled ISI and supported the pro-Islamic terrorism policy. The ISI grew particularly strong during the 1980s, when billions of dollars, most of it in the form of military and economic aid, arrived from the oil-rich Arab governments of the Persian Gulf. All this was to support the Afghans who were resisting a Russian invasion (in support of Afghan communists who had taken control of the government, and triggered a revolt of the tribes). The Afghan communists were atheists, and this greatly offended Saudi Arabia, and other Arab countries, who feared that Russia would encourage Arab communists everywhere to rebel. So the resistance to the Russians in Afghanistan was declared a holy war which, after a fashion, it was. The Soviet Union collapsed two years later, and the Afghan factions promptly fell upon each other and the civil war seemed never-ending. This upset Pakistan, which wanted to send millions of Afghan refugees back home. Few of the refugees were interested, as long as Afghans were still fighting each other. So the ISI created its own faction, the Taliban, by recruiting teachers and students from a network of religious schools that had been established (with the help of Saudi Arabian religious charities) in the 1980s. The most eager recruits were young Afghans from the refugee camps. The Taliban were fanatical, and most Afghans were willing to support them because they brought peace and rough justice. But the Taliban never conquered all of Afghanistan, especially in the north, where there were few Pushtun tribes (most Taliban were Pushtuns, from tribes in southwestern Afghanistan). The Pushtuns were about 40 percent of the population, and had always been the most prominent faction in Afghanistan (the king of Afghanistan was traditionally a Pushtun.) Although a military junta was again running Pakistan when September 11, 2001 came along, the president of the country, an army general (Pervez Musharraf), sided with the United States, and turned against the Taliban. Al Qaeda took this betrayal badly, and declared war on the Pakistani government. The ISI was used to seek out and kill or capture most of the hostile al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan. But the ISI insured that Islamic terrorists who remained neutral were generally left alone. The ISI thwarted government efforts to have the army clear the al Qaeda out of the border areas (populated largely by Pushtun tribes, there being twice as many Pushtuns in Pakistan as there are in Afghanistan). The U.S. gave Pakistan's main intelligence agency; ISI tens of millions dollars for rewards since September 11, 2001. The U.S. money was paid as rewards for the capture or killing of wanted Islamic terrorists. The live ones were turned over to the United States. Pakistan says it captured over 800 of these terrorists, but the actual number is believed to be greater. The U.S. did not look closely at exactly who got the reward money. This backfired. It is now generally recognized that ISI is the enemy as much as the Taliban, al Qaeda, LeT or any number of other Islamic terrorist groups operating out of Pakistan. On May 2nd, 2011 the U.S. crossed the border, to kill Osama bin Laden, much to the consternation of the ISI. This was a turning point for Pakistan as the bin Laden raid, although roundly condemned by Pakistani nationalists, did expose the ISI and military leaders as liars. Bin Laden has spent over five years living within sight of the Pakistani military academy and surrounded by retired and active duty officers and their families. This hurt the ISI and the military more than the generals like to admit. While al Qaeda has become the most well- known international terrorist organization it was not the most successful. That title goes to less well known regional terrorist organizations. The most successful of these has been Pakistani Islamic terror group Lashkar I Toiba (LeT). While al Qaeda has been reduced to a franchising operation, LeT is a real organization with separate departments for recruiting, fund raising, training and operations. The LeT is, like the Taliban is a creation of the Pakistani ISI. It’s interesting that many LeT leaders come from the same middle class neighborhoods that produce many of the army and ISI officers that back Islamic terrorism. The connections between ISI and Islamic terror groups are numerous and this intelligence organization has become a major threat to Pakistani democracy and Pakistan itself. Most Pakistanis realize that too much Pakistani based Islamic terrorism inside India could trigger a major war with India. Since both nations now have nuclear weapons, this could get very ugly. The Islamic terrorists don't care, as they are on a Mission From God, and whatever happens is God's Will. But it’s no longer just India or the United States complaining about the murderous work of the ISI and their Islamic terrorist clients. All the neighbors, including Iran and China, are complaining and soon Pakistan will have to decide what is more important; survival or support for Islamic terrorism. 'Before, he was evil and my enemy; now, he is evil and my friend.' U.S.A.'s C.I.A https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/09/10/911-chile-1973-pinochet-allende-coup-constitution-constitutent-assembly/ https://www.salon.com/2014/03/08/35_countries_the_u_s_has_backed_international_crime_partner/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/americas-most-awkward-allies-103889/ In 1914, Europe’s World War 1 that motivated the United States to think about building a modern intelligence apparatus devoted to collecting, evaluating, and disseminating stolen enemy secrets. However, no professionalized clandestine foreign intelligence-gathering and operations service would exist until Roosevelt established the Office of Strategic Services in June 1942. Major General John J. Pershing’s 1916-1917 Punitive Expedition into Mexico, for example, contained many of the practices that he would use on the Western Front when commanding the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in France. From Britain's secret services, the AEF also learned that intelligence should be a discreet and specialized function of war strategy and tactics. Quick learners, the Americans established their own schools in France for covert operations, as at Tours. AEF headquarters also began dispatching U.S. operatives, usually of French or German background, behind the lines—independent of their British tutors. Their covers would be familiar to operatives today: U.S. “consular, commercial, scientific, and others” stationed or travelling within Germany and the occupied regions of France. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was a United States wartime intelligence agency formed during World War II. Prior to the formation of the OSS, American intelligence had been conducted on an ad-hoc basis by the various departments of the executive branch, including the State, Treasury, Navy, (Army) War Departments and individual military code-breaking departments. The FBI was responsible for domestic security and anti-espionage operations, mainly responsible for intelligence work in Latin America. (A previous code-breaking operation of the State Department, MI-8, run by Herbert Yardley, had been shut down in 1929 by Secretary of State Henry Stimson, deeming it an inappropriate function for the diplomatic arm, because "gentlemen don't read each other's mail".) President Franklin D. Roosevelt was concerned about American intelligence deficiencies. On the suggestion of William Stephenson, the senior British intelligence officer in the western hemisphere, Roosevelt requested that William J. Donovan draft a plan for an intelligence service based on the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and Special Operations Executive. The first OSS agents were trained by British Security Coordination (BSC) in Canada, until training stations were set up in the US with guidance from BSC instructors, who also provided information on how the SOE was arranged and managed. Until some months after Pearl Harbor, the bulk of OSS intelligence came from the UK. The organization, known as the office of the Coordinator of Information (COI), was developed in 1941 with the assistance of the British; Colonel William J. Donovan was the "Coordinator of Information" but with no actual powers. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was established by a Presidential military order issued by President Roosevelt on June 13, 1942, to collect and analyze strategic information required by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to conduct special operations not assigned to other agencies. During the War, the OSS supplied policy makers with facts and estimates, but the OSS never had jurisdiction over all foreign intelligence activities. The War Department took over the Secret Intelligence (SI) and Counter-Espionage (X-2) Branches, which were then housed in a new office created for just this purpose—the Strategic Services Unit (SSU). The Secretary of War appointed Brigadier General John Magruder as the new director to oversee the liquidation of the OSS, and more importantly, the preservation of the clandestine intelligence capability of the OSS. In January 1946, President Truman created the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) which was the direct precursor to the CIA. The assets of the SSU, which now constituted a streamlined "nucleus" of clandestine intelligence, were transferred to the CIG in mid-1946 and reconstituted as the Office of Special Operations (OSO). Next, the National Security Act of 1947 established the United State's first permanent peacetime intelligence agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, which then took up the functions of the OSS. The Office of Special Projects (OSP) was created as an independent office in 1948, under the United States National Security Council document NSC 10/2, as United States covert psychological operations and paramilitary action organization. The directors included representatives of the State and Defense departments and the CIA. Though a unit of the CIA, the Director reported to the State Department. In 1951, the OSP, renamed Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), merged with the CIA and became the agency’s covert paramilitary branch, to form the Directorate of Plans. The Joint Chiefs are the 5 generals and admirals in charge of the 5 branches of the U. S military. In 1962, those men were George Decker (Army), David Shoup (Marines), Georg Anderson, Jr. (Navy), Curtis LeMay (Air Force), and Edwin Roland (Coast Guard), along with a few others, all chaired by Lyman Lemnitzer (Army). The entire board of the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed, drafted, and agreed on a plan to concoct a casus belli for war against Communist Cuba, under Fidel Castro. Their collective motive was to reduce the constant threat of Communist encroachment into the Western Hemisphere, per the Monroe Doctrine. This plan was named Operation Northwoods, and entailed the most impossibly indifferent cruelty ever envisioned by a government against its own people. In order to sway public sentiment in favor of the war, the Joint Chiefs planned to bomb high pedestrian-traffic areas in major American cities, including Miami, New York, Washington, D. C., and possibly Chicago and Los Angeles; to frame U. S. citizens for these bombings; to shoot innocent, unarmed civilians on the streets in full view of hundreds of witnesses; to napalm military and merchant vessels in port, while people were aboard; to sink vessels carrying Cuban refugees bound for Florida; to hijack planes for ransom. Not only did every single member of the Joint Chiefs sign his approval of this plan, they then sent it to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara for his approval, and then to President Kennedy. McNamara claimed years later never to have seen it, but that he would have rejected it. Kennedy, however, did receive it, and promptly called a meeting of the Joint Chiefs, in which he threatened, with severe profanity, to court martial and incarcerate every one of them. The President cannot actually do this, but can order the Congress and military branches to do so, and in these circumstances, they most certainly would have. But Kennedy decided that it would cause irreparable disrespect around the world for the U. S. military. He did remove Lemnitzer from his position as Chairman and assign him as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, not much of a demotion. Theorists claim that the military may have had a hand in Kennedy’s assassination because of his blistering rebuke of the Joint Chiefs. This, however, remains unproven. CIA indoctrinated to believe that they are never wrong in the things they do. CIA sought finding ways to ignore laws passed by congress or finding loopholes in them, so they wouldn't get in trouble for the things they were specifically outlawed against doing. USA has toppled leaders from Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran, to Jacabo Arbenz in Guatemala, to Patrice Lumumba in the Congo; training and/or arming vicious killers from the Contras in Nicaragua to al Qaeda in Afghanistan. US has supported exile groups responsible for attacks on the island, including the 1976 bombing of a Cuban passenger flight from Barbados that killed 73 people aboard. Cuba has supported leftist guerrilla groups including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the Basque separatist movement ETA in Spain. Cuba also sheltered black and Puerto Rican militants who carried out attacks in the United States. Spain no longer appears to be actively seeking the return of inactive ETA members who may be in Cuba. The decline of American spy craft is an aftereffect of the Church Committee. This was an investigative operation sponsored by Congress in the late 1970s that sought to reform and punish the CIA. The reforms were mainly about eliminating CIA spying inside the United States, or doing stuff for the president that Congress did not approve of. There was also a desire to avoid any CIA connection with foreign unpleasantness (like using unsavory people as spies or informants, paying foreign politicians for information, or using contractors to run informant networks). This led to a growing list of restrictions on what the CIA could do overseas and at home. Congress was out to make sure no future president (the CIA works for the president) could use the CIA, as had been done during the Vietnam War and before. The CIA interpreted all this as "no more James Bond stuff." After the 1970s, the CIA relied more on spy satellites and other electronic monitoring for their reports on what was going on in the world. The Church Committee insured that the CIA became a much less interesting place to work for practitioners of traditional (on the ground, up close and personal) espionage. But after September 11, 2001, the CIA was tossed a huge pile of money and told to staff up and get going and save us all from the Islamic terrorists. The Church Committee restrictions were largely, if not completely, ignored. After a decade of doing whatever it took, the rules are being enforced again. Now Congress is again calling for investigations and “rogue operators” to punish. This sort of thing makes it very difficult to recruit and keep competent spies, even as contractors. But it's not just paper bullets intelligence operatives have to worry about these days. The post-9/11 world dramatically altered the way that national intelligence services do business. For one, the craft of espionage and military intelligence has become inherently more dangerous for case officers and agents in an age of terrorism and insurgency than it was during the Cold War. This is a complete turnaround from the way business was done during the Cold War in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. Many case officers on all sides, whether CIA or KGB, served out their entire 20 or 30 year careers as professional spies without ever having touched a firearm after their initial tradecraft courses. After all, getting into gun battles was not their job. Collecting information was. Furthermore, the case officers themselves, often operating under official diplomatic cover, didn't really have anything to fear if they were caught or their covers blown, except a tarnished career and expulsion from whatever country they operated in. The ones in real danger were always the informants, or "assets", that the case officers recruited, who were liable to face execution if they were found out. Simply put, spying really wasn't that dangerous for the case officers during and immediately after the Cold War. After the War on Terrorism began, the Cold War rules began to rapidly disappear. For one thing, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, along with most places that CIA officers operate today, are actual war zones with nothing "cold" about them. During traditional peacetime case officers don't really have to worry about their own safety, just that of their informants. Once you get involved with terrorists or an actual shooting war starts, all of that changes, and intelligence officers (whether CIA, or Army Intelligence) become major high-value targets for terrorist and insurgents. Since 2001, over a dozen (the exact number is classified) CIA officers have been killed in the line of duty. In short, the espionage business has gotten far more dangerous. Besides carrying guns, agencies and case officers are paying extra attention to things like counter-surveillance, disguises, and evasive driving. Carrying a sidearm is necessary for a case officer working in a city like Baghdad, Karachi or Kabul, the truth remains that getting into a gunfight is still the last resort and should be avoided at all costs. Case officers know that the most effective way to avoided being a terrorist target is to avoid following the same routines every day, varying routes to and from work/meetings, never sleeping in the same safe house for too long, and generally making one's life as varied and unpredictable as possible. Experienced spies know that if you can't be found, you can't be a target. The best game plan is to be as invisible as possible. Using contractors to run your informant networks is the best cover of all, unless Congress is looking for someone to prosecute. Russia is different, as the Russians always had the best spies. This was because of superior recruiting, training, and management. A lot of those spies were cut loose after the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, and some of them offered to talk (if the price was right). What these guys revealed was chilling for Western intel agencies, a decades long tale of successful old-school espionage operations. The KGB was so good that most of these ops were not even suspected. But the new information enabled the U.S. to roll up a number of well-placed Russian agents and moles and provide evidence supporting calls for a return to traditional espionage. There are major difference between military and criminal interrogation. Military interrogation is more like putting a jigsaw puzzle together, to get a better picture of what the enemy is up to. While a criminal interrogation is just a maze, usually involving just one suspect and all you want to do is get to a confession. The American military got lots of experience during World War II on interrogation techniques, where intel organizations learned to deal with fanatical Japanese and Nazi German POWs. The basic trick was to pick up as many bits of information as you could and play big-time mind games on the hard cases. The important thing was to use experienced and professional interrogators to work on the resistant prisoners believed to have valuable information. A first rate interrogator is generally strictly hands off and know how to get the information using words, gestures and some pretty effective psychological techniques. Not using physical violence is a matter of professional pride. It's also another of the tricks. Most of the terrorist prisoners come from cultures where the cops and secret police usually go straight for the torture angle. Yes, torture can work, but it often kills your subjects and often scares them into giving false information. Face it, if the guy you’re working over really doesn't have anything to tell you, he'll tell you anything to stop the pain. And that will leave you with another false lead, one that you will not easily discard because you tortured it out of someone. rugs and psychological techniques were developed, particularly by both sides, to weaken subjects without physical violence. Maybe an anguished telephone call or an audio or video recording from mom will help loosen tongues. It just takes patience, and a lot of talking. Security & Intelligence Services of the Chief SS (under Reich Security Main Office) Reich Main/Head Security Office was an organization subordinate to Heinrich Himmler. The Assault Division (SA) were used to get the Nazi's into power; the Security Service (SD) and the paramilitary SS "Protective Intel" were formed by the Nazi. SA was the original Nazi youth organisation known as the 'brown shirts'. These political bully boys role was to gain control of the streets of germany (most german political parties at this time had these organisations, the Brown shirts fought other groups for control of the streets). They were the ones who brainwashed the young and turning them into fanatics. In the early 1930's they numbered 2 million, after Hitler ordered the "night of the long knives", on the pretext of planning a coup, memberships steadily dropping until they had less than 500,000 members. (Several hundred SA leaders were executed, including its leader Ernst Röhm). The SS originally started as a group of around 200 of the most dedicated, toughest and fanatical SA members who were the 'black shirts'. The paramilitary SS "Protective Intel" started out as a bodyguard detachment for Nazi Party leaders and grew into the paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party (that worked side by side with the regular german military). Later, both the SA and SS were controlled by the same man Heinrich Luitpold Himmler. One part of it was the 'secret police' the famous Gestapo, other parts acted as ordinary armed police patrolling the streets of germany, working with the ordinary Gestapo (State Police), Kripo (Criminal Police), Sipo (Security Police). The SS itself was split into 2 parts the first half was the 'fighting SS' made up of nearly 50 divisions (at it's peak) these guys fought in the war on the front lines, the rest did jobs such as being the guards in concentration camps, admin and general military duties in support of the nazi leadership. The SD had vast power. It could involve itself in any aspect of someone’s life if they believed that that person was potentially “an enemy of the state”. It hunted out resistance fighters in the occupied territories and Jews who were being hidden. The SD was led by Reinhard Heydrich. SD men were famed for the methodical manner in which they worked. They divided the population into 5 categories:
The most legendary Cold War spymasters: Reinhard Gehlen, chief of the Fremde Heere Ost (FHO) military intelligence unit during the Second World War and who later became leader of the Gehlen Organization and the first President of the Federal Intelligence Service "CASCOPE" during the Cold War. As an officer in the German Wehrmacht, he reached the rank of Major General just before being sacked by Hitler for his accurately pessimistic intelligence reports. Because of his knowledge and contacts inside the Soviet Union he was very valuable to the Americans. During the emerging phases of the Cold War, he was recruited by the United States military to set up a spy ring directed against the Soviet Union (known as the Gehlen Organization) which employed numerous former SS, SD and Wehrmacht officers, and eventually became head of the West German intelligence apparatus. Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE)The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a British World War II organisation. Following Cabinet approval, it was officially formed by Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton on 22 July 1940, formed from the merger of three existing secret departments, which had been formed shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. Hugh Dalton, the Minister of Economic Warfare, was appointed to take political responsibility for the new organisation. Dalton used the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the Irish war of Independence as a model for the organisation. Major General Colin Gubbins had wide experience of commando and clandestine operations and had played a major part in MI R's early operations. He also put in practice many of the lessons he learned from the IRA during the Irish War of Independence. After the war, the organisation was officially dissolved on 15 January 1946. The three secret departments were:
The Special Operations Executive's (SOE) main task was to link up with freedom fighters or terrorists or resistance movements as a counter to the rising threat of Nazi spies. There was communication with Polish and Czech movements but only on a small scale. Probably, the biggest problem SOE experienced, was that there was no blue-print to study. What Churchill had ordered had never been done before - there was no rule book to go by. SOE had to make up the rules from the beginning. One further disadvantage SOE had was convincing those in the military hierarchy that what they planned to do was worth supporting. Acts of sabotage were difficult to verify - especially their success. Communication was invariably slow - so good news took time to arrive. There were many in the military who saw the SOE as a distraction from the 'proper' fighting that had to be done. Every SOE operative was trained in parachuting, unarmed combat and self-defence. Those who had particular skills in explosives, trained to perfect these skills. The same was true with wireless operators. SOE schools were set up under the greatest of secrecy to train potential SOE operators. The final part of training for any SOE person was his or her so-called 'cover story'. Each SOE operative had to fit in with his/her background. The slightest mistake would have been punished in the most severe manner. Therefore, no 'Frenchman' would wear shoes made in Great Britain or smoke British made cigarettes. The backgrounds of agents in F Section ranged from Indian royalty (Noor Inayat Khan) to working class, with some even reputedly from the criminal underworld. Of SOE's 55 female agents, thirteen were killed in action or died in Nazi concentration camps. The BBC also played its part in communications with agents or groups in the field. Station IX developed several miniature submersible craft. An SOE branch office in New York, formally titled British Security Coordination, and headed by the Canadian businessman Sir William Stephenson. This branch office, located at Room 3603, 630 Fifth Avenue, Rockefeller Center, coordinated the work of SOE, SIS and MI5 with the American F.B.I. and Office of Strategic Services. Sir Charles Hambro, head of the English banking firm, felt that any loss of autonomy would cause a number of problems for SOE in the future. At the same time, Hambro was found to have failed to pass on vital information to Lord Selborne. Sir Charles Hambro was dismissed as Director (replaced with Major General Colin Gubbins), and became head of a raw materials purchasing commission in Washington, D.C., which was involved in the exchange of nuclear information. An SOE station, which was first called the India Mission, and was subsequently known as GS I(k) was set up in India late in 1940. It subsequently moved to Ceylon so as to be closer to the headquarters of the Allied South East Asia Command and became known as Force 136. Few people were aware of SOE's existence. To those who were part of it or liaised with it, it was sometimes referred to as "the Baker Street Irregulars", after the location of its London headquarters. It was also known as "Churchill's Secret Army" or the "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare". Its various branches, and sometimes the organisation as a whole, were concealed for security purposes behind names such as the "Joint Technical Board" or the "Inter-Service Research Bureau", or fictitious branches of the Air Ministry, Admiralty or War Office. SOE was dissolved officially on 15 January 1946. Some of its senior staff moved easily into financial services in the City of London. 280 of field, training and research agents were absorbed into the "Special Operations Branch" of MI6. Sir Stewart Menzies, the head of MI6 (who was generally known simply as "C") soon decided that a separate "Special Operations Branch" of MI6 was unsound, and merged it into the general body of MI6. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/09/security-audit-raises-severe-warnings-on-chinese-smartphone-models/
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