The Central Intelligence Agency played an important role in the arrest in 1962 of Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress leader who was jailed for nearly 28 years before his release four months ago, a news report says. The intelligence service, using an agent inside the African National Congress, provided South African security officials with […]

An Egyptian terrorist should be considered as a prime suspect in the Lockerbie bombing, according to a report by two leading investigators. Ads by Google Evidence used to convict Libyan agent Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was faked and police may have been misled by a member of the US secret services, the investigators allege. Their report […]

Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan regime was publicly blamed by the US for the attack The wreckage of the PanAm airliner that exploded and crashed over Lockerbie Photo: AFP The CIA secretly held Syrian militants, rather than Libya, responsible for the Lockerbie bombing, according to newly unearthed testimony from a former US spy in the Middle East. […]

As the moderate faction of the Syrian rebellion implodes under the strain of vicious infighting and diminished resources, the United States is increasingly looking to hardline Islamists in its efforts to gain leverage in Syria’s civil war. The development has alarmed U.S. observers concerned that the radical Salafists do not share U.S. values and has […]

The top Western-backed commander of the opposition forces in Syria, General Salim Idris, has denied US claims that he was run out of the country by Islamist militants. On Wednesday, US officials told the Wall Street Journal that Gen. Idris was forced to flee the war-torn country. On the same day, the US and Britain […]

“The only ‘treatment’ people in Cambodia’s drug detention centers receive is being beaten, bruised, and forced to work. The government uses these centers as dumping grounds for beggars, sex workers, street children, and other ‘undesirables,’ often in advance of high-profile visits by foreign dignitaries.” Joseph Amon, health and human rights director at Human Rights Watch. […]

Iranian man arrested on charges of spying for British intelligence was passing on information on shipping operations to help impose sanctions, parliamentarians told The Iranian man arrested for spying for British intelligence was helping foreign governments impose EU sanctions on covert oil shipping operations, parliamentarians in the country have been briefed. An Iranian MP revealed […]

The alleged spy is said to have worked for British intelligence agency MI6 (pictured) Iran says it has captured a spy working for British intelligence agency MI6 in the south-eastern city of Kerman. The head of Kerman’s revolutionary court said the alleged spy had admitted being in contact with four British intelligence officers 11 times, […]

Authorities say they have arrested an individual who has confessed to working for British intelligence The British Secret Intelligence Services Headquarters in London Photo: EPA Iran claims to have captured a British “spy” in a move that has threatened to cause a diplomatic crisis. Officials in the country said a businessman in his fifties had […]

A year after the Air Force blasted it into orbit, an experimental space drone continues to circle the Earth. Its mission and hush-hush payload, however, remain a mystery. The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, which looks like a miniature unmanned version of the space shuttle, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Dec. 11, 2012. At […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — In March 2007, retired FBI agent Robert Levinson flew to Kish Island, an Iranian resort awash with tourists, smugglers and organized crime figures. Days later, after an arranged meeting with an admitted killer, he checked out of his hotel, slipped into a taxi and vanished. For years, the U.S. has publicly described […]

NEW: Source: The CIA apologized to the family, paid $2.5 million settlement NEW: Family: “It is time for the U.S. government to step up” AP and Washington Post: Bob Levinson was working for the CIA in Iran Officials and family have previously denied government ties to the trip (CNN) — A former FBI agent who […]

The family of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing in Iran in 2007, have released pictures of him dressed in an orange jumpsuit like a Guantánamo Bay prisoner, as they continue to hold hope that he is still alive. The five photographs were taken in April 2011, just months after the family also […]

A former FBI officer who disappeared in mysterious circumstances in Iran four years ago has been held by the country’s Revolutionary Guard, the cables suggest. Robert Levinson vanished in 2007 while working as a private investigator on Kish Island, a popular tourist resort in the Persian Gulf. Since then the Tehran regime has rebuffed all […]

An American man who disappeared in Iran more than six years ago had been working for the CIA in what U.S. intelligence officials describe as a rogue operation that led to a major shake-up in the spy agency. Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent, traveled to the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007 to […]

CIA officers given ‘non-official cover,’ often posing as business executives, tried to collect intelligence on terrorists. The NOC program reportedly has had few successes. WASHINGTON — Several years ago, a senior officer in the CIA clandestine service attended a closed-door conference for overseas operatives. Speakers included case officers who were working in the manner Hollywood […]

What is a NOC? For resources on the CIA, see our resource guide. Robert Dreyfuss’ revelation that the CIA is engaged in economic espionage (“Company Spies,” June 1994) was covered extensively in Japan, but so far no American newspaper or network has touched the story. Now, Dreyfuss offers more proof. William Casey’s ghost haunts the […]

Lawyers say a Saudi national and a Palestinian were tortured in a secret US facility in a remote part of Poland. Human rights groups believe about eight ’terror’ suspects were held in Poland [AP] The secret network of black site prisons across Europe that the CIA used to interrogate “terror” suspects has had a rare […]

The European Court of Human Rights is hearing a case brought by two terror suspects who accuse Poland of conniving in US human rights abuses. The two men are currently held at the US Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. It is the first time that allegations about a CIA “black site” prison in a European […]

Terror suspects subjected to extraordinary rendition tell European court of human rights they were waterboarded Judges of the European court of human rights during a hearing at the court in Strasbourg on Tuesday. Photograph: Vincent Kessler/Reuters Lawyers for two men subject to extraordinary rendition by the CIA told the European court of human rights (ECHR) […]

Doctors were asked to torture detainees for intelligence gathering, and unethical practices continue, review concludes An al-Qaida detainee at Guantanamo Bay in 2002: the DoD has taken steps to address concerns over practices at the prison in recent years. Photograph: Shane T Mccoy/PA Doctors and psychologists working for the US military violated the ethical codes […]

It cost $40 million to produce, documents serious wrongdoing, and doesn’t threaten national security. Team Obama won’t release it. One year ago today, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to adopt a 6,000-page report on the CIA rendition, detention, and interrogation program that led to torture. Its contents include details on each prisoner in CIA custody, […]

The Torture Report, an initiative of the ACLU’s National Security Project, aims to give the full account of the Bush administration’s torture program, from its improvised origins to the systematized, lawyer-rationalized maltreatment of hundreds of prisoners in U.S. custody around the world. How is the Report being written? Published serially online in a novel, responsive […]

WASHINGTON — In March 2003, two C.I.A. officials surprised Kyle D. Foggo, then the chief of the agency’s main European supply base, with an unusual request. They wanted his help building secret prisons to hold some of the world’s most threatening terrorists. Mr. Foggo, nicknamed Dusty, was known inside the agency as a cigar-waving, bourbon-drinking […]

[Senate Hearing 111-857] [From the U.S. Government Printing Office] S. Hrg. 111-857 NOMINATION OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL JAMES CLAPPER, JR., USAF, RET., TO BE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ======================================================================= HEARING BEFORE THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION __________ TUESDAY, JULY 20, 2010 __________ Printed for the […]

CIA paid millions of dollars to small band of inmates who were recruited to spy on al-Qa’ida leaders The CIA was doing more than just incarcerating and interrogating the hundreds of terror suspects who were rounded up and delivered to the fortified Guantanamo Bay military prison in a remote corner of Cuba in the wake […]

This Sept. 2, 2010 satellite image provided by TerraServer.com and DigitalGlobe shows a portion of Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including the secret facility known as Penny Lane, upper middle in white. In the early years after 9/11, the CIA turned a handful of prisoners at the secret facility into double agents and released them. […]

Think of it as the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) plunge into Hollywood — or into the absurd. As recent revelations have made clear, that Agency’s moves couldn’t be have been more far-fetched or more real. In its post-9/11 global shadow war, it has employed both private contractors and some of the world’s most notorious […]

The clash between neoliberal austerity and popular democracy has produced a crisis of ‘ungovernability’ for authorities The Quebec government sought to stifle student protest with emergency legistlation that included measures banning demonstrations within 50 metres of a college, and changing the route of a protest at short notice. Photograph: Steeve Duguay/AFP/Getty Images The Spanish government’s […]

Damaging scandals are raising questions on how the third-largest listed private sector employer runs its empire G4S’s Marcus Bloomfield in front of a ‘Street to Suite’ custody van in Boston, Lincolnshire On an overcast Friday evening on a rundown suburban street in Boston, Lincolnshire, a part-time plumber and a retired policeman are sitting in a […]

Jimmy Mubenga’s inquest has shed light on the murky world of the privatised deportation business A protest against the treatment of Jimmy Mubenga outside the Home Office in London. Photograph: Frank Baron for the Guardian The inquest into the death of Jimmy Mubenga uncovered a shocking story of a cruel deportation system, of racism and […]

An Angolan man who died after being restrained by three guards from the security firm G4S as he was being deported from Britain was unlawfully killed, a jury ruled, prompting the Crown Prosecution Service to reconsider its decision not to bring criminal charges. Ads by Google Jimmy Mubenga, 46, died on board a British Airways […]

Angolan man died after being restrained by G4S guards on deportation flight from UK Jimmy Mubenga was heard shouting that he could not breathe before he died, according to passengers on the flight. Photograph: Graeme Robertson An Angolan man who died after being restrained by three G4S guards as he was being deported from the […]

Inquest hears jokes deriding blacks, Asians and Muslims when G4S officers are asked to read from their mobile phones Jimmy Mubenga with his wife Adrienne. He died while being restrained on an aircraft as G4S officers were trying to deport him. Photograph: PA A G4S security guard who was restraining an Angolan man who died […]

BA long-haul pilot tells Guardian it was a mistake to keep Mubenga on board once he began struggling with his escorts Jimmy Mubenga died during deportation from the UK. Photograph: Graeme Robertson The use of commercial aircraft to transport deportees has been called into question by a British Airways pilot following the death of Jimmy […]

• Secret 5-Eyes document shows surveillance partners discussing what information they can pool about their citizens • DSD indicated it could provide material without some privacy restraints imposed by other countries such as Canada • Medical, legal or religious information ‘not automatically limited’ • Concern that intelligence agency could be ‘operating outside its legal mandate’ […]

Singapore and South Korea are playing key roles helping the United States and Australia tap undersea telecommunications links across Asia, according to top secret documents leaked by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. New details have also been revealed about the involvement of Australia and New Zealand in the interception of global satellite communications. A […]

Singapore and South Korea are playing key roles helping the United States and Australia tap undersea telecommunications links across Asia, according to top secret documents leaked by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. New details have also been revealed about the involvement of Australia and New Zealand in the interception of global satellite communications. A […]

THEIR clandestine activities may be directly in the spotlight, but Australian spies have for decades been listening in on our neighbours. Modern spooks have two main methods of tapping the mobile phones of people of interest in cities such as Jakarta. The first option is to install a physical bugging device in the actual handset, […]

Indonesia has officially downgraded the relationship, after Australia refused to apologise for espionage. A spy scandal involving an Australian attempt to tap the phone of Indonesia’s president has jeopardised crucial people smuggling and counter-terrorism co-operation between the two countries, officials have said. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has temporarily suspended co-coordinated military operations with Australia, including […]