WASHINGTON – Small teams of special operations forces arrived at American embassies throughout North Africa in the months before militants launched the fiery attack that killed the U.S. ambassador in Libya. The soldiers’ mission: Set up a network that could quickly strike a terrorist target or rescue a hostage. But the teams had yet to […]

SENIOR crime intelligence officials planted paid informers to make fake right-wing-related threats against the government. This was allegedly part of a wider strategy to loot the unit’s Secret Service Account for personal benefit. Law enforcement agency sources allege that spy bosses worked their way into the R600 million-a-year slush fund by fabricating information to create […]

A French secret serviceman acting on the express orders of Nicolas Sarkozy is suspected of murdering Colonel Gaddafi, it was sensationally claimed today. He is said to have infiltrated a violent mob mutilating the captured Libyan dictator last year and shot him in the head. The motive, according to well-placed sources in the North African […]

Ein detaillierter Report von Human Rights Watch belegt die Kooperation westlicher Geheimdienste mit dem Gaddafi-Regime. Im Gegenzug für andere Informationen übergaben die CIA und der britische MI6 mehrfach Gegner der Diktatur an Libyen. Folterung der Gefangenen wurde in Kauf genommen. Das Dokument mit der Nummer WT/04-00031 vom 6. März 2004 kommt schnell zum Punkt. Gleich […]

Er warb den Lockerbie-Attentäter an und ließ Tausende Regimegegner hinrichten. Abdullah al-Sanussi war 30 Jahre lang Gaddafis Geheimdienstchef, nun erwartet ihn in seiner Heimat der Prozess. Das Verfahren könnte neue Details über die libysche Kooperation mit westlichen Diensten liefern. Tripolis – Der Mann, der seit einem Jahr von Interpol gesucht wurde, verbrachte die vergangenen Monate […]

Former security chiefs testify at heated House committee hearing that safeguarding US embassy in Libya was a ‘struggle’ Lt Col Andrew Wood, Eric Nordstrom, Charlene R Lamb and Patrick Kennedy testify on the security failures of Benghazi before the US House oversight committee. Photograph: Zhang Jun/Xinhua Press/Corbis Two former heads of US diplomatic security in […]

WASHINGTON — An effective response by newly trained Libyan security guards to a small bombing outside the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi in June may have led United States officials to underestimate the security threat to personnel there, according to counterterrorism and State Department officials, even as threat warnings grew in the weeks before the […]

WASHINGTON — The attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans has dealt the Central Intelligence Agency a major setback in its intelligence-gathering efforts at a time of increasing instability in the North African nation. Among the more than two dozen American personnel evacuated from the city after the […]

Extradition of Libyan dictator’s former head of military intelligence could shed fresh light on 1988 Lockerbie bombing Mauritania said on Wednesday that it had extradited Muammar Gaddafi’s infamous former spy chief, Abdullah al-Senussi, back to Libya, in a move that could shed fresh light on the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. Government sources in Mauritania said Senussi […]

Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo received £2.4m in training and support for military and defence staff Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir, who has been indicted for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity by the international criminal court. Photograph: Ibrahim Usta/AP The UK government has spent millions of pounds on training military, police and […]

Former foreign secretary named in legal documents concerning Gaddafi opponents held after MI6 tip-offs The documents claim Jack Straw did not tell the truth when he told the Commons foreign affairs committee in 2005 that Britain was not involved in any rendition operations. Photograph: EPA Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary, and Sir Mark Allen, […]

The man who gave the Black Panther Party some of its first firearms and weapons training – which preceded fatal shootouts with Oakland police in the turbulent 1960s – was an undercover FBI informer, according to a former bureau agent and an FBI report. One of the Bay Area’s most prominent radical activists of the […]

Security firm G4S was sent warnings not to employ an armed guard in Iraq just days before he murdered two colleagues, a BBC investigation has found. Private security guard Paul McGuigan, from the Scottish Borders, was shot dead by Danny Fitzsimons in 2009 in Baghdad while on a protection contract. Another man, Australian Darren Hoare, […]

Danny Fitzsimons avoids death sentence but family say his PTSD meant he should never had been employed in a war zone Danny Fitzsimons is escorted out of court after his sentencing in Baghdad. Photograph: Karim Kadim/AP A former British soldier who claims to be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder has been jailed for 20 years […]

The sun never sets on the UK’s armies of private security firms (Image via Shutterstock) In the wake of the Olympic Games vetting scandal, private security company G4S may have hoped that its period on the public rack had come to an end. But G4S’s vetting, it appears, is fraught with failure abroad just as […]

Danny Fitzsimons, 31, was sentenced to 20 years in 2011 for killing Scot Paul McGuigan, 37, and Australian Darren Hoare, 37, in Baghdad in 2009 All were working for UK security firm G4S, operating as ArmorGroup A BBC probe claims a G4S whistleblower warned them about Fitzsimons’ previous convictions and unstable behaviour before his posting […]

Olympics security Seventh Report of Session 2012–13 Volume I and Olympics security written evidence – United Kingdom Parliament 

But board decides chief executive Nick Buckles should keep his job in ‘best interest of company and all its stakeholders’ G4S’s chief operating officer David Taylor-Smith has resigned but chief executive Nick Buckles keeps his job. Photograph: PA Two senior executives at G4S have resigned over the company’s failure to deliver its contract for the […]

Report found monitoring and tracking of security workforce was inadequate Also concluded that management failed to appreciate scale and exact nature of the project The head of bungling security firm G4S will keep his job despite an independent review finding the company guilty of ‘mishandling’ its Olympic contract. Embattled Nick Buckles, whose pay and benefits […]

Olympian hubris prompts world’s second-largest employer to sacrifice its senior executives. Kim Sengupta reports Asked in an interview not so long ago what had been his best experiences in life, David Taylor-Smith responded that one of them was “being chased by a rhino”. The chief operating officer of G4S must have felt he was undergoing […]

  Taken on the beach at West Wittering, a small seaside resort in Sussex, the photograph shows a young Keith Richards giving a friendly hug to a man he knew only as ‘Acid King David’. As his nickname suggested, the Rolling Stones’ mysterious new hanger-on possessed an encyclopaedic knowledge of all the newest strains of […]

Take a trip back in time to when two governments(who once hated each other) teamed up in an attempt to assassinate the Rolling Stones‘ career. They attempted to do so before The Rolling Stones could fill the minds of the youth with rock & roll. The Rolling Stones are celebrating 50 years of rocking, and […]

It is one of the most intriguing chapters in the history of the Rolling Stones. The drugs raid on a party at guitarist Keith Richards’s Sussex home, Redlands, more than 40 years ago very nearly destroyed the band. And one of the 1967 episode’s unexplained mysteries was the identity of the man blamed by Richards […]

“When police forces and intelligence services engage in international cooperation, parliamentary oversight is the loser. The increasing significance of undercover police networks is making this situation far more critical.” These comments were made by Bundestag Member Andrej Hunko in response to the Federal Government’s answer, which is now available in English (see below), to his […]

Statewatch can reveal the existence of a previously unknown international police working group geared towards discussing and developing covert investigative techniques. At the same time parliamentary questions in Germany have seen further details of other police networks emerge – although many questions remain unanswered – in particular on the work and activities of former policy […]

AMSTERDAM – Eind juli is een journaliste benaderd door ’twee personen die zich bekendmaakten als agenten’, die haar vroegen om tegen betaling foto’s te maken voor de politie. Daarvan heeft de Nederlandse Vereniging van Fotojournalisten (NVF) dinsdagavond melding gemaakt. De 26-jarige studente/fotojournaliste werd op haar privéadres benaderd door twee agenten die zich bekendmaakten als politie. […]

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has admitted to destroying even more files relating to the right-wing extremist scene — this time on orders from the Interior Ministry in Berlin. The ministry denies the files contained any clues about the murderous National Socialist Underground trio. Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the country’s domestic […]

In het voorjaar van 2010 was India een paar weken in de ban van een afluisterschandaal, maar vervolgens verdween dat in de vergetelheid. Dit is opmerkelijk gezien de staat van dienst van de inlichtingenwereld in India. Schandalen die gewone Indiërs raken, maar ook corruptie, slecht management, verkeerde technologie en apparatuur en bovenal incompetentie lijken de […]

Corporate espionage is a booming industry in India, according to a recent report. And it’s being fueled by executives spying on their rivals as well as their own employees. The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, known by the zingy acronym Assocham, usually releases statements on sober topics like RBI’s midterm credit policy […]

How would you feel if when you arrived at your holiday destination, security staff demanded to read your personal emails and look at your Facebook account? Israel’s attorney general has been asked to look into claims that security officials have been doing just that – threatening to refuse entry to the country unless such private […]

A pastor admitted in a newspaper interview Wednesday to spying for East Germany’s Stasi secret police for 20 years and said he was leaving his ministry with the Lutheran Church of Sweden. “I renounce my ministry,” Aleksander Radler, 68, told Swedish daily Dagen. “My work for God, on the one hand, and the dark memories, […]

Spokesman for Chihuahua state says US agencies don’t want to end drug trade, a claim denied by other Mexican officials. Juarez, Mexico – The US Central Intelligence Agency and other international security forces “don’t fight drug traffickers”, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state government in northern Mexico has told Al Jazeera, instead “they try to […]

The British government is up for questioning from Parliament over why it has handed over the Olympic Games’ security to a company accused of human rights abuses in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. The UK-based G4S, which describes itself as the “world’s leading international security solutions group,” was selected as the “official provider of security and […]

The company has provided equipment for Israeli-run checkpoints and terminals in the West Bank and Gaza, including luggage scanning machines and full body scanners by Rapiscan and L-3’s Safeview to the Erez checkpoint in Gaza and to the Qalandia, Bethlehem and Irtah (Sha’ar Efraim) checkpoints in the West bank. G4S Israel is one of the […]

Anti-nuclear protesters’ successful incursion expose security failings at uranium plant All operations remained suspended yesterday at the sole facility in the US for storing enriched uranium after the area was breached by three anti-nucl ear protesters, including an 82-year-old nun, exposing gaps in security provided by G4S, the same private company accused of bungling security […]

A Russian spy ring busted in the U.S. two years ago planned to recruit members’ children to become agents, and one had already agreed to his parents’ request, according to current and former U.S. officials. When the suspects were arrested in 2010 with much fanfare, official accounts suggested they were largely ineffectual. New details about […]

Despite European Union sanctions against the repressive regime of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, German federal police were training his “experts” as late as last year. The training took place in Belarus just weeks after a crackdown on opposition protesters. Accusations that German federal police had questionable ties to the despotic regime of Belarusian dictator Alexander […]

Binnenland Het kabinet verwacht veel van een nieuw camerasysteem langs de grens. Ook al is de effectiviteit niet bewezen. Bovendien hebben privacy-experts grote bezwaren. De grenzen in Europa verdwenen? Nee hoor, vanaf 1 januari zijn ze terug. Dan voert Nederland weer gewoon grenscontroles in langs de grenzen met Duitsland en België. En anders dan vóór […]

ENSCHEDE – De marechaussee gebruikt sinds gisteren ‘meedenkende’ camera’s om aan de grens bij De Lutte en de N35 in Enschede toezicht te houden op zaken als illegale migratie, witwaspraktijken, mensenhandel en identiteitsfraude. Het camerasysteem selecteert op basis van risicoprofielen voertuigen die interessant zijn om te controleren. … Find this story at 2 August 2012 […]

Swedish furniture giant Ikea is investigating claims that its factories East German political prisoners for labour during the 1970s and 1980s. The claims, which will be aired on Swedish public television’s (SVT) Uppdrag Granskning programme on Wednesday, first emerged in a German television documentary aired on WDR in July 2011. The world’s largest furniture retailer […]