A leaked memo about a deadly chemical weapons attack in Syria in April 2018 differs from the official finding of the UN chemical inspections watchdog that the government of Bashar al-Assad was responsible. The sixteen-page document does not refute the official UN finding, published in March, that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe, that the...
Category: Middle East
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Israel Pressured NSA for Intelligence on Targeting Killings
In 2006, as Israel and Hezbollah waged a brief but brutal war in south Lebanon, Israeli military officials used private channels to pressure their American counterparts in the National Security Agency for intelligence to help assassinate Hezbollah operatives, according to a pair of top-secret NSA documents, released this week by The Intercept. The documents, part of the...
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Bolton v. Trump: The Warmonger Leads the War-Wary
When National Security Adviser John Bolton recently demanded military plans to oust the government of Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela, Trump demurred, reportedly saying his national security adviser was trying to pull him “into a war.” When Bolton demanded “regime change” in Iran and the Pentagon produced a plan to put 120,000 troops into the region,...
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Amnesty International Denounces Pegasus Spyware
From Amnesty International Research has documented the use of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware to target a wide swathe of civil society, including at least 24 human rights defenders, journalists and parliamentarians in Mexico; an Amnesty International employee; Saudi activists Omar Abdulaziz, Yahya Assiri, Ghanem Al-Masarir; award-winning Emirati human rights campaigner Ahmed Mansoor; and allegedly, murdered Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi. The complaint describes just...
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Mossad and the Rise of the VC-Spy Alliance
The growth of intelligence agencies in the 21st century has been powered by the development of new technologies, created by start-ups, which are powered by intelligence agencies. This unvirtuous circle of money and espionage is a new and daunting challenge for civil liberties and human rights groups. The U.S intelligence community has a venture capital...