Exclusive: CIA Spies Caught, Fear Execution in Middle East

[donnay]

Exclusive: CIA Spies Caught, Fear Execution in Middle East

By MATTHEW COLE and BRIAN ROSS (@brianross)
Nov. 21, 2011

In a significant failure for the United States in the Mideast, more than a dozen spies working for the CIA in Iran and Lebanon have been caught and the U.S. government fears they will be or have been executed, according to four current and former U.S. officials with connections to the intelligence community.

The spies were paid informants recruited by the CIA for two distinct espionage rings targeting Iran and the Beirut-based Hezbollah organization, considered by the U.S. to be a terror group backed by Iran.

"Espionage is a risky business," a U.S. official briefed on the developments told ABC News, confirming the loss of the unspecified number of spies over the last six months.

"Many risks lead to wins, but some result in occasional setbacks," the official said.

Robert Baer, a former senior CIA officer who worked against Hezbollah while stationed in Beirut in the 1980's, said Hezbollah typically executes individuals suspected of or caught spying.

"If they were genuine spies, spying against Hezbollah, I don't think we'll ever see them again," he said. "These guys are very, very vicious and unforgiving."

Other current and former officials said the discovery of the two U.S. spy rings occurred separately, but amounted to a setback of significant proportions in efforts to track the activities of the Iranian nuclear program and the intentions of Hezbollah against Israel.

"Remember, this group was responsible for killing more Americans than any other terrorist group before 9/11," said a U.S. official. Attacks on the U.S. embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 killed more than 300 people, including almost 260 Americans.

The U.S. official, speaking for the record but without attribution, gave grudging credit to the efforts of Iran and Hezbollah to detect and expose U.S. and Israeli espionage.

"Collecting sensitive information on adversaries who are aggressively trying to uncover spies in their midst will always be fraught with risk," said the U.S. official briefed on the spy ring bust.

But others inside the American intelligence community say sloppy "tradecraft" -- the method of covert operations -- by the CIA is also to blame for the disruption of the vital spy networks.

In Beirut, two Hezbollah double agents pretended to go to work for the CIA. Hezbollah then learned of the restaurant where multiple CIA officers were meeting with several agents, according to the four current and former officials briefed on the case. The CIA used the codeword "PIZZA" when discussing where to meet with the agents, according to U.S. officials. Two former officials describe the location as a Beirut Pizza Hut. A current US official denied that CIA officers met their agents at Pizza Hut.

From there, Hezbollah's internal security arm identified at least a dozen informants, and the identities of several CIA case officers.

Hezbollah then began to "roll up" much of the CIA's network against the terror group, the officials said.

One former senior intelligence official told ABC News that CIA officers ignored warnings that the operation could be compromised by using the same location for meetings with multiple assets.

"We were lazy and the CIA is now flying blind against Hezbollah," the former official said.

[pcosmar]

What do they expect?

Spies are generally frowned upon, universally. In many cases treason also applies.(if they were nationals)

[youngbuck]

Exactly, what do they expect? If you're gonna f**k around in someone else's backyard, do be surprised when their dog(s) attack you.

[AlexG]

This is the type of crap that is "strengthening our national security." And we wonder why other countries hate us.

[Danke]

Filming police/government agents and listening in on police scanners will soon be considered "spying."

[Philhelm]

Filming police/government agents and listening in on police scanners will soon be considered "spying."

Didn't that already happen in one state, where a guy was arrested under an Espionage Act for filming a cop? If I recall correctly, I think it was dismissed in federal court, but we are dangerously close to that.

[fisharmor]

"Many risks lead to wins, but some result in occasional setbacks," the official said.

Why is it that the title leads us to believe anyone gives a shit about the fact that they're probably going to be executed?
The rest of the article only cares about the mission.
The mission is everything to these people, and it's becoming painfully obvious that they have no regard to who kills whom, where they are killed, or what state-issued paperwork they possess... as long as the mission continues.

Ultimately this is probably the source of my abject hatred of the state. It places absolutely no value on human life, and that fact is becoming more and more transparent as time goes by - as well as the fact that it has never been any different.
In prior times, when information was less free, we were hoodwinked into believing that value for human life was what the mission was about.
Now, the mission is the mission, and human life be damned.

[ExPatPaki]

These spies were very stupid and sloppy, almost hard to believe how incompetent they could be. Almost as they wanted to get caught.



Bob Baer, a former CIA operations officer whose books inspired the Hollywood movie Syriana, said that Hezbollah's counterintelligence capabilities are formidable and should not be underestimated.

"Hezbollah's security is as good as any in the world's. It's the best. It's better than that of the KGB," the former Soviet spy agency, Baer said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/21/us-cia-hezbollah-idUSTRE7AK2MQ20111121

[seraphson]

I guess that's what happens when you don't mind your own damn business. I'm certain almost nobody really cares either, much like how most Americans lost sight of this nation building government pumping "war on terror" (Don't mistake this for going against the war initially as we must set an example of ourselves as not being push overs; but we've exceeded beyond the point of making asses out of ourselves). I bet most Americans can't even point out Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan on a map. Yet "we're" all about dropping bombs on countries "we" don't even know the location of.

[pcosmar]

Now, the mission is the mission, and human life be damned.

But,, that IS the mission.

[Johnny Appleseed]

yep having your head cut off would definitively be a "setback"...wonder how much they were paid?

[kylejack]

Once again proving my theory that Pizza Hut is absolutely terrible.

[kylejack]

This is the type of crap that is "strengthening our national security." And we wonder why other countries hate us.
Indeed. Nuclear scientists in Iran keep getting murdered in mysterious circumstances, so it's either Mossad or CIA. And I'll wager on CIA.

[oyarde]

Once again proving my theory that Pizza Hut is absolutely terrible. Yeah , but where I grew up , back in the day , it was one of the few places that you could get a draft beer on Sunday.

[oyarde]

Indeed. Nuclear scientists in Iran keep getting murdered in mysterious circumstances, so it's either Mossad or CIA. And I'll wager on CIA. Or maybe Jundallah

[oyarde]

What a bunch of dummies . They need a copy of Rogers Rangers Standing Orders . I suggest order #1 & #11 for these amateurs .

[ExPatPaki]

Once again proving my theory that Pizza Hut is absolutely terrible.

Pizza Hut, KFC, McDonalds other American fast food in overseas countries usually is much better than the fast food served over here. I've had Pizza Hut and KFC in Beirut and they tasted a lot better. Maybe the halal meat is better, I don't know.

[oyarde]

Pizza Hut, KFC, McDonalds other American fast food in overseas countries usually is much better than the fast food served over here. I've had Pizza Hut and KFC in Beirut and they tasted a lot better. Maybe the halal meat is better, I don't know. KFC is a huge money maker in China . I have eaten McDonalds & KFC in other countries and did not think it was good , of course , I do not think it is good here as well , I just take leftovers to work every day for lunch :)

[oyarde]

Pizza Hut, KFC, McDonalds other American fast food in overseas countries usually is much better than the fast food served over here. I've had Pizza Hut and KFC in Beirut and they tasted a lot better. Maybe the halal meat is better, I don't know. Nothing wrong with Dhakat meat .

[ExPatPaki]

Nothing wrong with Dhakat meat .

LOL, can't believe you knew that term and I had to Google it to find out!

[oyarde]

LOL, can't believe you knew that term and I had to Google it to find out! I enjoy eating , and when younger , saw the world and studied religions , cultures , always here to help Ex Pat Paki :)

[Danke]

Once again proving my theory that Pizza Hut is absolutely terrible.

You prefer Godfather's? :p

[flightlesskiwi]

in other news: this will only work to strengthen the resolve of the mighty u. s. of a.

why do i find it hard to believe that this story is even true and not some sort of a false flag spark???

[donnay]

Indeed. Nuclear scientists in Iran keep getting murdered in mysterious circumstances, so it's either Mossad or CIA. And I'll wager on CIA.

I am pretty sure it is Mossad, CIA, and MI6.

[cindy25]

What do they expect?

Spies are generally frowned upon, universally. In many cases treason also applies.(if they were nationals)

usually spies are exchanged, rarely executed.

[CaptainAmerica]

live by the sword,die by the sword..it is a proverb out of the bible.

[ExPatPaki]

usually spies are exchanged, rarely executed.

You really think the CIA will exchange Lebanese nationals with Hezbollah?

[angelatc]

Exactly, what do they expect? If you're gonna f**k around in someone else's backyard, do be surprised when their dog(s) attack you.

And the inevitable reports of waterboarding, (which isn't torture, right?) will be met with shrill cries of "unfair!"

[ExPatPaki]

Iran says arrests 12 CIA agents amid reports of compromised U.S. ring
Comment by top Iranian official comes as Intelligence Online says U.S. Congressman Mike Rogers arrives in Beirut to probe reported exposure of U.S. intel squad in Lebanon. (http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/iran-says-arrests-12-cia-agents-amid-reports-of-compromised-u-s-ring-1.397460)

An Iranian official disclosed new details Thursday concerning the reporting exposure of a U.S. spy ring in the Islamic Republic, saying that Tehran arrested 12 CIA agents.

Parliamentarian Parviz Sorouri, who sits on the powerful committee of foreign policy and national security, claimed that the arrested agents planned to strike at Iranian interests with the aid of Israel.

Sorouri said the spy network aimed at damaging Iran in the security, military and nuclear sectors.

The Iranian official's comments come after current and former U.S. officials said on Monday that dozens of spies working for the CIA were captured recently in Lebanon and Iran, as well as after Iran's claim earlier this year that it had intercepted a major spy ring.

Following the report of a compromised CIA ring in Lebanon, the French intelligence newsletter Intelligence Online indicated in its latest issue that U.S. Congressman Mike Rogers, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, arrived recently in Beirut to probe the affair.

According to Intelligence Online, all CIA officers operating the Beirut station were transferred to Cyprus for security reasons and for further investigations.

[AGRP]

Who feels sorry for them?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8E_zMLCRNg&feature=related

[ExPatPaki]

Who feels sorry for them?

Not so much for them, but definitely for their families who will have to live through the shame that their progeny was a traitor.

[ExPatPaki]

Hezbollah claims to release names of CIA officers in Lebanon (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/hezbollah-claims-to-release-cia-names/2011/12/12/gIQAreIVqO_print.html)


Escalating its confrontation with the CIA, the militant organization Hezbollah released what it said were the names of agency officers working in Lebanon in a television broadcast that aired there last week.

The exposure creates new security risks for CIA officers in a country where American espionage operations had already been damaged by Hezbollah’s capture of a group of agency-paid informants.

The names of the purported CIA members were broadcast Friday on the Lebanese television station al-Manar as part of a report that claimed to expose the agency’s spying efforts as well as its collaboration with Israel.

CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said the agency “does not, as a rule, address spurious claims from terrorist groups. I think it’s worth remembering that Hezbollah is a dangerous organization, with al-Manar as its propaganda arm. That fact alone should cast some doubt on the credibility of the group’s claims.”

Youngblood declined to comment on whether the report was accurate or whether the agency had or would remove officers from a country that has long been an espionage crossroads in the Middle East.

Former CIA officials indicated that at least one of the names mentioned — that of the station chief in Beirut — appeared to be accurate. The move by Hezbollah was designed to intimidate would-be spies, they said.

“They want to dissuade people from spying in the future, show the world that they’re a very capable organization,” said a former senior CIA official. “They also want to embarrass the agency as much as possible.”

Last month, U.S. officials acknowledged that a group of informants on the CIA payroll had been identified and detained by Hezbollah. The organization apparently used software analysis of cellphone records and calling patterns to track the communications of suspected spies.

The names included in the al-Manar report are not being published by The Washington Post.

In the past year, the CIA has recalled two of its chiefs in Islamabad, Pakistan, after their names were exposed in the country’s press.

[kylejack]

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

[donnay]

Flashback:

History Revisited in Lebanon Fighting
By Edward Cody and Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, July 22, 2006

BEIRUT, July 21 -- In this achingly beautiful but often tortured country, history is repeating itself, logging another chapter tragically similar to ones before it.

As they did during Operation Litani in 1978, Israeli jets are raining bombs and missiles on what the government in Jerusalem describes as terrorist infrastructure planted among Lebanese civilians. As they did again in 1982, Israeli leaders talk of dismantling a terrorist organization to remove a threat to northern Israel.

Panicked Lebanese again are fleeing north. And the United States, true to its role in the earlier confrontations, is urging restraint but also backing Israel's demand that the Lebanese army rid the border region of terrorists by enforcing state authority.

Yet a look back over the past three decades suggests that the foe Israel is taking on today -- the Lebanese-based Hezbollah militia -- may be far harder to expel than the transplanted Palestinians it fought in southern Lebanon in the 1970s and '80s.

The history also suggests that Israel's previous military campaigns and occupations of Lebanon played a decisive role in creating this new enemy. Some analysts in Lebanon believe that the new bloodshed and a renewed attempt to fashion Lebanese society to Israel's advantage could generate yet another permutation, one that is perhaps even more irreconcilably hostile to the Jewish state.

"Now you risk producing something worse than Hezbollah, maybe al-Qaeda number two," said Fawaz Trabulsi, a Lebanese professor at the American University of Beirut who helped lead a leftist organization that fought Israeli troops alongside Palestinian guerrillas during the 1982 invasion.

"It's '82 all over again," Trabulsi said. "What's similar is the idea of destroying the infrastructure, of the PLO then, and now of Hezbollah. The difference is Hezbollah is Lebanese and you can't expel them."

The 1978 Operation Litani provided a clear lesson in the rules of unintended consequences. It was a swift success militarily; Israeli forces pushed across the border and moved about 20 miles north to the Litani River without serious opposition from primarily ragtag Palestinian defenders. They weren't native to the area or fully familiar with it -- they'd moved to it in the early 1970s to escape a crackdown in Jordan.

Under U.S. and other international pressure, the Israeli forces soon withdrew. But the Israeli defense minister at the time, Ezer Weizman, who later became president, ordered relentless bombing of the Lebanese border hills to drive out the civilian population. U.S. officials complained of civilian casualties, but the attacks continued.

The idea, Israeli officials explained, was to create a free-fire zone where it could be assumed that anybody moving around was a Palestinian guerrilla and a fair target for Israeli warplanes or artillery fire. The result over the next year, however, was a long list of civilian deaths -- farmers carrying tobacco crops to market, families picnicking on jagged hillsides and villagers caught in their homes when stray bombs landed.

Eventually, increasing numbers gave up and fled to Beirut. These families, most of them Shiite Muslims, took up residence in what was then undeveloped land between southern Beirut and the international airport -- and now is the teeming Shiite suburb known as the Dahiya.

Its exploding young population, sons of those chased from southern homes, became the base of a new radical organization born several years later. Inspired by the 1979 Iranian revolution, it eventually took the name Hezbollah, or Party of God.

Underground Hezbollah operatives were widely believed to be responsible for the 1983 bombing of U.S. Marines and French soldiers who had come to Lebanon to protect Palestinians. The U.S. Embassy here was blown up shortly afterward, and Hezbollah was also blamed for that.

More than two decades later, Hezbollah has grown into an extensive political force in Lebanon, backed by Shiite Muslims who have become the largest religious community in the country. Hezbollah candidates run for elections. Hezbollah social service agencies provide health care and schooling for poor farmers. Hezbollah television, al-Manar, broadcasts technically slick and virulently anti-Israeli programs into Lebanese homes.

Not least, a Hezbollah military wing, not the national army, fought year after year against Israeli troops who remained after 1982 to occupy a border enclave. Politically worn out, the Israeli occupation forces finally pulled out of Lebanon in 2000, a departure that has gone down in local historical narrative as a Hezbollah victory.

Yitzhak Bailey was teaching Middle East history at Tel Aviv University in 1982 when Israel's Defense Ministry called him with a job offer.

Israel's military had pushed deep into Lebanon to expel the Palestine Liberation Organization from the hilly southern border region and beyond. Although fighting was still fierce, some Israeli officials had begun focusing on the next phase: How to turn south Lebanon into a stable region friendly to Israel. "They weren't sure even what to call it," said Bailey, 70. "Was it going to be an occupation or something else?"

A native of Buffalo, N.Y., who arrived in Israel in the early 1950s, Bailey has made a specialty of Arab affairs, the culture of the nomadic Bedouin people in particular. But his task in the fall of 1982 was to evaluate the Shiite political landscape in south Lebanon and find Israel some friends there.

At the time, Israel had made common cause with Lebanon's Maronite Christians, who opposed the PLO's presence in Lebanon and feared for their place in a country with a growing Muslim majority. The Christian leadership was also willing to work openly with Israel.

Operating from an Israeli military base in Tyre, Bailey began traveling the region. He spent nights in family homes when he could, and tried to determine the most important political players in the Shiite south. Almost at once, he said, he began proposing in his reports a different approach to win allies in the crucial southern Lebanese region.

"All of Israel's eggs were in the Christian basket," Bailey said. "While the Shiites at the time were willing to be quite cooperative, they were not willing to say so openly." As members of a minority, many Shiites felt they needed protection from other factions in Lebanese society.

At the time, a Shiite Lebanese party called Amal was the most important party in the south. Once Israeli tanks and troops had dislodged PLO gunmen, Amal's influence increased dramatically. Amal was aligned in that period with more-liberal elements of the leadership of Shiite-dominated Iran, and the group tacitly accepted the Israeli role in the south. But once that cooperation became known, Bailey said, the movement broke apart.

Islamic Amal, as the radical splinter was called, began carrying out attacks on Israeli and Western targets. The group's popularity rose as Israel, responding to rising militancy, began tightening its hold with checkpoints, mass arrests and military operations that hit the civilian population hard.

The splinter group soon renamed itself Hezbollah.

Driving Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon, Israel's declared goal in its current campaign, may prove more difficult than the Israelis expect. Hezbollah is at home in the rough-hewn hills that overlook Israel's Galilee region. "When I hear the Israelis talk about getting Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon, I have to laugh," said a veteran Middle East official and analyst who requested anonymity because of his sensitive position. "They live there."

In addition, he pointed out, clearing the border would not remove the danger of attacks on northern Israel. During Operation Litani and the 1982 invasion, he said, a secure border zone was enough to prevent attacks by the short-range rockets of the time. But today that kind of safety is no longer guaranteed. "There are missiles now with a range of 20, 30, 40 kilometers," between 12 and 25 miles, he added.

The Lebanese army, which split into rival sectarian units during the country's 1975-90 civil war, has come a long way toward unity and genuine national representation, Lebanese analysts said. But by legal requirement, the commander remains a Maronite Christian, and the analysts acknowledged that the unity of these forces would be strained if troops tried to force Hezbollah units to disarm or leave the border region.

Suggestions that the Lebanese army take command of anti-Hezbollah operations in the border hills seem unrealistic, they said. At best, the Lebanese army could take to the field once a settlement was reached, so as to symbolize national authority and to police arrangements agreed to by Hezbollah and other Lebanese political forces, they explained.

But the largest obstacle to removing Hezbollah may be its place in Lebanese society. As a political force, it represents the country's largest religious community. As a military force, it has stood up for Lebanese under attack while the army stood aside.

Nevertheless, many Lebanese, particularly Maronite Christians, resent the power that it wields, just as they resent the growing demographic power of Shiite Muslims and the idea that religiously diverse Lebanon, or even a significant part of it, would adhere to the strict Muslim code that Hezbollah espouses.

"We are not like that," said Lina Marji, who was doing a brisk business selling cellphone cards in downtown Beirut. "Not in our traditions, not in our education."

Marji, who was in primary school during the 1982 invasion, said she came to Beirut from southern Lebanon. Asked how her family was doing under the Israeli air assaults, she pinched her face and became subdued. "As well as can be expected," she replied.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/21/AR2006072101653.html?sub=AR