Die venezolanischen Behörden haben sechs Ausländer aus den USA und Europa wegen angeblicher Pläne zur „Destabilisierung“ des Landes festgenommen und der US-Regierung eine Beteiligung an Umsturzplänen vorgeworfen. Wie die Regierung in Caracas mitteilte, wurden drei US-Bürger, zwei Spanier und ein Tscheche festgenommen.
Die Verdächtigen hätten „Gewaltakte“ gegen Präsident Nicolás Maduro und dessen Regierung geplant, sagte Innenminister Diosdado Cabello bei einer Pressekonferenz
“They went with this tropicalized character,” Cabello said in relation to the US intentions to use a person with the same Latin American phenotype, seeking not to repeat the gringo mercenaries of Caucasian morphology.
“It is important to know that this person worked in special Navy SEAL units focused on Latin America, because they are made up of people who speak Spanish perfectly, like this person,” he explained.
The Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace added that two citizens of Spanish origin, a Czech citizen and an American expert in computer hacking are also in custody.
„We know that the United States Government is linked to this operation because during the investigation we have found out how, in Orlando, Florida, in one of these parcel services, in the warehouses, the FBI was there and we have that video (…) they allowed that operation to continue,“ he said.
(…)
“A few days ago we captured some people who were talking about throwing grenades and explosives at the Argentine Embassy, where some terrorists and criminals from the opposition are taking refuge. This perfectly reversed the fact that if the Argentine Embassy, where some gentlemen and ladies from the opposition are, were attacked, it was immediately obvious that the person who would be blamed would be the Government of Venezuela,” he warned.
“The CIA is at the forefront of this operation,” Cabello said in the news conference, claiming that Spain’s National Intelligence Center was also involved. “That does not surprise us at all,” he said.
He alleged that the operation had “very clear objectives of assassinating President Nicolás Maduro” and other high-ranking Venezuelan politicians including himself and the vice president.
The State Department denied the claims. A spokesperson confirmed on Saturday a member of the US military had been arrested in Venezuela, and that the department was “aware of unconfirmed reports of two additional US citizens detained” in the country.
As East-West tensions over Ukraine enter a new and dangerous phase, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and U.S. President Joe Biden are holding talks in Washington on Friday on whether to allow Kyiv to use long-range U.S. ATACMS or British Storm Shadow missiles against targets in Russia.
Justice Ministry officials expect the International Criminal Court to decide in the coming days on whether to issue arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, but are cautiously optimistic that the court will decide against the warrants.
(2 September 2024)
US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were scheduled to hold a meeting Monday with hostage negotiators, …
(Nov 4, 2023)
President Biden has been deeply involved in the U.S. response to the Israel-Hamas war — one of the thorniest challenges of his presidency so far — receiving briefings at least once per day and speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu several times a week.
The big picture: Biden is leaning on a tight circle of trusted aides and officials. Here‘s a look at who‘s in the room when major decisions are being made.
(December 10, 2023)
Just weeks before Hamas launched the deadly Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, the head of Mossad arrived in Doha, Qatar, for a meeting with Qatari officials.
(…)
Allowing the payments — billions of dollars over roughly a decade — was a gamble by Mr. Netanyahu that a steady flow of money would maintain peace in Gaza, the eventual launching point of the Oct. 7 attacks, and keep Hamas focused on governing, not fighting.
The Qatari payments, while ostensibly a secret, have been widely known and discussed in the Israeli news media for years.
(November 30, 2023)
The document circulated widely among Israeli military and intelligence leaders, but experts determined that an attack of that scale and ambition was beyond Hamas’s capabilities, according to documents and officials. It is unclear whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other top political leaders saw the document, as well.
(…)
Last year, shortly after the document was obtained, officials in the Israeli military’s Gaza division, which is responsible for defending the border with Gaza, said that Hamas’s intentions were unclear.
“It is not yet possible to determine whether the plan has been fully accepted and how it will be manifested,” read a military assessment reviewed by The Times.
(December 16, 2023)
Israeli leaders believed that Hamas was more interested in governing than fighting. By the time the agents discovered the ledgers in 2018, the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was encouraging the government of Qatar to deliver millions of dollars to the Gaza Strip. He gambled that the money would buy stability and peace.
Mr. Levy recalled briefing Mr. Netanyahu personally in 2015 about the Hamas portfolio.
(20.08.2024)
The UK‘s new Online Safety Bill, which is set to take effect next year and aims to curb speculative news and online hate speech, has gained renewed attention after far-right groups used social media to incite violence.
Starmer‘s Labour party had said it would seek a security and defence treaty with Germany if it won the July 4 general election, which it did by a landslide — propelling him to the premiership.
Unnamed senior officials tell Channel 12 news that mediators in ceasefire-hostage deal talks have decided to set aside the thorny issue of Israel’s presence in two Gaza corridors under a potential agreement, and are focusing on other matters.
Egypt stressed to all concerned parties its rejection to any Israeli presence in Rafah Border Crossing or Philadelphi Corridor, a high-profile source told Egyptian media Monday.
Pro-Israeli lobbies have hijacked most western liberal democracies.
The whole world is now privy to the shameless pimping of western politicians previously documented in Congressman Paul Findley‘s 1985 book They Dare to Speak Out and reinforced by the 2007 book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, by political scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.
As an anonymous commentator wrote: “People think Gaza is occupied, but in reality, Gaza is free but the whole world is occupied.”
The Israeli officials did not disclose the nature of the information that led them to be concerned about potential I.C.C. action, and the court did not comment on the matter.
Arrest warrants from the court would probably be seen in much of the world as a humbling moral rebuke, particularly to Israel, which for months has faced international backlash over its conduct in Gaza, including from President Biden, who called it “over the top.”
(today)
On Tuesday, Republican leaders from four US House of Representatives national security committees and one subcommittee released a statement endorsing Speaker Mike Johnson‘s proposal to advance legislation this week, offering security assistance to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan.
„Speaker Johnson has produced a plan that will boost US national security interests in Europe, the Middle East, and the Indo-Pacific,“ the leaders of the House Armed Services, Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, Appropriations and Defense Appropriations panels said in a statement.
(13.04.2024)
„This morning, at 10 o‘clock, I landed in Berlin to attend a conference on Palestine, where I had been asked, along with many others … to give my evidence of the 43 days that I had seen in the hospitals in Gaza, working in both al-Shifa and al-Ahli hospitals,“ he said.
Abu Sittah said he was escorted from the passport office to the basement of the airport, where he was questioned for three-and-a-half hours.
„At the end of three-and-a-half hours, I was told that I woud not be allowed to enter German soil and that this ban will last the whole of April,“ he said.
(10.04.2024)
In an editorial on April 8, Masih Mohajeri, the influential managing editor of Jomhouri Eslami daily, a newspaper that was founded by Ali Khamenei in 1979, asked: „Why Russia, which controls the Syrian airspace does not prevent air strikes on Iranian targets in Syria?“ Also implicating Syria and possibly Iranian infiltrators in tipping off the Israelis, Mohajeri wrote: „We have had too many losses in Syria during the past months and this is certainly because of the treason by infiltrators.“
Since December, Israel has eliminated 18 high ranking IRGC officers in Syria, in what appears to be a systematic campaign to limit the danger of Iranian proxies on its borders.
(04.03.2015)
The prime minister has been warning for over 20 years that Tehran is close to achieving its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
After a week of being very careful regarding statements directed at Iran, the US gave Israel something to be satisfied about on Wednesday. US President Joe Biden said America’s commitment to Israel’s security, amid the threats from Iran and its proxies, is “ironclad.”
Biden’s statements are aimed directly at Iran, and it’s certainly possible that they’re the result of a worrying intelligence assessment Israel presented to the US.
Gen. Erik Kurilla, commander of the U.S. Central Command, is expected to meet Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and senior Israel Defense Forces officials.
Israeli officials say they are preparing for a possible unprecedented direct attack from Iranian soil using ballistic missiles, drones and cruise missiles against Israeli targets.
In such a scenario, Israel will retaliate with a direct attack against Iran, the officials said.
The US has been tight-lipped in its public reaction to the Apr 1 strike, saying it has not determined whether Israel struck a diplomatic facility, which would breach international agreements on the inviolability of embassies and consulates.
The US and its allies believe major missile or drone strikes by Iran or its proxies against military and government targets in Israel are imminent, in what would mark a significant widening of the six-month-old conflict, according to people familiar with the intelligence.
(14.09.2023)
When CIA-trained terrorists tried to overthrow the Sandinista government in the 1980s, the left erupted in protest. Now the left is cheering for the CIA.
A copy of the „90-page psychological warfare manual“ produced by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency for Nicaraguan rebels in the late 1970s or early 1980s
(18.12.2017)
During the U.S. government‘s decade-long support of the Contra rebels who waged an armed campaign against Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista regime in the 1980s, the CIA funneled all manner of assistance to the anti-socialist “freedom fighters,” from training and financial assistance to covert operations. The original “advise and assist” mission was a disaster in retrospect, spurring all manner of human rights violations as well as the modern crack cocaine scourge. But the CIA aid program’s most fascinating product might be the batshit crazy psychological warfare manual cooked up for the Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries.
(Nov. 26, 2010)
In the aforesaid period Netanyahu served as deputy to Moshe Arens, when he was Israel‘s ambassador to Washington, D.C. (1982-83 ).
(…)
The recently revealed documents deal with an operation dubbed „Tipped Kettle,“ involving weapons the Israel Defense Forces looted from the Palestine Liberation Organization during Operation Peace for Galilee in Lebanon, and their transfer to the Contras – opponents of the socialistic Sandinista regime in Nicaragua.
(…)
Part II was patently illegal – a blatant effort by the White House to violate a Congressional order and to cook up a strange deal involving the sale of American weapons (originally supplied to the IDF ) to anti-American Iran, for use in its war with Iraq; the release of Western hostages being held in Lebanon by Iranian-controlled Hezbollah; and the financing of Contras‘ activities thanks to the difference between the sum paid by the Iranians and the true value of the weapons – minus a profit for those engaged in the deal.
(…)
The CIA had direct intelligence connections with the Mossad, but in the affair of the captured weapons the American agency preferred to hide behind the Pentagon.
(18.11.2021)
An exiled Iranian arms dealer named Manucher Ghorbanifar claimed to have contacts with a moderate faction inside Iran, and further alleged that weapons sales would improve that faction’s standing. Ghorbanifar collaborated with Israel, which proved to be an important intermediary. While Israel was no ally of Iran, it was also no ally of Iraq, and the ongoing war between the two countries kept them both distracted. Israel began selling U.S.-made weapons to Iran in 1981, even after the U.S. State Department began an effort to end arm sales, known as Operation Staunch, in 1983.
The Republic of Nicaragua v. The United States of America (1986)[2] was a case where the International Court of Justice (ICJ) held that the U.S. had violated international law by supporting the Contras in their rebellion against the Sandinistas and by mining Nicaragua‘s harbors. The case was decided in favor of Nicaragua and against the United States with the awarding of reparations to Nicaragua.
(no date / presumably 2004)
The protest at U.S. exemption of individuals from criminal jurisdiction has been widely reported. The continued refusal of the United States to subject its own actions, especially the use of force against others, to judgment by the ICJ has been treated as a non-event.
The president who turned America‘s back on judgment under international law was Ronald Reagan. His action resulted from fear (especially after prominent condemnation by Senators Barry Goldwater and Daniel Patrick Moynihan) of an adverse Court ruling in Nicaragua‘s case against the U.S.
(December 27, 2022)
Haaretz continued:
Twenty years on, this is no longer the stuff of movies: Toka‘s tech allows clients to do just that and more—not just diverting a live feed but also altering old feeds and erasing any evidence of a covert op.
Technical documents reviewed by an ethical hacker prove that Toka‘s tech can alter both live and recorded video feeds—all without leaving any forensics or telltale signs of a hack (in contrast to NSO‘s Pegasus spyware, or Intellexa‘s Predator, which leave a digital fingerprint on targeted devices).
(December 27, 2022)
Co-founded by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) cyber chief Yaron Rosen, Toka “sells technologies that allow clients to locate security cameras or even webcams within a given perimeter, hack into them, watch their live feed, and even alter it — and past recordings,” Haaretz reported, citing internal documents it obtained and reviewed with a technical expert.
The company, whose activities are overseen by the Israeli Defense Ministry, “was set up in 2018 and has offices in Tel Aviv and Washington,” Haaretz reported.
(December 23, 2022)
According to a company pitch deck obtained by Haaretz, Toka offers what it terms “previously out-of-reach capabilities” that “transform untapped IoT sensors into intelligence sources,” and can be used “for intelligence and operational needs.” (IoT stands for Internet of Things and refers here to web-connected cameras and even car media systems.)
(16 June 2020)
Bevan also called on lawmakers to take action, saying: “The government must push forward with their plans for legislation to require connected devices to meet certain security standards and ensure this is backed by strong enforcement.“
(July 15, 2018)
Coming out of stealth Monday, Tel Aviv-based Toka says it‘ll provide spy tools for whatever device its clients require. But while it‘ll try to hack devices like Apple iPhones, it has a special focus on the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), covering tech like Amazon Echo, Nest connected home products, as well as connected fridges, thermostats and alarms. (…)
Two of Toka’s investors, Dell Technologies Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, for instance, have put millions of dollars into defensive companies beforehand. (The other seed investors are Entrée Capital, Launch Capital and Ray Rothrock, CEO of cyber-analytics firm RedSeal).
Giora Eiland, a retired Israeli major general, serves on the board of directors of Corsight …. He wrote: ‘The entire population of #Gaza will either move to #Egypt or move to the Gulf.’
The retired general also recommended targeting civilian vehicles in Gaza.” #writingcommunity
(12. November 2016)
Aus Interviews mit AussteigerInnen der mutmaßlich eng mit den Mitgliedern und Mitgliedern der “Technischen Aufklärung” des Bundesnachrichtendienstes eingebetteten israelischen Einheit 8200, veröffentlicht im “Guardian” im September 2014:
“Ich nahm eine Funktion an, in der Leute ´Ziele´ genannt wurden, und diese Leute die uns wirklich interessieren sind in keinem Sinne Terroristen, sondern eher generell normale Menschen – die uns interessieren wegen ihrer Funktionen, so dass wir mehr Geheimdienstinformationen über sie bekommen können und mehr Zugang erzielen. Wir nutzen unsere Möglichkeiten über diese Menschen zu unserem Vorteil, um es uns leicht zu machen. Wir nutzen die Einwirkung / die Wucht (“impact) die wir auf deren Leben haben. Manchmal beinhaltet dies das Leben, oder die Seele einer Person wirklich zu verletzen. Ich meine Erpressung, bei Dingen die sie vor Leuten um sich herum verbergen müssen. Ich kann Menschen wirklich das Leben zerstören. Es gab mir das Gefühl omnipotent zu sein.
Als ich diesen Job begann, war ich überrascht von dem Ausmaß meiner Verantwortung. Ich hatte das Gefühl über wichtige Dinge ein Mitspracherecht zu haben. Ich konnte Dinge in Gang setzen, die das Leben (Anm.: es folgt die Bezeichnung der ausspionierten Ortsansässigen) betrafen – ich konnte meine Einheit dazu bringen alle möglichen Maßnahmen zu ergreifen. Die Einstellung war ´Warum nicht? Wir können, also lasst es uns tun.´ Ich dachte, dass das, was ich tun konnte verrückt war. Wir waren die Chefs.”
Ein ex-Spion von 8200 berichtet, wie Soldaten unter seiner Ausbildung systematisch moralisch korrumpiert wurden, um sie zu “vergiften” und die Skrupellosigkeit im Apparat weiter auf Standard zu halten. Bei Razzien “beschlagnahmte” persönliche Gegenstände von Individuen – “Photos von Kindern, Uhren, Familienfotos, Fussballtrophäen, Bücher”, bis hin zu Juwelen – wurden nicht nur zur Mitnahme angeboten, sondern in den Ausbildungsräumen zur Schau gestellt.
“Die Idee war die Auszubildenden (“students”) zu vergiften.“
(…)
“Die einzige Schlussfolgerung die gezogen wurde, dass es in dieser Einheit so etwas wie einen illegalen Befehl nicht gibt. Es sind nicht wir, die entscheiden was moralisch ist und was nicht. Heute erkenne ich, dass dies das ist, was auch der Bomberpilot sagt: `Es ist nicht an mir zu sagen was moralisch ist und was nicht.` Jeder reicht die Verantwortung an Andere weiter.”
(Sep 12, 2014)
(March 27, 2024)
The expansive and experimental effort is being used to conduct mass surveillance there, collecting and cataloging the faces of Palestinians without their knowledge or consent, according to Israeli intelligence officers, military officials and soldiers.
The technology was initially used in Gaza to search for Israelis who were taken hostage by Hamas during the Oct. 7 cross-border raids, the intelligence officials said.
(28.03.2024)
There is little complaint from western politicians. Corsight’s complicity isn’t seen as an urgent matter.
Nor, for that matter, do most of these politicians give sufficient attention to Israel’s genocidal policies in Gaza.
Unmentioned by the Times is that Giora Eiland, a retired Israeli major general, serves on the board of directors of Corsight.
When Eiland joined the board in January 2021, Igal Raichelgauz, chairman and founder of the Cortica Group, stated, “We are excited to add Giora to the company board, we believe that due to his extensive experience in the national security field, Corsight will continue growing into new markets and territories and lead the face recognition market in Israel and in the world.” Corsight is a subsidiary of Cortica, a firm focused on artificial intelligence.
Eiland is a proponent of the ethnic cleansing of the occupied territory of Gaza.
In addition to publicly warning on March 7 about a possible attack, U.S. officials said they had privately told Russian officials about the intelligence pointing to an impending attack. It is not clear how much information the United States gave Russian officials beyond what was in the public warning.
American intelligence agencies have a “duty to warn” potential targets of dangers when they learn of them.
The United States had warned Iran of a possible attack ahead of twin bombings in January that killed scores and wounded hundreds of others at a memorial service for Iran’s former top general, Qassim Suleimani, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike four years before.
Four assailants were apprehended in Bryansk Region near the border, and are being transported to Moscow. According to the FSB, the perpetrators of the terrorist attack – which has left at least 115 people dead – had contacts on Ukrainian soil.
“After committing the crime, the perpetrators attempted to flee, driving in a car in the direction of the Russia-Ukraine border,” the authorities stated. However, “all four [suspected] terrorists” were detained within several hours.
The Journal reported that the U.S. Justice Department is considering whether to allow Assange to plead guilty to a reduced charge of mishandling classified information. The newspaper cited people familiar with the matter.
A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment on the report.
(March 16, 2024)
Senior figures from Hamas and Yemen‘s Huthi rebels held a rare meeting to discuss coordinating their actions against Israel, Palestinian factional sources told AFP on Friday. (…)
The Houthis confirmed they would continue their attacks on Red Sea shipping to „support the Palestinian resistance“, according to the Hamas and Islamic Jihad sources.
The rebels‘ leader Abdul Malik al-Huthi said on Thursday their attacks would expand to target ships avoiding the Red Sea by navigating past South Africa‘s Cape of Good Hope.
(Oct 09, 2023)
Most of the movement‘s political leaders have lived in exile outside the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip for years, deepening the divide between them and the group‘s military wing known as the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, who are spearheading the continuing fighting with Israel.
The political leaders have mostly been living in Qatar, Turkey, Lebanon, Iran and Egypt.
Speaking to The National, the officials said a handful of Gaza-based Hamas leaders, reportedly as few as three who once served in the Al Qassam Brigades, knew of the attack in advance. As a precaution, they were made to believe that the operation would begin 48 hours after it got under way on Saturday.
(21 August 2014)
However, Israeli intelligence sources told Fox News Wednesday that the Hamas leader was believed to have been killed.
Addressing the public on Wednesday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dodged the question of Deif’s fate, saying only that “the commanders of terror organizations are a legitimate target, of the highest priority… No one is immune,” he said. Asked again, he refused to elaborate.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, in a Hamas TV interview earlier Wednesday, described Deif as “the dead man” in an apparent slip of the tongue.
(Oct 20th 2023)
Yet hardly anything is known about Deif. For years, Western spies would respond to questions about him with a shrug. Only a handful of photographs have ever appeared in the media – grainy images from his youth. Some speculate that he died long ago and is nothing more than a mythical figurehead cultivated for propaganda purposes.
(April 6, 2020)
Asymmetric encryption is used during the “handshake”, which takes place prior to any data being sent. The handshake determines which cipher suite to use for the session – in other words, the symmetric encryption type – so that both browser and server agree. The TLS 1.2 protocol took multiple round trips between client and server, while TLS 1.3 is a much smoother process that requires only one trip. This latency saving shaves milliseconds off each connection.