Free Syrian Army agent says his agents have been providing the US agency with GPS positions of its leaders and headquarters but the US has failed to act The “spymaster” of a key moderate Syrian rebel group has accused the CIA of failing to act on reams of detailed intelligence his network has been supplying…
Category: Spycraft
World War Two History: 10 Mind Blowing Secret Operations from WW2
During World War II, tons of secret operations were conducted by both sides. While many were daring, some of them stand out as incredible, with mind-blowing operations that seem straight out of a historical thriller novel. . 10. The Olterra The plan sounds like something from a spy movie—to use a secret underwater base as…
Espionage Files: Watch Thy Neighbor
To prevent whistleblowing, U.S. intelligence agencies are instructing staff to spy on their colleagues. Elham Khorasani was sitting in her car at a stoplight in Northern Virginia when she got the call. It was April 16, 2013. “I’m with the FBI,” a man on the line said, “and we’re at your home executing a search…
Espionage Files: Another Russian Dead by “Mysterious Circumstances”??
What No Radioactive Poisoning this time Putin? The SVR is getting sloppy. -SF In November, the Free Thought Project reported that Mikhail Lesin, the former head of media affairs for the Russian government, and the founder of Russia Today (RT), was found dead in the hotel room that he was staying at in Washington DC….
How the Reagan-Era CIA Predicted Our Drone Dystopia
It is mind numbing how an agency with the resources and manpower like the CIA has can predict things like this but yet miss earth shaking Geo-Political events like the Soviets Invading Afghanistan in 1979 or the Soviet Union Collapse in 1991 or my favorite: being blindsided on 9/11. As a person who understands the…
Cold War Files: The Americans are Coming
…or is it the Russians? The popular FX series premieres episode one of season four on Wednesday. (March 16th). In case you’re not already read in on the cold-war drama, prepare to be taken back to 1980s Virginia and into the household of Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, a seemingly normal American couple who are actually…
Russian Hybrid Warfare and Other Dark Arts
Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, hybrid warfare has become conversational short form in the West for describing Moscow’s sneaky ways of fighting war. If there’s one thing you’ve learned over the past two years about Russia, it’s that it uses hybrid warfare, a dangerous Kremlin innovation the West must learn to grapple with. In two…
Espionage Files: Spy vs Spies: Why Deciphering Putin is So Hard for U.S. Intelligence
American intelligence officers are trained to tackle tough targets. But there are tough targets, and then there’s Russian President Vladimir Putin, who plays his cards so closely that it’s hard for his own advisers to divine what he’s thinking, says Gregory Treverton, chairman of the National Intelligence Council. “Putin is so isolated that the chances…
Cold War Files: 10 Dastardly Secret Operations of the KGB
Like the CIA, the Soviet (and now Russian) spy agency known as the KGB has engaged in decades of secret operations across the world, ranging from blackmail to kidnapping. Most of the secrets that we know about the KGB today are because of one man—Vasili Mitrokhin. Mitrokhin was an archivist for the KGB for 30…
World War Two History: 10 Nazi Spies and Their Espionage Plots in America
Even before U.S. involvement in World War Two, Nazi strategists—including Abwehr, the German intelligence agency—began inserting operatives into American cities or turning German-American citizens to the Nazi cause. The practice continued throughout the war. While there were some notable successes, especially prior to American involvement in the war, there were also some spectacular failures. Here…