Mock Executions Conducted By CIA – Report

There is little doubt that a report to be revealed next week will once again ignite a firestorm of controversy surrounding the interrogation methods used on suspected terrorists. The timing of it’s release is already being questioned.

The long-suppressed report by the Central Intelligence Agency’s inspector general to be released next week reveals that CIA interrogators staged mock executions as part of the agency’s post-9/11 program to detain and question terror suspects, NEWSWEEK has learned.

According to two sources one who has read a draft of the paper and one who was briefed on it the report describes how one detainee, suspected USS Cole bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was threatened with a gun and a power drill during the course of CIA interrogation. According to the sources, who like others quoted in this article asked not to be named while discussing sensitive information, Nashiri’s interrogators brandished the gun in an effort to convince him that he was going to be shot. Interrogators also turned on a power drill and held it near him. “The purpose was to scare him into giving [information] up,” said one of the sources. A federal law banning the use of torture expressly forbids threatening a detainee with “imminent death.”

The report also says, according to the sources, that a mock execution was staged in a room next to a detainee, during which a gunshot was fired in an effort to make the suspect believe that another prisoner had been killed. The inspector general’s report alludes to more than one mock execution.

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U.S. Needs Patriot Act to Avert Attack, Kerik Says

Highly decorated former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik tells Newsmax that failure to renew the Patriot Act would place Americans in “serious jeopardy” and could lead to a “catastrophic attack” in the U.S.

Kerik, who was President George W. Bush’s nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security before he withdrew his name from consideration, also said the detainees at Guantanamo Bay who could be released into the U.S. remain determined to “create the demise” of America. Read more

Terrorism Recruiting Manual Discovered By West Point Researchers Worries Authorities

For months now, counterterrorism officials have seen signs that al-Qaida has been looking for new and innovative ways to recruit terrorists, including a new manual that has surfaced on the Internet.

Researchers at West Point recently stumbled on the 51-page manual while they were visiting a jihadi chat room, called Ecles. It’s a Web site that allows members to have interactive discussions, post videos and download manuals. Ecles is the second most popular jihadi chat room on the Web, and al-Qaida often posts things there. Because of that, it is a place counterterrorism analysts track regularly.

So when the West Point analysts discovered a step-by-step primer called “The Art of Recruiting Mujahedeen,” it got their attention. On one level, the manual might be an early indication that al-Qaida is trying to identify new sleeper terrorists. On the other hand, the book is so basic it seems to suggest al-Qaida is getting desperate for new members.

Brian Fishman, the head of research at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, says he was struck by the remedial tone of the book. At the end of a chapter, for example, there are questions to judge both the recruiter’s progress and the recruit’s.

“The recruiter himself doesn’t have to use a lot of judgment — they are simply the intermediary for the technique that is being taught in the handbook,” Fishman says.

Here’s how the manual, as translated by the CIA, suggests a recruiter build a rapport with a recruit:

“This stage lasts approximately three weeks,” it says. “You must do something important at this stage. You must identify his interests and relations with people and how he spends the whole 24 hours, meaning you study him secretly to be reassured about your choice.”

This section touches on such things as being nice to the recruit. It suggests the recruiter pretend to be his friend, perhaps even buy him small gifts. It ends with a questionnaire to assess progress. “Is the recruit anxious to see you?” it asks. You get one point for “no” and three points for “yes.” Does he accept your advice and respect your opinion? It reads a little like one of those relationship quizzes in women’s magazines. “If you have received less than 10 points, you are on the wrong path, repeat the stages from the beginning. From 10 to 18, you are on your way.”

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CIA, NSA Adopting Web 2.0 Strategies

While the United States intelligence community may have gotten a lot of publicity for its Wikipedia-like Intellipedia Web site, agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency are ramping up their use of other social and Web-inspired software as well. Read more

Is Houston A Target For Terrorists?

When al-Qaida first attacked the World Trade Center in 1993 a Palestinian who was part of the conspiracy— had just months earlier been living right here in Houston.

Then in 2006, Federal agents arrested three men, Shiraz Qazi, Adnan Mirza, and Kobi Williams, in Houston. The case against the trio involved learning to use weapons here in order to join the Taliban overseas and fight U.S. soldiers.

Two of the men, Mirza and Qazi, were Pakistanis with student visas. One of them reportedly lived in a west side apartment.

The third man, Williams, worked part time at Rice University and lived near the Galleria and had been heard on a local Pakistani radio show according to the FBI.

Then in 2007, Daniel Maldonado, a Muslim convert who’d lived at a complex off the Beltway, admitted to actually training with al-Qaida in Somalia.

Records show that these men are the terrorists or would-be terrorists amongst us. The job for law enforcement has been to detect such people.

But who does that best? The FBI or the CIA? How about HPD?

Newsweek’s Christopher Dickey has a possible answer to that question.

He’s been writing about terrorists for 20 years and is author of “Securing the City” book. In it, he focuses on NYPD but there are lessons for Houston, he said.

“The police have always been a great entry level job for immigrants,” said Dickey.

He said that the NYPD has had great success utilizing officers from immigrant families, officers with native language skills and street creed that he says can sometimes give them better intelligence-gathering abilities than the FBI or CIA.

“People will trust you and will talk to you,” he said.

He said that is also a critical factor in Houston. He said that working sources in diverse communities could pick up signs of terrorism.

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CIA Chief Panetta Provides Economic Intel Brief

Highlighting the potential impact the worldwide economic downturn may have on global security and foreign policy, new CIA Director Leon Panetta said today that the agency is now producing a new daily intelligence document for President Obama and other top officials that focuses on economic issues.

Panetta says the new intelligence product, known as the Economic Intelligence Brief, is intended to make sure that policymakers “aren’t surprised by the implications of the worldwide economic crisis.”

The first brief was presented to the White House this morning, after a request from the Obama administration, Panetta said.

He said the briefs would “cover overseas developments –- economic, political, leadership developments,” as well as “the implications of those developments in terms of the U.S. economy.”

The new intelligence brief is another sign of the Obama administration’s focus on economic issues.

Since his first day in office, Obama has received daily briefings from his economic advisers that take place before the long-standard security briefing focused on the intelligence community’s daily assessment, known as the Presidential Daily Brief.

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CIA Warns Obama British Terrorists Biggest Threat To US

American spy chiefs have told the President that the CIA has launched a vast spying operation in the UK to prevent a repeat of the 9/11 attacks being launched from Britain.

They believe that a British-born Pakistani extremist entering the US under the visa waiver programme is the most likely source of another terrorist spectacular on American soil.

Intelligence briefings for Mr Obama have detailed a dramatic escalation in American espionage in Britain, where the CIA has recruited record numbers of informants in the Pakistani community to monitor the 2,000 terrorist suspects identified by MI5, the British security service.

A British intelligence source revealed that a staggering four out of 10 CIA operations designed to thwart direct attacks on the US are now conducted against targets in Britain.

And a former CIA officer who has advised Mr Obama told The Sunday Telegraph that the CIA has stepped up its efforts in the last month after the Mumbai massacre laid bare the threat from Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group behind the attacks, which has an extensive web of supporters in the UK.

The CIA has already spent 18 months developing a network of agents in Britain to combat al-Qaeda, unprecedented in size within the borders of such a close ally, according to intelligence sources in both London and Washington.

Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer who has advised Mr Obama, told The Sunday Telegraph: “The British Pakistani community is recognised as probably al-Qaeda’s best mechanism for launching an attack against North America.

via CIA warns Barack Obama that British terrorists are the biggest threat to the US – Telegraph.

Obama Keeps Renditions As Counter-terrorism Tool

Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism — aside from Predator missile strikes — for taking suspected terrorists off the street.

The rendition program became a source of embarrassment for the CIA, and a target of international scorn, as details emerged in recent years of botched captures, mistaken identities and allegations that prisoners were turned over to countries where they were tortured.

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Low-Tech Terror Attack in Mumbai Could Spur Copycats in the West

The Mumbai attacks have prompted some Western officials to step up vigilance against the type of low-tech assault the 10 gunmen mounted last month.

Since the attacks in Mumbai, al Qaeda Web sites and chatrooms have lit up with aspiring militants urging more such attacks, according to the Washington-based SITE Intelligence Group. One message cheered “the heroes” of the attack for making “the enemies suffer,” including the U.S., the U.K. and Israel.

Historically, the group accused in the attack, Lashkar-e-Taiba, has focused on furthering Pakistan’s claims to the Kashmir region, disputed with India. Although its messages have a strong anti-American component, U.S. officials have seen the group as a lesser counterterrorism priority.

But current and former intelligence officials say they are worried the Mumbai attacks may reflect a broadening of Lashkar’s interests, and that would-be jihadis may copy the approach of the Mumbai attackers, who carried out their assault on foot using little more than machine guns, explosives and cellphones. Al Qaeda’s resurgent base in Pakistan also provides opportunities for collaboration with groups such as Lashkar, officials said.

David Cohen, the head of intelligence for the New York Police Department and a former senior Central Intelligence Agency official, said what used to be merely propaganda against the U.S. and Israel has now been “operationalized” by the Mumbai attacks. “It puts us on notice in a much more clear and direct way,” he added.

The NYPD has dispatched three officers to Mumbai to better understand the attacks because of concerns about copycats.

“It’s a very clear indication that we have the potential to be victimized by a group motivated by religious ideology that doesn’t use something sophisticated,” said John Cohen, a senior official in the Bush administration’s office for sharing information among intelligence agencies.

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Gunmen May Have Survived Mumbai Terror Attack

Reports that several terrorists may have survived the three-day siege of Mumbai and escaped into the population will certainly not do much to calm the fears of a city already on edge.

“I think there are more. My sources say (there were) at least 23 of the gunmen,” said Farhana Ali, a former CIA and Rand Corp counterterrorism analyst and expert on militant networks. Ali, who most recently visited India and Pakistan last month before the attacks, said her information came from Pakistan, but declined to further identify the source. Read more

Bin Laden Alive, Hiding and Worried About Own Security

Osama bin Laden is alive and hiding in Pakistan, said CIA chief Michael Hayden today, though the terrorism leader has little oversight of the al Qaeda daily operations.

“American and its friends have taken the fight to the enemy,” Gen. Hayden said in a broad roundup of efforts to fight al Qaeda.

“Al Qaeda has suffered serious setbacks, but it is a determined, adaptive enemy unlike any our nation has ever faced,” he said.

Without directly referring to the CIA’s offensive blitz of unmanned missile attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan, the CIA boss said the US had successfully isolated the al Qaeda leader bin Laden, referring to him in the present tense.

“He appears to be largely isolated from the day-to-day operations of the organization he leads,” Hayden said in a speech delivered to the Atlantic Council in Washington.

Hayden said the failure to kill or capture bin Laden in the seven years since the 9/11 attacks, could be explained by the “rugged and inaccessible” terrain of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area and “the fact that bin Laden has worked to avoid detection.”

The CIA director provided no other details but it was the first public indication of the intelligence agency’s growing effort to narrow the focus of the search for bin Laden and other top terror leaders.

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