Intelligence & National Security Discussion

Surya · Post by **Surya** » 02 May 2013 05:48

Sarabjit Singh expires, may he be reborn again in India - thanks Sir for all that you have done

Actually may he not be reborn and escape this miserable cycle

he deserves it

MMS on the other hand ....

fanne · Post by **fanne** » 02 May 2013 06:05

Today MMS sleeps peacfully and silently as ever.....

skaranam · Post by **skaranam** » 02 May 2013 12:22

can we have 10 porkis lodged in Indian jails...be given a similar treatment with bricks...

suryag · Post by **suryag** » 02 May 2013 13:04

stupid me i was hoping against hope that this was a staged attack by indian intel and on the pretext of injuries Sarabjit would be brought to india as usual i was hoping for too much

sum · Post by **sum** » 03 May 2013 22:43

In memory of Sarabjit Singh, a tribute to our spies

Now, India has come closer than it ever has before to honouring a secret agent—giving Sarabjeet Singh a state funeral, for unspecified services to the nation. There has long been speculation, which will likely never be officially denied or confirmed, that Singh was an agent for the Research and Analysis Wing. This is a good time to tell the stories of the hundreds of exceptionally courageous Indians who took extraordinary risks for their country—not infrequently at the cost of their lives, and almost never acknowledged,

Like everywhere else in the world, Indian rulers relied on spies from time immemorial. In his book on India’s ancient history, the scholar Sailendra Sen notes that spies were often mentioned in Rigvedic hymns, implored to be “ever true and never bewildered”. Sen’s account states that even Yama, the god of death, had spies—but, probably wisely, rejected their love. Through antiquity, spies helped kings catch criminals, but also generate information on neighbouring rulers and their own subjects. It has been noted that much of the work of the spy dovetails with that of the journalist. News-writers accredited to the great courts of India documented changing contours of influence—and, historian Christopher Bayly wryly records, kept “all India amused for years with a flow of dirty stories”.

It wasn’t until the 19th century, though, that the modern Indian intelligence service began to take shape—spurred by imperial paranoia. In 1825, the veterinary surgeon and explorer William Moorcroft discovered of two European-trained dogs near the Kailash summit in Tibet. He persuaded himself, and others, that the Russian Tsar’s agents had been that way, in search of routes to the Indian ocean’s warm waters. For the epic survey operations that followed, Moorcroft relied for help Indian plains for information and aid, but also, notably, on great commercial networks which stretched east, all the way to central Asia, China and Burma.

Historians now know that the Tsar had no ambitions in India, though secret service officers were despatched into central Asia—among them, the legendary Nikolai Muraviev, who penetrated the kingdom of Khiva in 1819, hoping to secure a commercial relationship for Moscow.

In 1947, as imperial Britain left India, it stripped the cupboards of their skeletons. The senior-most British Indian Police officer in the Intelligence Bureau, Qurban Ali Khan, chose Pakistani citizenship—and left for his new homeland with what few sensitive files departing British officials neglected to destroy. The Intelligence Bureau, Lieutenant-General LP Singh has recorded, was reduced to a “tragi-comic state of helplessness,” possessing nothing but “empty racks and cupboards”. The Military Intelligence Directorate in New Delhi didn’t even have a map of Jammu and Kashmir to make sense of the first radio intercepts signalling the beginning of the war of 1947-1948.

There’s evidence, though, that by 1965, things were back on track. Popular accounts hold that India had no intelligence on the Kutch clashes which preceded the war in Kashmir. In fact, from India’s still-classified—but helpfully online—official war history makes clear this wasn’t true. “Indian intelligence”, it records, did provide information about the movement of Pakistani troops and armour into the Rann. However, the local commanders were not too happy with the intelligence that was provided to them. General JN Chaudhuri admitted in 1971 that he had ‘adequate information regarding the southward move towards the Sindh-Kutch border of some Pakistani military units, thought the official Pakistani story was of movement by Rangers or armed police”.

Much of that information came from cross-border traffickers—colourful entrepreneurs who profited from the markets created prohibition in Pakistan, and restrictions on gold, silver and electronics in India. Banaskantha resident Sagathaji Jagashi Thakur learned the routes through the desert smuggling precious metals and watches into India—paid for with Indian whiskey ported across the border using trained camels, which could find their own way across the sands. In the 1965 war, he was recruited by intelligence services in Gujarat, and set to work guiding troops to the Pakistani town of Nagparkar—which India successfully captured.

Mattaji Surtaji Sodha, who fled Pakistan before the 1971 war, also helped guide soldiers on deep raids into Pakistan through the desert—an effort which cost the lives of many of his comrades.

1971 was a high-water mark for India’s covert services. India’s official military history of the Bangladesh war records, in somewhat guarded terms, RAW’s extraordinary efforts in the campaign—which began long before war formally broke out. Led by Brigadier Surjit Singh Uban, RAW covert forces began infiltrating into Bangladesh in July 1971, at Madaripur, destroying tea gardens, riverboats and railway tracks—acts that tied down troops, undermined East Pakistan’s economy and, the history says, destroyed “communications between Dhaka, Comilla and Chittagong”. It also trained Bangladesh irregulars—a staggering 20,000 guerrillas each month by September, 1971, who bravely took on the Pakistan army.

RAW’s cryptanalysts also succeeded in breaking Pakistan’s military cypher—enabling a legendary air force raid on government house in Dhaka, precisely when East Pakistan’s cabinet was meeting to discuss means to defer their army’s surrender.

The 1980s, as Firstpost revealed earlier this month, saw a ferocious RAW campaign of retaliation against Inter-Services Intelligence-backed Khalistan terrorists—setting off bomb for bomb, in an effort experts like B Raman raised the cost of terrorism to a point Pakistan could no longer afford.

Perhaps the greatest coup of the period involved Ajit Doval, former director of the intelligence bureau—and the only police officer to ever be decorated with the Kirti Chakra, the peacetime equivalent of the Maha Vir Chakra. In 1989, the story goes, Khalistan terrorists holed up inside the Golden Temple awaited an ISI officer who to rig up the Harimandir Sahib with explosives. He arrived—but when Indian forces surrounded the temple, the bombs didn’t go off. The demoralised terrorists quietly surrendered. The ISI colonel was in fact none other than Doval—though he has consistently refused to discuss the story in public.

This is the man Manish "Goebbels" Tiwari called as a BJP stooge!

There are other great stories of success, too—those of one-time Kashmiri jihadist Usman Majid, who served as an intelligence mole inside the Jammu Kashmir Islamic Front, meeting with Ibrahim ‘Tiger’ Memon; the special forces, intelligence officials and police officers who decimated Kashmir jihadists; the very ordinary women and men who risked their lives to serve as agents in Pakistan, but were left out in the cold, at home or in prison, when their task was done.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 03 May 2013 23:17

Pravin Swami is redeeming himself.

Mohna Lal Munshi's biography is in google books. I had linked it before.

Travels in Panjab, Afghanistan and Turkistan

By Mohan Lal Esq.

The above is classic published in 1848!

From wiki page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohan_Lal_%28Zutshi%29

The following book is precious as it has Mohan Lal's signature!!!!

Life of Amir Dost Mohammed KhanVol 2

By Mohan Lal

Nikhil T · Post by **Nikhil T** » 04 May 2013 00:57

Intelligence Bureau hired over 7000 in last 5 years

Wondering if this is an increase or compensation for attrition?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 04 May 2013 03:07

Looks like counter terrorism task and political monitoring had increased. Look at.number trained about 19000 on same time period.

Prem Kumar · Post by **Prem Kumar** » 04 May 2013 03:25

Dont be too quick to forgive, Ramana. Praveen Swami is still the same old snake oil salesman. Yesterday, he wrote an article in FP about India-China swap, which could have very well found a place in Chindu. Then he wrote another one titled "Rising from Sarabjit’s funeral pyre, questions about peace", where he shamelessly plugged his old Chindu piece about UNMOGIP (which presented the Paki POV after the beheadings)

No quarter should be given to him till he apologizes and does a complete volte-face

RoyG · Post by **RoyG** » 04 May 2013 03:28

Premji,

What do expect from a journalist on the gov payroll? He's no different from Sagaraka, Rajdeep, Burkha, etc. There wont be any apologies, and even if he does, the trust deficit will still be there.

fanne · Post by **fanne** » 04 May 2013 09:36

in last 5 years, even army officer intake has increased, so has been IB, if you ask me, the secular content has been increased quietly.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 04 May 2013 10:27

Nikhil T wrote:Intelligence Bureau hired over 7000 in last 5 years

Hope they dont end up gathering political intelligence for their master and end up doing routine policing role.

chaanakya · Post by **chaanakya** » 05 May 2013 16:25

xposted
'Top cop Pandey, now on run, plotted Ishrat encounter with IB man'

CBI believes Pandey "conspired" with some officials of the Intelligence Bureau who "passed" to him an input that Ishrat and three others were Lashkar-e-Tayabba operatives out on a mission to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

"The Ishrat encounter was planned by top officers of the Ahmedabad crime branch following an intelligence input from IB, which was received by the then Ahmedabad police commissioner K R Kaushik, who shared it with Pandey. Pandey, in turn, shared the input with his trusted aide D G Vanzara," a CBI officer said.

The input is said to have been passed by Rajinder Kumar, an IB official then posted in Gujarat.

The CBI official said Vanzara had formed two teams under G L Singhal and N K Amin (both police officers now in CBI custody) to carry out the encounter killing of Ishrat and three others and Pandey had supervised the "logistics" and "communication" with Singhal's help.
- See more at: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/top-c ... 9h0XC.dpuf

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 05 May 2013 17:11

NTRO hacking email IDs of officials, says govt's IT dept

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ntro- ... Cy0KH.dpuf

Yaaawwwwnnn

The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) has accused the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), India's technical intelligence gathering agency, of penetrating/ hacking into the National Informatics Center (NIC) network.

The DeitY has cited a report prepared by its operations division, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (ICERT), listing specific instances when NTRO reportedly hacked into NIC infrastructure and extracted sensitive data connected to various ministries.

NTRO has rubbished the charges. It is also learnt that NIC refused to give access (logs) to NTRO to conduct "penetrative testing", the purpose of which is to sensitise agencies about cyber threats.

NIC provides internet connectivity to all ministries and its NICNET has institutional linkages with the central government, state governments and union territories. All government officials have email IDs issued by NIC.

According to official sources, J Satyanarayana, Secretary, DeitY, wrote to National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon in February this year requesting him to examine NTRO's role in hacking these email IDs.

NTRO had earlier warned that NIC's network is penetrable and prone to cyber attacks. As reported by The Indian Express, over 10,000 email addresses of top government officials were hacked on July 12 last year, just days after NTRO issued an alert. The attack was blamed on state actors based in countries inimical to India's interests.

When contacted, Satyanarayana declined to comment on the issue, saying these are internal matters. "Whenever vulnerabilities in cyber security are pointed out, corrective action is taken," he said.

On being asked about NIC's refusal to share logs with NTRO, Dr Y K Sharma, DG, NIC said: "We follow government instructions and it is not appropriate to comment on departmental issues. Our network is safe but problems do happen, not only in India but the world over."

Dr Gulshan Rai, DG, ICERT, was unavailable for comment. However, another ICERT official blamed NTRO for creating unnecessary panic.

- See more at: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/ntro- ... Cy0KH.dpuf

Question is were they hacking it to prove a point to sort out security?

ASPuar · Post by **ASPuar** » 05 May 2013 18:07

Nikhil T wrote:Intelligence Bureau hired over 7000 in last 5 years

Wondering if this is an increase or compensation for attrition?

When a government that is beset by a new scam and new protests everyday simultaneously steps up hiring of police and intelligence forces (Central Armed Police Forces have grown 300% since 2004), it is quite evident that they are afraid of their own people.

These forces are being hired NOT to protect us, but to keep us in our place.

Oh, if only Rahul Mehta was here today.

Some of y'all (very few, because a lot of the original membership of BR has vanished), will remember Rahul Mehta, of NBJPRIE and recall the politician fame. He was eventually banned from here.

Very few of you will know that Rahul Mehta's father was Union HRD Minister in the 1980s.

sum · Post by **sum** » 05 May 2013 18:24

CBI believes Pandey "conspired" with some officials of the Intelligence Bureau who "passed" to him an input that Ishrat and three others were Lashkar-e-Tayabba operatives out on a mission to kill Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

"The Ishrat encounter was planned by top officers of the Ahmedabad crime branch following an intelligence input from IB, which was received by the then Ahmedabad police commissioner K R Kaushik, who shared it with Pandey. Pandey, in turn, shared the input with his trusted aide D G Vanzara," a CBI officer said.

Only in our country will this news be shown as a indicment of the named officials.

Any Other country and this would have been shown as how well our security apparatus worked!

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 07 May 2013 15:46

India neutralised 32 ISI-backed espionage modules in three years: Antony

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 07 May 2013 15:52

NSA 60th Anniversary

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 07 May 2013 21:14

shyamd wrote:India neutralised 32 ISI-backed espionage modules in three years: Antony

Isn't that MHA's job to give this info?

Prem Kumar · Post by **Prem Kumar** » 07 May 2013 21:25

ASPuar: I remember Rahul Mehta. He had an ongoing tirade against corruption in the judiciary IIRC. Was that the reason he was banned?

Do you know how his political career is coming along?

I didnt know about his dad being the Union HRD minister

You are spot-on about the IB hiring. IB should stand for "Internal Big-brother", given the amount of spying they do on behalf of the Congress.

I used to read a lot of Ayn Rand in the years past. I am reminded of her quote, which can be paraphrased as "Laws exist not so much to protect one citizen from another, but to protect the citizen from the Government"

VinodTK · Post by **VinodTK** » 09 May 2013 03:24

India, “Cold Start” and Pakistani Tactical Nukes

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 11 May 2013 06:55

It appears that Oleg Gordievsky was a good catch for the MI6. His escape from the Soviet Union was pretty cool too.

member_25399 · Post by **member_25399** » 13 May 2013 22:29

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home ... 010412.cms

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 14 May 2013 20:35

from the above article

Ranjan Lakhanpal, an activist lawyer instrumental in freeing over 40 spies, both Indian and Pakistani, believes these men have a valid redressal claim. "India disowns them once they are caught and Pakistan tortures them,"

Very sad state of affairs.

It seems in this country when a terrorist hands over himself to the government , he get financial compensation and guarantee job from the government either in police service or other job.

if a spy is caught he gets disowned by india and ends up in pakistani jail being beaten up and long imprisonment with little chance of getting back home and if he manages to come back the government still disowns him .........so it pays being a terrorist in this country.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 15 May 2013 10:21

From biggest CIA leaker Hanssen to ‘undercover agent’ Fogle: US-Russia spy scandals in 21st century

Surya · Post by **Surya** » 15 May 2013 17:26

The other Sarabjit singhs

the sad treatment of our men

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/sara ... 70327.html

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 17 May 2013 20:21

Fogle's detention became public because CIA 'crossed the line' - FSB

Back in October 2011, Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) issued an official warning to CIA Chief in Moscow Steven Hall. The note of caution said that if provocative recruitment actions on the part of Hall's agency toward FSB's employees continued the FSB would have to reciprocate. With Ryan Fogle's operations in Moscow the CIA 'crossed the line' and FSB made the profound failure of American intelligence public.

So, even when in December 2012 the CIA officer Benjamin Dillon, who worked undercover as the third secretary in the economic department of US Embassy in Moscow, tried to recruit one of FSB agents, Russia's Security Service refrained from any public announcements. In a rather counrteous manner, the spy was declared a 'persona non grata' on January 11, 2013 and within the next four days Mr Dillon quietly left Russia.

However, the "audacity" with which Ryan Fogle acted forced FSB to take reciprocal actions towards its American colleagues. "In this case, the CIA's Fogle crossed the line and we had to respond accordingly" - confirmed FSB spokesman.

"In October 2011, the FSB issued an official warning to the CIA station chief in Moscow that if provocative recruitment actions continued in relation to officers of Russian special services, Russia's FSB would take "mirror" measures in relation to CIA officers," an FSB spokesman said.

"In this statement, the FSB gave the surnames of concrete Russian citizens whom CIA operatives had tried to approach, as well as information about these CIA operatives," he said.

Director of U.S. National Intelligence James Clapper was notified of the situation as well.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 17 May 2013 21:15

So if Steven Hall is the CIA resident chief in Moscow is that generally openly declared and a known practice across all intelligence to declare their Chief ?

sum · Post by **sum** » 17 May 2013 21:30

^^ Isnt he a ex-station chief since time-frame mentions 2011? Might be changed by now

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 17 May 2013 21:49

Its possible that he may not be the station chief or he could still be service the chief . James Clapper remains the Director NI since 2010 also Ryan Fogle arrived in Moscow in April 2011.

Confirms that station chief name has been leaked
‘Unprecedented’ CIA Moscow Chief Leak Puzzles Ex-Spies

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 18 May 2013 13:46

This fogle episode has only part truths for example it is unlikely he would carry a letter personally on him.

The funny thing is that the CIA is still using diplomatic cover in hostile countries - it just goes to show how outdated the CIA is currently. The president last year asked for an investigation as to why the CIA has missed so many major trends ! Contents are still classified.

And who does India choose to provide intel/CI training to our police officers? CIA

Good thing is even RAW doesn't use some of those methods

suryag · Post by **suryag** » 18 May 2013 14:42

Having intel attache in embassy is common. the "stated" responsibility is liaisoning with host countries' intel agency just like defence attache. Typically(based on what i have read), many of the lower level tourism/immigration/commerce secretaries are intel guys under the cover.

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 18 May 2013 16:13

^^ Only official liaison in friendly/semi-friendly countries - even this is no longer done by embassy guys with some countries opting for secure packages/letters/emails and now and then friendly meets via flights to each others locations. They won't perform operations like Fogle.

Its a 90s approach. Not only that - these days they don't even recruit in the targets country unless the circumstances deemed it was absolutely necessary - recruitment will be done abroad (enticed by conference/holiday/<insert reason>).

sum · Post by **sum** » 19 May 2013 11:59

shyamd wrote:The funny thing is that the CIA is still using diplomatic cover in hostile countries - it just goes to show how outdated the CIA is currently. The president last year asked for an investigation as to why the CIA has missed so many major trends ! Contents are still classified.

Good thing is even RAW doesn't use some of those methods

Ummm, i was thinking it was the other way round with RAW relying only on embassy folks and not having any NOC type folks/front companies etc operating anywhere!!

Atleast that is what ex-RAW folks keep lamenting in their memoirs!

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 19 May 2013 13:39

Problem with embassy spies is that CI of hostile nation will easily pick up who is the spy (biggest problem our guys faced). They can also easily follow every person in an embassy to understand who is spy. In some hostile nations there are travel restrictions for diplomats.
To put it simply, We don't use such outdated methods unless there was a very good reason.

Front companies - RAW uses them. Less said the better.

sum · Post by **sum** » 19 May 2013 16:04

^^ Good to know if that is the case!

Meanwhile, Austin-sir's worry about the CIA station chief being outed is picked up by Chindu too:

Russia reveals CIA head identity

Russia has accused the CIA of “crossing the red line” in its recruitment zeal targeting the Russian security services. Adding insult to injury Russia has not only made public the arrest and expulsion of a CIA officer working undercover in the U.S. embassy in Moscow, but also revealed the identity of the CIA station chief here.

Third Secretary Ryan Fogle was caught on Tuesday trying to recruit an officer of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s main counter-espionage agency. The diplomat was paraded on Russian television, wearing a wig and carrying spy gear.

The publicity angered Washington because normally the exposed spies are quietly ordered to leave without identities being revealed.

However, authorities went a step further and disclosed the name of the head of CIA operations in Moscow, Steven Hall, a Counsellor at the U.S. Embassy.

The disclosure was a breach of diplomatic protocol. According to a post-Cold War trust-building tradition, the spy agencies of Russia and the U.S. reveal to each other the identities of their respective station chiefs, but do not publicise them.

An FSB spokesman explained the move saying the CIA had “crossed the red line” ignoring repeated warnings to stop trying to recruit Russian secret services personnel.

Austin · Post by **Austin** » 19 May 2013 16:36

The last time station chief name of CIA was reveled he had to flee the country as he could have been actively targeted by terrorist and the country was Pakistan.

Reveling pictures of people caught in spying is not unusual , just 2 years back Anna Chapman and company pictures were all over the news when they were caught in US on long term spy mission.

US and Russia have a long history of spying against each other and any incident will not stop that for sure.

Russian and American Spies Square Off

BTW any news on our own defector Rabinder Singh , How is he enjoying CIA company ?

sum · Post by **sum** » 20 May 2013 07:56

^^ Was (re) watching zero dark thirty yesterday and they show a attempt being made on the CIA analyst's life outside her villa in Isloo.

Dont remember that being in the news anytime about a attempt on a US diplomat's life ( she barely survives the Marriot bombing too). Am guessing it would have been a ISI hitjob

Surya · Post by **Surya** » 21 May 2013 02:19

dramatic movie license

http://gawker.com/declassified-memo-sho ... -493174407

shyamd · Post by **shyamd** » 21 May 2013 12:17

'Sophisticated' Indian cyberattacks targeted Pak military sites, extracted data over 3 years - @IndianExpress http://t.co/rarm3DDrwZ

Of course it will be all forgotten and we'll be back to bashing intel. Bad news sells better