New in SpyWeek: Murders and more

Seth Hettena was absent last week. I have been nailed to the ground for a few days with something that looks suspiciously like Covid, although I never tested positive. This is what I have been able to piece together tonight.

Assassination of Trump: The less we say the better, but it’s clear the Secret Service is in for a beating, because the perpetrator lay undetected in the grass along the fairway all night with an SKS-style assault rifle, a scope, food and bags. Ryan Wesley Routha 58-year-old potential mercenary with a strange criminal history, “apparently spent nearly 12 hours in the brush surrounding the former president’s golf course before a Secret Service agent spotted his gun and opened fire,” according to the federal criminal complaint unsealed Monday in Florida, as reported by The Washington Post and others.

The Motorcycle Killers of Tehran: Iran has turned to foreign criminals to assassinate opponents abroad, The Washington Post reported last Thursday. One of their prominent victims was the exiled Iranian journalist Pouria Zeraati, a presenter on the London-based, anti-regime satellite news channel Iran International. Despite being shuttled from place to place and protected by a team of undercover British agents, Zeraati was “stabbed four times and left bleeding on the pavement outside his home in the London suburb of Wimbledon by assailants who were not from Iran and had no discernible connection to the security services, according to British investigators,” the Post reported. It goes on, citing numerous examples, to say that “in recent years, Iran has outsourced deadly operations and kidnappings to Hells Angels motorcycle gangs, a notorious Russian mafia network known as ‘Thieves in Law,’ a heroin distribution syndicate run by an Iranian drug trafficker and violent criminal groups from Scandinavia to South America.” In plots orchestrated by “elite units” in the IRGC and Tehran’s Intelligence Ministry, Iran has hired underworld “hitmen” to assassinate “a former Iranian military officer living under a false identity in Maryland, an exiled Iranian-American journalist in Brooklyn, a women’s rights activist in Switzerland, LGBTQ+ activists in Germany, and at least five journalists at Iran International, as well as dissidents and critics of the regime in a half-dozen other countries, according to interviews and documents.”

The Saudis and 9/11 – Again: :It’s been almost a quarter century since 9/11, and we’re still learning new facts.

A long-running federal lawsuit has produced evidence that ProPublica says “calls for a fundamental reassessment of the Saudi government’s possible involvement with the hijackers.”

Lawyers suing the Saudi government on behalf of 9/11 survivors and victims’ families have unearthed videos, phone records and other documents collected shortly after the attacks but never shared with key investigators. Saudi officials have long denied involvement in the plot.

ProPublica says the lawsuit has exposed layers of “contradictions and deceit” in the Saudi government’s portrayal of the situation. Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi living in San Diego. It took 16 years for the FBI to determine that Bayoumi was a Saudi spy.

The newly discovered evidence includes a video that Bayoumi filmed outside the US Capitol that the former deputy director of the CIA Michael Morell said it appeared to be a “casing” video. Another videotape captured a party Bayoumi threw in San Diego for the first two 9/11 hijackers to arrive in the United States. New evidence presented in the lawsuit also points to a more significant relationship between those two hijackers and Anwar Awlakian American citizen and Islamic preacher with ties to al Qaeda. Awlaki appears to have met Hazmi and Mihdhar as soon as they arrived in San Diego. He was killed in a drone strike in Yemen in 2011, ordered by President Obama. (Seth Hettena)

Havana Syndrome Again: “The CIA has consistently lied to the American public about anomalous health incidents (AHI) in recent years and may be guilty of obstruction of justice, according to documents recently released by the U.S. government,” Salon columnist Brian Karem claimed in a story Monday.

“A whistleblower filed a complaint with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Inspector General last year. We obtained the information through a FOIA request and a subsequent lawsuit filed by the James Madison Project and attorney Mark Zaid.

“This whistleblower complaint represents the most significant and lawful disclosure of information that undermines the public posture of the Intelligence Community, and specifically the CIA, regarding AHIs,” Zaid said. “The information this whistleblower has seen firsthand directly contradicts the purported conclusions that U.S. personnel, particularly within the IC, are not being targeted by a foreign power using some form of directed energy. It alleges that the existence of classified documents specifically cited in the complaint is being deliberately covered up, including withholding them from other investigating federal agencies.”

DEA Global Retreat: The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is closing two of its hard-won offices in China, The Associated Press reported reported Monday.

“Although rumors have been swirling for months, it was unclear why the DEA is closing its offices in Shanghai and Guangzhou, leaving only its offices in the capital Beijing and the autonomous city of Hong Kong,” AP reported. (“Autonomously governed”?)

But a U.S. official familiar with the closures, who spoke anonymously to the AP to discuss a sensitive diplomatic matter, said China’s cooperation was largely nominal and that agents assigned to field offices faced difficulties obtaining visas and numerous restrictions. as US-China relations deteriorated.

That’s not all: The DEA plans to close 14 offices worldwide, employing more than 100 agents and employees, “including in Russia, Cyprus and Indonesia, home to thriving criminal underworlds with connections to Latin American cartels that traffic much of the cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl sold in the U.S.,” the AP added. “Other offices slated for closure include the Bahamas, Egypt, Georgia, Haiti, Kazakhstan, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nicaragua and Senegal.” There are plans to open offices in Albania and Jordan.

More RT cunning: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced On Friday, “three entities and two individuals were designated for their involvement in Russia’s destabilizing actions abroad,” including the editor-in-chief of RT Margarita Simonjan,for activities designed to “incite unrest in Moldova, likely with the specific aim of turning protests violent. RT is aware of and prepared to support Russian plans to incite protests should the election not result in a Russian-preferred candidate winning the presidency.”

Nothing to see here: RT has been singled out for election meddling time and again, most recently via a third party in Tennessee that pays American influencers handsomely. But a towering figure in the U.S. Senate says there’s nothing to worry about. “I think it’s fair to say that a few memes or videos… aren’t going to make a huge difference in this election, and they haven’t in past elections,” Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton told CNN.

China’s plot to steal a helicopter:Beijing’s intelligence activities in Taiwan have gone beyond the usual theft of secrets related to the island nation’s “key military sites, training and troop deployments” to “a sensational plot to defect a special forces pilot by flying a CH-47 Chinook onto a Chinese aircraft carrier, as well as the creation of propaganda videos by active-duty junior military personnel declaring that they would surrender to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the event of war,” the report said. Worldwide Taiwan Institute.

Russian designs on Norway: “In recent years, civilian life in northern Norway has been under constant, low-level attack. Russian hackers have targeted small towns and ports with phishing scams, ransomware, and other forms of cyberwarfare, and individuals traveling as tourists have been caught photographing sensitive defense and communications infrastructure,” writes Ben Taub in a fascinating long-form article in the September 9 issue of The New Yorker. “Norway’s domestic intelligence service, the PST, has warned of the threat of sabotage to Norwegian train lines and gas facilities that supply energy to much of Europe. A few months ago, someone cut a vital communications cable that ran to a Norwegian air base. “We’ve seen what we believe is a continuous mapping of our critical infrastructure,” Johan Roaldsnesthe regional counterintelligence chief told Taub. “I see it as ongoing preparation for war.”

What Gaza has done: “While there have been no major terrorist attacks in the West since October 7 and the subsequent war in Gaza, terrorists and violent extremists from across the ideological spectrum have taken advantage of the conflict for radicalization, recruitment and calls for violence,” the Soufan Centerled by the legendary former FBI counterterrorism agent Ali Soufansaid in a special report dated September 10. And much, much more. Read the entire nerve-wracking study, “Accelerating Hate: The Impact of October 7 on Terrorism and Political Violence in the West,” here.

About His Majesty’s Secret Service: Donald Trump could ask his fanboy Elon Musk, the oligarchic South African immigrant and conspiracy theorist, for security tips after the Secret Service’s latest blunder at his West Palm Beach golf club.

“Musk, who was once flanked by two bodyguards, now travels with as many as two dozen security professionals who show up to screen escape routes or clear a room before he enters,” the New York Times in a strangely fascinating piece reminiscent of paranoid 20th-century industrialist Howard Hughes. “They often carry weapons and a medical professional for Mr. Musk, who has been code-named ‘Voyager’ by his security team,” they write Kirsten Grind And Jack Ewin.

Moscow Tit for Tat: Russia expels six British diplomats it accuses of spying. Whitehall said the “completely unfounded” move was “related to its action in May to revoke the credentials of an attaché at the Russian embassy and restrict Moscow’s diplomatic activities in London,” AP reported. “Russia’s announcement on Friday that it had expelled six British diplomats was a familiar chess move in the diplomatic game between rivals,” the New York Times wrote Anton Trojanovski And Ivan Nechepurenko in a sequel part“What stood out as more ominous was Warning from President Vladimir V. Putin the night before: that a decision to allow Ukraine to use Western weapons to fire deeper into Russia meant that NATO was “at war” with Russia.”