Thousands of spies active within the West

by Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury

9July 05, Dhaka, Sri Lanka Guardian) Following the arrest of 11 suspected Russian spies in United States, media in the West, including US report that thousands of spies working for various nations, which include Russia, China and Iran are already active inside several Western countries. A former CIA operatives, who told New York Post newspaper that the ten accused Russian spies taken into custody were probably not acting alone: “I would say there are a few thousand here,” said Boris Korczak, a former double agent who worked for the CIA, spying on the KGB from 1973-1980.

“There are more Russian spies here [USA] now than during the Cold War. But out of 1,000 spies, one or two will perform and will get access to our nuclear secrets,” Korczak said.

He also shed some light on the enigmatic Anna Chapman, who is being held in solitary confinement in federal prison in Brooklyn, USA, completely unaware of her media coverage. Korczak believes that Anna Chapman [real name Anya Kuschenko] was likely schooled by the SVR – Russian Federation’s post-KGB intelligence agency in the art of seduction.

Giving description of KGB’s training style, Boris Korczak said, “During the Cold War, 'the Soviet Union had a number of schools that trained beautiful women in how to lure and satisfy powerful, rich, American men, sexually and intellectually. They're called 'worm-on-a-hook' agents. Some of these schools are located in small towns in the southern part of the country [that don't appear on a map]. They are exact replicas of American suburbs such as Chevy Chase, Md etc. Russian spies-in-training in these towns buy groceries at 7-Elevens, eat hamburgers at McDonald's, and watch American TV.”

Meanwhile PRESSTV reports that approximately 300 Russian spies are already operating in United Kingdom. The figure was deemed 'credible' by Edward Lucas, an expert and author on post cold war spying techniques.

"I think what really interests them would be things like, what's the foreign policy of this government going to be under Clegg and Cameron?" he said.

While Lucas believes the spies might be analyzing issues such as the British foreign policy, Alexander Nekrassov, a Russian analyst, says that "there are probably hardened spies, professionals and that would be quite a small number, who would be looking for recruitment, that's the ultimate goal of any intelligence service."

Russia still has a very large and well-resourced intelligence community. SVR, the successor organizations to the KGB is every bit as active as its predecessor. The names may have changed, but the practices haven’t. Today’s Russian agencies appear not even to draw the line at “wet jobs”, as assassinations are known in spy fiction: the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London more than three years ago appears to demonstrate that Russia’s intelligence services are still willing to take extreme measures against individuals believed to be damaging to them.

Western journalists have found it amusing that in today’s technological world, Russian spies are still using some of the old covert communication techniques – invisible ink, brush contacts and dead letter drops. But those methods can have great advantages. If they are cleverly used, they are actually very hard to detect unless the person who is using them is already being watched. That is why those methods were frequently successful during the Cold War, when the level of counter-espionage was much higher than it is today.

British intelligence agency MI5’s website notes that the number of Russian intelligence officers working in Britain is back to Cold War levels. And the Russians are not the only foreign power actively spying in Britain. MI5 also mentions the level of the Chinese espionage attack. They are particularly keen to hoover up designs and plans for new technological developments, partly to copy them and manufacture similar products of their own, which they could then sell back to us, and the rest of the world, more cheaply. The Chinese are also particularly good at hacking into computer systems, with the potential of attacking government computers by planting bugs – bugs that could be activated on command.

While the world is very much focusing on Russian spies in United States and UK, it is high time to think about those ‘Islamist Spies’ or ‘Jihadist Spies’ working in various parts of the West. I have been writing about such squad of Islamist spies since 2001. According to various research and information gathered, I am absolutely convinced that notorious Islamist groups like Al Qaeda, Hamas etc are recruiting females with the agenda of operating Jihad inside 'enemies of Islam'. Most of these women are recruited from Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Iran and India. Before sending them to 'targeted nations', these Islamists spies are given proper orientation courses as well training on making explosives and operating short weapons. Few of them are injected with HIV virus with the instruction of mixing policymakers in the West as well as brilliant Western students in the campuses, with the goal of slowly killing them by passing the virus. Female members of Jihadist spy regiments are sent under-cover, mostly as wives, students and workers. After recruitment and final training, they are shifted to a third country thus obtaining a passport for finally getting set to fly to Western destinations. There are series of allegations that male and female Jihadist spies are penetrating inside important institutions in the West including Pentagon, thus finally succeeding in influencing policymaking matters. It was recently disclosed by scholars that well-trained and educated Jihadist spies have penetrated inside sensitive establishments of US government, wherefrom they already stole information on making sophisticated Electromagnetic Pulse [EMP], which is a broadband, high density, short-duration burst of electromagnetic energy which burns out all electrical components it reaches. One EMP grenade can release the 'electromagnetic shock that disrupts and damages electronics-based control systems, sensors, communication systems, protective systems, computers, and similar devices. Since EMP is electromagnetic radiation traveling at the speed of light, all of the area could possibly be affected almost simultaneously. The result could be that all a brigade's communication if fried, leaving it without air support".

Pakistani intelligence agency ISI [Inter Service Intelligence] is leading the recruitment of Islamist spies, mostly with the assignment of working inside India. These spies are trained within the mountainous territories of Pakistani portion of Kashmir. There are a few training camps for the Islamist spies within this area. People from Nepal, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Iran are recruited by ISI for such missions. A few Pakistani nationals are also in the ring. ISI recruited spies enter various target areas inside India as well establish contacts with important officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as scientific and nuclear research institutes. In most cases, these Islamist Spies of ISI use various models and cine-stars in building a link with those targets. Pakistan though proclaims to be a Muslim nation, these recruits are given training of seducing men with various sexual tactics as well are habituated in consuming substantial volume of alcoholic beverage to make sure that, they never get drunk and disclose either their mission secret or reveal information on the recruiters.

Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is the editor of Weekly Blitz newspaper.