Showing posts with label SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE. Show all posts

6 Oct 2013

Taasisi za usalama nchini Kenya zitaendelea kusuasua kuepusha umwagaji damu kama uliotokea mwezi uliopita kwenye shambulizi kwenye eneo la  maduka ya Westgate, iwapo watendaji wa kada za chini wa vyombo hivyo wataendelea kuwa wanahongeka kirahisi na endapo uhasama baina ya vyombo hivyo utaendelea kuathiri ushirikiano wa kupashana habari za kiusalama.

Shambulio la kigaidi  lililofanywa Septemba 21 mwaka huu na kupelekea zaidi ya vifo 67, na kudumu kwa siku kadhaa, limeishtua nchi hiyo inayojivunia wanausalama wenye uzoefu mkubwa katika kupambana na ugaidi.

Lakini wakati uchunguzi unaendelea katika eneo la tukio ili kuwatambua wahusika na mbinu walizotumia, changamoto mbalimbali kwa taifa hilo lililo mshirika muhimu wa nchi za Magharibi katika kupambana na magaidi wa Kiislam zinaanza kujitokeza.

Maafisa Usalama wa zamani na wa sasa, wanadiplomasia na wataalam wanaelezea vyombo vya usalama vinavyotumia isivyo ujuzi uliopatikana kwa msaada wa Marekani na Uingereza na wakufunzi wengine kwa vile watuhumiwa wanaweza kuhonga na kuepuka kukaguliwa na polisi, huku ushirikiano duni kati ya vymbo vya usalama ukimaanisha ni vigumu kukamilisha taarifa za kiusalama.

Pia wanaharakati wanasema kuwa vyombo vya dola vimeingizwa mno kwenye siasa za ndani ya nchi hiyo badala ya kuweka mkazo kwenye majukumu yao ya kiusalama.

Hakuna anayetarajia kuwa Kenya itaweza kuzwia kila shambulio la kigaidi, na kwa hakika wanadiplomasia wa nchi za Magharibi wanazipongeza taasisi za usalama za nchi hiyo kwa kufanikiwa kuzuwia mashambulizi kadhaa kabla ya hilo la Westgate.

Lakini, kikundi cha kigaidi cha Al-Shabaab,ambacho kimekiri kuhusika na shambulio hilo,  kimedhirisha kuwa Somalia itaendelea kuwa kiota cha kuanzishia mashambulizi ya kigaidi kama hayo.Kenya kama jirani wa Somalia haiwezi kumudu kupuuza mapengo yanayosababishwa na mapungufu ya kitaasisi na utumishi.

"Hata kama utawekeza nguvu kiasi gani katika taasisi za usalama, ruhswa bado itaathiri malengo yako," anasema Meja Jenerali Mstaafu Charles Mwanzia, ambaye alikuwa mkuu wa idara ya usalama jeshini hadi mwaka 2005.

"Ni fundisho chungu na wito wa kuamka ili kuboresha usalama wa nchi hii katika maeneo ya kukusanya na usimamizi wa taarifa za usalama" anasema Jenerali huyo kuhusiana na shambuliz la Westgate.

Dalili za uhasama miongoni mwa vyombo vya dola vya nchi hiyo zilionekana wakati wa mapambano kati ya wanasualama na magaidi katika eneo hilo la maduka jijini Nairobi.

Afisa upelelezi mmoja, ambaye kama wengine, aliongea  na Shirika la Habari la Reuters kwa masharti ya kutotajwa jina, alieleza jinsi kikosi maalum cha jeshi na polisi (General Service Unit) kilichokuwa cha kwanza kufika eneo la tukio kilivyosukumwa kando baada ya askari wa Jeshi la Ulinzi (KDF) kuwasili.

MAADUI DHIDI YA URAFIKI

Kutokuwepo ushirikiano wakati wanajeshi hao wa KDF wanaingilia kati mapambano hayo kulitoa fursa kwa magaidi kujipanga upya, na pengine hiyo ilichangia kurefusha harakati za kuwadhibiti magaidi hao (zilzodumu kwa angalau siku 4). "Maafisa wa ngazi za juu wa GSU na KDF hawakuwa na ushirikiano wa kutoa mwongozo," anaeleza afisa upelelezi huyo.

Serikali ya Kenya ilidai kuwa operesheni ya kukabiliana na magaidi hao iliendeshwa kwa ushirikiano wa vymbo mbalimbali vya dola vikifanya kazi kwa ushirikiano. KDF imejitetea kuwa jeshi la polisi ndilo lililoongoza operesheni hiyo.KDF pia imesema itachunguza tuhuma kuwa baadhi ya askari wake walishiriki kupora mali katika maduka mbalimbali ya Westgate wakati wa operesheni hiyo.

Pamoja na kukoselewa huko, wataalam wa usalama na wanadiplomasia wa nchi za Magharibi walieleza kuwa chombo chochote cha usalama kingekuwa na wakati mgumu kupambana na magaidi hao wenye mafunzo na uwezo wa hali ya juu, katika eneo kubwa kama maduka ya Westgate.

Hata hivyo, wanaona mapungufu katika hatua za kujiandaa na operesheni hiyo dhidi ya magaidi. Wanasema kuwa taasisi za usalama za Kenya hufanya kazi kama maadui baina yao badala ya kushirikiana, hukataa kujumuisha taarifa za kiusalama pamoja, kiasi kwamba tetesi za matishio ya kiusalama zinaweza kutoonekana na pia dondoo zinazopatikana kwenye ufuatiliaji wa washukiwa (surveillance) zinakuwa vigumu kuunda picha ya kuwezesha kfanya maamuzi stahili.

"Ni wazuri katika wanachofanya, hususan katika ukusanyaji wa taarifa za kiusalama...lakini hawajui nini cha kufanya na wanachokipata, na jinsi ya kutengeneza picha kubwa (putting together the big picture)," alisema mtaalam mmoja wa usalama ambaye amefanya kazi na majeshi na idara za usalama za Afrika Mashariki kwa miaka kadhaa.

"Nina hakika hawana mawasiliano kati yao,"alisema kuhusu Idara ya Usalama wa Taifa, kitengo cha usalama wa taifa jeshini na idara za upelelezi na ushushushu za jeshi la polisi.

Wanasiasa wa Kenya na wanahabari wameeleza viokezo mbalimbali ambavyo havikuonwa mapema.Taarifa moja ya kiusalama iliyochapishwa kwenye magazeti, ambayo hata hivyo haikuweza kuthibitishwa rasmi, iliorodhesha nyendo za waliodhaniwa kuwa memba wa Al-Shabaab nchi humo, sambamba na dalili kwamba kuna uwezekano wa shambulizi la kigaidi katika maduka ya Westgate au kanisa.

Wakongwe wa usalama na wanadiplomasia wanaeleza pia kuwa taasisi za kishushushu za nchi za Magharibi nazo zilitetereka katika kuzuia shambulio hilo, kutokana na mawasiliano hafifu miongoni mwao, lakini tatizo hilo ni la dharura zaidi nchini Kenya.

Uratibu hafifu unaweza kuathiri utajiri mkubwa wa Kenya katika uwezo wake kuwafuatilia magaidi, kutoka kwenye mashushushu, majeshi yake nchini Somalia hadi vikosi vya kupambana na ugaidi, ambao hupokea misaada ya vifaa na mafunzo kutoka Marekani, Uingereza na nchi nyingine za Magharibi.

Israeli pia ilitoa msaada wa mafunzo ya kiintelijensia na ilipeleka 'washauri wa usalama' wakati wa tukio la Westgate.

Lakini hata kama intelijensia ingekuwa imara, bado rushwa ingeathiri ufuatiliaji wa watuhumiwa.Kwa fedha zenye thamani ya dola mia kadhaa tu, mtuhumiwa anaweza kununua passport, kupita vikwazo vya upekuzi wa polisi (police checkpoints) pasi kupekuliwa, na kununua silaha, wanaeleza maafisa na wataalam wa usalama.

Hiyo inamaanisha hata kama kuna nyenzo za kisasa kabisa za ufuatiliaji, bado washukiwa wanaweza 'kupotea kwenye rada' na kulazimisha ufuatiliaji usiwe na faida.

KUFIKIA ENEO KUSUDIWA (TARGET)

"Kenya inakabiliwa na tatizo kubwa katika safu ya kati,kwa sababu rushwa imetawala mno kwa polisi wa nchi hiyo" anaeleza mwanadiplomasia mmoja wa nchi ya Magharibi.

"Wamekuwa na mafanikio sana kuwazuwia Al-Shabaab...lakini kitu kisichoweza kukubalika ni jinsi magaidi walivyoweza kuingia nchini na kufikia eneo kusudiwa (target)" anasema mwanadiplomasia huyo.

Hiyo inafanya vigumu kujipenyeza ndani ya vikundi vya kigaidi, jambo ambalo ni muhimu katika kuvidhibiti.

"Inahitaji polisi mmoja tu mlarushwa kuwezesha ukiukwaji mkubwa wa kiusalama, kupita mpakani isivyostahili, kwa shilingi kutumbukizwa mfukoni na mtu kufanikiwa kuvuka mpaka," anaeleza mtaalam mwingine.

Jeshi la polisi linadai linauhamasisha umma kuripoti rushwa na kuchukua hatua stahili za kinidhamu.

"Hatuwezi kusema hakuna rushwa," alikiri Msemaji wa Polisi, Gatiria Mboroki, lakini akaongeza kuwa "Ukisharipoti, tukio hilo huchunguzwa."

Afisa mmoja wa zamani wa usalama wa taifa anaeleza kuwa wakati flani alijaribu kuwathibitishia wenzake jinsi rushwa ilivyo sugu, ambapo aliweza kuwaingiza nchini humo watoa habari wake kutoka Somalia baada ya kununua passport kwa dola 300 kila moja.

"Nikwenda mbali kuthibitisha kuwa udhibiti katika mipaka yetu ni dhaifu," alisema.

Mageuzi kwa jeshi la polisi yalikuwa moja ya vipaumbele vya Katiba mpya ya Kenya ya mwaka 2010. Lakini ukiweka kando uteuzi wa maafisa waandamizi, mageuzi kwa polisi hayajaleta chochote cha maana.

"Wanasema lakini hawafanyi lolote kuhusu hicho wanachosema. Haihitaji fedha.Inahitaji mabadiliko ya mtazamo," anasema mpigania haki Maina Kiai. "Mashushushu wanapaswa kufahamu kuwa kazi yao sio ya kisiasa, ni ya kiusalama."

Kauli hiyo iliungwa mkono na afisa wa zamani wa Idara ya Usalama wa Taifa ambaye alieleza kuwa wanausalama walivurugwa na Uchaguzi Mkuu uliopita. "Usalama wote umeelekezwa kwenye usalama wa kisiasa badala ya usalama wa taifa," alisema.

Ushindi wa Rais Uhuru Kenyatta katika uchaguzi mkuu uliopita ulionyesha kuwa ukabila bado ulikuwa na nafasi muhimu kwa wapiga kura, suala ambalo pia linaathiri teuzi za watendaji mbalimbali katika taasisi za usalama.

Serikali imedai kuwa teuzi hufanywa kwa kuzingatia uwezo, sio asili ya mteuliwa. Msemaji wa Polisi Mboroki kuwa jeshi la polisi haliyumbishwi na wanasiasa kwani ni taasisi ya umma.

Hata hivyo, wanaharakati na wataalam wanasema hatua zaidi zinahitajika.

"Pasipo mfumo wa kuwawajibisha kwa matendo yao na kuondoa rushwa," anasema mataalam wa usalama, "hakuna chochote kitakachobadilika."

Imetafsiriwa kutoka wavuti ya Reuters






16 Jun 2013


Washington- Rais Obama atapokwenda Afrika Kusini mwa Sahara mwezi huu, taasisi zenye jukumu la usalama wake hazifanyi lelemama.

Mamia wa mashushushu wa Kikosi cha Ulinzi wa Rais wa Marekani (US Secret Service) watasambazwa katika maeneo ya usalama huko Senegal, Afrika ya Kusini na Tanzania. Manowari ya Jeshi la Vita la Marekani inayotumika kubeba ndege za kivita au nyambizi, ikiwa na matabibu waliokamilika, itakuwa imeegeshwa pwani kwa ajili ya dharura.

Ndege za kijeshi za kubeba mizigo zitasafirisha magari 56, ikiwa ni pamoja na 'limousines' 14 na magari ya mizigo matatu yote yakiwa na makasha ya vioo visivyopenya risasi vitakavyowekwa katika madirisha ya hoteli atakazofikia Obama na familia yake. Ndege za kivita zitakuwa 'zikizurura' angani kwa zamu, kuwezesha ulinzi wa masaa 24 katika 'anga ya Rais' ili ziweze kuchukua hatua pindi ndege ya adui itakapoingilia kati.

Maandalizi haya mahsusi ya kiusalama-ambayo yataigharimu Serikali ya Marekani makumi ya mailioni ya dola- yapo kwenye nyaraka ya siri iliyopatikana kwa gazeti hili (la Washington Post). Wakati maandalizi hayo yanaendana na mengineyo katika safari nyingine, nyaraka husika inatoa picha ya jitihada za hali ya juu katika kumlinda Amiri Jeshi Mkuu wa wa majeshi ya Marekani anapokuwa ziarani nje ya nchi hiyo.

Safari yoyote ya Rais, kama za wiki hii huko Ireland ya Kaskazini na Ujerumani, zina changamoto na gharama kubwa kilojistiki.Lakini safari hii ya Afrika inakuwa ngumu zaidi kutokana na sababu mbalimbali, na inaweza kuwa yenye gharama zaidi kuliko zote katika utawala wa Obama, kwa mujibu wa watu walio karibu na maandalizi hayo.

Famili ya Obama inatarajiwa kutembelea nchi hizo tatu kuanzia June 26 hadi Julai 3 ambapo maafisa wa Marekani ndio watakaokuwa na jukumu la kuhudumia takriban kila kitu, badala ya kutegemea hudma za polisi, jeshi na hospitali katika nchi wenyeji.

Rais Obama na mkewe pia WALIPANGA KUFANYA ZIARA KWENYE MBUGA ZA WANYAMA ('SAFARI' kwa Kiingereza), ambayo ingehitaji kikosi cha kupambana na mashambulizi dhidi ya Rais kubeba silaha maalum zenye risasi maalum za kumudu kuwaangamiza duma, simba na wanyama wengine hatariu wa mwituni endapo wangekuwa tishio, kwa mujibu wa nyaraka hiyo 

Lakini maafisa walisema Alhamisi kuwa ZIARA HIYO (YA MBUGANI) IMEAHIRISHWA [ NA HII NDIO SABABU ILIYOPELEKEA UZUSHI WA BAADHI YA MABLOGA KUWA ZIARA YA OBAMA KUJA TANZANIA IMEFUTWA] na badala yake imeandaliwa ziara ya kutembelea Kisiwa cha Robben pembezoni mwa pwani ya Cape Town, Afrika Kusini, ambapo Nelson Mandela alifungwa kama mfungwa wa kisiasa.

Gazeti hili lilipowauliza maafisa wa  Ikulu ya Marekani (White House) kuhusu ZIARA YA MBUGANI ('safari') mapema mwezi huu,walisema hawajafikia uamuzi wa mwisho kuhusu suala hilo.Afisa mmoja wa Ikulu hiyo alieleza Alhamisi kuwa kufutwa kwa ziara hiyo ya mbugani hakukuhusiana na udadisi uliofanywa na gazeti hili hapo awali.

"Hatuna nyenzo zisizo na ukomo kufanikisha safari ya Rais, na tumeipa kipaumbele ziara ya Kisiwa cha Robben badala ya ziara ya MASAA MAWILI mbugani nchini Tanzania," alieleza msemaji Josh Earnest. "Kwa bahati mbaya, hatuwezi kufanya mambo yote mawili." [HEBU ANGALIA HAPA JINSI BLOGA HUSIKA ALIVYOCHAPIA SENTENSI HIYO NA HATA JINA LA MSEMAJI HUYO WA IKULU]

Nyaraka za ndani za kiutawala zilizosambazwa mwezi April zilionyesha kuwa familia ya Obama ilipanga kufanya ziara zote mbili- ya mbugani na kisiwani, kwa mujibu wa mtu anayefahamu maandalizi hayo.

Marais wa zamani, Bill Clinton na George W. Bush pia waliwahi kufanya ziara za mataifa mbalimbali ya Afrika, ambazo zilihitaji maandalizi magumu kama haya. Bush alikwenda mwaka 2003 na 2008, akiambatana na mkewe katika safari zote hizo. Mabinti wawili wa Bush pia walisafiri naye katika ziara ya kwanza, ambayo ilijumuisha 'safari' kwenye hifadhi ya wanyama katika mpaka wa Botswana na Afrika Kusini.

"Hata katika nchi zilizoendelea za Ulaya ya Magharibi, kiwango cha huduma kinachohitajika kwa ajili ya ziara ya rais ni cha hali ya juu," alisema Steve Atkiss, ambaye alikuwa mwandaaji wa ziara akiwa msaidizi maalum wa hudma kwa Bush. "Kadri unavykwenda mbali zaidi, katika maendeo yenye maendeleo duni, kwa hakika ni changamoto ya kilojistiki."

Ikulu ya Marekani na Mashushushu wa Secret Service wamekataa kuzungumzia mipango ya kiusalama, na wasiaidizi wa kiutawala wametahadharisha kuwa maandalizi ya safari ya rais hayajahitimishwa.

Safari za nje za Obama zinakuja wakati taasisi za serikali, ikiwa pamoja na Secret Service, zinapambana na kukata matumizi kwa lazima. Walinzi hao wa Rais walilazimika kukata dola milioni 84 katika bajeti yao ya mwaka huu, na mwaka huu Idara hiyo ilifuta ziara za wageni kutembelea Ikulu ya Marekani (kiutalii) ili kuokoa dola 74,000 kwa wiki ambazo ni gharama za watumishi kufanya kazi nje ya muda (overtime).

Taarifa nyingi kuhusu ziara za Rais nje ya nchi hufanywa siri kwa sababu za kiusalama wa taifa, na kuna ufahamu kidogo  tu kwa umma kuhusu gharama za jumla. Ripoti kutoka Ofisi ya Uwajibikaji wa Serikali ilionyesha kuwa ziara ya Clinton barani Afrika mwaka 1998 alipozuru nchi sita iliigharimu Serikali ya Marekani angalau dola miloni 42.7.Kiwango hicho kilitumika zaidi na Jeshi, ambalo lilifanya safari 98 kusafirisha watendaji na magari,na kuandaa maendeo ya dharura za kimatibu katika nchi tano.

Kiwango hicho hakikujumuisha gharama za Secret Service ambazo zinachukuliwa kama siri.

Ziara ya Obama inaweza kugharimu kati ya dola milioni 60 hadi milioni 100 kwa kuzingatia gharama za safari za nyuma barani Afrika. Nyaraka ya Secret Service kuhusu ziara hiyo,ambayo ilionwa na gazeti hii, iliyowasilishwa na mtu anayeguswa na gharama za ziara hiyo, haikuonyesha Idara hiyo itatumia kiasi gani cha fedha.

"Miundombinu inayoambatana na ziara za Rais zipo nje ya uwezo wetu," alisema Ben Rhodes, Naibu Mshauri wa Usalama wa taifa wa Obama katika mawasiliano ya kimkakati. "Mahitaji ya kiusalama hayapangiw na Ikulu, hupangwa na Secret Service."

Maafisa wa zamani na wa sasa wa usalama wa serikali waliohusika na ziara za rais walibainisha kuwa watendaji wa Ikulu nao husaidia katika kuainisha mahitaji hayo, kwani hupanga sehemu za kutembelea na mipaka yake. Secret Service na Jeshi hufuatilia maandalizi hayo ya ziara yaliyowasilishwa kwao kwa kutaja mahitaji ya kiusalama.

Maafisa wa Ikulu ya Marekani wamesema kuwa dhamira ya ziara hiyo imekuwepo kitambo sasa, na itakuwa ya kwanza kwa Obama kama Rais kutembelea Afrika Kusini mwa Sahara licha ya 'kusimama' kwa masaa 22 nhini Ghana kwa msaa 22. Demokrasia changa zilizomo kwenye ratiba ya ziara hiyo ni washirika muhimu wa kiusalama katika eneo hilo, Rhodes alisema.

Obama atafanya mikutano na kila kiongozi wa nchi atakayotembela kwa minajili ya kujenga ushirikiano bora wa kiuchumi katika wakati huu ambapo China inawekeza vya kutosha barani Afrika. Pia atapigia mstari  programu za afya, ikiwa ni pamoja na mapambano dhidi ya Ukimwi.

Mke wa Rais, ambaye alitembelea Afrika Kusini na Botswana bila ya mumewe mwaka 2011, atashiriki kwenye baadhi ya amtukio katika ziara hiyo. Hilo pia ni changamoto la kilojistiki kwa vile naye atahitaji maandalizi tofauti ya kiusalama kuhusu walinzi na magari, kwa mujibu wa nyaraka hiyo.

Msemaji wa Secret Service, Ed Donovan, alikataa kuzungumzia maandalizi ya ziara hiyo. "Siku zote huwa tunatoa kiwango stahili cha ulinzi kutengeneza mazingira salama," alisema.

Kwa mujibu wa nyaraka ya Secret Service, Obama atakaa siku moja Dakar, Senegal, siku mbili Johannesburg,Afrika Kusini, na siku moja Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

KATI YA MAGARI 56 KWA AJILI YA ZIARA HIYO NI 'LIMOUSINES' KWA AJILI YA RAIS NA MKEWE , GARI MAALUM LA MAWASILIANO YA SIMU NA VIDEO, GARI LA KUZUWIA MAWASILANO YA MAWIMBI (FREQUENCIES) YA RADIO KUZUNGUKA GARI LA RAIS, GARI LILILOJITOSHELEZA LA WA WAGONJWA (ambulance) AMBALO LINAMUDU KUKABILIANA NA MAAMBUKIZI YA KIBAIOLOJIA NA KIKEMIKALI NA GARI LA VIFAA VYA MIONZI YA X-RAY

Mashushushu wa Secret Service husafirisha magari kama hayo, pamoja na vioo vya kuzuwia risasi, katika ziara nyingi, ikiwa ni pamoja na zile za ndani ya Marekani, msemaji wa Ikulu alieleza. Lakini kwa vile kuna nchi tatu zinazohusika katika ziara hiyo, kunahitajika seti tatu za maandalizi hayo,kwa sababu hakuna muda wa kutosha wa kuhamisha vifaa, kwa mujibu wa nyaraka hiyo.

Mashushushu 100 wanahitajika kama 'waangalizi' - kumudu maeneo ya kumzunguka Rais- katika kila mji atakaozuru. 66 wanahitajika kumpokea Obama jijini Dar es Salaam. Kabla 'safari' ya Mbuga ya Taifa ya Mikumi haijaahirishwa wiki iliyopita, ziada ya mashushushu 35 ilijumuishwa kwenye maandalizi hayo ili kumlinda Rais, mkewe na mabinti zao wawili, kwa mujibu wa nyaraka hiyo.

Kadhalika, kati ya mashushushu 80 hadi 100 watasafiri na kufanya kazi kwa shifti kwa masaa 24, kwa ajili ya ulinzi wa Obama na familia yake, vikosi vya kupambana na mashambulizi (counterassault teams) na waandaaji wa lojistiki.

Nyaraka hiyo ya maandalizi ya ziara haionyeshi idadi ya mashushushu watakaohusika na ziara hiyo, japo baadhi watafanya kazi katika kituo zaidi ya kimoja.

Maafisa walisema Secret Service haitaki ziara ya Rais pasipo kituo cha hali ya juu cha jirani cha kukabili maradhi. Kitengo cha utabibu cha Ikulu hufanya maamuzi kuhusu hospitali gani Rais awapo ziarani nje ya nchi kinakidhi viwango, kwa kufanya ziara kwenye nchi husika, maafisa walieleza.

Katika nchi zinazoendelea, Jeshi la Majini la Marekani huweka 'hospitali inayoelea' kwenye manowari ya kubeba ndege au nyambizi, jirani.

"Hivi  ndivyo inavyohitajika kuilinda taasisi ya  urais wa Marekani," alisema Atkiss kuhusu mahitaji husika, "pasi kujali nani ni rais."


31 Aug 2012

26 Sept 2011


Wajuzi wa mambo wanadai kuwa moja ya mambo yanayopunguza ufanisi wa Idara yetu ya Usalama wa Taifa ni tabia iliyoota mizizi ambapo kila kigogo anataka kumpatia mwanae,mpwae,mtoto wa rafiki yake,nk katika ajira ya taasisi hiyo nyeti.Haina ubaya kutoa ajira iwapo mwajiriwa mtarajiwa atakuwa na sifa husika.Lakini uzoefu umeonyesha kuwa kanuni na taratibu zinabemendwa makusudi ili ajira hizo ziende kwa watu wa karibu wa vigogo hao.

Kibaya zaidi ni ukweli kwamba wengi wa watoto wa vigogo wanapopata ajira kwenye taasisi kama hii ambayo msingi wake mkubwa ni uzalendo wa mtumishi husika hujiona kama 'untouchables' flani,wanafanya mambo wapendavyo,usumbufu mtaani kwa zile 'unajua mimi ni nani/nafanya kazi wapi' huku bastola zikiachwa zionekane waziwazi kama Aden Rage.Wengi wa hawa vijana hawafahamu jukumu kubwa walilonalo kwenye kila sekunde ya uhai wa Mtanzania.Don't get me wrong kuwa ninajifanya kuelewa sana mambo haya lakini ukweli ni kwamba taaluma ya ushushushu ni uti wa mgongo wa uhai wa taifa lolote lile duniani.Idara ya Usalama ya nchi ikiyumba,nchi nayo inayumba.Watu wengi hawaelewi umuhimu wa chombo hiki kwa vile kimaadili kinapaswa kufanya kazi zake kwa siri,japo watoto wa vigogo wanaona usiri huo kama kero.

Anyway,nimekutana na tangazo la ajira za ushushusu katika 'Idara ya Usalama' (wa ndani-yaani ya kuzuia ujasusi) ya Uingereza-MI5 au kwa kirefu Military Inteligence,Section 5)-ambalo limewekwa kwenye gazeti la bure la kila siku la METRO.Utaratibu huu ambao sitarajii kuuona ukiigwa na taasisi nyingi za usalama duniani,achilia mbali yetu,unaweza kusaidia sana kufanya zoezi zima la kuajiri (recruitment process) kuwa ya huru,wazi na inayowekea mkazo uwezo,ujuzi na sifa za mwombaji kazi (based on merit(s)).

Hii ni mada nyeti kwahiyo naomba niishie hapa.Ukiwa na swali,usisite kuniuliza (majibu yatategemea swali limeulizwaje).

6 Jul 2011

Mkurugenzi Mkuu wa Idara ya Usalam wa Taifa Rashid Othman (wa tatu kushoto,mwenye shati la kitenge)
Naibu Mkurugenzi Mkuu wa TISS, Jack Zoka

Wabunge walipua Usalama wa Taifa  
Tuesday, 05 July 2011 21:00

Ramadhan Semtawa, Dar
WABUNGE watatu jana waliishambulia Idara ya Usalama wa Taifa (TISS), bungeni baada ya kueleza kuwa imeshindwa kuzuia uhujumu uchumi na badala yake imejikita kwenye siasa za kukipendelea chama tawala, CCM na kuukandamiza upinzani.

Tuhuma hizo zinakuja wakati tayari nchi imetikiswa na matukio kadhaa ya ufisadi ikiwamo wizi wa zaidi ya Sh133 bilioni katika Akaunti ya Madeni ya Nje (EPA) ndani ya Benki Kuu ya Tanzania (BoT), ununuzi wa rada ya kijeshi na ufisadi unaodaiwa kufanywa katika kampuni za Meremeta, Tangold na Deep Green Finance.

Kwa nyakati tofauti wakichangia Makadirio ya Mapato na Matumizi ya Ofisi ya Rais (Utumishi, Utawala Bora na Uratibu na Mahusiano ya Jamii), wabunge hao waliirushia makombora idara hiyo na kupendekeza ikajifunze nje jinsi ya kufanya kazi zake.

Mbunge wa Iringa Mjini, Mchungaji Peter Msigwa, ndiye alikuwa mwiba zaidi baada ya kuweka bayana kwamba idara hiyo imeshindwa kusaidiana na Taasisi ya Kuzuia na Kupambana na Rushwa (Takukuru), kuzuia rushwa kubwa zinazohujumu uchumi wa nchi.

Mchungaji Msigwa ambaye alizungumza kwa hisia kali, alisema idara hiyo imegeuka chombo cha kulinda maslahi ya kisiasa hasa ya CCM na kukandamiza upinzani huku ikiacha uchumi wa nchi ukiendelea kuhujumiwa.

Kwa mujibu wa Msigwa, endapo Idara ya Usalama wa Taifa, ingetumia nguvu nyingi kuzuia uhujumu uchumi kama inavyotumia kukandamiza upinzani kwa kujihusisha kwenye siasa, nchi ingeweza kupiga hatua kubwa.

Alitaka watendaji wake kwenda kujifunza majukumu yao nje ya nchi badala ya kuendelea kujihusisha na siasa kama wanavyofanya sasa.Mchungaji Msigwa alisema nchi inakabiliwa na maadui ndani na nje hivyo ni vema idara ikajikita katika kuwashughulikia hao kuliko kujiingiza zaidi kwenye siasa na kugeuka idara ya usalama ya CCM.


Takukuru na rushwa
Akizungumzia Takukuru na mapambano dhidi ya rushwa kubwa, Mchungaji Msigwa alimtaka Mkurugenzi Mkuu wa taasisi hiyo, Dk Edward Hoseah, kuendeleza mapambano na kama wakubwa wakimwekea kiwingu katika utendaji wake, bora aachie ngazi.

Msigwa alifafanua kwamba, hata katika nchi za Kenya na Uganda, wakuu wa taasisi za kupambana na rushwa walipoona mambo ni magumu kutokana na wakubwa kuwadhibiti, waliamua kuachia nyadhifa zao.

Mnyika naye ashambulia usalama
Mbunge wa Ubungo John Mnyika, naye alitumia mjadala huo kuipa somo TISS akiitaka iachane na siasa za kukandamiza upinzani bali ijikite katika kulinda maslahi ya taifa.

Katibu huyo wa wabunge wote wa Chadema bungeni, alisema kazi kubwa za idara hiyo isiwe kujiingiza kwenye siasa kwa kukandamiza upinzani bali kuangalia mustakabali mzuri wa nchi.

Mnyaa: Idara imejikita Bara
Mbunge wa Mkanyageni (CUF), Habib Mnyaa, alisema awali Usalama wa Taifa ulikuwa ukijitegemea kwa upande wa Zanzibar na iliyokuwa Tanganyika ambayo kwa sasa inaitambulika kwa mwavuli wa Tanzania Bara.

Hata hivyo, alisema baada ya idara hiyo kuunganishwa miaka ya 1980, idara hiyo inaonekana kujikita zaidi Bara huku Zanzibar ikikosa hata ofisi kubwa ya maana kwa ajili ya operesheni.

Maji Marefu aikingia kifua
Hata hivyo, mbunge wa Korogwe Vijijini (CCM), Stephen Ngonyani maarufu kama Profesa Majimarefu, alipinga hoja za wabunge wenzake hao, akisema hawaitendei haki kwani imekuwa ikifanya kazi kubwa kulinda usalama wa taifa.

Kwa mujibu wa Ngonyani, wakosoaji hao wa TISS wanapaswa kuwa mashuhuda kwa kwenda nchi jirani na nyingine za Afrika, ambako usalama wa taifa ni mbaya, huku zikikabiliwa na vitisho vikubwa vya mauaji na vurugu.

Akisisitiza alitoa mfano wa nchi moja (hakuitaja) ambako aliwahi kuingizwa ndani kulala wakati wa mchana kutokana na hali mbaya ya usalama katika taifa na kusisisiza, "ninyi mnaoisema Idara ya Usalama wa Taifa hebu acheni kauli zenu hizo."

"Nendeni nchi jirani au kwingine mkaangalie, mimi niliwahi kuingizwa ndani mchana kwenda kulala kutokana na hali mbaya ya usalama. Hapa kwetu Idara inafanya kazi kubwa, nchi imetulia," alizidi kuikingia kifua na kuwararua wakosoaji.

Katika kuonyesha jinsi idara hiyo inavyofanya kazi kwa ufanisi, Ngonyani alitaka Serikali kuongezea mishahara watumishi wa TISS na kuongeza, "hawa vijana tunashinda nao hapa hadi saa 4:00 usiku wanaangalia usalama halafu tunawasema hawafanyi kazi!"

"Tena nasema waongezewe mishara, vijana wanafanya kazi nzuri na kubwa ya kulinda nchi. Tunapaswa kuwapa nguvu siyo kuwalaumu siyo sahihi hata kidogo," alisisitiza Ngonyani.

Katika miaka ya karibuni hasa baada ya kuongezeka vuguvugu la vyama vingi vya siasa, TISS imekuwa ikikokosolewa na baadhi ya watu kutokana na kuacha baadhi ya misingi yake ya kulinda maslahi ya taifa ikiwamo uchumi, kama ilivyokuwa ikifanya wakati wa Awamu ya Kwanza chini ya Baba wa Taifa, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere.

Mwaka jana baada ya matokeo ya Uchaguzi Mkuu, idara hiyo pia ilijikuta katika tuhuma za kile kilichoelezwa na Chadema kwamba, ilitumikia kuchakachua matokeo ya kura za urais, hali iliyomlazimu Naibu Mkirugenzi Mkuu Jack Zoka, kujitokeza hadharani na kufanya mkutano na waandishi wa habari kuondoa hali tete na giza lililokuwa limegubika nchi. Zoka alikanusha tuhuma hizo kwamba Idara ilihusika katika kuchakachukua matokeo ya urais.

CHANZO: Mwananchi

5 Jul 2011




ADAM GOLDMAN and MATT APUZZO   07/ 5/11 12:09 AM ET   AP
React
WASHINGTON -- After Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden, the White House released a photo of President Barack Obama and his Cabinet inside the Situation Room, watching the daring raid unfold.
Hidden from view, standing just outside the frame of that now-famous photograph was a career CIA analyst. In the hunt for the world's most-wanted terrorist, there may have been no one more important. His job for nearly a decade was finding the al-Qaida leader.
The analyst was the first to put in writing last summer that the CIA might have a legitimate lead on finding bin Laden. He oversaw the collection of clues that led the agency to a fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. His was among the most confident voices telling Obama that bin Laden was probably behind those walls.
The CIA will not permit him to speak with reporters. But interviews with former and current U.S. intelligence officials reveal a story of quiet persistence and continuity that led to the greatest counterterrorism success in the history of the CIA. Nearly all the officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters or because they did not want their names linked to the bin Laden operation.
The Associated Press has agreed to the CIA's request not to publish his full name and withhold certain biographical details so that he would not become a target for retribution.
Call him John, his middle name.
John was among the hundreds of people who poured into the CIA's Counterterrorism Center after the Sept. 11 attacks, bringing fresh eyes and energy to the fight.
He had been a standout in the agency's Russian and Balkan departments. When Vladimir Putin was coming to power in Russia, for instance, John pulled together details overlooked by others and wrote what some colleagues considered the definitive profile of Putin. He challenged some of the agency's conventional wisdom about Putin's KGB background and painted a much fuller portrait of the man who would come to dominate Russian politics.
That ability to spot the importance of seemingly insignificant details, to weave disparate strands of information into a meaningful story, gave him a particular knack for hunting terrorists.
"He could always give you the broader implications of all these details we were amassing," said John McLaughlin, who as CIA deputy director was briefed regularly by John in the mornings after the 2001 attacks.
From 2003, when he joined the counterterrorism center, through 2005, John was one of the driving forces behind the most successful string of counterterrorism captures in the fight against terrorism: Abu Zubaydah, Abd al-Nashiri, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Ramzi bin Alshib, Hambali and Faraj al-Libi.
But there was no greater prize than finding bin Laden.
Bin Laden had slipped away from U.S. forces in the Afghan mountains of Tora Bora in 2001, and the CIA believed he had taken shelter in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. In 2006, the agency mounted Operation Cannonball, an effort to establish bases in the tribal regions and find bin Laden. Even with all its money and resources, the CIA could not locate its prime target.
By then, the agency was on its third director since Sept. 11, 2001. John had outlasted many of his direct supervisors who retired or went on to other jobs. The CIA doesn't like to keep its people in one spot for too long. They become jaded. They start missing things.
John didn't want to leave. He'd always been persistent. In college, he walked on to a Division I basketball team and hustled his way into a rotation full of scholarship players.
The CIA offered to promote him and move him somewhere else. John wanted to keep the bin Laden file.
He examined and re-examined every aspect of bin Laden's life. How did he live while hiding in Sudan? With whom did he surround himself while living in Kandahar, Afghanistan? What would a bin Laden hideout look like today?
The CIA had a list of potential leads, associates and family members who might have access to bin Laden.
"Just keep working that list bit by bit," one senior intelligence official recalls John telling his team. "He's there somewhere. We'll get there."
John rose through the ranks of the counterterrorism center, but because of his nearly unrivaled experience, he always had influence beyond his title. One former boss confessed that he didn't know exactly what John's position was.
"I knew he was the guy in the room I always listened to," the official said.
While he was shepherding the hunt for bin Laden, John also was pushing to expand the Predator program, the agency's use of unmanned airplanes to launch missiles at terrorists. The CIA largely confined those strikes to targets along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. But in late 2007 and early 2008, John said the CIA needed to carry out those attacks deeper inside Pakistan.
It was a risky move. Pakistan was an important but shaky ally. John's analysts saw an increase in the number of Westerners training in Pakistani terrorist camps. John worried that those men would soon start showing up on U.S. soil.
"We've got to act," John said, a former senior intelligence official recalls. "There's no explaining inaction."
John took the analysis to then CIA Director Michael Hayden, who agreed and took the recommendation to President George W. Bush. In the last months of the Bush administration, the CIA began striking deeper inside Pakistan. Obama immediately adopted the same strategy and stepped up the pace. Recent attacks have killed al-Qaida's No. 3 official, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, and Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.
All the while, John's team was working the list of bin Laden leads. In 2007, a female colleague whom the AP has also agreed not to identify decided to zero in on a man known as Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, a nom de guerre. Other terrorists had identified al-Kuwaiti as an important courier for al-Qaida's upper echelon, and she believed that finding him might help lead to bin Laden.
"They had their teeth clenched on this and they weren't going to let go," McLaughlin said of John and his team. "This was an obsession."
It took three years, but in August 2010, al-Kuwaiti turned up on a National Security Agency wiretap. The female analyst, who had studied journalism at a Big Ten university, tapped out a memo for John, "Closing in on Bin Laden Courier," saying her team believed al-Kuwaiti was somewhere on the outskirts of Islamabad.
As the CIA homed in on al-Kuwaiti, John's team continually updated the memo with fresh information. Everyone knew that anything with bin Laden's name on it would shoot right to the director's desk and invite scrutiny, so the early drafts played down hopes that the courier would lead to bin Laden. But John saw the bigger picture. The hunt for al-Kuwaiti was effectively the hunt for bin Laden, and he was not afraid to say so.
The revised memo was finished in September 2010. John, by then deputy chief of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Department, emailed it to those who needed to know. The title was "Anatomy of a Lead."
As expected, the memo immediately became a hot topic inside CIA headquarters and Director Leon Panetta wanted to know more. John never overpromised, colleagues recall, but he was unafraid to say there was a good chance this might be the break the agency was looking for.
The CIA tracked al-Kuwaiti to a walled compound in Abbottabad. If bin Laden was hiding there, in a busy suburb not far from Pakistan's military academy, it challenged much of what the agency had assumed about his hideout.
But John said it wasn't that far-fetched. Drawing on what he knew about bin Laden's earlier hideouts, he said it made sense that bin Laden had surrounded himself only with his couriers and family and did not use phones or the Internet. The CIA knew that top al-Qaida operatives had lived in urban areas before.
A cautious Panetta took the information to Obama, but there was much more work to be done.
The government tried everything to figure out who was in that compound.
In a small house nearby, the CIA put people who would fit in and not draw any attention. They watched and waited but turned up nothing definitive. Satellites captured images of a tall man walking the grounds of the compound, but never got a look at his face.
Again and again, John and his team asked themselves who else might be living in that compound. They came up with five or six alternatives; bin Laden was always the best explanation.
This went on for months. By about February, John told his bosses, including Panetta, that the CIA could keep trying, but the information was unlikely to get any better. He told Panetta this might be their best chance to find bin Laden and it would not last forever. Panetta made that same point to the president
Panetta held regular meetings on the hunt, often concluding with an around-the-table poll: How sure are you that this is bin Laden?
John was always bullish, rating his confidence as high as 80 percent.
Others weren't so sure, especially those who had been in the room for operations that went bad. Not two years earlier, the CIA thought it had an informant who could lead him to bin Laden's deputy. That man blew himself up at a base in Khost, Afghanistan, killing seven CIA employees and injuring six others.
That didn't come up in the meetings with Panetta, a senior intelligence official said. But everyone knew the risk the CIA was taking if it told the president that bin Laden was in Abbottabad and was wrong.
"We all knew that if he wasn't there and this was a disaster, certainly there would be consequences," the official recalled.
John was among several CIA officials who repeatedly briefed Obama and others at the White House. Current and former officials involved in the discussions said John had a coolness and a reassuring confidence.
By April, the president had decided to send the Navy SEALs to assault the compound.
Though the plan was in motion, John went back to his team, a senior intelligence official said.
"Right up to the last hour," he told them, "if we get any piece of information that suggests it's not him, somebody has to raise their hand before we risk American lives."
Nobody did. Inside the Situation Room, the analyst who was barely known outside the close-knit intelligence world took his place alongside the nation's top security officials, the household names and well-known faces of Washington.
An agonizing 40 minutes after Navy SEALs stormed the compound, the report came back: Bin Laden was dead.
John and his team had guessed correctly, taking an intellectual risk based on incomplete information. It was a gamble that ended a decade of disappointment. Later, Champagne was uncorked back at the CIA, where those in the Counterterrorism Center who had targeted bin Laden for so long celebrated. John's team reveled in the moment.
Two days after bin Laden's death, John accompanied Panetta to Capitol Hill. The Senate Intelligence Committee wanted a full briefing on the successful mission. At one point in the private session, Panetta turned to the man whose counterterrorism resume spanned four CIA directors.
He began to speak, about the operation and about the years of intelligence it was based on. And as he spoke about the mission that had become his career, the calm, collected analyst paused, and he choked up.

___


4 Oct 2010

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5 Sept 2010

The policeman who found the body of MI6 codebreaker Gareth Williams said it was submerged in ‘fluid’, The Mail on Sunday has learned.An inquest heard last week that the 31-year-old spy was padlocked in a sports hold-all and left in the bath of his two-bedroom flat in Pimlico, Central London.But the disclosure that he was also covered by liquid – not thought to be blood or water – has raised fears that a substance was used to accelerate decay and complicate toxicology tests.

The revelation came as new details emerged of the highly sensitive nature of Mr Williams’s work.A source said he had the highest security clearance available to an intelligence officer and was part of a secretive ‘cell’ that created devices that can steal data from mobiles and laptops.

Now, nearly two weeks after cycling enthusiast Mr Williams was found in his flat, police are apparently no nearer to learning how or when he died.This is despite a post-mortem, a second examination and toxicology tests, the results of which might not be available for weeks.

Sources close to the inquiry say the PC who found the body described it as being in ‘fluid’ when he radioed for assistance. Detectives at the scene are understood to have used the same word in their reports.Immediately after making the discovery at the flat, the PC said: ‘This is a murder scene.’

Mr Williams, from Anglesey, North Wales, worked as a cipher and codes expert for the Government’s eavesdropping centre GCHQ in Cheltenham.He was on a year-long secondment to MI6 which was due to end days after he was found dead.Police and security sources have indicated that the explanation for his death is more likely to be found in his personal life rather than his work.

But speculation that he was the victim of a professional ‘hit’ was given credence last night after further details of his work were disclosed.‘He was involved in some very sensitive projects, known as codeword protected,’ said a security expert.‘This meant that only the people in his cell would know what he was working on, and nobody else in his organisation.

‘You are signed in to these projects and once you finish one you are signed out and you no longer have access to any data or news about what is happening in the project.’Mr Williams – a child prodigy who had a degree in maths at 17 and then a PhD in the subject – was part of a team that created devices which ‘hook’ on to mobiles and laptops. ‘It is an aggressive form of Bluetooth or similar wireless technology,’ said the security expert.

He said such devices would be used by spies on the ground to steal data from the handsets of unsuspecting terrorists, organised criminals or officers from rival intelligence agencies.‘Traditionally, there has been a separation of MI6 and GCHQ,’ said the expert. ‘MI6 has been full of the James Bond types working on the ground and GCHQ is filled with boffins with beards who are doing their scientific stuff. ‘But recently there has been a merger of these agencies’ work and Williams was at the forefront of that. This was why he was on secondment to MI6.’

He added that Mr Williams did similar work when he had stints at the National Security Agency in America.The NSA is the equivalent of GCHQ and has been leading the West’s attempts to intercept communication between Al Qaeda cells. Mr Williams worked for the Special Delivery Team, a unit set up in the NSA to create advanced bugging and intercepting devices.

‘If you just look at Williams’s CV, you know he has worked in some of the most important data-mining centres in the UK and US. His salary is no indication of his rank,’ said the expert.

It has also emerged that before his secondment to MI6, Mr Williams worked briefly for MI5, the domestic security agency. As part of that work, he was sent to Bulgaria on a secret mission.A source close to the investigation said that on August 23 police were asked to check on Mr Williams’s flat as he had not shown up for work. Just before 6pm, a PC went to the Georgian townhouse in Alderney Street, which has been converted into four flats on four floors. Mr Williams had the top one.

The PC could not get into the house so the letting agent, W.  A. Ellis, was called and a woman employee arrived with keys.She hovered at Mr Williams’s door as the PC went inside. Within minutes he emerged quickly from the en suite bathroom and escorted the woman back downstairs. He then told her: ‘You stay here. This is now a murder scene.’

This weekend, staff at W. A. Ellis, of Knightsbridge, refused to confirm details.A spokeswoman said: ‘36 Alderney Street is owned by a private company, New Rodina.‘There has been speculation that it is linked to MI6 or that it is a front for MI6. Our clients do not have any links to MI6 whatsoever and are distressed by the death of Mr Williams.’

SOURCE: Daily Mail

25 Aug 2010

  • Body had multiple stab wounds and was decomposing
  • Flat owned by private company called New Rodina, which means 'motherland' in Russian
  • Acting PM Clegg to be briefed on spy's death today
  • Dead man was employed at govt 'listening post'
This is the first picture of the murdered British spy who detectives have said could have been killed up to two weeks ago.The body of Gareth Williams, 31, was discovered stuffed in a large sports bag in his bath in a flat just a few hundred yards from the headquarters of MI6.It is understood Mr Williams had been stabbed, possibly several times, and his body was decomposing when it was found.
MI6 Headquarters

Elsewhere in the top-floor flat - in a bizarre ritualistic scene - his mobile telephone and a collection of SIM cards were carefully laid out.Scotland Yard has launched a murder inquiry into the grim find in Pimlico, Central London. Detectives have told local residents today that the murder may have taken place two weeks ago.

Mr Williams was employed as a communications officer at the Government's ' listening post' - better known as GCHQ in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.But it is thought he was on secondment to the headquarters at MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, near the flat.MI6 gathers secret information about Britain's overseas enemies, making the spy a possible target of terrorists
Mr Williams was employed as a communications officer at the Government's ' listening post' - better known as GCHQ (pictured) in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Mr Williams was described by neighbours as mild-mannered and a keen cyclist. He joined the University of Cambridge in 2000 to undertake a postgraduate certificate in advanced studies in mathematics but dropped out.

'I'm told the man lived at the top-floor flat but we haven't ever seen him. It's not like you'd tell your neighbours if you were a spy'

A spokeswoman said he was a member of St Catharine's College but left without completing the qualification the next year.The course is described as 'demanding' and normally only accepts students with first-class degrees in physics, mathematics or engineering.He lived in a street where houses sell for more than £1million, and it has been cordoned off at both ends since Monday night. Access is being granted only to residents.

The street remained cordoned off this morning and police officers stood outside No 36, which is divided into three flats.Land Registry documents revealed the block at number 36 is owned by a private company, New Rodina.Its details are hidden because it is registered in the British Virgin Islands and is not listed with Companies House.The word rodina means 'motherland' in Russian and Bulgarian.The property was bought for £675,250 in 2000 with a mortgage from the Royal Bank of Scotland and has been remortgaged twice, in September 2005 and February 2006.

The documents revealed the owner operated through a law firm known as Park Nelson. The firm once occupied a rented office block in Bell Yard, off Fleet Street, but no longer appears to exist.Curtains were drawn in the top-floor flat, where it was believed the attack took place.Public documents revealed that several current and former residents of the freehold block have links to London and Cheltenham.

Police continued to scour the two-floor flat for evidence today and cordons remained in place on the prestigious street where two former home secretaries live.Ex-Tory leader Michael Howard and Sir Leon Brittan are among a host of politicians and bankers who have homes there, residents said.Mr Howard, who lives several doors down the road, was at home when the body was taken away by forensic officers, one resident, Andy Perkins, said.Neighbour Laura Houghton said Mr Williams was an 'extremely friendly' man.The 30-year-old secretary said: 'I have spoken to him only once. I met him in the entrance hall of the set of flats because of a boring plant issue about a year ago.

'He was extremely friendly and had a Welsh accent.'

She said he had an athletic build, and added: 'He was not especially tall. He had medium to short brown hair.'
Mrs Houghton added: 'His windows were always shut and curtains were often closed. I could never tell if anyone was in.

'It was strange that we never saw him come and go. I just assumed he worked away.

'The first I heard of anything happening was when the police knocked on my door and asked me if I had heard anything happening. I told them the walls were so thick that I couldn't hear a thing.

'All they told me was that there had been a serious incident. I'm amazed it's taken this long to all come out.'

A landlady who rented Mr Williams a flat in Cheltenham, said: 'He was polite and mild-mannered and wouldn't hurt a fly. He was forever off on bike rides but never really had friends around.

'Sometimes you could hear tapes whirring from his flat. It must have been audio cassettes he used for work. He never told me what they were.'

Eileen Booth, 73, who lives opposite, said detectives told her the murder may have taken place two weeks ago.She said: 'A few years ago, I would definitely have known who it was that had been killed.

'Detectives came round and asked for our eye colour and height. They said this probably happened two weeks ago.'

Rob Mills, 35, who lives two doors away, said today: 'We've got two children - it's shocking.

'I'm told the man lived at the top-floor flat but we haven't ever seen him. It's not like you'd tell your neighbours if you were a spy.'

Jason Hollands, 41, a City worker, who also lives nearby, said: 'It's truly gruesome - this is a very mixed area of bankers and politicians. I've spoken to the next-door neighbour, who knew nothing.'

The one bedroom flat in Cheltenham where Gareth Williams also lived

The case is being investigated by officers from the Murder Squad with assistance from their counter-terrorist and security service colleagues. No arrests have been made.Forensic teams are continuing to search for clues at the five-storey terraced townhouse.A Met Police spokesman said: 'Officers were called to reports of a suspicious death at 4.40pm on Monday. They attended a top floor flat in Alderney Street and gained entry and found the body of a man in his 30s.'

One resident said: 'My neighbours said it was a stabbing.It sounds like it was really gruesome.'

 Scotland Yard said no cause of death was known. A post-mortem examination is due today.

A Downing Street spokesman refused to comment, saying: 'Any potential case is a matter for the police.' Details of the incident will be contained in the Prime Minister's intelligence briefing which will be handed to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg today. David Cameron is also expected to be kept abreast of developments.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: 'There is an ongoing police investigation.

'It is long-standing Government policy not to confirm or deny that any individual works for the intelligence agencies.'

Patrick Mercer, former chairman of the Commons counter-terrorism subcommittee, said: 'This underlines the danger that our outstanding security services have to face on a minute-by-minute basis every single day.'

The last spy to have been killed on British soil was former Russian Federal Security Service officer Alexander Litvinenko in November 2006. He was poisoned with polonium-210.

Bulgarian defector Georgi Markov was killed by an assassin who used an umbrella to fire a ricin pellet into his leg as he crossed Waterloo Bridge in September 1978.A spokesman said the body was yet to be formally identified.A post-mortem examination is due to take place today.

SOURCE: Daily Mail

19 Feb 2010


The brazen assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh has thrown the spotlight on one of Israel’s most powerful but shadowy figures, Meir Dagan, the current Mossad chief, who yesterday faced calls for his resignation.

There is a piece of folklore often repeated about him: when he was appointed in 2002, Ariel Sharon, then the Prime Minister, ordered him to run the Israeli spy agency “with a knife between its teeth”. Eight years on, Mr Dagan appears to have followed his orders to the letter. The killing in Dubai of one of the top men in Hamas is only the most recent in a string of assassinations that have been traced to Mr Dagan.

His popular support in Israel has never been higher, as most Israelis approach the allegations that Mossad is behind the Dubai death with a wink and a smile. While senior officials in the Israeli Foreign Ministry fume over the diplomatic mess, caused by the implications of the Dubai assassinations, those who know Mr Dagan say that he is nonplussed by the row. “He is a determined street fighter,” said Amir Oren, a military correspondent for the Israeli daily Haaretz.

The thickset, soft-spoken Mr Dagan was twice wounded in more than 30 years of service in the Israel Defence Forces, but he avoids walking with a cane. He has served as head of Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau, and became a close confident of Mr Sharon during their years together in the IDF.

Mr Dagan’s predecessor, British-born Ephraim Halevy, was known for a more conservative approach to the Mossad, Mr Oren said. Mr Halevy focused instead on strengthening Mossad’s relationship with similar agencies in other countries.

“When Dagan took over he said the Mossad had become too risk-averse, and took its sweet time organising itself for operations,” said Mr Oren. “Dagan, meanwhile, is not trying to come across as diplomatically elegant.”

Maintaining good relations with other nations was dropped to the bottom of the list, said “B” a former Mossad agent who worked under Mr Dagan. “Mossad is facing a lot of anger right now over the use of British and European passports. I don’t know if Mossad was actually involved or how they got those passports though I can say that Dagan isn’t the kind of man to care about angering a few people to get the job done.”

“B” said that Mr Dagan had a no-nonsense approach and did not like to be questioned or second-guessed. “He is what you would call a one-man show,” he said.

Talk of Dagan’s unwillingness to share power with others surfaced early in his tenure, when the Jerusalem Post reported that more than 200 Mossad agents had quit their posts over Mr Dagan’s style. In June 2009, when his term as Mossad chief was extended by one year by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, one of his seconds in command promptly quit.

While some Israelis, including Mr Oren, have argued that Mr Dagan should resign his position over the loud public furore surrounding the Dubai assassinations - though Israel has not admitted its involvement in this, or any other mission - most are pleased with Mr Dagan’s tenure.

“Mossad have renewed the aura that the name Mossad used to generate in the region,” Alon Ben David , an Israeli intelligence analyst, told Israeli radio, a statement that was promptly echoed by the presenter.

Mr Dagan’s popularity was first strengthened by the Mossad’s rumoured involvement in the assassination of Hezbollah security chief Imad Mughniyah in February 2008. Talk of other killings of senior Hezbollah and Hamas officials began to spread. An alleged strike by Israeli planes on Syrian targets in September 2007 was also credited to him, part of his focus on nuclear weapons programmes in the Middle East.

SOURCE: The Times

Mr Netanyahu’s insistence that Mr Dagan stay on for an additional year was said to stem from his unparalleled knowledge of Iran’s nuclear facilities. While Israel’s military leaders traditionally serve for four years, with a one-year extension, Mr Dagan’s tenure has been extended twice. His budgetary allowance is also one of the largest, said a member of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee - leading to a near doubling of the Mossad’s Tel Aviv offices since 2002.

27 Sept 2009


MI5: To defend the realm

Britain's counter-intelligence agency turns 100 next month. Historian Nigel West looks at the service's success, its secrets and scandals

by Nigel West

26 Sep 2009

Happy Birthday, MI5. The UK's counter-intelligence agency celebrates its centenary next month and my, how it's changed: from an organisation so completely veiled in secrecy that even the British government would not admit it existed, to one in which its Director-Generals now talk openly to the media – and even write books on their time there.

Its foundations were inauspicious to say the least. The perceived intelligence disaster of the Boer War prompted the Committee of Imperial Defence to review the failure of the British Secret Service. However, it was discovered that no such organisation existed. So the CID recommended the creation of a new branch of government, the Secret Service Bureau, the origins of MI5.

It was headed by Captain Vernon Kell, a veteran of the Boxer rebellion in China (and an occasional Telegraph correspondent); while Director-General, he was known simply as "K". The Bureau launched with a tiny staff consisting of a single ex-Scotland Yard detective and three clerks; compare this to today when the occupants of Thames House (MI5) and Vauxhall Cross (MI6), on opposite sides of the river, number several thousand.

Kell's great success was the arrest in the opening days of the First World War of the entire German spy ring in Britain, which conveniently centred on a barber's shop in north London. The arrest of Karl Gustav Ernst, his assistant Wilhelm Kronauer, and 21 of their network effectively eliminated what had been intended as a large enemy operation. It also ensured that when, in January 1916, the Secret Service Bureau was split in two and assigned the cover names MI5 and MI6, the "Imperial Security Service" would be perceived as too valuable and important an instrument to disband at the end of hostilities.

MI5 would remain under Kell's control, exercising independence from successive political administrations while avoiding causing embarrassment, until the end of his tenure in June 1940. Indeed, his only confrontation with any prime minister occurred when Stanley Baldwin demanded MI5 place Edward VIII's American lover, Wallis Simpson, under surveillance. Kell initially refused the order, but eventually relented, having been persuaded by his deputy and senior staff that the operation was indeed intended to defend the realm.

Most Cabinet ministers were content to allow MI5 a large measure of freedom because of the quality of the information it gathered. This was often gleaned from informants inside the Communist Party of Great Britain, or from secret sources such as KASPAR, a microphone concealed in the central London offices of the Young Communist League. MI5 also had the benefit of MASK, the clandestine wireless messages transmitted to and from the CPGB's covert radio located in Wimbledon. For three years until March 1937, when the CPGB changed its code based on a popular edition of Treasure Island, MASK ensured that discreet counter-measures stymied every Communist-inspired scheme, strike and coup. It also offered proof that the CPGB was not a legitimate political party, but a sinister outfit controlled from Moscow.

Since Kell's departure, MI5's 14 successors have ensured the Security Service has been free of political influence. Staffed mainly by women, it has tapped telephones, intercepted mail, opened diplomatic bags, recruited sources, managed double agents, liaised with Allied agencies and maintained a watch on suspected spies, saboteurs and subversives for 100 years without engendering the scandals that have hamstrung its counterparts in Europe and the United States.

As far as is known, it has suffered hostile penetration on only four occasions – two of which were during the Second World War. The first concerned William Rolph, a retiree who had volunteered to spy for the German intelligence organisation, Abwehr. When MI5 confronted him, he committed suicide in his office in Piccadilly. To avoid arousing the suspicions of the Abwehr, however, MI5 asked the coroner to record that Rolph had died of a heart attack. The second saw secretary Celia Luke, a Communist Party member, leak information from MI5's famous registry. She was dismissed, but not prosecuted.

Apart from the Cambridge-educated Anthony Blunt, who worked for MI5 from June 1940 to October 1945 while reporting simultaneously to the NKVD, the Soviet Union's secret police organisation, only Michael Bettaney, an Oxford graduate, has passed on classified material from inside MI5. He was arrested in 1983 and sentenced to 23 years' imprisonment.

Early in the Second World War, MI5 achieved a breakthrough by allowing a Welsh nationalist, Arthur Owens, to transmit a daily weather report from his prison cell in Wandsworth to the enemy. Owens had been recruited by the Nazis and was arrested in 1939. However, he agreed to work as a double agent, and contacted his German handlers from jail.

Owens gave access to the Abwehr's top-secret communications across Europe which, protected by an Enigma machine cipher, were thought to be impregnable. However, Owens' daily transmissions were re-ciphered on the enemy's Enigma channels, thus allowing cryptographers at the signal's intelligence service's headquarters in Barnet to crack Germany's Enigma codes.

Postwar austerity, combined with a reluctance to be accused of acting like the Gestapo, ensured that MI5 would find its work hampered against Communist subversion and Soviet espionage. Limited resources and a growing reliance on tips by well-informed defectors resettled in the US reduced MI5's status within Whitehall.

It was the ill-fated and brief affair conducted in 1961 by the war minister John Profumo that demonstrated how vulnerable the British system of government was to a poorly planned entrapment operation. Unaware of any relationship between Profumo and Christine Keeler, MI5 sought to persuade Eugene Ivanov, an identified GRU officer based in the Soviet naval attaché's office, to defect by recruiting his friend, the society osteopath Stephen Ward, to act as an intermediary. Caught in the middle was Profumo, whose career then collapsed as he attempted to conceal his affair. He had been approached by the Cabinet Secretary to assist MI5 and Ward in honeytrapping Ivanov, but had misinterpreted the encounter as a warning to distance himself from Keeler.

The MI5 molehunter Arthur Martin, when asked what he had achieved during his lengthy counter-espionage experience, had replied "bringing down the Macmillan government". Certainly, the Denning Report, which was laudatory about the role and performance of the Security Service, alerted the public to the kind of operations that had been conducted behind the scenes to protect the country against Kremlin-orchestrated subversion.

If publication of the Denning Report, which revealed for the first time the mandate given to MI5 by the Home Secretary, marked the end of an era of deference, it also provided a temporary respite from political interference and supervision. Unknown to the Cabinet, MI5 had been wracked by the fear that it had suffered hostile penetration by at least one mole. The details would emerge in 1986 with embittered retiree Peter Wright's book Spy Catcher, a breathtaking glimpse at MI5's dirty laundry.

Three years later MI5 was legitimised by the passage of the 1989 Security Service Bill which, guided by Stella Rimington, the first woman Director-General, gave the Service statutory powers and requirements. There followed a dramatic change in role, with the collapse of the Soviet threat and the acquisition of the lead responsibility for countering domestic terrorism, then focused on Northern Ireland.

The application of classic, conventional counter-intelligence methodology, which challenged the Provisional IRA as if it were a hostile intelligence agency, proved dramatically successful. But it was the unanticipated appearance of home-grown Muslim extremists that ended an era of complacency and a political desire to dismantle a security apparatus that was seen to have outlived its usefulness.

There were insufficient resources to deploy against known threats from radical zealots, and there followed the tragedy of a suicide plot hatched by fundamentalists whose individual dossiers, initiated by telephone intercepts and physical surveillance, had been shelved by an inexperienced MI5 officer. The officer, on that fateful occasion, was unable to fulfil MI5's motto: "To Defend the Realm".

 Nigel West is the author of 'TRIPLEX: Secrets from the Cambridge Spies' (Yale University Press, £17.50), out tomorrow


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