The New Spymasters Read online

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  To Sophie and Daniel

  Glossary

  Modern spying terms

  Analyst Someone employed to examine secret and open-source intelligence and draw conclusions.

  Betrayal In order to gather human intelligence, a spy must inevitably betray someone.

  Case officer An employee of an intelligence service who recruits and manages secret agents. Such operatives typically object to being called spies, since it may imply betrayal.

  Clandestine action Secret political or military action abroad.

  Cover or legend The fictional identity, biography and/or purpose of an intelligence officer or secret agent, created to allow them access to certain individuals or places.

  Covert action Political or military action by a secret service, the sponsoring country of which remains hidden and unacknowledged.

  Dangle A walk-in (see below) sent to a secret service by an enemy as a plant or double agent in order to provide false information or otherwise cause damage.

  Dead drop A pick-up place for an agent to leave secret intelligence he has stolen.

  Debriefing Questioning a source, agent or captive; can also be a euphemism for harsh interrogation.

  Diplomatic cover Most intelligence officers travel abroad under cover as diplomats. This provides them with immunity from being prosecuted for spying.

  Double agent A secret agent working for one master who is persuaded to work for another too.

  False flag A trick used by a secret service to make a secret agent think he is being recruited by another country’s service.

  Handler The term for a case officer who manages or ‘runs’ a secret agent. Keeping the agent alive and sober is hard.

  HUMINT Intelligence from all kinds of human sources including spies and ordinary contacts. This may also include intelligence from debriefings and interrogations.

  Illegal The exception: an intelligence officer who works without diplomatic cover and carries out spying. In the US, illegals are known as NOCs: Non-Official Covers.

  Informer Someone who provides tip-offs to secret services or a law enforcement agency, but who may not be under their active control.

  Intelligence officer A staff employee of a secret service. He may, among other roles, be a case officer or analyst.

  Laws … are to be obeyed at home and broken abroad. Spying is illegal in every country of the world, even for diplomats.

  Requirement (also known as ‘tasking’) Instructions from a secret service’s political masters to collect specific intelligence on a target or subject.

  Secret intelligence Vital information that is kept secret: i.e. is protected in some way. Protected government information is usually marked as such: e.g. labelled Top Secret, NOFORN (i.e. ‘no foreign national’) or Official.

  Secret intelligence service A government agency whose function is to gather intelligence and carry out secret tasks, whether recruiting spies, gathering SIGINT (see below), analysing secret intelligence or carrying out covert and/or clandestine actions.

  Secret police A secret service that identifies, watches and may secretly arrest and interrogate alleged enemies of the state. (A security service like MI5, with no power of arrest, is not in this sense a secret police.)

  SIGINT Signals intelligence: i.e. intercepting electronic signals, including from communications systems, radar and weapons systems. The great seductive rival of human intelligence.

  Spy or Secret agent Any person who steals secret intelligence and then passes it on to a government agency, in their own country or abroad.

  Sub-agent or Sub-source An agent working for another agent, providing hearsay intelligence.

  Targeter An analyst who locates targets for assassination or capture.

  Triple agent A double agent who is ‘re-doubled’ to betray his new master and work for his original master.

  Walk-in A volunteer for a spy agency who may literally walk into an embassy or contact the secret services by email, telephone, letter or some other means.

  Secret agencies and their role

  United States

  Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Includes both a clandestine service (the National Clandestine Service), which handles spy operations, and a larger intelligence division, which analyses the product from multiple sources of intelligence, including open sources. The main CIA customer is the US president, who must also authorize its covert actions.

  Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Part of the Department of Defense; similar in structure to the CIA, with a clandestine service and with analytical and science and technology directorates, all providing military-related intelligence.

  Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Self-tasking agency which functions generally as a federal police but has counterintelligence, counterterrorism and national security divisions that carry out domestic secret intelligence work: e.g. running spies inside violent extremist groups. Also responsible for investigating any crimes against US persons or interests abroad.

  National Security Agency (NSA) Huge agency that collects SIGINT globally.

  United Kingdom

  Defence Intelligence (DI) Similar to the American DIA; provides all-source intelligence and analysis of a primarily defence and strategic nature.

  Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) British equivalent of the American NSA; single-source agency with a focus on SIGINT.

  Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) The main customer and coordinator for UK intelligence. It provides intelligence assessments, covering all sources, and sets requirements for SIS and GCHQ.

  Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) Also known popularly as MI6 (a cover-name that was used in the 1930s and the Second World War); the foreign intelligence service and the rough equivalent of the CIA’s clandestine service; single-source (HUMINT) agency. Analysis is mainly handled by other departments in the British government, including the JIC and DI. All significant operations require ministerial approval.

  Security Service (MI5) Domestic intelligence service. It is still referred to generally by its designation in the First World War, MI5, and called the BSS (British Security Service) by US agencies. It carries out secret security work, targeting violent extremist threats (mainly terrorism) to the UK. It runs agents and interrogates sources, but, unlike a police force, has no power of arrest. MI5 is self-tasking.

  France

  Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE) Foreign intelligence service.

  Direction Générale de la Sécurité Intérieure (DGSI) Internal intelligence service, created in May 2014 and replacing the Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur (DCRI), itself the result of a merger – in July 2008 – of the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST), the former domestic intelligence service, and the Renseignements Généraux (RG), the former police intelligence service.

  Germany

  Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) Do
mestic intelligence service, which, due to memories of the Nazi-era Gestapo, operates at a state level only and with restricted powers.

  Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) Foreign intelligence service of modern federal Germany.

  Stasi Nickname for the Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit or MfS), the secret service of the former communistrun East Germany (GDR). Its foreign spy service was called the Main Reconnaissance Administration (Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung or HVA).

  USSR/Russia

  Committee of State Security (KGB) Secret service of the USSR, which, among other names, was first called the Cheka (1917–29), then the MVD, NKVD (1934–46), MGB (1946–53) and finally the KGB (1954–91). Only a small elite division of the KGB, the First Chief Directorate, handled spying operations abroad.

  Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) Domestic secret service of post-Soviet Russia.

  Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Replaced the First Chief Directorate as Russia’s foreign intelligence service.

  Main Intelligence Administration (GRU) All-source Soviet and then Russian foreign military intelligence agency.

  Middle East

  Countries in the Middle East generally have either one intelligence service, the Mukhabarat, handling both foreign and domestic intelligence and reporting to the country’s head of state, or a Mukhabarat and a separate domestic secret police, usually under the direction of the Ministry of the Interior. For example:

  EGYPT

  The State Security Investigation Services (SSIS) or Mabahith Amn ad-Dawla reports to the interior minister. The Mukhabarat (EGIS), the foreign service, reports to the president.

  JORDAN

  The General Intelligence Directorate (GID) handles both domestic and foreign intelligence, and reports to the king.

  SAUDI ARABIA

  The General Directorate of Investigation (GDI) is the umbrella department that oversees the General Security Services (GSS) or Mabahith, which is the domestic intelligence service and secret police. The General Intelligence Presidency (GIP), also known as Mukhabarat al-Ammah or al-Istikhbarat al-Ammah, is the main foreign intelligence agency, but it also coordinates the dissemination of all Saudi intelligence and reports directly to the king.

  Timeline of Major Events

  1909: The British Secret Service bureau is founded. Two years later, it is divided into what became the domestic Security Service (MI5) and the foreign Secret Intelligence Service (SIS).

  1914–18: First World War.

  1917: The Bolshevik party, a communist faction, seizes power in Moscow and St Petersburg and founds the Soviet Union. Its intelligence service, created by Felix Dzerzhinsky, is known first as the Cheka and later, among other names, as the NKVD and KGB. From 1920 its headquarters are in Lubyanka Square, Moscow.

  1939–45: Second World War. The UK founds the Special Operations Executive (SOE) for secret operations behind enemy lines in 1940 and in 1942 the US founds the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).

  1947: The CIA is founded, replacing the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), established a year before.

  1955: The Soviet army withdraws from Austria.

  1961: The construction of the Berlin Wall.

  1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis.

  1979: The Soviet Union invades Afghanistan.

  1982: Israel invades Lebanon.

  1987: First Intifada (uprising) of Palestinians against Israeli occupation starts.

  1988: Soviet troops begin withdrawing from Afghanistan.

  1989: The Berlin Wall is breached. The ‘Iron Curtain’ collapses. Massacre in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.

  1990: Iraq invades Kuwait, beginning the first Gulf War. Nelson Mandela is released from prison in South Africa.

  1991: The Soviet Union is dissolved. Iraq is defeated in Gulf War by US and allied troops. Somali government is toppled, leading to a bloody civil war and decades of lawlessness.

  1992: Bosnian War (until 1995). US troops enter Somalia (remaining until 1994). A military coup in Algeria prevents Islamist movement gaining power; beginning of Algerian Civil War (until 2002).

  1993: Oslo Accords end the First Intifada and establish Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza territories.

  1994: Rwanda genocide. First Chechen War (to 1996). CIA officer Aldrich Ames is exposed as a KGB spy. Britain’s SIS ‘comes out’ and is affirmed in a new law. Ceasefire by Northern Ireland’s Irish Republican Army (IRA).

  1995: Algerian militants launch bomb attacks on the metro in Paris, France.

  1996: IRA violence resumes in Northern Ireland.

  1998: Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organization declares war on the US and organizes bomb attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Good Friday Agreement ends war in Northern Ireland. Kosovo War (to 1999).

  1999: Second Chechen War (to 2009).

  2000: Second Intifada begins (to 2005).

  2001: 11 September (9/11) attacks in US. Afghan War begins (ongoing).

  2003: Second Gulf War: invasion of Iraq, followed by civil war from 2004 (ongoing).

  2004: Madrid train bombings. Orange revolution in Ukraine.

  2005: 7 July (7/7) attacks on the London Underground and bus network.

  2006: London Plot to use ‘liquid bombs’ on transatlantic planes.

  2008: Israeli troops enter Gaza (remaining until 2009). Russia–Georgia War.

  2009: Jordanian secret agent kills seven CIA employees in Afghanistan.

  2010: Arab Spring begins with political protests in Tunisia; spreads to Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria (ongoing).

  2011: Osama bin Laden killed.

  2013: Edward Snowden, a private contractor, releases classified documents on the National Security Agency.

  2014: Russia annexes the Crimea region of Ukraine. A new ‘Islamic State’ seizes swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq.

  Author’s Note

  The following account is based, in part, on numerous interviews conducted not only over five years researching this book but also over two decades of covering security as a journalist. Quotations from people are based on those conversations or correspondence with myself or my researcher. Since many of these interviewees are or were active in the secret intelligence world, for reasons of discretion they are frequently quoted anonymously and no further information is provided about the interview. If the quotation is from another source, this is indicated in the text or by a note, with details of that source provided at the end of the book. If any attribution is missing or incorrect, or you have any other comments, please contact me via my website (www.stephengrey.com) so I can make any necessary changes in future editions of the book.

  Please also note that I sometimes refer to individuals by their first given names; this should not imply any partiality but is done simply for clarity. Also, for ease of read, I refer throughout to a spy as ‘he’, but of course spies are men and women.

  Introduction: The Exploding Spy

  ‘When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object’

  – Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being1

  On 31 December 2009, a Jordanian doctor opened the door of a pick-up truck and prepared to greet officers of the Central Intelligence Agency for the first time. There were eight people waiting. They had even made a birthday cake for him. The CIA and the White House had high hopes for this day. The doctor was a spy, a man who had driven to this US base in Khost, Afghanistan, from the wild tribal zone of neighbouring Pakistan. They hoped he could lead them to the al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden.

  Wrong. The doctor was working for the other side, for al-Qaeda. He reached into a pocket, pressed a detonator switch and blew himself up. Seven people from the CIA were killed: the base chief, Jessica Matthews, four other officers and two security guards. The eighth victim was a Jordanian intelligence officer; the ninth an Afghan driver. Matthews had made the birthday cake. She had been searching for bin Laden for years. Perhaps that made her desperate to bel
ieve in the doctor. But she had misread the signs. She had been one of the world’s leading experts on al-Qaeda. One commentator suggested her death was the intelligence ‘equivalent of sinking an aircraft carrier in a naval war’.2

  The doctor had been a double agent, maybe a triple agent. Here was the first real hope of getting a spy next to bin Laden, a genuine lead. He had seemed to be the perfect New Spy: a mole inside America’s biggest adversary since Soviet Russia. And then it all was blown away.

  His name was Humam al-Balawi. He was a Jordanian national but by descent he was a Palestinian, the people who were in conflict with America’s close ally, Israel. Having worked at refugee camps, he had seen the victims of what he saw as Israel’s aggression and he had every reason to be furious with a United States that financed Israel. And he had proved his hatred, writing a blog on the Internet that advocated war on the Americans. He was an obvious man to attack the CIA. He was also a perfect man to spy for the CIA.

  It was a brilliant cover story. If al-Balawi really was working for the CIA, then he would have been one of their greatest ever spies. He was such an unlikely spy – and therefore so right for the job.

  It was not to be. If only they had checked. They had never met him before. Yet when he came to the base, he wasn’t even searched. Jessica had not wanted to offend him. She had wanted to accord him ‘respect’. But as a last testament that al-Balawi recorded on video made clear, he had been playing the American and Jordanian spy services for weeks.

  On a marble wall back at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, they carved seven more stars. Seven more of their comrades killed in the field of action. Since the terror attacks of 11 September 2001, twenty-five stars had been added.3

  Welcome to the deadly world of spycraft.

  * * *

  ‘To work in intelligence is to live with perpetual failure,’ said a former leading figure in the British secret service.4

  By any measure, the al-Balawi mission in Khost was a tragic, wretched and careless venture. But the operation was also an audacious act: a dance into the unknown and a proof-of-life signal that, despite the careless blunders of those days, the spy game was not over.