Intelligence Communities and Cultures in Asia and the Middle East: A Comprehensive Reference 9781626378957

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Intelligence Communities & Cultures in Asia & the Middle East

Intelligence Communities & Cultures in Asia & the Middle East A Comprehensive Reference edited by

Bob de Graaff

b o u l d e r l o n d o n

Published in the United States of America in 2020 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Suite 314, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com

and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. Gray’s Inn House, 127 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1 5DB © 2020 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-1-62637-889-6 (hc)

British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the United States of America

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992. 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Intelligence Communities in Asia Bob de Graaff Afghanistan Diva Patang

1 11

Bangladesh A. S. M. Ali Ashraf

25

China Xuezhi Guo

51

India Prem Mahadevan

73

Iran Carl A. Wege

93

Iraq Ibrahim al-Marashi

113

Israel Ephraim Kahana

129

Japan Yoshiki Kobayashi

149

Jordan Hani Al Jbour

163

Kazakhstan Filip Kovacevic

177 v

vi

Contents

12

Myanmar Andrew Selth

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

North Korea Stephan Blancke

Pakistan Kunal Mukherjee Palestine Alaa Tartir

Russia Andreï Kozovoï

Saudi Arabia Christopher M. Davidson South Korea Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus Sri Lanka V. K. Shashikumar Syria Florian Peil

Taiwan Jens Rosenke

Tajikistan Anna Matveeva Turkey İlkay Yilmaz

Yemen Anthony Chimente

Elements of an Asian Intelligence Culture Bob de Graaff

List of Acronyms References The Contributors Index About the Book

197 215 243 257 279 299 315 337 351 379 401 419 443 461 471 479 487 491 505

1 Intelligence Communities in Asia Bob de Graaff

It has become a cliché to say that the practice of intelligence has existed in all places and at all times. However, the first written evidence of it is found in Asia. Three sources are mentioned in almost all world histories of espionage and intelligence: Kautilya’s Arthasastra, Sun Tzu’s Art of War, and the Old Testament. Stemming from hundreds of years before the common era, all three showed the importance of intelligence as part of statecraft and warfare. Today we live in what some have called the Asian Century, in which power is shifting Eastward. Western countries have reason to gather intelligence on these economic, political, and military power shifts, as well as on the nuclear capabilities or ambitions of some of the Asian nations. (The People’s Republic of China, India, and Russia are among the largest countries in the world in terms of size and population.) In the opposite direction, Asian powers spy on the West in order to leap forward economically or to learn more about the West’s strategic plans. The nations that are called the chief culprits of espionage and cyber attacks against the West are all in Asia: Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.1 In early 2019, Daniel Coats, then head of the US intelligence community, pointed to Russia, China, and North Korea as the main threats to the United States.2 Others in the Trump administration, which sees itself confronted with the return of big power competition, would hastily add Iran. Some of Asia’s intelligence organizations, such as Israel’s Mossad, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, China’s Ministry of State Security, India’s Research and Analysis Wing, and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, figure repeatedly in lists of the top ten intelligence agencies in 1

2

Intelligence Communities in Asia and the Middle East

Figure 1.1 Map of Asia and the Middle East

the world. Eight out of ten of the countries thought most likely to start a major military conflict are in Asia: China, India, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, and Turkey. Major areas of tension are also to be found on this continent: Afghanistan, Iraq, Myanmar, the Philippines, Syria, Yemen, and the South China Sea. Both Russia and China are running major influence campaigns in the West. Russia’s meddling with elections in the United States and other nations is well known. Meanwhile China is buying up media outlets and training foreign journalists to “tell the China story well.”3 Some of Asia’s security services have a longtime reputation for internal repression. China seems to have reached a new stage with its electronic surveillance and facial recognition of citizens and the associated social credit system, which has become an export product to other countries with repressive regimes in Africa, Latin America, and Europe.4 Traditionally there has also been much intelligence gathering between neighboring Asian countries, for example between India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan, North and South Korea, or Israel and its neighbors. And many of the Asian nations have either been the victim or supporter of major terrorist or insurgent movements such as Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Taliban.

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3

Despite all this, very little has been published on intelligence in Asian nations, with the exception of Russia, Israel, and wartime Japan.5 And what has been published about Asian intelligence is often hardly known outside the countries of origin. India has developed a certain tradition of intelligence memoirs that outshines that of many European nations.6 However, these memoirs have not found their way into mainstream intelligence studies. If intelligence scholars in continental Europe already have reason to complain that the cultures and practices of their nations’ intelligence communities are hardly recognizable in the intelligence literature as it is dominated by the Anglosphere,7 scholars and practitioners of Asian intelligence have even more reason to do so. What has been written about intelligence in Asia is mainly about China, India, Israel, and Russia. However, even in the case of China it is true what Xuezhi Guo writes in his book about China’s security state: “few institutions have received as much weight but as little weighty analysis as China’s security and intelligence agencies.”8 Fundamentally different from the situation in Europe though is the fact that scholars of intelligence practices in Asian nations often do not stem from the countries of their expertise. While trying to find an author for one of the nations that in the end did not make it into this volume, I received emails from different potential authors stating that they would not risk going to jail because of writing a contribution to this book. This is a sad illustration of the undemocratic situation in which many of the intelligence organizations and some of their scholars in Asia operate. Of course, this is not true for all Asian nations. This divide between intelligence agencies working in democratic and those in authoritarian, if not totalitarian, settings is probably the most fundamental factor when it comes to describing the workings and cultures of national intelligence communities. And there are more differences between the Asian nations described in this volume. Some of them are rather small, like Israel, and some of them are big, like China, the latter covering a surface more than 430 times that of Israel, with a population over 150 times as big as that of Israel. Such differences may be mirrored in the ways countries organize their intelligence and security services. Some countries may feel global responsibilities, like Russia and increasingly China, while others, like Myanmar or Bangladesh, are mainly orientated toward their own region. In some cases this region is rather benign, while in others intelligence serves as a kind of more or less continuous proxy warfare with one’s neighbors. Some countries had to shed a colonial legacy, also in the fields of intelligence and security, whereas others, like Iran, Thailand, and Japan, were never colonized,

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Intelligence Communities in Asia and the Middle East

and still others remained sovereign only to a certain degree due to their victimization to imperialism, such as China. All these and many more differences pose a challenge when one wants to look for transnational commonalities in Asian intelligence. One could question whether it is more or less possible than in the case of Europe to see such commonalities. The different contributions to this book can therefore be seen not only as presenting national cases in their own right but also as building blocks for a more general idea of nonWestern and specifically Asian intelligence. In order to make such comparisons possible, I started looking for authors for as many of the approximately fifty nations that constitute the Asian continent as possible. I realized that the task of identifying appropriate authors for the individual countries would be daunting. From the start it was clear that not all the countries of the continent could be included. Covering fifty nations across North, East, Central, South, and Southeast Asia and the Middle East would certainly exceed the magnanimity that could reasonably be expected from a publisher. Ultimately a selection was made based upon considerations of both relevance and practicality, leading to a total of twenty-three countries, including Middle Eastern countries located in Asia—Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, and Yemen—and, according to a broader definition of the region, also Afghanistan and Pakistan. Because this selection came about partly by chance, it was decided to present the different contributions in alphabetical order by country. I offered the authors a set of criteria, asking all to provide: 1. A description of the country’s past and current security threats. 2. The history of a country’s intelligence community, in principle starting somewhere around 1945. 3. Special attention to two or three remarkable or characteristic highlights (or lows) from this history. 4. The current structure of the intelligence community and its mission. 5. The status of international cooperation. 6. The way accountability is organized (both internal control and external oversight).

Furthermore, by way of inspiration, the authors were able to familiarize themselves with Rob Johnston’s taxonomy of the characteristics of intelligence communities.9 They were asked to treat a country’s intelligence community as a whole, including both civilian and military services. However, in Asia,

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5

economic intelligence, financial intelligence, customs intelligence, and criminal intelligence are often seen as part of this community as well. It was up to the authors then to indicate the case in the countries they describe and also to establish where new types of “ints,” such as cyber-int, are accommodated within the system. Another intent is to decolonize intelligence studies from the Anglosphere. Maybe, once we know more about other nations’ intelligence structures, the most common type of intelligence organization will be found outside that of the US intelligence community, which apparently still sets the pattern for others. The broadening of the number of countries outside the Anglosphere with the Asian countries described in this book may offer another possibility to see which systems in the end are more common or more unique. This issue will be addressed more elaborately in the concluding chapter of this volume, where arguments in support of a special type of Asian intelligence will be brought to the fore. The case of Asia raises the question of to what extent postcolonial states in Asia have managed to shed the colonial intelligence and security legacy. After all, legislation and personnel were to a certain extent inherited from the colonial administrators. Through the different contributions to this volume the reader will see how and when this legacy began to fade away, if at all, with variations in this fading being another differentiating factor between the diverse countries. Therefore authors examine whether lasting special relationships with the former colonial powers remain or whether the former colonial relationship is a hindrance to benign bilateral relations. Other questions concern the influence of the Cold War on the intelligence apparatus in Asia. Some countries show a certain renationalization or realignment after the end of the Cold War as part of a change from a bipolar to a multipolar international system. An example would be the tensions that arose between Japan and South Korea in 2019, leading to a suspension of military intelligence sharing between the two countries. For others, like North Korea, much remained the same. And other countries found possibilities for international cooperation that had been unthinkable during the Cold War, such as in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization or within the framework of the common fight against the threat of a new type of terrorism. Intelligence services also had to adapt to the growing number of humanitarian interventions and peace support operations after the end of the Cold War. Further, intelligence systems in locations such as Afghanistan and Iraq were affected by the needs of the intervening United States, let alone Syria, which became an international arena not only for the local belligerents

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Intelligence Communities in Asia and the Middle East

and foreign fighters who flocked to the area from around the world but also for all the major regional and global powers, including their intelligence and security services. Western talk of Asian cultures has often been tainted with Orientalism. Security arrangements have generally been painted as characteristic of “Asian brutalism.” If this is not a cultural trait, then there should be other explanations for the fact that issues of intelligence can often not be discussed freely in the respective countries. To a certain extent this has led to writing about Asian intelligence systems from an outsider’s perspective. This volume could not solve this problem and it remains to be seen when Asia will be able to decolonize itself in this regard. In intelligence literature, it is sometimes claimed that the origins, socalled intelligence traumas, and founding fathers have a lasting influence on the mindset and working processes of intelligence organizations. In the United States the trauma of Pearl Harbor stamped the lookout of the intelligence communities to a very large extent; in Germany the historical bequest of both Nazi and Stasi (Ministry for State Security) practices has determined the maneuvering space of today’s services in that country. The memory of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), influenced the idea of covert action as a principal intelligence task within the CIA. Reinhard Gehlen, who stood at the cradle of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst), had an impact on this service long after his retirement. Therefore we seek to know if similar factors can be traced in the case of Asian intelligence organizations or communities. It will be seen that the Japanese intelligence system suffered similar postwar restrictions as the (West German) intelligence community, because of the wartime role of the Kempeitai. Some founding fathers had a lasting influence in Asia as well, such as Kang Sheng, who founded the internal security and intelligence apparatus of the Chinese Communist Party, but was expelled posthumously from that party in 1980 because of his role during the Cultural Revolution. In some nations a remarkable situation presented itself in that the modern intelligence organization was established or at least set in motion by a foreigner, like retired German colonel Walter Nicolai in Turkey after he had headed the Abteilung III secret service during World War I, or Australian Walter Joseph Cawthorne, who established Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence in between his duties as director of military intelligence at general headquarters in India and as head of the Australian Joint Intelligence Bureau. One of the dividing lines between intelligence systems is for whom or what the intelligence and security organizations are actually working.

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7

Is it for the current government, the state, the constitution, the people, or the dominant party? This is a fundamental question. Working for the current government may lead to politicization of the services, while working for the state may ironically lead to a degree of independence of the services that makes them states within the state or at least may create the possibility of parallel foreign policies. Despite its importance, it is a question that is often overlooked in Western intelligence studies. Whereas intelligence services in most present-day intelligence literature are assigned the role of policy support, there are indications in Asia that in some cases intelligence organizations formulate and execute policies, at least partially. Think of the rather independent role of the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate in Pakistan and the role Israeli intelligence has tended to play in diplomacy and peace processes. And even without the possibility of working at cross-purposes with national policies, how integrated, coordinated, or centralized are the individual intelligence and security organizations of a nation in a community of intelligence? Some of the contributions in this volume show that in Asia the individual services of a nation compete with each other more than with their opponents from other nations. Foreign intelligence and internal security services may be clearly divided, similar to the bygone demarcation between the British Military Intelligence 5 (MI5) and Military Intelligence 6 (MI6), where a line three miles out from the British coast separated the working spheres of the organizations. In other cases, this distinction may have blurred just as much as it did in the recent past in the West due to cross-border threats arising from cyber, terrorism, transnational crime, climate change, and migration.10 This raises the question of to what extent it is possible to speak or write of an “intelligence community.” The term is often used as a kind of shorthand for the joint intelligence and security services of a nation, but in many cases it appears that there is little jointness and even less community. Also, what are the limitations of what constitutes intelligence in Asian nations? It is worth examining not only the range of activities (regional or global) but also whether the concept comprises not only intelligence and counterintelligence but also covert action, parallel diplomacy, and counterterrorism. At least some of the Asian countries show a remarkable dexterity in covert action. Furthermore, some Asian intelligence organizations are not exclusively their nations’ forwardlooking early-warning systems; they also look back, as for instance Israel’s Mossad did when it abducted Adolf Eichmann from Argentina in 1960. And to what extent do Asian intelligence organizations fight

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Intelligence Communities in Asia and the Middle East

terrorism and to what extent do they work hand-in-glove with at least some designated terrorist organizations? And finally, it would be interesting to see to what extent Asian intelligence organizations have come under public scrutiny. Are they today subject to oversight mechanisms similar to the ones that were established in the West from the 1970s onward? Were major intelligence failures subjected to public investigations? Do the media have a special role in regard to a country’s intelligence and security services? Are they a thorn in their flesh or are they their mouthpiece? And if no independent, judicial, or parliamentary oversight exists, is there then executive oversight or control? These are all fundamental questions addressed throughout the chapters, although the reader will have to take into account that the amount of information available about the intelligence systems in various Asian countries may differ. Few of the Asian countries have the freedom-of-information regimes and transparency policies used in the United States and Europe. Some authors were able to master this problem thanks to information from media or inside interviews, but other authors had to rely more on a description of the formal structures or the threat environment. It should not be overlooked that in many cases the contributions are among the first pieces written about the intelligence community of a particular country. Also, for many countries there is a dearth of expert authors. Thus the question of whether it would be possible to characterize Asian intelligence as different from Western intelligence also presents itself. Readers are encouraged to keep the aforementioned questions in mind and make comparisons of their own regarding “same” and “different” for these intelligence organizations (and others that might also be compared to them) as well as between Asian and Western intelligence. In the book’s conclusion, I provide some general impressions and characteristics of Asian intelligence cultures. This volume will be of use to instructors who take up issues like these in their graduate and undergraduate classrooms in a number of subjects ranging from the social sciences to smaller niches like security studies. Regardless of the actual outcome, this collection should interest both academics working in the fields of intelligence studies and intelligence practitioners who have to understand the way intelligence is carried out in other countries, friendly or not. With the growing strategic importance of Asia and the rapidly increasing discipline of intelligence studies, it is hoped that this book will have a stimulating effect in the budding field of Asian intelligence studies as well in the field of comparative intelligence studies, leading to more research.

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Notes 1. Benjamin Weinthal, “Teheran Is Top Spy Against Germany, Says Intel Report,” Jerusalem Post, June 21, 2019; Soeren Kern, “Germany: Nest of Middle Eastern Spies,” June 17, 2019, https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14551/germany-middle-eastern-spies; Shannon Vavra, “Dutch Intelligence Warns of Escalating Russian, Chinese Cyberattacks in the Netherlands,” Cyberscoop, May 1, 2019; US National Counterintelligence and Security Center, “Foreign Economic Espionage in Cyberspace,” 2018, https://www.hsdl .org/?view&did=813528. 2. Daniel R. Coats, “Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community,” Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Washington, DC, January 29, 2019, https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/2019-ATA-SFR—-SSCI.pdf. 3. “Inside China’s Audacious Global Propaganda Campaign,” The Guardian, December 7, 2018. 4. Paul Mozur, Jonah M. Kessel, and Melissa Chan, “Made in China, Exported to the World: The Surveillance State,” New York Times, April 24, 2019; Maria Laura Canineu, “High-Tech Surveillance: from China to Brazil?” May 31, 2019, https://www.hrw.org /news/2019/05/31/high-tech-surveillance-china-brazil; Arthur Gwagwa and Lisa Garbe, “Exporting Repression? China’s Artificial Intelligence Push into Africa,” December 17, 2018, https://www.cfr.org/blog/exporting-repression-chinas-artificial-intelligence-push -africa; Bojan Stojkovski, “Big Brother Comes to Belgrade,” Foreign Policy, June 18, 2019; Judith Kormann, “Überwachung: Chinas Technologie ist ein Gefährlicher Exportschlager” (Surveillance: China’s Technology Is a Dangerous Export Hit), Neue Zürcher Zeitung, August 6, 2019. 5. See A. S. M. Ali Ashraf, “Introduction,” in A. S. M. Ali Ashraf, ed., Intelligence, National Security, and Foreign Policy: A South Asian Narrative (Dhaka: Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs, 2016), 1. See also his “Conclusion: The Future of Intelligence Studies in South Asia,” in the same volume, 361, 364; and the bibliography of intelligence under the heading “Newsletters” at https://www.iafie-ec .org/members-full-members. 6. Maloy Krishna Dhar, Open Secrets: India’s Intelligence Unveiled (New Delhi: Manas, 2005); A. Dulat, A. Durrani, and A. Sinha, The Spy Chronicles: RAW, ISI, and the Illusion of Peace (Noida: HarperCollins, 2018); A. S. Dulat, Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years (Noida: HarperCollins, 2016); Bhure Lal, The Monstrous Face of ISI: The Real Story Behind the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency of Pakistan (New Delhi: Siddarth, 2002); B. N. Mullik, Kashmir: My Years with Nehru (Bombay: Allied, 1971); B. Raman, The Kaoboys of R&AW: Down Memory Lane (New Delhi: Lancer, 2007); Manoj Shrivastava, Re-energising Indian Intelligence (New Delhi: Vij India, 2013); G. B. S. Sidhu, Sikkim: Dawn of Democracy—The Truth Behind the Merger with India (New Delhi: Penguin Viking, 2018); V. K. Singh, India’s External Intelligence: Secrets of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) (New Delhi: Manas, 2013); Vikram Sood, The Unending Game: A Former R&AW Chief ’s Insights into Espionage (Haryana: Penguin Viking, 2018). 7. Bob de Graaff and James M. Nyce, eds., The Handbook of European Intelligence Cultures (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016). 8. Xuezhi Guo, China’s Security State: Philosophy, Evolution, and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 2. 9. Rob Johnston, “Foundations for Meta-Analysis: Developing a Taxonomy of Intelligence Analysis Variables,” in Sharad S. Chauhan, ed., Inside C.I.A. Lessons in Intelligence (New Delhi: APH, 2004), 265, https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4b8a/fec386 1899c16b117ae24ab94c3ed32a7873.pdf. 10. Bob de Graaff, “Waterboarding, Rendition, Secret Flights, and Secret Prisons: Degeneration or Fruition of Intelligence in the Fight Against Terrorism?” Revista Româna ̆de Studii de Intelligence no. 4 (December 2010), 5–14.

2 Afghanistan Diva Patang

Afghanistan has a long and eventful history. It is a landlocked country located at the confluence of four main regions and links Central Asia with South Asia and, to some extent, with West Asia or the Middle East and China. Geography has influenced social and cultural developments in Afghanistan with political consequences. It is a country that has been drawn continuously into an armed conflict in response to foreign invasions. Historically, the collapse of the state army and central government has never resulted in a defeat of the nation nor full control by the invading forces.1 The Afghan people would mainly rely on their decentralized political, economic, and military potential to take over the fighting against the invaders. Like everywhere else, in Afghanistan people have their distinctive assumptions and perceptions that may underpin their way of war. According to Ali Ahmad Jalali, “throughout the eventful history of Afghanistan, several outsiders have invaded, pillaged the country, and left. There were others who tried to colonize the land and failed. There were also foreigners who settled on the land, adapted to the indigenous culture, and established powerful empires that straddled the boundaries of central, west, and south Asian regions.”2 Modern writers identify the country with distinctive epithets: the graveyard of empires, the Central Asian roundabout, the highway of conquest and the crossroad of empires. However, the people of Afghanistan refer to their land as the heart of Asia. Military forces that emerged and operated on the Afghanistan political scene throughout history have been conditioned by the makeup of the state-society relationship and the dynamics of projecting power within a 11

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changing environment.3 The lack of integration made the communities, particularly in tribal areas, semi-independent. Up to the mid-1960s, Soviet objectives regarding the country were described as seeking to strengthen Afghan independence and economic development.4 By the 1970s, the objectives of strengthening Afghan independence were arguable, and the historical record suggests that the Soviets had four main objectives: first, to ensure that Afghanistan did not become an unfriendly border state with close ties to the United States; second, to draw Afghanistan into a dependent relationship, vulnerable and responsive to Soviet pressure; third, to gain economic advantage from aid projects and trade; and fourth, to nourish the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), though it was split for a decade after 1967 into two parties. In 1967, two years after the PDPA’s founding, the party split into two factions, Khalq and Parcham, but as a result of Soviet pressure it was reunited in 1977. However, the factions distrusted and disliked each other and retained their separate organizations.5 The split occurred not over policy differences but because of personality and ethnic differences and power-struggle rivalries. Soviet ties with the PDPA before the 1979 Soviet intervention were extensive. When, after the invasion, the Soviets installed the Babrak Karmal regime, a principal Soviet objective was to eliminate PDPA factionalism. The main element of this policy was to bring about reconciliation between the Khalq and Parcham factions, but while allowing Khalqis to mainly rule the government. The 1973 Coup and the End of Constitutional Monarchy in Afghanistan Half a century of relative peace and foreign assistance helped Afghanistan build modern state institutions and an economic infrastructure. On July 17, 1973, Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan came to power after leading a military coup against his cousin King Zahir Shah. This ended the monarchy and resulted in the founding of the Republic of Afghanistan. When Daud Khan seized power, he acknowledged his debt to the supporting Parcham faction by appointing them to his cabinet; however, he did not acknowledge the Khalq faction. Mainly Parchamis surrounded President Daud Khan and they would spare no efforts to target their archrivals, the Islamists. The government jailed many of their leaders and forced Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Burhanuddin

Afghanistan

13

Rabbani, Mawlawi Yunus Khales, and Ahmad Shah Massoud into exile. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) trained and armed these insurgents to cause trouble for Daud Khan and create spheres of influence inside Afghanistan.6 This strengthened the Soviet Union’s hand in its effort to keep Afghanistan dependent. Daud Khan’s move away from political and military dependence on the Soviet Union began in 1976. This alerted Moscow, and as a result the Soviets mediated to reunify the two factions, Khalq and Parcham. This worried Daud Khan, who viewed the Soviet Union’s purpose as hostile to the Afghanistan republic.7 Therefore, in a meeting in April 1977, President Daud Khan strongly objected to Leonid Brezhnev’s complaint about the presence of experts from North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries in Afghanistan. Daud Khan directly challenged the remarks of his host and, in a critical tone, reminded Brezhnev: “We will never allow you to dictate to us how to run our country and whom to employ in Afghanistan. How and where we employ the foreign experts will remain the exclusive prerogative of the Afghan state. Afghanistan shall remain poor, if necessary, but free in its acts and decisions.”8 On Daud Khan’s return to Afghanistan, he publicly announced that “imported ideologies,” a reference to communism, were not what Afghanistan needed.9 He shifted his vision and his policies, which included removing the resolute leftists from the government, asserting his absolute power as president, and freeing the country from its sole dependence on the Soviet Union. In February 1977, during a Loya Jirga (a traditional assembly of leaders), Daud Khan was elected as the president of Afghanistan for a seven-year term. He excluded most Parchamis and Khalqis from the new cabinet while leaving many in the armed forces. On April 17, 1978, Mir Akbar Khaiber, a prominent member of the Parcham faction, was assassinated near his home, and the communists accused the government of the murder, turning the outcry into a massive anti-regime protest. On April 25, President Daud Khan ordered the arrest of most of the leaders of the PDPA, including Nur Mohammad Taraki and Babrak Karmal. However, before Hafizullah Amin’s arrest, Amin ordered Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy (air force) and Major Aslam Watanjar (army) to execute the contingency plan that was initially planned for August 1978 but was pushed forward following the arrest of Taraki and Karmal. On April 27, 1978, the April Coup (Saur Revolution), staged by the Afghan army and air force, opened the most destructive chapter in Afghanistan’s history.

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The Soviet Union indicated that the April Coup happened by surprise and that the chief Soviet military adviser, General L. N. Gorelov, first learned of the coup when he came to his office in the morning.10 However, a KGB source reports that the two Afghan military leaders and Soviet agents, Mohammad Rafi (codenamed Niruz) and Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy (codenamed Mamad), had given advance warning of the coup to the Soviets.11 Alexander Morozov, who served as the deputy KGB chief in Kabul, stated that the KGB was not aware of the order given by Amin, but that they it was aware of the plan for a coup.12 Once the coup took place, the Soviet Union could hardly choose not to give its full support. Soon after the April 27, 1978, coup that brought the small communist party to power, the US embassy in Kabul cabled Washington: “The Russians have finally won the Great Game.”13 Immediately, the Soviet Union recognized the new government of what was now called the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA). This was followed by massive economic and military aid from the Soviets. The Saur Revolution brought the PDPA into power and ousted the government of Mohammad Daud Khan, who was succeeded by Nur Mohammad Taraki.14 President Taraki and his deputy Hafizullah Amin had been the organizers of the Saur Revolution. Some Afghans refer to this day as “the day of blood.” Soon after President Taraki took power, the struggle began between the Khalq and Parcham factions. Following this struggle, President Taraki and his deputy Amin (both Khalqis) were at odds politically, as Amin wanted to wield control. Amin had a very close relationship with President Taraki, but due to political disagreements, dismissal of suggestions, and distrust, this relationship deteriorated. A power struggle developed between the two men for control over the Afghan army, and therefore their relationship soured drastically. Subsequently, on October 6, 1979, Amin killed President Taraki, which weakened the government and made it even more dependent on the Soviet Union.15 As the PDPA, the military, and the KGB penetrated government, Taraki’s role became more perilous.16 Therefore, Babrak Karmal, who had played a major role in the Saur Revolution, met with Soviet Union officials to ask for their intervention. In June 1978, he was under house arrest and was removed from the cabinet and politically exiled as ambassador abroad, as he was accused of plotting to overthrow the government. After more than a year of PDPA leadership in Afghanistan, the Soviet Union officially intervened with military forces on December 27, 1979. On the same day the KGB assassinated Amin17 and replaced him with Babrak Karmal (Parchami).

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Karmal ruled from December 1979 to November 1986. In 1982 a former Soviet KGB major, Vladimir Kuzichkin, who defected in London, reported that Karmal had been a “KGB agent for many years. He could be relied upon to accept our advice.”18 He was deputy prime minister during Taraki’s time. Politics and Intelligence War President Mohammad Najibullah was one of the most important and feared leaders in the Babrak regime.19 In 1977 he had become a member of the reunited PDPA Central Committee. Following the April 1978 coup, he was not given a ministerial position but rather more or less exiled as ambassador to Tehran. Under the Babrak regime, he was appointed as head of the State Intelligence Agency (KhAD), formerly the Security and Intelligence Organization (KAM). KhAD had come under control of the KGB and was the main security and intelligence agency of Afghanistan, and also served as the secret police during the Soviet occupation. KhAD was nominally part of the Afghan state, but it was firmly under the control of the Soviet KGB until 1989. Even after the fall of the Soviet-backed government in 1992, KhAD acted as the intelligence arm of the Afghan Northern Alliance during the civil war in Afghanistan. Most of the KhAD records were either destroyed by the Taliban or taken to Russia by the KGB, where they remain classified to this day. Babrak Karmal described KhAD as a “machinery of terror and suppression, tyranny and torture.”20 Initially, Babrak emptied the jails of most political prisoners; however, very soon he again filled the jails. After just six months, Babrak’s government started following the practices of its predecessors: torture, trumped-up confessions, and executions without trial. KhAD became the primary agent for political coercion and human rights violations in Afghanistan. It stood in a long tradition of secret police. Nearly every regime in Afghanistan up to modern times employed internal spies to keep the government informed of plots against it. After World War II, several overlapping intelligence services were established, both civilian and military, to uncover plots and watch each other. None of these agencies were efficient, however.21 Therefore, after 1978 high priority was given to developing an efficient secret police service. During President Taraki’s administration, the secret police service was called the Afghan Interests Protection Agency (AGSA), led by

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Assadullah Sarwari, who amused himself by touring interrogation cells and stubbing out his cigarettes in the eyes of political prisoners.22 During President Amin’s regime, the secret police service was renamed KAM and led by Aziz Ahmed Akbari for two months before he was replaced by Assadullah Amin. As mentioned, following the Soviet invasion, the secret police service was renamed KhAD and led by Najibullah. With the close assistance and support from the KGB, KhAD greatly expanded in size and became a dreaded and pervasive organ of government repression. KhAD reported directly to the prime minister’s office and probably also to the Soviet embassy. Its budget was enormous, said to be larger than that for the entire government.23 The number of employees expanded vastly to between 15,000 and 30,000 full-time operatives, with perhaps another 100,000 paid informers.24 The employees of KhAD were among the highest-paid persons in the DRA. Many were sent abroad to learn interrogation and torture techniques.25 Much attention was given to making KhAD employees loyal and dedicated communists. During a PDPA conference, Najibullah said that KhAD’s slogan was “a weapon in one hand, a book in the other.”26 Within the government, KhAD had no intelligence service rivals. The national police force continued to exist under the Ministry of Interior, but its functions were limited to simple law-and-order duties. The function of military intelligence was removed from control of the armed forces and given to KhAD. Sayd Majrooh, former director of the Peshawar-based Afghan Information Center, stated that “KhAD has its police, prison, and torture chambers. It is a state within a state.”27 KhAD’s activities involved detecting and eradicating domestic political opposition, subverting the armed resistance, penetrating opposition groups abroad, and providing military intelligence to the armed forces, via its military wing. KhAD’s main function was to make sure Democratic Republic of Afghanistan–controlled territory was properly acquiescent. Kabul province was divided into 182 zones with as many as a hundred KhAD informers per block. The informers were mainly based in schools and government offices to monitor the loyalty of students and employees.28 This created a pervasive atmosphere of mutual suspicion and fear.29 President Babrak’s government also initiated the practice of staffing its diplomatic establishment abroad with many secret police employees to conduct espionage. In the mid-1980s, KhAD enjoyed a formidable measure of autonomy in relation to the Afghan state institutions. It gained a fearsome reputation as the eyes, ears, and scourge of the regime. Its influence was pervasive and its methods were lawless.

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The US State Department described the KBG role at KhAD as follows: “KGB officers are assigned to every major department of KhAD from the director’s office down, and all major KhAD operations required Soviet approval before implementation. KhAD is the law in Kabul and other cities and towns controlled by the regime. It has become an increasingly efficient agent of terror and repression and a prime tool for Soviet control of the Afghan population.”30 KGB involvement in violations of human rights was evident soon after the 1978 coup. Until May 1982, Soviet soldiers guarded the central prison31 and were also in charge of interrogations and executions. According to the US State Department, Soviet advisers were often present when torture was applied.32 With the assistance of the KGB, in 1983 KhAD became a formidable force. A British correspondent described it as “increasingly efficient and dangerous.”33 Taliban Since the end of the Cold War, the Taliban has been a political movement that has attracted much attention. The Taliban existed during the 1980s in the form of Taliban guerrilla fronts, mostly associated with the clerical party of the mujahidin, the Movement of the Islamic Revolution.34 In 1992, the whole party demobilized and barely took part in the civil war,35 and Afghanistan was in a state of breakdown just before the Taliban emerged at the end of 1994.36 In 1996, the Taliban successfully managed to take control of the country. One of the Taliban’s first acts was the execution of former president Najibullah, who had been living in UN premises since 1992.37 After killing Najibullah within twenty-four hours of taking Kabul, the Taliban enforced the strictest Islamic system in place anywhere in the world. Hence, by 1998, the Taliban movement managed to control almost 90 percent of the country.38 The Pakistan government has denied that al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, or the Haqqani network were ever based on its soil, although most of their leaders have been arrested or killed in Pakistan. The Pakistan government had hoped that the Taliban would provide the country with strategic depth and a secure neighborhood, and potentially oil resources from the north of the country to be able to conclude the Kashmir question with India. Consequently, Pakistan has been a principal supplier of weapons and fuel to the Taliban. Furthermore, it is claimed that Pakistan’s intelligence service (ISI) has a strong link with

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the Taliban and provides a safe-haven for terrorist groups. It is said that the ISI provides funding and training for the Taliban, and that the agency has representatives in the Quetta Shura, the Taliban’s leadership council, which is located in Pakistan.39 Thus it appears that Pakistan played a double game of astonishing magnitude. Accounts of the Taliban’s pre-9/11 intelligence infrastructure indicate that in addition to the Ministry of Intelligence, the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice possessed some 20,000 spies and 100,000 informants in 2001, with children or former KhAD agents constituting many of its informants. Informants were recruited on every city block to check neighborhoods, while foreign journalists were strongly monitored.40 The Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice reportedly supplemented this with informants in other ministries, hospitals, aid agencies, and military units. The Ministry of Intelligence was notorious for detaining suspected spies and Northern Alliance personnel and using torture tactics such as electric shocks and beatings during questioning.41 The post-9/11 Taliban intelligence now operates in a professional way, and it has used a wide variety of human intelligence. Throughout the history of the post-9/11 insurgencies in Afghanistan, reports have emphasized the Afghan Taliban’s notable ability to collect and use intelligence successfully. Researchers and media outlets describe the Afghan Taliban as possessing a remarkable intelligence network that performs numerous functions such as giving Taliban fighters early warning of US patrols and providing US forces with deceptive intelligence.42 An outstanding example of the Taliban’s intelligence collection capability occurred in 2012 when UK prime minister David Cameron was forced to cancel plans to visit a military outpost in Helmand province after intercepts indicated that the Taliban were aware of his program.43 Management of the Taliban’s intelligence ministry appears to have changed regularly for reorganizing ministerial portfolios. It enjoyed a number of essential intelligence successes, such as the capture and execution of prominent leaders, and the possible uncovering of a US plot to assassinate Osama bin Laden. In late 2001, it failed to detect a former chief of intelligence who defected to the Northern Alliance after preserving a secret dialogue with Ahmad Shah Massoud for several years.44 In addition, Taliban intelligence officials obtained extensive ties with the ISI, as well as with members of Pakistan’s Assembly of Islamic Clerics (JUI) political party and foreign terrorists.45 They also appear to have attempted to gather information via Twitter, monitor the foreign

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news media and publications of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and respond promptly to UN reports and articles.46 Military authors have described the Taliban’s current intelligence collection structure as one in which local Taliban units collect intelligence and share it with neighboring units and the top of the hierarchy, which provides top-down intelligence support.47 In addition to collection efforts by local Taliban units and other personnel who conduct intelligence collection alongside alternative roles, the Taliban possess committed intelligence officers. These officers are deployed to the regional and provincial levels and almost certainly help smooth the flow of information and run informant networks.48 Moreover, a former US intelligence analyst says that “the Taliban are fighting a political war while the US and its allies are still fighting a tactical military war. We remain focused on terrain, and they are focused on attacking the transition process and seizing the narrative of victory.”49 In addition, the Taliban continue to operate an extensive range of human intelligence and open-source intelligence, with the group having a signals intelligence capability to listen into the heavily encrypted radio transmissions of US troops. Their current capabilities are much stronger than before. Village- and neighborhood-level intelligence networks continue to give the Taliban a large quantity of information on US and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) movements,50 and on probable spies or government collaborators, while providing a population control function. Taliban intelligence efforts focus heavily on Afghan government employees, such as police and Afghans working for foreign militaries, which are monitored while entering or departing foreign military bases and later targeted for intimidation or murder. As noted in many media outlets, the Taliban obtain actionable intelligence from informants on military movements and facilities of interest to them.51 Formation of Intelligence Agencies Following 9/11 Following the events of September 11, 2001, the United States and United Kingdom began a bombing campaign in Afghanistan under the name Operation Enduring Freedom. The stated aim of the campaign was to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime. Today, despite the initial aim of the war, there are more terrorist groups, and they appear to be stronger than ever, escalating the number and shock value of terror

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attacks in the region, strengthening military control over districts in Afghanistan, and expanding their connections with other radical groups across the Middle East (such as the Islamic State). One could hypothesize that the main reason why the Afghan National Defense Security Force (ANDSF) consistently fails to foil high-profile attacks is inattention to Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), and the National Security Council (NSC), as well as political interference and appointments in ANDSF institutions. Rather than prioritizing the ANDSF brain, the NDS concentrated on building the ANDSF’s body parts. The NDS was established by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Pentagon to help them in countering Taliban insurgents and collect intelligence in cities and remote districts (see Figure 2.1). This new agency was the successor to KhAD.52 The country is in need of a wellorganized intelligence agency to provide valuable information on the activities of insurgents. In May 2016, in an interview with former president Hamid Karzai during his visit to London, he stated: “NDS’s job is to gather, analyze and share intelligence, and to give advice in support of the policy. Intelligence must not be a repressive tool in the country but a national security tool.”53 In Afghanistan, the main source for intelligence collection is interaction with tribal elders and villagers through local commanders. Sometimes, due to its demonstration of ineffective intelligence, the NDS faces criticism from parliamentarians and media.

Figure 2.1 Afghanistan’s Intelligence Community Afghanistan Government ONSC

NDS

MOD

MOI

Other Ministries

Notes: ONSC: Office of National Security Council; NDS: National Directorate of Security; MOD: Ministry of Defense; MOI: Ministry of Interior.

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Furthermore, the NDS does not fall under the command of the Ministries of Defense or the Interior but rather liaises closely with the ANDSF at every level; it is overseen by the NSC but reports directly to the president. The NDS is accused of not sharing all its information with the police and defense ministry and of not providing reliable information to policymakers. There are also instances of policymakers not taking intelligence seriously, acting late, or not trusting the intelligence. The historical record suggests that the points at which the intelligence cycle most frequently breaks down are in the assessment process and the policy interface rather than in collection. Conclusion KhAD was nominally part of the Afghan state, but it was firmly under the control of the Soviet KGB until 1989. Even after the fall of the Soviet-backed government in 1992, KhAD acted as the intelligence arm of the Afghan Northern Alliance during the civil war in the country. KhAD reported directly to the prime minister’s office and probably also to the Soviet embassy. Within the government, KhAD had no intelligence service rivals. The function of military intelligence was removed from control of the armed forces and given to KhAD. In 1996, the Taliban successfully managed to take control of the country. Pakistan’s interests haven’t changed much, as the government had hoped that the Taliban would provide the country with strategic depth and a secure neighborhood. The post-9/11 Taliban intelligence community is currently operating in a professional way, and it has used a wide variety of human intelligence. However, its current capabilities are now much stronger. The NDS, successor to KhAD, was established to counter the Taliban insurgents and collect intelligence in cities and remote districts. For the conceptual framework of intelligence studies to advance further, it is essential to make a clearer distinction than is usually made at present between the roles of intelligence communities in authoritarian and democratic regimes. Afghanistan intelligence is in need of modern intelligence systems to change the nature of authoritarianism within the organization. Another thing that has regularly prompted confusion among security experts is the difference in basic tasks of an intelligence agency during war and peace.54 In the Western world, governments view intelligence as not only an advance warning about looming threats but also

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an umbrella—a range of activities from planning and information to analysis, all conducted in secret. However, it is important to emphasize that the achievement of a reformed security sector of Afghanistan is very much a function of the extent to which the government of national unity can broadly be perceived as legitimate. Notes 1. Ali Ahmad Jalali, A Military History of Afghanistan: From the Great Game to the Global War on Terror (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2017), xi. 2. Ibid., 1. 3. Ibid., xiii. 4. Roman Timofeevich Akhramovich and C. J. Lambkin, Outline History of Afghanistan After the Second World War, translated by C. J. Lambkin (Moscow: Nauka, 1966), 69. 5. Beverley Male, Revolutionary Afghanistan: A Reappraisal (London: Croom Helm, 1982), 59. 6. Ibid., 49. 7. Abdul Samad Ghaus, The Fall of Afghanistan: An Insider’s Account (London: Pergamon-Brassey’s, 1988), 171. 8. Ibid., 179. 9. Jalali, A Military History of Afghanistan, 351. 10. Rodric Braithwaite, Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979–89 (London: Profile, 2011), 42. 11. Jalali, A Military History of Afghanistan, 354. 12. Diego Cordovez and Selig S. Harrison, Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 27. 13. J. Bruce Amstutz, Afghanistan: The First Five Years of Soviet Occupation (Washington, DC: NDU, 1986), 3. 14. M. Hasan Kakar, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979–1982 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 15. 15. Amstutz, Afghanistan, 273. 16. Peter Tomsen, The Wars of Afghanistan: Messianic Terrorism, Tribal Conflicts, and the Failures of Great Powers (New York: PublicAffairs, 2011), 160. 17. Braithwaite, Afgantsy, 99. 18. Amstutz, Afghanistan, 34. 19. Anthony Arnold, Afghanistan’s Two-Party Communism: Parcham and Khalq (Stanford: Hoover Institution, 1983), 144. 20. Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dutch Relief Alliance, “White Book: Foreign Policy Documents of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan” (Kabul, 1981), 24–25. 21. Arnold, Afghanistan’s Two-Party Communism, 84. 22. John Fullerton, The Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan (Hong Kong: South China Morning Post, 1983), 33. 23. Edward Girardet, “The Khad: USSR’s Secret Weapon Against Afghan Rebels,” Christian Science Monitor, September 29, 1983. 24. US Department of State, “Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1982” (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1982). 25. Girardet, “The KhAD”; Fullerton, The Soviet Occupation, 119. 26. Kabul Radio, “South Asia Daily Report,” news release, March 24, 1982.

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27. William Branigin, “Afghanistan Inside a Soviet War Zone,” Washington Post, October 21, 1983, 14. 28. Fullerton, The Soviet Occupation, 119. 29. US Department of State, “Country Report on Human Rights Practices,” 1073. 30. Ibid., 1072. 31. “In FBIS,” Middle East and North Africa Daily Report, February 1, 1980. 32. US Department of State, “Country Report on Human Rights Practices,” 1075. 33. Fullerton, The Soviet Occupation, 126. 34. Antonio Giustozzi, “CIWAG Case Study on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups: Taliban Networks in Afghanistan” (Newport: Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups [CIWAG], 2012), 17. 35. Ibid. 36. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: The Story of the Afghan Warlords—Including a New Foreword Following the Terrorist Attacks of 11 September 2001 (London: Pan, 2002), 21. 37. Mohammad Hamid Saboori Nadjma Yassari, “Sharia and National Law in Afghanistan,” Jura Gentium, 2010, 8. 38. Theo Farrell, Frans P. B. Osinga, and James A. Russell, Military Adaptation in Afghanistan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013), 259. 39. Owen Bennett Jones, Pakistan: Eye of the Storm, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 240. 40. Julian West, “Child-Spy Network a Key Weapon in Intelligence War,” The Telegraph, October 31, 2001. 41. Ben Brandt, “The Taliban’s Conduct of Intelligence and Counterintelligence” (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, June 1, 2011), 1. 42. C. J. Chivers, “In Eastern Afghanistan, at War with the Taliban’s Shadowy Rule,” New York Times, February 6, 2011. 43. Brandt, “The Taliban’s Conduct.” 44. Ibid., 2. 45. Ibid. 46. Ibid. 47. Shahid Afsar, Chris Samples, and Thomas Wood, “The Taliban: An Organizational Analysis,” January 2008, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277741707 _The_Taliban_An_Organizational_Analysis. 48. Ron Moreau, “Do the Taliban Get PTSD?” Daily Beast, December 6, 2010, http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/12/06/do-the-taliban-get-ptsd.html. 49. Musa Khan Jalazai, “Social Media, Taliban’s Tactical Intelligence, and NATO,” Daily Times, January 8, 2013, 2, http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2013 %5C01%5C08%5Cstory_8-1-2013_pg3_5. 50. C. J. Chivers, “Afghanistan’s Hidden Taliban Government,” New York Times, February 6, 2011. 51. Ruhullah Khapalwak and Carlotta Gall, “Taliban Kill Afghan Interpreters Working for U.S. and Its Allies,” New York Times, July 4, 2006; Chivers, “Afghanistan’s Hidden Taliban Government.” 52. Panagiotis Dimitrakis, The Secret War in Afghanistan: The Soviet Union, China, and Anglo-American Intelligence in the Afghan War (London: Tauris, 2013). 53. Author interview with former president of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai, London, April 20, 2016. 54. Peter Gill et al., Intelligence Theory: Key Questions and Debates (London: Routledge, 2009).

3 Bangladesh A. S. M. Ali Ashraf

The intelligence community of Bangladesh demonstrates a puzzling behavior of shifting between continuities and changes. This is evident in the fact that the dominant security and intelligence agencies have continued to play a dubious role in domestic politics, showing absolute loyalty to political governments and their party agendas. Yet a parallel trend has emerged in which the fight against terrorism has necessitated the rise of counterterrorism intelligence as a professional area of expertise, with a growing level of technological integration and international cooperation. This chapter shows how various domestic and external factors have shaped this puzzling trend in the intelligence culture of Bangladesh.1

Country Overview Domestic Politics

Bangladesh is a small country in South Asia with a large population of 162 million living on 148,000 square kilometers of land. It is surrounded by India on three sides and has access to the Indian Ocean to the south. It emerged as a sovereign nation-state in 1971 after a ninemonth independence war against Pakistan in which India had played a decisive role by providing all-out support to the Bangladeshi freedom fighters. With India and Pakistan, Bangladesh shares a 190-year British colonial legacy that ended in 1947. Over the past decade, Bangladesh 25

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has prioritized economic development with a strong emphasis on improved quality of life for citizens. The large majority of Bangladesh’s population are Muslim (89 percent) and the rest are Hindu (10 percent) and Buddhist and Christian (1 percent). Bangladesh is largely a homogeneous country with more than 98 percent of the population being Bengali and 1.1 percent being indigenous ethnic people.2 After independence, Bangladesh had a brief period of parliamentary politics, which was replaced by fifteen years of military rule. Since the restoration of parliamentary democracy in 1991, four major political parties have dominated national politics: the Awami League (AL), Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), Jatiya Party (JP), and Jamaat-eIslami (JeI).3 The AL is a center-left party, whereas the BNP and JP are center-right parties, and the JeI is a right-wing faith-based party.4 The smaller, left-wing communist parties in Bangladesh, which were once divided between the pro-Beijing and pro-Moscow camps, have often felt more comfortable developing electoral coalition with the AL but lack any large support base. The AL led the independence movement but the party’s charismatic leader and founder of Bangladesh, Bangabandhu (“Friend of Bengal”) Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated in 1975 by a group of disgruntled military officials. A series of military coups and countercoups followed Mujib’s death. In this context, General Ziaur Rahman, a hero of the 1971 independence war, formally took power in 1977, founded the BNP in 1978, and ran the presidency until 1981, when he was assassinated in a military coup. Zia was succeeded by General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who founded the JP as a political party and ruled the country until December 1990, when a massive pro-democracy movement toppled his regime. Since the restoration of democracy in 1990 the BNP and the AL have emerged as the major parties by forming coalitions and countercoalitions before the parliamentary elections. General Zia’s wife and BNP leader Khaleda Zia won two general elections and served as prime minister for two terms (1991–1996, 2001–2006), while Mujib’s daughter and AL leader Sheikh Hasina won the parliamentary elections in 1996, 2009, 2014, and 2018. Bangladesh had introduced a system of interim caretaker government (ICG), which successfully administered four parliamentary elections, in 1991, 1996, 2001, and 2007. There were sharp differences between the first three and the fourth ICGs. The first three ICGs were headed by former chief justices who would form a technocrat government of ten cabinet members, drawn from prominent members of civil society. They would stick to the mandate of holding free and fair elections and would

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defer any major decisions to the politically elected governments. The 2007 ICG was an exception: it was backed by the military for two years and was headed by a former governor of Bangladesh’s central bank. The AL-led grand alliance won the parliamentary elections in December 2008, and in 2011 it abolished the ICG system through a constitutional amendment, a decision that is still being rejected by the major opposition parties and civil society organizations because of their doubts about the credibility of any elections under a political government. The BNP led an unsuccessful political campaign to reintroduce the ICG system and eventually boycotted the 2014 parliamentary elections. Khaleda, the BNP chief, was charged in a number of corruption cases, her two sons were forced into exile, and many of her party leaders and activists were pursued by the police. With a grassroots political support base, India’s overt support, and unconditional loyalty of the security and intelligence agencies of Bangladesh, Hasina has consolidated her power as prime minister. She also managed to suppress political dissent and eventually won a landslide victory in the December 2018 parliamentary election, widely thought to be rigged by the state machinery. The national electoral commission failed to play an assertive role in making the 2018 elections free, fair, and credible. Foreign Policy

Successive Bangladeshi governments have pursued different foreign policy choices at the bilateral, regional, and global levels. First, at the bilateral level, India and China have been the major sources of external influence. Instead of crafting a stable foreign policy orientation toward these two Asian neighbors, Bangladeshi political regimes have often chosen to come closer to either India or China. This is evident from the fact that historically the AL has adopted a more India-positive policy, whereas the BNP and JP have adopted a China-positive policy. Due to India’s politicomilitary-strategic support for Bangladesh’s independence war with Pakistan, Mujib took a pro-India policy, a stance his daughter Hasina has strongly maintained. Mujib’s signing of a twenty-five-year friendship agreement with India and his dependence on Indian support to raise the paramilitary Jatiya Rakkhi Bahini (National Security Force) had alienated the military establishment. After Mujib’s assassination in 1975, the military regimes of Zia and Ershad had often chanted anti-India rhetoric and developed a strong defense partnership with China, benefiting from the latter’s supply of low-cost military technologies. During Khaleda’s tenure

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as prime minister, Bangladesh maintained a pro-China policy, and DhakaDelhi relations often reached their lowest point with accusations and counteraccusations of state-sponsored terrorism. India would accuse Bangladesh of collaborating with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in providing a sanctuary for the secessionist United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) leaders, whereas Bangladesh would condemn India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), for arming, training, and supporting the Shanti Bahini (Peace Force). The ULFA is one of the major ethnic-separatist groups in the Indian state of Assam, whereas Shanti Bahini was the armed wing of the insurgent group the United People’s Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (PCJSS) in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) region of Bangladesh. On both sides of the 4,100-kilometer border, the state-controlled intelligence agencies were involved in maintaining contact with the rebels, reflecting the larger foreign policy orientation of the incumbent governments. Myanmar is another neighbor with which Bangladesh shares a land boundary (270 kilometers) and a long maritime boundary (361 kilometers). While Bangladesh’s bilateral relations with Myanmar have largely remained uneventful for most of their history, the latter’s military and intelligence-led campaigns against the Rohingya Muslim community in Rakhine state have created several waves of large-scale refugee flows in Bangladesh. In the latest wave (2017–2018), Bangladesh saw an influx of 700,000 Myanmar-origin Rohingya, who have joined the preexisting 300,000 Rohingya refugees—all living in the southeastern and coastal Cox’s Bazar district of Bangladesh. Bangladesh has largely been disappointed with China and India for their diplomatic support for Myanmar in evicting the Rohingyas. Political analysts in Bangladesh put the blame on the intelligence agencies of the country for their failure to anticipate a large-scale influx of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, for which the government was completely unprepared. The European Union, Japan, and the United States are three major development partners. They occupy important places in the external relations of Bangladesh. Among them, Japan has been the largest provider of development aid, whereas the EU and the United States are the top destinations of Bangladeshi readymade garment exports. On a wide range of development, security, and trade issues they have shown increasing interest in cooperating with Bangladesh in recent years. Bangladesh has seen deteriorated relations with Pakistan due to Islamabad’s condemnation of the Bangladeshi war crimes trial process. Most of the war crime convicts in Bangladesh are members of the Islamist JeI party, some of whom worked as razakars (collaborators)

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with the West Pakistan military regime during the 1971 independence war of Bangladesh (former East Pakistan).5 In 2016 the Pakistani parliament unanimously adopted a resolution condemning the execution of the JeI leaders on charges of war crimes. Pakistan had referred to a 1974 tripartite deal among Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan in which Bangladesh gave clemency to 195 Pakistani prisoners of war who were accused of war crimes. 6 Bangladesh criticized Pakistan’s stance as interference in its domestic affairs, asserting the right to prosecute those who have committed genocides and crimes against humanity during the 1971 independence war. In regional affairs, Bangladesh has successfully partnered with its neighbors to establish the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), and has played a proactive role in creating the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). While SAARC has often been hostage to Indo-Pakistan rivalry, BIMSTEC has lately been favored by India due to the exclusion of Pakistan from this regional forum. In the international arena, Bangladesh has maintained a strong commitment to multilateral global governance through its membership in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), United Nations, World Bank, and World Trade Organization (WTO). At the United Nations, Bangladesh has earned a strong reputation for contributing a large peacekeeping force and thus playing a proactive role in maintaining international peace and security. The Security Landscape

Two broad categories of security threats are pertinent here: traditional and nontraditional.7 Historically, there have been three major traditional security concerns in Bangladesh: unresolved land and maritime boundary disputes with India, maritime dispute with Myanmar, and ethnic insurgency in the CHT region.8 On the other hand, transnational terrorism, cross-border crime, financial crimes, political violence, and the influx of Rohingya refugees have featured highly as major nontraditional security threats.9 The traditional security challenges have persisted for several decades and have largely been addressed through peaceful settlements of disputes, and the Hasina government claims them all as success stories. First, in 1997, a peace accord with the ethnic group PCJSS ended the two-decade ethnic insurgency in the CHT region. Since the Shanti Bahini, the military wing of the PCJSS, was enjoying a sanctuary and

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state sponsorship in the Indian state of Tripura, India’s diplomatic support and intelligence cooperation were crucial enough for Bangladesh to sign and implement the 1997 CHT peace accord. Second, Bangladesh’s long-standing disputes with Myanmar and India over the delimitation of maritime boundaries in the Bay of Bengal were resolved in 2012 and 2014, respectively, after the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and the Permanent Court of Arbitration gave two separate verdicts. Third, in 2015 the hundredth amendment of the Indian constitution paved the way for the Indian parliament’s ratification of a revised version of the 1974 India-Bangladesh land-border agreement, which resolved this age-old dispute. While the homework for the ratification was done by India’s Manmohan Singh government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi invested his political capital in ratifying this historical agreement that also facilitated the exchange of more than 162 small enclaves by two countries inhabited by 52,000 people.10 In contrast to the traditional security threats, which have largely been well managed, the nontraditional challenges arising from terrorism, cross-border crime, financial crimes, political violence, and refugee influx continue to pose varying levels of threat to Bangladesh. Among them, the changing nature of terrorism, coming from Islamist militant groups, deserves more attention. First, although left-wing Maoist terrorist groups in Bangladesh, with some cross-border connections with the Maoists in India and Nepal, were a concern for the law enforcement and intelligence agencies in the 1970s and 1980s, Islamist militant groups have emerged as a potent force in two historical waves since the 1990s. In the first wave (1999–2005), the Islamic Jihad Movement of Bangladesh (HUJI-B), Awakened Muslim Masses of Bangladesh (JMJB), and Assembly of Mujahidin of Bangladesh (JMB) unveiled a reign of terror by successfully executing nearly two dozen terrorist attacks targeting cultural gatherings, secular political activists, movie theaters, and Sunni Islamic shrines. In the second wave (since 2013) of Islamist militancy, the dominant terrorist threat has come from two groups: Supporters of Islam (AAI) and Neo-JMB. There are sharp differences between the targets chosen by these two groups. 11 The AAI, which has publicly expressed its support for al-Qaeda, has primarily targeted the secularminded bloggers, online activists, and publishers whose free-thinking writings are perceived to be a direct assault on Islam’s core beliefs. On the other hand, Neo-JMB, a sympathizer of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), has attacked Shiite Muslims, Christian missionaries, foreigners, and law enforcement personnel. The attacks on Shiites in

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Bangladesh are seen to be an impact of Pakistani Sunni militant groups, which have historically persecuted the Shiite minorities, and have managed to influence the Bangladeshi militant groups using both direct contact and virtual connections. On the other hand, the attacks on Christian missionaries and foreigners are labeled by the militant groups as legitimate targets against the enemies of Islam. Since the law enforcement agencies often take static, patrol, and offensive postures against the militants, Neo-JMB has expanded its target list to include law enforcement personnel. Other nontraditional challenges also matter, but to a lesser extent than terrorism. For instance, cross-border crime mainly concerns border smuggling and irregular migration or human trafficking; and financial crimes involve money laundering, terrorist financing, and tax evasion. On the other hand, political violence by mainstream political party activists is primarily intended to secure electoral victory; and the Rohingya refugee influx is at its core a challenge for managing a complex humanitarian crisis. Interestingly, each of these security challenges can directly shape the dynamics of terrorism. For instance, the security services in Bangladesh find that terrorist groups have often used smuggled weapons and explosives from India and financed their operations through extortion, private donations, and robbery. They have also benefited from a confrontational political culture and have shown some interest in radicalizing the disgruntled Rohingya youth. The net effect of the evolving complexity of the terrorist threat is well evident in the way the security and intelligence agencies have reorganized their capabilities for combating terrorism. The Intelligence Community The intelligence community in Bangladesh comprises various agencies controlled by both the armed forces and the civilian authorities (see Figure 3.1). These agencies fall into eight categories: national security and political control; counterterrorism; defense services; criminal investigation; border security; physical protection; signals intelligence; and financial intelligence. Large intelligence agencies and their constituent entities operating under these categories often maintain overlapping responsibilities. Some of them are quite old and their origin can be traced back to the British colonial regime, whereas others were founded right after the independence of Bangladesh in 1971 but were later reorganized to adapt to emerging politico-security threats.

Figure 3.1 Intelligence Community in Bangladesh Prime Minister’s Office

NCIC

MOD

DGFI

NSI

Defense

DMI

MOHA

SSF SB

RAB

Ansar

CID

DMP

CTC

RIW

BGB

CG

ATU

NTMC PHQISA

PBI

DMI CTC

MOF

Police

DMI

CTIB

32

• Prime Minister (PM) • PM’s National Security Adviser • Cabinet Secretary • PM’s Principal Secretary • DG-DGFI • DG-NSI • DG-SSF • IGP • SB Chief • DG-RAB • CID Chief

NCIC CIID CIC

CTTC

DB

BSB

CGI

Notes: Major counterterrorism intelligence entities are shown in bold font; those headed by military officials are shown in ovals. ATU: Antiterrorism Unit; DGFI: Directorate General of Forces Intelligence; BFIU: Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit; DMI: Directorate of Military Intelligence; BGB: Border Guard Bangladesh; DMP: Dhaka Metropolitan Police; BSB: Border Security Bureau; DNI: Directorate of Naval Intelligence; CG: Coast Guard; MOD: Ministry of Defense; CGI: Coast Guard Intelligence; MOF: Ministry of Finance; CIC: Central Intelligence Cell; MOHA: Ministry of Home Affairs; CID: Criminal Investigation Department; NCIC: National Committee for Intelligence Coordination; CIID: Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate; NSI: National Security Intelligence; CTC: Counterterrorism Cell; NTMC: National Telecommunication Monitoring Cell; CTTC: Counterterrorism and Transnational Crime; PBI: Police Bureau of Investigation; CTIB: Counterterrorism Intelligence Bureau; PHQ-ISA: Police Headquarters Intelligence and Special Affairs Wing; CTS: Counterterrorism Section; RAB: Rapid Action Battalion; DAI: Directorate of Air Intelligence; RIW: RAB Intelligence Wing; DB: Detective Branch; SB: Special Branch; SSF: Special Security Force.

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The first category includes three large intelligence agencies: the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), National Security Intelligence (NSI) apparatus, and Special Branch (SB). The first two agencies have mandates for the collection, analysis, and dissemination of intelligence on internal and external threats, whereas the third has the mandate to conduct political surveillance and control of immigration and foreigners. Their command and control systems differ significantly. Presently, the director-generals of both the DGFI and the NSI are serving major-generals in the Bangladesh army, whereas the chief of SB is one of the most senior civilian police officers at the rank of additional inspector-general of police. The origin of the DGFI can be traced back to the Directorate of Forces Intelligence (DFI), which along with the NSI was founded by Mujib right after Bangladesh’s independence in 1971. The initial goal of the DFI was to produce strategic, operational, and tactical intelligence in support of the armed forces. After a mutiny in the Bangladesh air force in 1977, Zia reorganized and renamed the DFI the DGFI, with the main purpose of coordinating intelligence matters for the three defense services. The DGFI has several bureaus, of which the counterterrorism bureau is known to be the most powerful. During the Zia and Ershad regimes, the capability of the DGFI was significantly enhanced to serve the military regimes. When Khaleda came to power this trend continued. The Hasina regime has also continued to have confidence in the DGFI. Unlike the DGFI, the NSI was established as an apex and all-source intelligence agency staffed mostly by civilian personnel. The NSI has a mandate to collect intelligence from all sources, including agents posted in South and Southeast Asia and a few other countries in the world deserving higher policy priorities for Bangladesh. After the assassination of Mujib, the military regimes downgraded the importance of the NSI, and it was not until 1996, when Hasina came to power, that the capability of the NSI was gradually increased. Yet she had followed her predecessors in appointing a top military official to direct the NSI. The SB, a constituent organization of the Bangladesh Police, is the largest intelligence agency in the country. It collects intelligence through district offices. Like the intelligence bureaus in India and Pakistan, the SB in Bangladesh is tasked with monitoring and evaluating the activities of the political parties and their sister organizations.12 The SB collects data on the current and future programs of political parties, as well as trade unions and student organizations. It also works on preventing any subversive activities and threats to the incumbent government.

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Closely related to the political surveillance activities, the SB is also tasked with issuing clearances to foreigners’ entry and stay, providing physical protection of very important persons, and managing immigration service at the land ports and airports. The top three intelligence agencies have clearly defined reporting authorities. The director-generals of the DGFI and NSI brief the prime minister on a daily basis, either through the “red phone” or in person. The head of the SB also provides daily reports to the prime minister, home minister, and the inspector-general of police. Given the nature of polarized politics in Bangladesh, the three agencies also maintain an extensive role in political control, using both legal and extralegal measures that often draw criticism from the human rights community. In recent years, at least two high-profile cases have highlighted the politicized role of the intelligence agencies: in the first case a journalist had experienced inhumane treatment at secret detention facilities run by the intelligence agencies, and in the second case a court verdict indicted top intelligence officials conspiring with the political leaders of incumbent government to plan and execute the August 2004 terrorist attacks on an AL rally.13 Members of civil society opine that such controversial roles of the intelligence agencies continue in the absence of a strong oversight system. Counterterrorism

The second category comprises six intelligence entities: the CounterTerrorism Intelligence Bureau (CTIB) of the DGFI, Counter-Terrorism Cell (CTC) of the NSI, the Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime (CTTC) unit of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP), the Intelligence Wing of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), the Counter-Terrorism Section (CTS) of the SB, and the Anti-Terrorism Unit (ATU) of the Bangladesh Police. Most of these counterterrorism intelligence entities were formed in the post-9/11 era in response to the demands for monitoring both domestic and transnational terrorist threats. The RAB, along with its Intelligence Wing, was established in 2004, the CTIB in 2006, the CTTC in 2016, and the ATU in 2017. The CTC of the NSI and the CTS of the SB are thought to be the oldest of their kind, having been established in the 1980s. In addition to these six counterterrorism intelligence entities, Bangladesh Police headquarters has established the Intelligence and Special Affairs (ISA) wing, which not only acts as a focal point for coordination among various police intelligence bodies but also provides intelligence support to counterterrorism operations. The ISA, also known as

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the “Confidential Wing,” has evolved from a relatively small entity, the Lawful Interception Cell (LIC), opened in 2006 primarily to conduct legal interception of telephone conversations between persons of interest. With terrorism posing an increasingly complex and grave threat, the LIC has grown in size and now forms a core unit of the ISA. As the transnational terrorist networks of al-Qaeda and ISIS have influenced the homegrown terrorists in Bangladesh, all of the counterterrorism intelligence entities are now assessing two emerging threats: any potential connections between the transnational terrorists and homegrown militant groups in Bangladesh, and the movements of ISIS foreign fighters originating from and returning to Bangladesh.14 In addition to collecting, collating, analyzing, and disseminating intelligence, these intelligence entities have also provided useful inputs to run counterterrorism operations. There are clear differences between the mandates of these counterterrorism intelligence entities: while the CTIB, CTC, and CTS are primarily responsible for long-term and strategic threat assessment, the ATU, CTTC, and RAB Intelligence Wing are more tasked with operational and tactical intelligence. They also differ on exposures to media coverage: the CTTC and RAB enjoy more media coverage than others. This is due to the fact that they often maintain press briefings after each major operation. Although RAB once played a lead operational role, the CTTC, since its emergence in 2016, has gradually acquired the status of a lead counterterrorism agency for both intelligence and operations.15 The other intelligence entities mostly operate behind the scenes but maintain varying levels of collaborative relations with each other. Interagency collaboration between these counterterrorism intelligence entities is largely determined by an agency’s civilian versus military identity. The head of the CTIB is an army brigadier-general, and the directors of the CTC and RAB Intelligence Wing are mid-level military officials at the rank of lieutenant-colonel or colonel. Since serving military officers direct these three intelligence entities (CTIB, CTC, and RAB Intelligence Wing), collaboration among them is quite robust. By contrast, the head of the ATU is an additional inspector-general of police, the chief of the CTTC is a deputy inspector-general of police, and the head of the SB’s Counter-Terrorism Section is an additional deputy inspector-general of police. The ISA at police headquarters is headed by an additional deputy inspector-general. Since civilian police officers control the latter group of entities including the ATU, CTTC and ISA, the level of trust and confidence among them is very high, which facilitates information sharing.

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Each of the counterterrorism intelligence entities in Bangladesh relies not only on an extensive network of agents, informers, sources, and watchers, widely dubbed human intelligence (HUMINT), but also on technological intelligence (TECHINT) and signals intelligence (SIGINT) coming from information technology–dependent hardware and software. The SIGINT data coming from the National Telecommunication Monitoring Center (NTMC) and the LIC of police headquarters often feed the counterterrorism intelligence agencies to connect the dots on terrorist suspects and assist in investigations into terrorist incidents. Counterterrorism analysts at various agencies focus on understanding the terrorist groups and their methods of fundraising, membership recruitment, operational plans, and organizational structure. Some of them have Arabic-language experts capable of interpreting the extremist contents posted online and in printed media outlets by violent Islamist extremist groups. The CTTC and RAB have mobile applications for citizens to report any suspicious activities. They also have cyber units to monitor online radicalization trends among the domestic terrorist organizations and the transnational terrorist networks. Large law enforcement agencies are also catching up with the trend in intelligence-led policing. The DMP has developed a digital database of 6 million citizens with biographical information and photographs collected from city dwellers and property owners.16 The idea of such a large database came from the belief that militants may hide in the cities to plan and execute terrorist attacks. After major crimes and terrorist incidents, criminal investigators also make an extensive use of camera footage from closed-circuit television. An important question arises: Why are there so many terrorismfocused intelligence agencies? The answer can be found in the evolving trends in terrorism. Historically, terrorism-related threats to Bangladesh came either from the radical left-wing terrorist groups intent on fighting a “people’s war” or from ethno-nationalist insurgents in the CHT region. As Islamist militant groups have demonstrated the ability not only to recruit a large number of people but also to execute coordinated terrorist attacks, both the military forces and the civilian police agencies are responding to such evolving threats of terrorism by creating new intelligence entities to adapt to the threat. Defense Services

The third category of agencies focuses on the three defense services: the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), Directorate of Naval Intelli-

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gence (DNI), and Directorate of Air Intelligence (DAI). Among them, the DMI is the largest and has some responsibilities to directly contribute to foreign and security policy as far as Bangladesh’s bilateral relations with India and Myanmar are concerned. Senior military officers at the rank of an army brigadier or equivalent in peer forces act as the directors of these defense intelligence agencies. In addition, the Army Security Unit (ASU), headed by an army brigadier, acts as another intelligence agency and is known to be the “eyes and ears” of the army chief. Criminal Investigation

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID), the Detective Branch (DB), and the Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) compose the fourth category of intelligence agencies. They are all part of the civilian law enforcement apparatus controlled by the Bangladesh Police. Their gestation period, organizational strength, and command authority vary significantly. Among them, the CID is the largest and the oldest, with superior authority in the domain of criminal intelligence. It was reestablished in 1971 in the immediate aftermath of the independence war, but its roots can be traced back to the British colonial regime. The DB, which came into being in 1976, came as a natural extension of the DMP. The PBI is the newest among them, having its origin in 2012. Forensic and digital technologies now drive the crime investigation methods of these agencies. The heads of the CID and DMP are additional inspector-generals of police, while the PBI chief is a deputy inspector-general—all very highranking civilian police officials. Border Security

The fifth category of intelligence agencies comprises the Border Security Bureau (BSB) and the Coast Guard Intelligence (CGI). The BSB is headed by a brigadier-general in the Bangladesh army posted to the paramilitary force Border Guard Bangladesh. It is mandated to gather intelligence related to illegal border crossing, transnational organized crime, and threats arising out of the vast border with India and Myanmar. On the other hand, the CGI is responsible for collecting intelligence on threats such as maritime piracy and smuggling coming from the coastal areas. The head of the CGI is a mid-ranking officer of the Bangladesh navy. Although both the BSB and the CGI are controlled by the armed forces, they operate under the Ministry of Home Affairs and can be integrated into the Ministry of Defense during wartime.

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Physical Protection

In the sixth category, the Special Security Force (SSF) and the Ansar and Village Defense Party represent two sharply different security agencies responsible for physical protection. The SSF is staffed by the best recruits from the defense service personnel who provide physical protection to the prime minister and other very important persons. On the other hand, the Ansar recruits come mostly from the underprivileged people, and they provide security to the masses to augment the capability of civilian police in major installations. Both of these security forces are headed by a serving major-general in the Bangladesh army, although the SSF is purely a military entity and Ansar is a civilian one. The SSF is a much superior agency, as it can collect intelligence from any other agency. On the other hand, the strength of Ansar lies in the fact that it has the largest network of human recruits around the country who can be mobilized to collect intelligence on a wide range of threats. Following a major terrorist attack in 2016 in Dhaka’s diplomatic zone, Ansar established a 300-strong striking force to provide physical protection to the diplomatic area. The SSF chief reports only to the prime minister whereas the Ansar chief reports to the home minister. Signals Intelligence

The seventh category includes the NTMC, a SIGINT agency in Bangladesh. It was established in 2014 as a provider of SIGINT data to all other peer agencies as needed. Although it operates under the Ministry of Home Affairs, it is presently headed by an army brigadier who once served with RAB. The NTMC plans to develop a large criminal database that can be shared by various security and intelligence agencies. Various other defense services have some modest SIGINT assets, but there is little public information about them. Financial Intelligence

The eighth category of intelligence agencies focuses on the threats of financial crime. Three such intelligence entities are prominent here: the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU), Central Intelligence Cell (CIC), and Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (CIID) of the National Board of Revenue (NBR). The BFIU is staffed by the Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of the country, while the CIC and CIID are managed by civil service cadre officials posted to the

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NBR and the Customs Department. The BFIU primarily relies on the collection of intelligence from bank and other financial institutions by assessing current transaction reports and suspicious transaction reports. It works closely with the CID on investigations into terrorist financing and with the Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate money-laundering cases. The CIC is, by contrast, a tax intelligence arm of the Ministry of Finance that works to combat tax evasion and tax fraud mostly by large business entities. The CIID also operates under the Ministry of Finance. As the inflow of smuggled gold from the Middle East has increased in Bangladesh, the CIID has made it a top priority to detect the goldsmuggling networks, which appear more to be profit-making entities having limited or no connections to terrorist financing so far. Since the price of gold is cheaper in Bangladesh than in India, Bangladesh is used as a transit point for the India-bound smuggled gold. Both domestic imperatives and external pressures have shaped the formation of these financial intelligence entities. The BFIU evolved from the Anti-Money-Laundering Department (AMLD) of Bangladesh, which was established in 2002. It went through administrative reforms after the Financial Action Task Force, a Paris-based global financial standard-setting institution, required the creation of an independent financial intelligence entity to monitor terrorist financing. Some of the United Nations Security Council resolutions, especially 1267 and 1373 on terrorist financing, and a series of UN conventions on transnational crime and terrorism created the normative pressure for the creation of the BFIU. Although the CIID was established in the 1970s primarily to combat the threats of smuggling of goods in the post-independence country, it has been reorganized in the post-9/11 era to deal with the threats of transnational crimes such as the smuggling of drugs, gold, and weapons. The CIC was formed in 2004 to detect tax evasion and improve tax compliance. The risks of money laundering have also played a role behind the creation of the CIC. Legislation There is no overarching legal instrument in Bangladesh to govern the intelligence agencies. Instead, the legal basis for the intelligence agencies comes from a wide variety of laws and executive directives, some of which either provide them a blanket cover to avoid public scrutiny or recognize their role in counterterrorism. For instance, the Right to Information Act of 2009 excluded the following ten security and intelligence agencies from the coverage of the act: the NSI, the DGFI, the

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defense intelligence units (DMI, DNI, and DAI), the CID, the SSF, the NBR’s CIC, the SB, and the RAB Intelligence Wing. This essentially restricts the right of citizens to know about the functions, mandates, and operations of these agencies. On the other hand, the Anti-Terrorism Rules of 2013, which provide detailed guidelines for implementation of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2009, refers only marginally to the DGFI, NSI, SB, CID, RAB, and other security and intelligence agencies to be part of a coordinated national effort to implement various UN Security Council resolutions aimed at combating terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and transnational organized crime.17 While the Right to Information Act of 2009 and the Anti-Terrorism Rules of 2013 make categorical mentions of some of the leading intelligence agencies, other laws such as the Special Powers Act of 1974 have historically provided them with a wide range of powers of arrest, detention, and interrogation in the name of internal stability, public safety, and regime survival. The DGFI and NSI are known to operate on the basis of executive orders issued by the first government of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Successive governments in Bangladesh, whether military regimes or civilian authorities, never came to adopt a comprehensive law to give legal footings to these two powerful agencies. As a result, there is no public knowledge of what mandates these agencies have, how they operate, or how they collect, collate, analyze, and disseminate intelligence. Since the DGFI and other defense intelligence entities such as the DMI, DNI, and DAI are controlled by the armed forces, it is widely held that various military laws and service rules, inherited from the British Raj (1857–1947) and the prepartition Pakistan state (1947–1971), govern the services of these intelligence entities, and confidential executive orders of the incumbent governments, rather than any law passed by the parliament, provide the legal basis. As for police-led intelligence agencies, including the CID and SB, several colonial and pre-independence-era legal instruments provide the legal basis. Among them, the Police Regulations of Bengal of 1943, the Penal Code of 1860, the Police Act of 1861, and the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1898 are notable. In addition, the Dhaka Metropolitan Police Ordinance of 1976 defines the mandate of the DMP and its constituent investigative agency, the DB. An exception is the PBI, which was founded in 2012 by an administrative order of the Ministry of Home Affairs and was later given legal footing through passage of the Police Bureau of Investigation Regulations of 2016. Among the counterterrorism intelligence entities, RAB has a clear legal mandate. It was established on the basis of the Armed Police Battalion 1979 (Amendment) Act of 2003. RAB is the only armed police

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unit in Bangladesh to have competence in the domain of intelligence. The CTTC was formed in 2016 by an administrative order of the Ministry of Home Affairs. Media reports indicate that in 2011 Bangladesh Police headquarters sent a proposal to the home ministry for establishing a police bureau of counterterrorism. Thus it took five long years to get the official approval to form the CTTC. In August 2017, another executive order, coming from the Committee on Administrative Improvement Affairs, approved the home ministry’s proposal to form the ATU. The Anti-Terrorism Act of 2009, which was amended in 2012, has proscribed several terrorist organizations and provided the legal basis to counterterrorism intelligence agencies for monitoring their activities. As for border intelligence, the legal basis for the BSB comes from the Border Guard Act of 2010. On the other hand, the legal basis for the CGI comes from the Coast Guard Act of 1994. Given the fact that the border forces are often called in to maintain law and order ahead of the national elections or during any joint forces operations against organized crime and terrorism, administrative orders from the Ministry of Home Affairs specify such legal mandates. Among the financial intelligence entities, the BFIU operates on the basis of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2009 (amended in 2012) and the Money-Laundering Prevention Act of 2012. On the other hand, the CIID operates on the basis of the Customs Act of 1969, and several other allied acts such as the Arms Act of 1878, Explosive Substance Act of 1908, Import and Export (Control) Act of 1950, Criminal Act of 1958, Agricultural Produce Cess Act of 1940, Foreign Exchange Regulation Act of 1947, Wild Life Crime Prevention Act of 2012, and Anti-MoneyLaundering Act of 2012. The CIC operates on the basis of the Income Tax Ordinance of 1984 and the Income Tax Rules of 1984. In summary, there is no comprehensive legal body to regulate the intelligence community in Bangladesh. Instead, several administrative orders and legal instruments provide the basis for the Bangladeshi intelligence agencies. The problem is not with the legal basis that exists but with the political use of the security and intelligence agencies, which has long created a challenge for establishing democratic control and security sector reform. International Cooperation Intelligence cooperation is emerging as a salient feature of the international regime for combating terrorism and transnational organized

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crime. Such cooperation is observed at three levels: bilateral, regional, and global. Bilateral Cooperation

During Hasina’s multiple tenures as the prime minister, bilateral relations between Bangladesh and India improved significantly, facilitating intelligence sharing between the two countries. Evidence abounds. For instance, during Hasina’s first tenure (1996–2000), the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the Indian intelligence agency, had played a crucial role by withdrawing support for the Bangladesh-focused ethnic insurgent group Shanti Bahini, which later surrendered arms following the 1997 CHT peace accord. Later, during her second tenure (2009–2013), Hasina made a decisive move to ensure that Bangladeshi intelligence agencies deny the Indian rebel group the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) any sanctuary in the country. As a direct consequence of Bangladesh’s intelligence cooperation, nearly a dozen top ULFA leaders were handed over to the Indian authorities without any formal extradition process.18 At least three cases can illustrate how the trend in Bangladesh-India intelligence cooperation continued during the third tenure of Hasina’s regime (2014–2018). First, an investigation into an accidental explosion in India’s Burdwan district of West Bengal state in October 2014 revealed the presence of the Bangladeshi militant group JMB in three Indian states—West Bengal, Assam, and Jharkhand. This was perhaps the first time a Bangladesh-focused violent extremist Islamist group had developed a large-scale presence in neighboring India. The Burdwan explosion drew India’s federal criminal National Investigation Agency closer to almost all of Bangladesh’s counterterrorism intelligence entities to develop a common threat assessment on the JMB.19 In the second case, the pro-ISIS Neo-JMB group in Bangladesh executed a grave terrorist attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery in the country’s diplomatic enclave in Gulshan in July 2016. The Gulshan attack killed twenty-nine people: twenty hostages, five gunmen, two police personnel, and two bakery staff. Among the twenty hostages killed, eighteen, including an Indian, were foreign nationals. Investigations conducted by the CTTC revealed that the militants smuggled small arms from India to execute the terrorist attack. Indian intelligence operatives speculate that the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI was involved behind the scenes. Further investigations by India’s National Investigation Agency and the Special Task Force of the Kolkata Police revealed the need for greater intelligence sharing between the two countries.

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Third, as the presence of more than a million Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh has created enormous pressures for a coordinated humanitarian response, security and intelligence agencies in both Dhaka and Delhi are concerned about the possible nexus between the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) and Bangladeshi militant groups. The ARSA is a Myanmar-focused armed militant group, but its connections with the AAI, the JMB, or Neo-JMB may pose a much larger regional threat. It should also be noted that the Bangladeshi militant group AAI is a constituent organ of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), a South Asian militant network that has openly condemned the sufferings of Rohingyas in Myanmar. As a result, concerns over the ARSA’s ability and potential to develop a partnership with Neo-JMB and the AAI have figured prominently in the intelligence circles of both India and Bangladesh. The growing level of Indo-Bangladesh intelligence partnership is backed by bilateral agreements on cooperation in criminal matters and extradition of criminal and terrorist suspects. Such partnership is often widely circulated in the media reports. In 2010, the Bangladesh high commissioner to India observed that there was “real-time intelligence sharing” between the security agencies of the two countries but that they lacked any institutional mechanism for exchange of intelligence.20 At the home minister level and home secretary level, the two countries have agreed to share intelligence on various types of terrorist and insurgent groups, cattle smuggling, and currency counterfeiting. Senior officials from the home and foreign affairs ministries and the chiefs of the border enforcement agency BGB, customs, and police meet bilaterally to develop the modus operandi for intelligence sharing.21 Bangladeshi diaspora communities are now spread in various advanced industrialized countries, with the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada topping the list. Two factors have facilitated the nature of intelligence cooperation between Bangladesh and these Western countries. For Bangladesh, the Western countries can provide funding, training, and technological support to enhance the capacity of law, security, and intelligence agencies. For the Western countries, partnership with Bangladeshi agencies can generate useful information about the trends in radicalization of Bangladesh-origin immigrants in these countries. Cooperation between the intelligence agencies of Bangladesh and the United States, especially on counterterrorism, has grown in the post-9/11 era. The goal of such cooperation is to promote capacity building of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies of Bangladesh. In August

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2016, US secretary of state John Kerry visited Dhaka and met senior government officials. At a time when top Bangladeshi officials of the Hasina government were rejecting the possibility of any ISIS links behind the Holey Artisan attacks, Kerry observed that ISIS operatives in Iraq and Syria had contacts with some operatives in Bangladesh.22 Since 2012, Bangladesh and the United States have been organizing partnership dialogues focusing on cooperation in defense, trade, and disaster management. In 2016, Bangladesh was enlisted in the US Counter-Terrorism Partnership Fund to promote cooperation in addressing the threats of radicalization, improving civilian law enforcement–led counterterrorism, and training in producing counter-narratives to terrorist discourse.23 Bangladeshi security and intelligence agencies, especially the DGFI and RAB, have also cooperated with the British intelligence agencies MI5 and MI6. In 2011, a widely circulated British daily, The Guardian, reported an extensive level of intelligence sharing between the agencies of Bangladesh and the UK regarding the interrogation of dual citizens in a secret Task Force for Interrogation cell.24 In March 2018, Bangladesh and the UK initiated a strategic dialogue to boost their economic and security cooperation. Cooperation with the Australian and Canadian security forces has also occurred. In 2008 and 2015, Bangladesh signed two memorandums of understanding with Australia to facilitate cooperation on counterterrorism and transnational crime. The law enforcement agencies of the two countries have also conducted joint counterterrorism exercises.25 Since 2016, Canadian security and intelligence agency officials have also shown an interest in developing intelligence partnerships with Dhaka to address the threats of ISIS foreign fighters. This came in response to growing concerns over radicalization of a Bangladeshi-origin Canadian, Tamim Chowdhury, who was the mastermind behind the Holey Artisan Bakery attack.26 There are no comparable intelligence partnerships between Bangladesh and other countries. Recently, China and Saudi Arabia have shown an interest in promoting counterterrorism cooperation with Bangladesh. Against this backdrop, in October 2018, Bangladesh and China signed an agreement on intelligence sharing to address terrorism and transnational crime. 27 Earlier, in 2015, Bangladesh joined the Saudi-led international coalition to combat ISIS.28 The two countries have recently explored cooperation in military construction, border surveillance, mine clearing, and training.29 In 2018, Bangladeshi military forces participated in a joint military exercise in Saudi Arabia. In February 2019, Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia signed a memorandum of

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understanding to facilitate military cooperation and intelligence sharing. The new deal will expedite the deployment of 1,800 troops to Saudi Arabia to clear the mines along the Saudi-Yemen borders. Regional Cooperation

Bangladesh has also taken an active interest in developing a regional intelligence cooperation mechanism. It is a state party to various conventions, protocols, and ministerial declarations that have created a normative basis for intelligence sharing among the SAARC members. Four such SAARC-level instruments are noteworthy: the SAARC Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism of 1987, SAARC Additional Protocol to the SAARC Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism of 2004, SAARC Ministerial Declaration on Cooperation in Combating Terrorism of 2009, and SAARC Ministerial Statement on Cooperation Against Terrorism of 2010. Although SAARC has often been hostage to India-Pakistan geopolitical rivalry, the adoption of these normative instruments is a clear indication of member states’ emphasis on intelligence sharing. Bangladesh has also supported the establishment of institutional bodies for SAARC-level regional intelligence sharing. Two such institutional platforms, the SAARC Drug Offenses Monitoring Desk (SDOMD) and the SAARC Terrorism Offenses Monitoring Desk (STOMD), have existed since the early 1990s, and a third, the SAARC Cyber Crime Offenses Monitoring Desk, was established in 2014. Since 2006, SAARC member states have also explored the idea of creating a South Asian Police (SAARCPOL) to facilitate intelligence sharing among the regional police organizations. Since the SDOMD and STOMD have yet to become fully operational, the idea of SAARCPOL confronted an institutional moratorium. However, the Bangladesh Police have been organizing an annual week-long training program on transnational crime to promote a professional network of South Asian law enforcement agencies. Bangladesh is also part of a new regional initiative for intelligence sharing among the BIMSTEC members. Global Cooperation

Bangladesh works with the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate to promote UN member states’ compliance with Security Council Resolution 1373 (2011), which criminalizes terrorism and calls for punitive actions against terrorist financing. In 2009,

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Bangladesh organized a three-day workshop on counterterrorism that featured this resolution prominently. The workshop was attended by police and prosecutors from the SAARC member states.30 The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was represented in the workshop to disseminate the knowledge that counterterrorism actions of UN member states must comply with the rule of law. In 2018, Bangladesh joined an initiative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to establish the South Asian Regional Intelligence Coordination Center (SARICC). Under the auspices of the UNODC, SARICC is to assemble the SAARC member states to develop a criminal intelligence-sharing database to combat transnational crime.31 Bangladesh has been a member of Interpol since 1976. It regularly cooperates with global police agencies using Interpol’s intelligencesharing platform. Such cooperation has produced tangible benefits in the fight against drug smuggling, human trafficking, and transnational terrorism.32 Since 1976, Bangladesh has issued Interpol red alerts against eighty individuals who absconded after committing a serious crime in the country.33 Bangladesh has also been part of the global initiatives for financial intelligence sharing. In 2013, it obtained membership in the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units.34 By participating in the Egmont Group, Bangladesh gained access to a global financial intelligence hub that would also take effective measures against transnational organized crime and terrorism. The CIID, another intelligence entity under the Ministry of Finance, works with the World Customs Organization’s Regional Intelligence Liaison Office (RILO) to share intelligence on smuggling of goods and communities.35 Oversight There are three possible models of intelligence oversight system in a country: executive, legislative, and judiciary. Bangladesh has followed the first model and rejected the other two. Executive control of the intelligence agencies is exercised in two ways: reporting and coordination. The chiefs of major intelligence agencies including the DGFI and NSI report directly to the head of government, and the law enforcement intelligence agencies report to the police chief and the minister for home affairs. This reporting is done in an ad hoc manner with no formal or institutional mechanism in place.

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A quasi-formal intelligence coordination and oversight system was introduced in July 2009 when the Hasina government established the National Committee for Intelligence Coordination (NCIC) to synthesize the efforts of various intelligence agencies. It is a powerful committee, chaired by the prime minister and coordinated by her security adviser, a retired major-general. The NCIC comprises the cabinet secretary, the principal secretary to the prime minister’s office, and the chiefs of the DGFI, NSI, Bangladesh Police, and SSF. The heads of the SB, RAB, and CID are required to assist the NCIC in performing its activities. The NCIC was established after a mutiny in February 2009 in the paramilitary border force Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) exposed intelligence failure.36 There is no publicly available information on how the NCIC functions or how it acts as an oversight body. Security analysts observe that it is supposed to meet once a month but in reality meets only on an as-needed basis. Other institutional arrangements for coordination and oversight include the Cabinet Committee on Law and Order and the National Committee for Militancy Resistance and Prevention. The first is headed by a senior minister in charge, and the latter is chaired by the minister for home affairs. Senior officials from the security and intelligence agencies attend both committee meetings primarily for coordination purposes. The Armed Forces Division (AFD), which is an extension of the prime minister’s office, has an intelligence directorate headed by a brigadier-general in the Bangladesh army. The intelligence directorate of the AFD coordinates intelligence and counterintelligence and oversees joint services intelligence. In March 2018, the cabinet of Bangladesh, the highest executivelevel decisionmaking body, adopted a national defense policy that provides for the creation of a national security committee to coordinate the activities of various security and intelligence agencies. In summary, although the prime minister’s national security adviser often acts as an intelligence coordinator, the lead agencies report directly to the prime minister, leaving no room for legislative and judicial oversight. Conclusion Several lessons can be drawn from the foregoing discussion. First, the history and culture of the intelligence community in Bangladesh reveals the existence of eight broader categories of intelligence agencies.

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Among them, the DGFI and NSI have remained the most powerful agencies; their mandates often cross the limits of external security and frequently include a role in domestic politics. The SB remains the principal agency for political surveillance, a role unlikely to be replaced by any agency in the foreseeable future. The NTMC has emerged as an important intelligence actor, and it is widely held that it often taps into telephone conversations between the main opposition political parties. Although the BFIU and CIID have huge potential to combat terrorist financing through banking channels and through the fight against gold and drug smuggling, no such breakthrough has been achieved so far. Second, counterterrorism is likely to continue as an important area for innovation and adaptation in the intelligence community in the near future. The present emphasis on TECHINT acquisition needs to be supplemented with more investment in HUMINT. Third, intelligence agencies operate in the absence of an overarching legal framework. Efforts should be taken to adopt a national intelligence law to give more clarity to the mandates of the intelligence agencies. Fourth, Bangladesh’s fight against violent extremist groups will continue to provide opportunities for international cooperation with India, Western allies, China, and Saudi Arabia. Bangladesh is also likely to remain committed to the global counterterrorism regime. Fifth, intelligence oversight largely remains an executive matter with no room for the parliament and the judiciary. The NCIC is known to provide the only formal intelligence coordination mechanism, but the extent to which it holds periodic review of the intelligence agencies remains doubtful. The intelligence agencies in Bangladesh have undergone several reforms, mostly in the areas of counterterrorism, but there is need for further reforms, especially in the areas of legal mandate and oversight. Such reforms would require a participatory political culture and a politics of inclusion, which are largely absent at the moment. Notes

1. This chapter relies on both primary and secondary data. Primary data come from a handful of annual reports of various security and intelligence agencies, their official websites, and two dozen interviews with senior practitioners in the intelligence community. The interviews were conducted over a period of six years from 2013 to 2018 and provide a unique opportunity to validate much of the open-source secondary data available in the print and electronic media and in books and journals. For ethical reasons, the interviewees remain anonymous. 2. “Bangladesh,” CIA World Factbook, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications /the-world-factbook/geos/bg.html.

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3. For a thorough discussion of the major political parties’ profiles in Bangladesh, see Rounaq Jahan, Political Parties in Bangladesh (Dhaka: Prothoma, 2015). 4. In August 2013, the Bangladesh High Court canceled the registration of JeI as a political party largely due to its controversial role during the independence war in Bangladesh. As a result of the High Court judgment, JeI was barred from fielding candidates in the December 2018 parliamentary elections and the party now faces the prospect of being legally disbanded soon. 5. For an official account on the legal basis of the war crimes trial process in Bangladesh, see “International Crimes Tribunal-1, Bangladesh,” https://www.ict-bd .org/ict1/index.php. See also “Bangladesh Reviewing Ties with Pakistan,” Daily Star, December 6, 2015; “Pakistan Parliament Adopts Resolution Against Bangladesh’s War Crimes Trial,” BDnews, September 7, 2016, https://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2016/09 /07/pakistan-parliament-adopts-resolution-against-bangladeshs-war-crimes-trial. 6. “War Trials in Bangladesh and Pakistan’s Reaction,” Daily Times, September 8, 2016. 7. Traditional security is concerned with managing threats to territorial integrity of the state, whereas nontraditional security relates to the protection of individuals from violent and nonviolent threats. United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report 1994 (New York: Oxford University Press). 8. See Amena Mohsin, The Politics of Nationalism: The Case of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Bangladesh (Dhaka: UPL, 1997); Mufley R. Osmany and Muzaffar Ahmad, Security in the Twenty First Century: A Bangladesh Perspective (Dhaka: APPL, 2003). 9. Imtiaz Ahmed, Terrorism in the 21st Century: Perspectives from Bangladesh (Dhaka: UPL, 2009); Golam Mohammad, National Security Bangladesh 2009 (Dhaka: UPL, 2010); “The Rohingya Issue and Concerns for Bangladesh,” Daily Star, 19 September 2017; Rapid Action Battalion, RAB Forces Special Magazine 2016 (Dhaka, 2016); Mokhlesur Rahman, ed., Detective: Police Week 2019 (Dhaka: Police Headquarters); Tarek Mahmud and Shegufta Mahjabin, eds., Goendader Chokhe (The Detectives’ Eye) (Dhaka: Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate, 2015); International Crisis Group, “Political Conflict, Extremism, and Criminal Justice in Bangladesh,” Report no. 277/Asia (Brussels, April 11, 2016). 10. S. Bhattacharya, “History at Midnight: India, Bangladesh Exchange Enclaves,” Hindustan Times, August 1, 2015. 11. Author interview with senior officials at police headquarters, RAB headquarters, and Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime Unit. 12. For an excellent overview of the Intelligence Bureau, see Sheikh Hasina, ed., Secret Documents of Intelligence Branch on Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, vol. 1, 1948–1950 (Dhaka: Haqqani, 2018). 13. Human Rights Watch, “The Torture of Tasneem Khalil: How the Bangladesh Military Abuses Its Power Under the State of Emergency,” Report no., vol. 20, no. 1 (c), February 2008; Shakhawat Liton, Chaitanya Chandra Halder, Wasim Bin Habib, and Tuhin Shubhra Adhikary, “August 21 Attack: State-Backed Crime Punished,” Daily Star, October 11, 2018. 14. Confidential author interviews with DGFI, NSI, RAB, and CTTC officials. 15. International Crisis Group, “Countering Jihadist Militancy in Bangladesh,” Report no. 295/Asia (Brussels, 2018). 16. Krishna Pada Roy, “Dhaka Metropolitan Police for Public Safety and People’s Welfare,” special supplementary page on 44th Foundation Day of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, Daily Prothom Alo, February 13, 2019. 17. The list of resolutions includes 1267 (1999), 1333 (2000), 1363 (2001), 1373(2001), 1390 (2002), 1452 (2002), 1455 (2003), 1540 (2004), 1526 (2004), 1617 (2005), 1718 (2006), 1730 (2006), 1735 (2006), 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), 1803 (2008), 1822, (2008), 1874 (2009), 1904 (2009), 1929 (2010), 1988 (2011), 1989 (2011), 2082 (2012), and 2083 (2012), and any successor resolutions to be adopted by the Security Council of the United Nations in the future, under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations.

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18. A. S. M. Ali Ashraf and M. D. Sohel Rana, “External Influence, Domesic Politics, and Bangladesh Government’s Northeast India Policy,” in Bangladesh’s Neighbours in the Indian Northeast: Exploring Opportunities and Mutual Interest (Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh), 26–27. 19. Kamal Hossain Talukder, “Bangladesh Intelligence Team to Go to India,” BDnews, November 27, 2014. 20. “India, Bangladesh Have Real-Time Intelligence Sharing on Terror: Karim,” Hindustan Times, January 22, 2010. 21. “India, Bangladesh Agree to Intelligence Sharing on Terrorism, Insurgency,” NDTV, November 17, 2015. 22. Steve Herman, “Bangladesh, US Agree to Enhance Cooperation to Fight Terrorism,” Voice of America, August 29, 2016. 23. US Embassy Dhaka, “Joint Statement of the Fifth U.S.-Bangladesh Partnership Dialogue,” June 24, 2016. 24. Ian Cobain and Fariha Karim, “UK Linked to Notorious Bangladesh Torture Centre,” The Guardian, January 17, 2011. 25. Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, “Bangladesh Country Brief” (Canberra, March 10, 2017). 26. “Tami Chy: An Evil Mind,” Daily Star, August 9, 2016; “Bangladesh Police Kill Canadian Suspect in Restaurant Attack,” CBC, August 27, 2016. 27. “Dhaka, Beijing Sign Agreements on Intelligence Sharing, Counterterrorism,” Dhaka Tribune, October 26, 2018. 28. “Bangladesh in 34-State Islamic Military Alliance,” Daily Star, December 15, 2015. 29. Golam Moshi and S. M. Anisul Haque, “Bangladesh Prime Minister’s Visit to Saudi Arabia: Quest for Enhanced Friendship,” Saudi Gazette, December 9, 2018. 30. “Press Conference by Chief, Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate,” November 13, 2009. 31. “India: South Asian Officials and Experts Extend Support to UNODC’s Regional Intelligence Sharing Initiative,” April 2018, https://www.unodc.org/southasia/frontpage /2018/April/india_-south-asian-officials-and-experts-extend-support-to-unodcs-regional -intelligence-sharing-initiative.html. 32. Arifur Rahman Rabbi, “Interpol Chief Pledges Support Against Militancy in BD,” Dhaka Tribune, March 12, 2017. 33. Arifur Rahman Rabbi, “Interpol Warrant Out for 22 Bangladeshis,” Dhaka Tribune, August 22, 2017. 34. “Bangladesh in Egmont Group,” Bdnews, July 4, 2013. 35. Jamal Uddin, “Customs Intelligence Alarmed at Arms Trade, Dealers Disagree,” Dhaka Tribune, July 13, 2017. 36. The mutiny that took place at the BDR headquarters killed seventy-four people, including fifty-seven commissioned military officers and the head of the border force among them.

4 China Xuezhi Guo

The dynastic evolution in Chinese history reflects cyclical changes through centuries of unification, expansion, fragmentation, and decay. China as a collection of states historically has taken a narrower view of geopolitics, one that reached scarcely farther than its borders, and each state has its own cultural and economic characteristics. Modern Chinese history has been shaped by what the Chinese perceive as the “century of humiliation,” along with a series of political turmoil, unrest, rebellion, and radical social changes. The modern history includes the Opium Wars of the 1800s, the 1911 revolution, the communist victory of 1949, China’s entry into the Korean War, the disastrous Great Leap Forward, the chaotic Cultural Revolution, and Deng’s dramatic shift from isolation to the process of “opening up,” which started in 1978. The rise of China after its pursuit of economic reform not only signifies China’s growing domination of the geopolitics of Asia but also challenges Western hegemony in world economy and the Eurocentric conception of “modernity.” China’s intelligence service has been established to guarantee the real or perceived internal and external security caused by the overriding geopolitical imperatives: threats against internal unity, terrorist and ethnic separatists, radical religious groups, and political dissidents. The Intelligence Community The first intelligence organization of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the Central Committee’s Special Services Division (Teke), was 51

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created in November 1927 following the failure of the first united front of the communists and the nationalists (beginning April 1927). Teke was destroyed by the intelligence organization of the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (GMD) after Gu Shunzhang, one of Teke’s leading figures, was captured and then defected to the GMD in April 1931. It was reorganized in June 1931 to strengthen the party’s control over the CCP’s top security and intelligence apparatuses and to respond decisively to the successful assaults made by the GMD intelligence organizations in paralyzing the CCP’s underground activities in GMDcontrolled areas. The Social Affairs Department (SAD) was created in 1941 as the institutional guarantee to ensure Mao’s control over the intelligence and security apparatuses. The intelligence apparatuses became the vanguard and instruments of Mao’s “rectification campaign” (1941–1944), which sought ideological unity, propped up Mao’s loyal followers among the CCP leadership, and purged his political enemies. However, the most important political move that Mao made in gaining control over CCP intelligence in the 1940s was bringing about Zhou Enlai’s compliance and cooperation. This strategic move was a great boon for CCP intelligence services, allowing the organizations to recruit a large number of CCP agents including defectors from the nationalists, conduct espionage in enemy-controlled areas, establish a network of telecommunications linking major cities and parts of the countryside and the nationalist command, and develop an intelligence network that uncovered top GMD secrets. These intelligence efforts helped the CCP launch successful military campaigns against nationalist armies and guarantee the safety of party leaders and organizations. One of the remarkable accomplishments made by the CCP intelligence services was successfully obtaining Adolf Hitler’s plan for Operation Barbarossa during World War II, in which the German army would launch blitzkrieg tactics on June 22, 1941, to destroy the Soviet Union. Yan Baohang, a hidden CCP spy in Chongqing under the direct leadership of Zhou Enlai, vice chairman of the CCP and the chief of the CCP intelligence, had access to many high-ranking nationalist officials, including Chiang Kai-shek, Madam Chiang, Sun Ke, and Yu Youren. Among Yan’s best work was when he reported to Zhou the exact date Nazi Germany would attack the Soviet Union, one and a half months before the attack; this enabled Stalin to prepare defensively against the German invasion. 1 At the same time, Zhou and his assistant Li Kenong organized and developed a telecommunications network that linked Yan’an, Chongqing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, the

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Eighth Route Army, the New Fourth Army, Guangxi, Hunan, Jiangxi, and Southeast Asia.2 Another sensational development in the Chinese intelligence history was an effort to penetrate US intelligence agencies. Chinese intelligence agent Larry Wu-Tai Chin had been a successful sleeper in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for several decades since the 1940s. Chin was a Chinese-language specialist in the CIA’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service and later was resettled in the United States.3 Chin provided valuable political intelligence to China for thirty years and was ultimately captured after Yu Qiangsheng, a senior intelligence officer in the Ministry of State Security, defected and began working with US intelligence in 1985. Benefiting from the intelligence provided by Chin, China was able to improve the weaknesses in its intelligence organizations and operations and compromise US intelligence activities in Southeast Asia. Like Larry Chin, Chi Mak, a Chinese-born naturalized US citizen who worked as an engineer for California-based defense contractor Power Paragon (a part of L-3 Communications), has been viewed as a long-term “mole” for the Chinese military. Chi Mak successfully obtained sensitive defense technology while working for the US defense industry for more than two decades before he was arrested in 2005.4 Mission, Structures, and Dynamics The intelligence community in China consists of the intelligence organizations from the party, government, and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) (see Figure 4.1). In the party, its Central Committee’s International Liaison Department takes charge of linking with foreign political parties and routinely collecting intelligence and conducting intelligence operations overseas. It maintains and develops ties with a variety of socialist and communist parties worldwide and funds, trains, and supplies arms to out-of-power communist and revolutionary groups. It not only collects intelligence on foreign policies, politics, political parties, politicians, and influential social groups but also helps “private sector” liaison organizations to facilitate contact with think tanks, nongovernmental organizations, and individuals worldwide. In the government, the Bureau of Domestic Security and Guard, under the Ministry of Public Security, is China’s political police, which is responsible for domestic counterintelligence. In addition to its role in cracking down on dissidents and political activists, it plays an important

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role in maintaining active surveillance over political dissidents, religious groups, radical minority groups, terrorist groups, separatist groups, extremist groups, and “cult” activities. The Ministry of State Security (MSS) is China’s main domestic and foreign intelligence organization. The MSS conducts foreign intelligence and counterintelligence operations and is responsible for ensuring state security, maintaining social and political stability, guaranteeing economic development, and educating Chinese citizens to be loyal to the state. The military intelligence system engages in military intelligence and counterintelligence operations; most of its work is conducted by the Second and Third Departments of the PLA General Staff Department (2PLA, 3PLA), and the Liaison Department of the Political Work Department under the Central Military Commission (CMC). While civilian and military systems have different functions due to their specialties, they often cooperate and share resources. As one might expect from two systems with overlapping responsibilities, they are prone to competing for status, domain, and authority. The military system incorporates human intelligence collection and analysis responsibilities, but has limited targets and resources.5

Figure 4.1 China’s Intelligence System

Party

CCP’s International Liaison Department

Military

CCP’s United Front Department

2PLA

Government

Ministry of State Security

3PLA

Ministry of Domestic Security and Guard, Ministry of Public Security

Liaison Bureau, Police Work Department, Central Military Commission

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Central Committee’s United Front Work Department

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The Central Committee’s United Front Work Department (UFWD) is responsible for covert political action with the overseas Chinese communities and undertakes or coordinates intelligence activities, both domestically and internationally, to co-opt and control non-CCP elites and gain political influence or provide cover for intelligence operations abroad. The UFWD is also in charge of pushing the CCP’s propaganda abroad, controlling Chinese students in foreign countries, and recruiting agents among the Chinese diaspora and sympathetic foreigners. 6 As the UFWD plays the leading role in maintaining links with Chinese citizens overseas who could be used, when needed, for covert operations, many Chinese organizations operating internationally have unidentified connections to the UFWD. The UFWD is instrumental for the CCP in controlling the so-called democratic parties in China by providing financial resources, imposing surveillance, and maintaining political influence. In the Mao era, the UFWD was responsible for promoting support of the urban middle classes and intellectuals with expertise and even forcing their assimilation. Since China launched economic reform in the late 1970s, the UFWD has taken the leading role in motivating overseas Chinese investors, China’s new entrepreneurs, and the rising middle class, and professionals such as lawyers, business managers, and “new capitalists” to help modernize China. It strives to win support from overseas Chinese by using material incentives such as the provision of funding or other resources, ideology such as the encouragement of participation in the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese people,” or emotional appeal such as the emphasis of “flesh and blood ties” to the motherland. The UFWD is essential for helping the party ensure that all of China’s national religious organizations come under the auspices of the CCP. The UFWD consists of nine bureaus that focus on the party work, minorities, religious groups, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and China’s “democratic parties” (see Table 4.1). As religious and ethnic groups have become the primary targets of the CCP for “maintaining the social stability” of the country, the growing pressures from foreign opinion makers, foreign governments, and international organizations in China’s treatment of Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongolians, and religious believers have forced the UFWD to enhance its United Front effort. The UFWD plays the leading role in dealing with influential religious groups or individuals and initiating delicate talks to repair fractious

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Table 4.1 Structure of the United Front Work Department Bureau

First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Seventh Eighth Ninth

Name

Party Work Minorities and Religious Work Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Overseas Liaison Cadre Affairs Economic Affairs Non-Party Members and Intellectuals Work Tibet New Social Class Representatives Work Xinjiang

relations with the Vatican. The growing importance of the UFWD has been emphasized in the reform era as the CCP has sought the loyalty and support beyond the mainstream communist faithful after China’s attempts to attract a large number of the nonparty members and even foreigners for China’s economic reform and modernization. As Taiwan has also long been a major target of United Front work, the UFWD has been stepping up efforts concerning Taiwanese citizens, especially the “independence by nature” generation, meaning those who came of age after the lifting of Taiwan’s emergency decrees or martial law. These efforts include providing opportunities for Taiwanese youth to work in the mainland, offering scholarship to Taiwanese students to study at China’s most prestigious universities, and sponsoring exchange tours to China for Taiwanese students, their teachers, and principals. Central Committee’s International Liaison Department

The Central Committee’s International Liaison Department (ILD) is the CCP’s top agency responsible for studying major international affairs and providing policy advice to the party’s top leadership. Not only does it take the leading role in promoting China’s initiatives and projects such as international recognition of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, but the ILD also is responsible for maintaining and developing ties with foreign political parties, especially communist and socialist parties. It routinely collects intelligence and conducts intelligence operations overseas. Under Mao, China’s participation in international activities was limited due to the isolation imposed by the West, and thus China’s

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interaction with foreign political parties was limited mainly within foreign communist parties, especially the communist and socialist parties of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc. When the ILD was established in 1951, it was the liaison of the CCP to communicate with foreign communist parties, including the communist parties in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Western industrial countries. The ILD became increasingly important following the Sino-Soviet split as the CCP pushed the growing contacts with other communist parties in an effort to gain their support against the so-called revisionist Soviet Union while continually standing against the threat of containment from the United States. For a long time, the primary tasks for the ILD were to compete with the Soviet Union for China’s influence on the worldwide communist movement and support third world countries against the United States. During the 1960s and 1970s, the ILD was the instrument of the CCP for promoting the Maoist communist revolution and guerrilla warfare in third world countries against both superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States. During the early Cultural Revolution, Mao appointed Kang Sheng, a leading figure among the radical Maoists and Mao’s henchman against his political rivals during the Yan’an Rectification (1942– 1944),7 replacing the disgraced Liu Shaoqing to control the ILD.8 Although Kang later appointed Geng Biao, a professional diplomat, to replace him as the director of the ILD in 1971, Kang, under the excuse of his poor health, kept control over the ILD.9 The consequence of the Sino-Soviet split was China’s isolation from the communist camp due partially to China’s strong ideological stand against Soviet “revisionism” and due partially to the alliances of most of the communist parties in the communist camp with the Soviet Union against the CCP. As a result, the CCP was forced to end its communications with many communist parties in the communist camp and instead develop its relations with the newly created parties from the communist camp that shared China’s resistance to Soviet revisionism. However, the CCP soon realized that these newly established communist parties “not only had small numbers within the communist camp but also had weak mass bases and influence.”10 In order to free itself from isolation, the CCP decided to develop relations with the socialist parties or social democratic parties in the industrial countries and the ruling nationalist parties in third world countries. Premier Zhou Enlai even suggested that China should develop people-to-people diplomacy, expand cultural exchanges with the outside world, and enhance friendship between peoples; these

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organizations engaging in nongovernmental diplomacy, including the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC) and Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs, should have been placed in the leadership of the ILD.11 However, Zhou’s suggestions were not put on the agenda of the party leadership due probably to his concerns with the opposition of the Maoist radicals and due probably to his declined health due to bladder cancer. Zhou’s design of China’s foreign affairs, in which the ILD was in charge of the foreign affairs of the party and nongovernmental diplomacy while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took charge of governmental relations, did not become a reality until the late 1970s when Deng Xiaoping returned to power and abolished the radical Maoist policy. Since Deng Xiaoping launched the economic reform in the late 1970s, the ILD has taken on foreign policy activities far beyond its traditional role as a party organization to promote international socialism and has extended its initiatives into noncommunist parties, except for fascist and racist parties, throughout the world. In addition, the ILD has made a substantial effort to administrate “private sector” liaison organizations to conduct relations with and promote influence on think tanks and nongovernmental organizations in foreign countries. The demise of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe following the end of the Cold War and China’s economic reform and openingup policy have required the ILD to perform new tasks to improve China’s international image, seek support across the political spectrum, and make more friends in order to promote a favorable environment for China’s industrialization and modernization. Under Xi Jinping, the ILD has played an important role as the foreign affairs office of the CCP that provides policy advice and carries out the decisions made by the CCP leadership in liaising, communicating, and building relationships with foreign political parties. This is the case with North Korea, as the ILD plays a central role in China’s foreign policy toward North Korea and is the major facilitator of China’s relations with the neighboring country. The ILD focuses on the information and intelligence of four areas as the basis for its policy advice to the CCP leadership: China’s political relations with foreign political parties, economic relations with foreign political parties, polity and governance of foreign countries, and public opinion. The frequent personnel reshuffles between the ILD and the foreign ministry reflect the intention of the CCP leadership to minimize the competing diplomatic agendas and promote the cohesion between the two organizations.

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Ministry of State Security

As China’s main domestic and international intelligence organization, the Ministry of State Security is responsible for counter-espionage work, ensuring state security, maintaining social and political stability, surveilling and monitoring political dissidents and ethnical and religious separatists, as well as educating Chinese citizens to be loyal to the state.12 As China’s largest and most active state intelligence agency, domestic intelligence is a large portion of its work, including collecting domestic intelligence and monitoring domestic “unlawful” activities and persons, such as corrupt government officials and political dissidents. In addition to domestic intelligence, the MSS is responsible for foreign intelligence and counterintelligence operations. MSS officers are basically “secret police” in that they do not wear uniforms in the performance of their duties, and their responsibilities are primarily covert. The MSS engages in intelligence activities such as collecting intelligence, monitoring political dissidents, and both monitoring and recruiting businesspeople, researchers, and officials. While the MSS engages in espionage by recruiting individuals who have access to foreign sensitive information,13 the MSS employs nonprofessional intelligence agents such as travelers, businesspeople, and academics, with a special emphasis on overseas students and high-tech professionals working abroad who have access to sensitive technology. In addition, the MSS reportedly employs intelligence from Chinese firms that acquire US companies with desired technology or from front companies that engage in technology development and acquisition. Moreover, the MSS not only encompasses a wide range of structures from regular police to intelligence and counterintelligence services but also is closely affiliated with the police and is authorized to instruct police how to engage in open police actions such as taking suspects into custody and searching property.14 The mission of the MSS is to protect national interests and guarantee CCP rule by utilizing human, signals, remote, electronic, and communications intelligence in its operations. Because counter-espionage is a primary function of the MSS, it is also responsible for monitoring foreign businesspeople, tourists, diplomats, employees of embassies and foreign companies, and Chinese citizens who have interacted with foreigners, including relatives who live abroad. The duties of its intelligence collection often overlap with those of the Bureau of Domestic Security and Guard of the Ministry of Public Security (MPS). Like the MPS, the MSS has a wide scope of authority in domestic intelligence

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activities and authority that overlaps with the law enforcement responsibilities of the MPS. Thus the MSS not only is involved in police functions (similar to the Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] in the United States), but also fulfills other roles such as court hearings (akin to the role of the judiciary in Western democracies).15 Bureau of Domestic Security and Guard of the Ministry of Public Security

The Bureau of Domestic Security and Guard (BDSG) of the Ministry of Public Security is the most powerful unit in the Ministry of Public Security. The predecessor of the BDSG, the Bureau of Political Security (BPS), was established in October 1949.16 Under the leadership of Yang Qiqing, deputy minister of public security and director of the BPS, the BPS unearthed numerous spy rings involving nationalist and foreign intelligence agencies in China and played a leading role in suppressing “counter-revolutionists” in the early 1950s.17 When the Ministry of State Security was created in 1983, the part in charge of China’s counterintelligence in the BDSG was transferred to the MSS while the rest of the BDSG remained in the Ministry of Public Security.18 Compared with economic police and traffic police under the Ministry of Public Security, the BDSG is the political police, with a significant role in China’s “stability maintenance.” The function of the BDSG is defined by the official media as comprising three aspects: intelligence and information, detective work and investigation, and safeguards and prevention (see Figure 4.2). Among them, intelligence and information serve as not only a collective early-warning system but also the “central segment” as the prerequisite for the authority to “gain the initiative in the struggle against the enemy and effectively extend into other works.”19 The BDSG, according to the official media, “mainly fight[s] against the various hostile forces and elements under clandestine operation through covert means and approaches.”20 Besides domestic counterintelligence, the BDSG is responsible for investigating, persuading, and detaining political dissidents such as activists associated with democratic movements, civil rights activists such as petitioners for various interests, and so-called illegal organizations such as the Falun Gong. The local branches of the BDSG establish the detailed database for local dissidents and activists, including the physical frontiers of their activities, relatives, financial resources, lifestyles, and hobbies. With unchecked power to carry out its mission

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Figure 4.2 Bureau of Domestic Security and Guard of the Ministry of Public Security Administrative Office

Intelligence and External Liaison

Social Investigation and Grassroots Work Supervision

Investigation of Minority and Religion Affairs

Investigation of CounterSubversion and Sabotage

Security Supervision of Cultural and Economic Fields

Case Investigation of Domestic Security and Guard

Investigation of Anti-Cult

and protect the regime, the BDSG arbitrarily hounds and hunts for suspects, dissidents, petitioners, journalists, and lawyers. If necessary, the BDSG monitors their email messages and telephones and hacks into their digital photos. The local BDSG units must guarantee that their objectives are notable to conduct organized activities, engage in political gathering, and travel to Beijing for petitions, especially during “sensitive times” such as important national events, CCP congresses, national people’s congresses, and anniversaries of the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square incident. According to a confidential document issued by the Ministry of Public Security on March 6, 2001, the BDSG must strive to track down dissidents and activists, establish networks for tight control, and monitor and control the “important persons” so that they will not cause trouble for the regime whenever important international and domestic events take place, such as the International Human Rights

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Conference, presidential elections in Taiwan, the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square incident, national people’s congresses, and national holidays.21 Each BDSG at a local public security organization sets up a far-flung network against the “important persons” through local hotels; internet cafes; the system for the purchase of bus, train, and air tickets; and banks. As the organizations of the BDSG are established in local units of public security at every level (provincial, prefectural, city, and county), the warning, monitoring, and controlling system in local BDSG units will activate once these “important persons” enter their domains. 2PLA

The 2PLA can be traced back to the Espionage Division of the General Staff Department (GSD) under the Central Military Commission, established in 1931. In 1933, the Second Bureau of the GSD was created to lead intelligence services within the Red Army. In September 1941, the Second Bureau merged into the newly established Central Intelligence Department (CID), where Kang Sheng served as the director. The creation of a comprehensive intelligence organ by merging military and party intelligence services was undoubtedly Mao’s effort to control the intelligence apparatuses to enhance his power. One year after the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was founded, the General Intelligence Department was created and placed under the jurisdiction of the Central Military Commission. The Second Department of the PLA General Staff Department was created in 1953 after the General Intelligence Department was abolished. In 2016, the Second Department of the PLA General Staff Department was renamed as the Intelligence Bureau of the CMC Joint Staff Department. The 2PLA is the secret military police, military intelligence, and counterintelligence agency and is responsible for collecting military intelligence mainly through its spies and military attachés at Chinese embassies abroad. It collects and analyzes political and military intelligence at strategic levels and engages in information analysis and intelligence gathered from publicly published sources in other countries.22 The 2PLA hires a large number of special military spies to collect intelligence abroad related to advanced weaponry technology, the scales and intensity of wars and military confrontation as well as military coups, military strategies and theories, and political and economic policies. It has several bureaus engaging in deep-level analysis of foreign intelligence and has gained a positive reputation in the Chi-

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Figure 4.3 Structure of the 2PLA 2PLA

Military Intelligence Bureau

Tactical Intelligence Bureau

Military Attaché Bureau

Eastern European Bureau

European and US Bureau

Asian Bureau

Political Department

Arms Control Bureau

Archives Bureau

Bureau of Confidential Affairs

Bureau of Comprehensive Affairs

Scientific and Technologic Bureau

China International Institute for Strategic Sociey

PLA University of International Relations

Haiou Electronic Equipment Factory

Bejing Electronic Factory

Beijing Jiaotong University Computer Center

2PLA Computer Center

nese intelligence community, such as through its Eastern European Bureau, Asian Bureau, and European and US Bureau (see Figure 4.3). As scientific and technological development has become the key focus for China’s initiative for the future domination of technological advancement, especially for “Made in China 2025,” the newly established Scientific and Technologic Bureau is responsible for the analysis of technological intelligence and the design and development of new technology directly through its command over its subordinated six research organizations such as the 58th Research Institute and the Beijing Electronic Factory.

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The predecessor of the 3PLA was the Technical Department of the CMC General Intelligence Department and it became a subordinated unit of the PLA General Staff Department after the General Intelligence Department was abolished in 1953. Similar to the National Security Agency in the United States, the 3PLA is responsible for strategic intelligence in China, including capacities such as information collection, deciphering and analysis of electronic signals from satellites, and fixed and wireless networks within as well as outside China. 23 The 3PLA, also called the Third Department of the PLA General Staff Department before the army reform in 2016, collects not only military but also political, economic, scientific, and technological intelligence (see Figure 4.4). It is responsible for collecting and processing strategic information, monitoring, aviation reconnaissance, research, and analysis of military information and intelligence. Like the 2PLA, the 3PLA also collects and analyzes intelligence on strategic and foreign policy issues, even though the 3PLA pays great attention to gathering technical intelligence.24 The 3PLA hires around 130,000 hackers, linguistic and military experts, and analysts, most of whom graduate from China’s elite universities, to work through a large number of “monitoring stations” across the country. The 3PLA is responsible for monitoring and analyzing the information derived from a large amount of communications, including the messages of foreign embassies in China, emails of domestic and foreign businesses, and internet crimes.25 It operates not only through its own monitoring stations nationwide but also through the third bureaus of the headquarters of the military regions, air force, and navy. Furthermore, the 3PLA has established a large number of monitoring stations in border areas and in the coastal cities. Unit 61398 (or second bureau) of the 3PLA and Unit 61486 (or twelfth bureau) of the 3PLA are the well-known cyber espionage entities in the PLA. While Unit 61486 is responsible for collecting satellite- and space-related information, Unit 61398 reportedly engages in various types of computer espionage to collect economic, political, and military-related information by using social engineering, or the practice of tricking people into providing access to confidential information, and malware to gain access to networks. 26 From a policy view, Chinese steal information as a part of their national strategy to win an economic war and use their intelligence services and military to collect information from the competition.27As the four general headquarters of the PLA have been replaced

65 Figure 4.4 Structure of the 3PLA 3PLA

Political Department

Logistics Department

Bureau of Comprehensive Affairs

Bureau of Scientific and Technical Equipment

Bureau of Scientific and Technical Intelligence

1st Bureau (Beijing)

2nd Bureau (Shanghai)

3rd Bureau (Beijing)

4th Bureau (Qingdao)

5th Bureau (Beijing)

6th Bureau (Wuhan)

7th Bureau (Beijing)

8th Bureau (Beijing)

9th Bureau (Beijing)

10th Bureau (Beijing)

11th Bureau (Beijing)

12th Bureau (Shanghai)

Computer Center

PLA Information Engineering Institute

Notes: This figure is based on the structure of the 3PLA before 2016. In late 2015, the PLA initiated a wide-ranging and ambitious reform that brought dramatic changes to its structure, model of warfighting, and organizational culture. Three important research institutes—the 56th, 57th, and 58th— were integrated into the 3PLA, and more regional bureaus, such as those in Kunming, Harbin, and Changyi, were created to enhance the 3PLA’s capability in intelligence and information collection.

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with fifteen small departments that are directly under the Central Military Commission, headed by Xi Jinping, the 3PLA has been absorbed into the Strategic Support Troops. Liaison Bureau of the CMC Political Work Department

The predecessor of the Liaison Bureau of the Political Work Department, under the Central Military Commission (CMC), was the Enemy Work Department created during the Chinese communist revolution, which was responsible for propaganda and psychological warfare. The Enemy Work Department played an important role in instigating rebellion within the enemy camp, inciting defection, and educating prisoners of war during the 1920s–1930s civil war, the Sino-Japanese War, and the 1940s civil war. After the General Political Department (GPD) became one of the three leading organs (alongside the General Staff Department and General Logistics Department) of the People’s Liberation Army in the late 1940s, the Liaison Department of the GPD was established to take charge of overseeing the political education, ideological indoctrination, and discipline of enemy armies who defected to the CCP. After the founding of the PRC, the Liaison Department of the GPD became an intelligence and counterintelligence organization oriented mainly toward Taiwan and sometimes Hong Kong and Macau as well as China’s neighboring countries such as Japan, South Korea, and North Korea. In order to disintegrate enemy armies by destroying morale and instigating rebellions within the ranks as well as to influence political attitudes and opinions of enemy personnel, the Liaison Department of the GPD collected and analyzed intelligence and conducted research on foreign social, political, and demographic issues. It became powerful and influential when Ye Xuanning, a leading figure of the princelings and the son of Marshal Ye Jianying, took charge of it from 1990 to 1997. In 2016, the Liaison Department was renamed the Liaison Bureau after the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission replaced the GPD to become one of the fifteen leading departments of the CMC, led by Xi Jinping. The Liaison Bureau of the Political Work Department mainly focuses on internal intelligence, as it is responsible for supervising and monitoring party officials, especially army officials, to ensure their loyalty to the party and prevent them from leaking the secrets of the party, state, and army to enemies. Like the 2PLA, the Liaison Bureau engages in intelligence gathering by dispatching its agents abroad, especially in Hong Kong and Macau. It has been tied to many well-known companies

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and enterprises such as China Kaili Corporation, and the Political Work Department not only relies on the Liaison Bureau to engage in intelligence activities but also enjoys rich funding and resources due to its intelligence operations. The Liaison Bureau is responsible for intelligence and counterintelligence within the PLA and takes charge of discipline and criminal investigation against PLA officials. Any case in the PLA that involves undermining loyalty to the party (such as violation of the principle that “the party commands the gun”) will be investigated by the Liaison Bureau. In addition, it plays an important role in reviewing and investigating high-ranking army officials and providing materials to ensure their political loyalty to the party whenever the Political Work Department processes their appointments and promotions. To promote the growing global engagement of China, the Liaison Bureau enhances its effort to develop links with global elites and aims to influence the policies and behavior of countries, institutions, and groups beyond China. For example, the China Association for International Friendly Contact (CAIFC), a subordinated organization of the Liaison Bureau, has increasingly engaged in a broad range of activities, including efforts to organize visits and activities to which elite members of international society are invited; influence foreign political, military, social, and business leaders; and cultivate local supporters and sympathizers of the CCP in foreign countries. International Cooperation Since its birth, the CCP has engaged in intelligence cooperation with many foreign countries. The CCP and the Soviet Union cooperated on intelligence and counter-espionage against the nationalists during the 1940s civil war. The CCP and the United States started intelligence cooperation during World War II and resumed cooperation in the 1970s when Nixon made the effort to build an alliance with China against the Soviet Union following more than twenty years of sanctions imposed by the United States against China, which was caused by China’s entry into the Korean War in the early 1950s. China has taken the lead in much international intelligence cooperation through political alliances, military joint forces, and economic integration. For example, China has promoted international intelligence cooperation by establishing the Joint Law Enforcement of the Mekong Four Countries and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). 28 China has enhanced

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its intelligence cooperation with the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in tracking terrorism, security threats, drugs, and organized crime. Currently, China and the United States have been engaging in intelligence cooperation in some areas such as fighting against terrorism, drug-related crimes, and transnational crimes.29 After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, China and the United States exchanged intelligence and signed an agreement against international terrorism. In 2002, China’s Ministry of Public Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States mutually established offices in other countries in order to promote close cooperation in the fight against international terrorism. While China provided intelligence to the United States about al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the United States listed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM)—the most significant Muslim militant group in China—on the UN’s list of terrorist organizations. To support China, US president George W. Bush not only purportedly linked it to al-Qaeda but also froze its assets.30 In November 2017, after President Trump visited China, Sino-US intelligence cooperation was enhanced by the signing of a joint agreement to fight drug trafficking. Both countries specifically agreed to crack down on the tracking of psychoactive substances and share intelligence about trade in fentanyl. Oversight and Reform Under Xi Jinping Reorganizing the intelligence organizations has been one of the priorities of Xi in consolidating his power following his anticorruption campaign against his political rivals. Since Xi launched a military reform in which four general departments were divided into fifteen, the following structural changes regarding intelligence services have been undertaken:

• In 2013, a year after Xi took over the CCP, he created a new National Security Commission, led by himself, to enhance coordination among the various wings of China’s security organizations controlled by the party, state, and military and split among the police, military, intelligence, justice system, propaganda, and diplomatic services. • The newly promulgated National Intelligence Law enhances the power of the Chinese intelligence organizations by authorizing their secret police to reinforce Chinese law abroad.31 • Xi likely seeks to reorganize the Ministry of State Security by dividing it into foreign intelligence and domestic security. While the former would be commanded directly by the central party

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leadership, the latter would be probably merged with the domestic security and guard of public security agencies. Xi aims to solve the longtime conflict between the MSS and the Ministry of Public Security due to their overlapping functions. Xi is attempting to change the MSS’s function, which would be to focus only on antiespionage and the collection of foreign intelligence while transferring its domestic agencies to the MPS.

Under Xi’s reign, the tendency for the development of Chinese intelligence organizations would be likely a gradual centralization of the intelligence services. Xi has purged a large number of the high-ranking officials in the intelligence community, especially through anticorruption drives. While Xi has arranged his loyalists to take charge of the party, state, and military intelligence organizations, he has made an effort to control the intelligence agencies even at lower levels, as all appointments of intelligence officials at the regiment level and above must be approved by Xi himself. Conclusion Due to the absolute secrecy surrounding their mission, obligations, objectives, functions, methods, and operations, the intentions of China’s intelligence organizations remain unclear. Chinese intelligence services played an important role in the CCP’s survival, competition for power, and revolutionary victory against enemies during the 1920s– 1930s civil war, the Sino-Japanese War, and the 1940s civil war. The intelligence community in China consists of the intelligence organizations of the party, government, and People’s Liberation Army. While fulfilling their duties to guarantee real or perceived internal and external security, these numerous intelligence organizations with overlapping responsibilities and functions inevitably compete to protect their own interests and fight for influence. No doubt, Chinese intelligence services will continually be a crucial instrument of the party-state in keeping the party in power, maintaining political and social stability, fighting against terrorists and ethnic separatists, and suppressing political dissidents, even though there is a growing need for intelligence cooperation and coordination with other countries and the surveillance of cross-border and transnational security threats from international terrorists, drug-related crimes, and transnational crimes that have put pressure on the CCP to promote the depoliticization and professionalization of intelligence organizations.

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Notes 1. Wang Lianjie, “Qingbao Zhanxian Shang de Wuming Yingxiong—Yan Baohang” (The Unknown Hero of the Intelligence Front—Yan Baohang), Guangming Ribao, August 13, 2008; “Yan Baohong de Sanfeng Zhongyao Qingbao” (Three Important Intelligence Materials of Yan Baohong), Wenhui Bao, December 10, 2008. 2. See Li Dingyuan, “Kaiguo Shangjiang Renmin Gongchen” (The Senior General Who Is One of China’s Founding Fathers and the People’s Heroes), pt. 1, Chaohu Chenkan, September 7, 2009. 3. See Tod Hoffman, The Spy Within: Larry Chin and China’s Penetration of the CIA (Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2008). 4. See Edward M. Roche, Snake Fish: The Chi Mak Spy Ring (New York: Barraclough, 2008). 5. Nicholas Eftimiades, Chinese Intelligence Operations (Annapolis: US Naval Institute Press, 1994), 103. 6. Although Chinese intelligence organizations historically recruit ethnic Chinese primarily because of cultural and language affinity, they have increasingly broadened their tradecraft to recruit no ethnic assets and foreigners. See William C. Hannas, James Mulvenon, and Anna B. Puglisi, Chinese Industrial Espionage: Technology Acquisition and Military Modernization (New York: Routledge, 2013), 199. 7. For detailed information about Kang Sheng’s role in the CCP leadership and China’s intelligence services from the 1920s to the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, see Roger Faligot and Rémi Kauffer, Kang Sheng: Le Maître Espion de Mao (Kang Sheng: Mao’s Masterspy) (Paris: Perrin, 2014); Roger Faligot and Rémi Kauffer, The Chinese Secret Service, translated by Christine Donougher (London: Headline, 1989); John Byron and Robert Pack, The Claws of the Dragon: Kang Sheng—The Evil Genius Behind Mao—and His Legacy of Terror in People’s China (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992). 8. Liu Shaoqi, vice chairman of the CCP and the PRC chairman, was assigned to take charge of the international communist movement as well as the ILD before the Cultural Revolution. See Geng Biao, Geng Biao Huiyilu (1949–1992) (Memoirs of Geng Biao) (Nanjing: Jiangsu Renmin Chubanshe, 1998), 249. 9. Ibid., 247–249. 10. Ibid., 261. 11. Ibid., 262–263. 12. David Wise, Tiger Trap: America’s Secret Spy War with China (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), 8. 13. The MSS differs from the KGB in terms of the recruitment for espionage. Compared to the KGB, which was always keen to accommodate the financial demands of their sources, the MSS regards indebtedness as a poor motive for espionage and thus its cooperation with sources is based on a perceived mutual advantage, not exploitation. See I. C. Smith and Nigel West, Historical Dictionary of Chinese Intelligence (Lanham: Scarecrow, 2012), 5. 14. Xuezhi Guo, China’s Security State: Philosophy, Evolution, and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 366–368. 15. Eftimiades, Chinese Intelligence Operations, 47. 16. Michael Schoenhals, Spying for the People: Mao’s Secret Agents, 1949–1967 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 30–31. 17. Liu Xingyi, Yang Qiqing Zhuan (Biography of Yang Qiqing) (Beijing: Qunzhong Chubanshe, 2006), 193–194. 18. Su Quanlin and Liu Liming, “Lun Guonei Anquan Baowei Gongzuo Fazhi Hua” (On Legalization of the Work of Domestic Security and Guard), Journal of Shanxi Police Academy 24, no. 1 (January 2016), 44.

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19. See Cong Cong, “Guobao Qingbao Gongzuo Kexue Fazhan Guan Diaoyan Baogao” (Research Report of the Scientific Outlook on Development Regarding Guobao Intelligence Work), Damishu, May 8, 2009, http://www.damishu.cn/article/ShowArticle .asp?ArticleID=120957. 20. Su Quanlin and Liu Liming, “Lun Guonei Anquan Baowei Gongzuo Fazhi Hua,” 43. 21. See Wu Yu, “‘Shuzi Shidai’ Jiemi Guobao Neimu” (“Digital Times” Reveal the Inside Story of the BDSG), Deutsche Welle, June 2, 2011. 22. Guo, China’s Security State, 369–379. 23. Nasser Abouzakhar, ed., Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Cyber Warfare & Security (Reading, Berkshire: Academic Conference and Publishing International, 2015), 90. 24. Tai Ming Cheung, “The Influence of the Gun: China’s Central Military Commission and Its Relationship with the Military, Party, and State Decision-Making Systems,” in David M. Lampton, ed., The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978–2000 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 80. 25. See Mark A. Stokes, “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Computer Network Operations Infrastructure,” in Jon R. Lindsay, Tai Ming Cheung, and Derek S. Reveron, eds., China and Cybersecurity: Espionage, Strategy, and Politics in the Digital Domain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 163–187. 26. Dean Cheng, Cyber Dragon: Inside China’s Information Warfare and Cyber Operations (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2017), 183; Paul J. Springer, ed., Encyclopedia of Cyber Warfare (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2017), 233. 27. Dennis F. Poindexter, The Chinese Information War: Espionage, Cyberwar, Communications Control, and Related Threats to United States Interests (London: McFarland, 2013), 10. 28. Wei Haitao and Wang Zhenhua, “Woguo Anquan Xingshi yu Fankong Qingbao Zhanlue Goujian” (China’s Security Situation and the Construction of National Counterterrorism Intelligence Strategy), Qingbao Zazhi 34, no. 4 (April 2015), 16. 29. Yi Ming, “Zhongmei Qingbao Jiaohuan Zouxiang Shendu Hezuo” (Sino-US Intelligence Exchange Goes Toward Deep Cooperation), Renmin Wenzhai no. 12 (2012), http://paper.people.com.cn/rmwz/html/2012-12/01/content_1160282.htm?div=-1. 30. See Renmin Wang, November 10, 2017, http://world.people.com.cn/n1/2017 /1110/c1002-29639635.html. 31. According to the law on national intelligence, “national intelligence agencies can use the necessary ways, means, and channels to pursue intelligence work abroad if necessary.” See Xinhua, June 28, 2017.

5 India Prem Mahadevan

A cat has nine lives—in the Intelligence Bureau, you have just one. —Unnamed Intelligence Bureau chief1

The performance of India’s two leading spy agencies, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), has depended on whether they are used proactively or reactively. When used proactively, the agencies have degraded threats by undermining an adversary’s capability and altering its intentions. Foreign and domestic events have been shaped to New Delhi’s advantage. Proactive intelligence postures have also permitted individual operatives to showcase personal initiative, which is essential to success in espionage. In contrast, when used reactively to warn of imminent danger from a threat that has already matured, Indian intelligence agencies have fallen prey to systemic flaws. These include a credibility deficit that “civilian” agencies cannot provide actionable warnings for the military. Both the IB and the RAW are civilian entities. The former is responsible for domestic intelligence and the latter for foreign intelligence. Their closest counterparts in the Anglosphere, in terms of mandate, are respectively the British Military Intelligence 5 (MI5) and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Like MI5, the IB operates without arrest powers in support of uniformed security forces. Like the CIA, the RAW is responsible for both human and technical penetration of overseas targets.

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Besides these two agencies India has another twenty-three intelligence organizations. An intelligence agency is a stand-alone entity with a distinct ethos, engaged in all phases of intelligence production from collection through to dissemination. It is entrusted by the political executive with strategic tasks too sensitive to be publicly acknowledged, meaning covert action. An intelligence organization, on the other hand, can be either a stand-alone entity or a subordinate branch of a larger organization. It can be involved in just one phase of the intelligence process or more. But it is not tasked with deniable activities, whether political, military, economic, informational, or diplomatic. Rather than a geographic focus, it has a thematic one (for example, tracking military deployments in hostile states, transnational criminal activities, or scientific programs). Four examples of intelligence organizations in India are the army’s Directorate General of Military Intelligence (DGMI); the National Technical Research Organization (NTRO), a signals intelligence collector, roughly equivalent to the US National Security Agency; the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), focused on strategic assessment; and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), responsible for surveillance of smuggling activities. All four organizations are components of a loosely defined “intelligence community,” although such a concept is still at a nascent stage in India. As far as the political executive is concerned, the IB and the RAW are the only two agencies, since they are answerable to the highest level of policymakers, granted direct access accordingly, and undertake deniable missions. An intelligence agency is thus a self-contained offensive tool of statecraft. An intelligence organization is part of a larger threat-monitoring system focused on serving a defensive security policy. Skeptics might ask if the difference is real or semantic. I believe it is crucial. While data limitations preclude a comprehensive assessment, an open-source review of the IB and RAW’s performance over seven decades suggests a curious pattern. The successes of these agencies have been strategic and are the products of sustained covert action. Conversely, their failures have been operational, resulting from informational gaps rather than fundamentally flawed assessments. The two agencies perform well when used offensively and poorly when used defensively. Regardless of demands from security forces for granular intelligence reporting, the agencies have done better at strategic analysis, which is their core function, than at tracking lower-order threats. Cases of perceived intelligence failure and of success are thus worth examining. A knowledge differential exists between the two categories because very few Indian spymasters write memoirs, while their

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military counterparts are less restrained about putting their own narratives on record. In certain cases there seems to have been an effort at reputation-laundering, where senior military figures have scapegoated intelligence agencies for failing to deliver on unrealistically high (and previously unarticulated) consumer expectations. The Evolution of Indian Intelligence The threat environment faced by India is very complex and the Indian “strategic intelligence condition” is very different from that of Western democracies. Matthew Crosston, an American scholar, has captured the distinction well. He opines that Western governments prioritize intelligence according to four mission categories (listed in descending order of importance): global cooperation against terrorism; stabilization efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan; covert action; and counterintelligence against state actors.2 India adopts a different order of prioritization. Fear of dysfunctional neighboring states exporting militancy onto its own soil, coupled with ongoing conflicts between various indigenous groups, makes New Delhi emphasize counterintelligence above all. Next comes covert action as a tool of power projection. Third is the need to help Western governments stabilize Afghanistan (in order to prevent a regional spillover of Taliban militancy). Last, global counterterrorism cooperation is viewed as an instrument for building diplomatic pressure on Pakistan regarding covert sponsorship of cross-border terrorism. To that extent, the first and fourth missions of Indian intelligence loop together and close a circle. There is also a fifth mission, which Crosston did not include in his analysis but which applies strongly to the Indian context: military intelligence about offensive capabilities and intentions of neighboring states. In terms of importance, it would rank just behind the top priority (counterintelligence). Irregular warfare waged by Pakistan and Chinese military encroachment along a lengthy and disputed frontier are two very distinct types of threat that the Indian intelligence community must simultaneously track. Divining from initial reports, whether a provocative incident is a one-off or part of a larger plan to escalate to military confrontation, is a significant and continuing analytical challenge for warning analysts. The IB and Political Surveillance

The IB is the oldest member of the intelligence community. Founded in 1887 as the Central Special Branch of the colonial police, its job was to

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collate reports from provincial special branches. Following Indian independence in 1947, a recurrent criticism has been that the agency is more focused on tracking opposition to the incumbent government (regardless of which party is elected to power) than on monitoring foreign subversion and domestic radicalization. This criticism is understandable but misguided, for two reasons. First, the IB’s creation was triggered by an unprecedented development in Indian history—the formation of a political party. Two years before the agency came into being, British colonial authorities allowed a group of intellectuals to form the Indian National Congress. The congress later became an important vehicle for popularizing nationalism and anticolonialism. Some writers suggest that the central special branch was founded to keep track of (legitimate) native mobilization in India and the implications this would have for continued British rule. 3 In other words, the IB has had political surveillance hardwired into its institutional culture for over 130 years. Indeed, such surveillance ensures that no Indian fringe party can exploit societal tensions, of which there are many, and attempt a violent Bolshevikstyle power grab. The second reason why political surveillance is crucial to national security is the regional threat environment. India faces a militarily weaker but ethnically similar opponent in Pakistan. This makes subversion a constant worry for the Indian security establishment. Beginning in 1947, when Pakistan covertly dispatched armed tribesmen to the Kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir, the main threat that Delhi perceives from across India’s western border is one of preparatory agitprop activity, followed by escalating cross-border terrorist incidents, undeclared territorial incursions, and eventually a localized conventional aggression. This pattern was partially played out in 1965 and 1999. On both occasions the Pakistani military, which was assisting Islamists in the Indian portion of Kashmir, launched “deniable” offensives consisting of soldiers in civilian clothes. In today’s nomenclature, the mode of fighting favored by Pakistan would be called hybrid warfare. As demonstrated by the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, hybrid warfare begins with human penetration of political and social institutions within the target country. India is a highly diverse nation with twenty-three officially recognized languages and over 2,000 ethnic groups. There is no clear population majority beyond religion, with roughly 80 percent being of the Hindu faith (even this demographic is fractured by the caste system). For much of its postcolonial history, India has had more Muslims than Pakistan. The existence of such a large minority—200

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million people in a country of 1.3 billion—is testament to both India’s pluralism and the fragility of this, due to historical tensions between the Indian and Pakistani nation-states. As a country with potential for foreign subversion, India is a targetrich environment, which makes its continued unity all the more remarkable. In part, the survival of the Indian political experiment has been due to a cross-societal willingness to mobilize against centripetal forces. The trigger point for such mobilization has traditionally been strong involvement of Pakistani intelligence with dissident groups in the Indian polity. From 1956 when Pakistani spies assisted a secessionist rebellion in India’s remote northeastern Nagaland province to 1966 when a similar rebellion erupted in the province of Mizoram, to 1981 when secessionism appeared in the western province of Punjab, to 1989 when it appeared in Kashmir, India has calibrated its security response based on whether the rebel leaderships were perceived to have had contact with Pakistan. Knowing the ideological leanings of indigenous fringe politicians, as well as the personal ambitions of mainstream ones, is crucial in this regard. “The Colossus” Identifies Two Structural Threats

Domestic intelligence was not always the sole responsibility of the IB. Between 1950 and 1968 the agency was also tasked to collect foreign intelligence, including on military affairs. For an agency whose staff consisted entirely of civilian police officials, and which had been denuded of all sensitive files by departing colonial officials, the expansive mandate was unrealistic. Even so, the IB attempted to set up an infrastructure for cross-border intelligence. As it lobbied for the necessary resources, the agency came to depend heavily on the interpersonal relationship between its chief and the Indian political executive. Bhola Nath Mullik was only the second Indian to head the IB after independence, from 1950 to 1964. Revered due to a ferocious work ethic and feared due to an acerbic personality, he enjoyed close access to Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Known as “The Colossus,” Mullik was the only strategic planner to make two predictions, which seemed alarmist at the time but have been vindicated in the decades since. As a senior IB official, he warned in 1948 that a condition of permanent hostility could be the only logical outcome of a colonial partition where one successor state (Pakistan) was founded on the basis of religious exclusion while its larger and historically better-known neighbor (India) held pluralism as central to its cultural identity.

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Mullik suspected that the 1947 invasion of Kashmir by Pakistanbased tribesmen was not a one-off event. Rather, he saw it as part of an effort by the Pakistani elite to create a “new normal” in bilateral relations. This was a radical idea, since established thinking in New Delhi during those days viewed the fighting in Kashmir as an “aberration,” a territorial dispute caused by a hasty partition of the colonial realm. The future IB chief bucked conventional wisdom when he warned of more acts of covert aggression. The 1956 Naga uprising, assisted by spies in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), seemed to prove him right. The second prediction, made in 1950, was that communist China would pose a serious threat to India’s northern and eastern frontiers. Mullik, who inherited the colonial IB’s hostility toward communism, observed the Chinese invasion of Tibet with alarm. Never before had military power appeared on India’s supposedly impassable Himalayan borders with such speed and on such a scale. Years after leaving office in 1964, Mullik was criticized for having encouraged Nehru to adopt a confrontational “Forward Policy” toward China. The existence of a border dispute between the two countries (unresolved as of 2019) was not recognized at the time. The IB and its chief have been blamed for the Indian army’s disastrous performance in a thirty-one-day frontier war that broke out in October 1962. Following that war, the civilian agency was viewed as unqualified to handle military-related intelligence. Arguments were made that its dominance over strategic assessment had undermined the Joint Intelligence Committee and prevented contrarian views from being put forward that might have highlighted the risks of the Forward Policy. Following a mixed performance against Pakistan in 1965, pressure mounted for the creation of a specialized foreign intelligence agency. The RAW and Foreign (Political) Intelligence

In 1968, the innocuously named Research and Analysis Wing was created in the cabinet secretariat. Unlike the IB, which was administratively answerable to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the RAW reported directly to the prime minister. This arrangement was prompted by suspicions between Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (Nehru’s daughter) and her minister for home affairs. Not wanting to give the latter authority over all civilian intelligence structures (since the MHA additionally controlled India’s federal law enforcement apparatus and its associated intelligence units), Indira Gandhi placed the RAW under her personal authority. The new agency began with a

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core strength of 250 personnel transferred from the IB’s foreign intelligence department.4 Among the assets it inherited was a large paramilitary capability, known as the Special Frontier Force (SFF). The force was intended to make up for a shortfall in human intelligence caused by ethno-linguistic differences between India and China/Tibet. SFF personnel were Tibetans who had fled their homeland during the 1950s. With their deep cultural knowledge, they proved to be valuable cross-border sources. In the late 1970s, shortly before Pakistan began assisting secessionists in India’s Punjab province, an ultra-secret counterterrorism detachment was raised within the SFF, consisting of serving Indian military personnel. Known as the Special Group (SG), it is currently thought to be the most sophisticated special forces unit in India. Within three years of its formation, the RAW grew spectacularly in influence and prestige. A key event was the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War. Slowly the agency acquired a reputation for duplicating the IB’s work in political surveillance on behalf of Indira Gandhi. When the latter was voted out of office in 1977, her successor as prime minister promptly slashed the RAW’s budget and ordered a sharp curtailment of its overseas covert activities. This proved disastrous to intelligence generation. With the sheen of India’s military victory in 1971 fading from public memory, a tendency has emerged since the 1980s to denigrate the RAW on the same grounds previously used against the IB. The fact that both agencies focused on policy intelligence for civilian consumers led critics to argue that the armed forces needed to be empowered to meet their own informational requirements. This is a reasonable argument, but political concerns about a military-led intelligence monolith going rogue, in the vein of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), militate against drastic remedies. Information pertaining to military affairs continues to be scattered across at least seven organizations: the IB (due to its mandate for counterterrorism and counter-insurgency); the RAW (due to its responsibility for foreign intelligence); the NTRO (due to its signals interception capability, which overlaps with the RAW’s); the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), a new organization set up in 2002 as part of an effort to promote jointness between the three armed forces; and the three service intelligence directorates of the army, navy, and air force. In a context where India faces a conventional military threat from China (due to the still-unresolved border dispute) and a hybrid warfare threat from Pakistan that ranges from terrorist attacks to the possibility of a localized invasion in Kashmir, foreign intelligence remains a

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tricky subject. Three of the four intelligence failures described in this chapter relate to it. Notable Failures: Lapses in Political Judgment The term “intelligence failure” is frequently thrown about in India whenever security forces (whether police or military) are caught unawares by an adverse operational development. Its usage tends to appear in instances where an accurate general warning was provided but specific details were not. Security forces insist that such warnings are not actionable and blame intelligence agencies for failing to develop them. The latter, on the other hand, point to sheaves of prior assessments that had indicated a threat buildup and urged heightened vigilance. What the four failures listed here share is not that intelligence agencies failed to notice a threat (see Crisis Cases 1–4). Rather, it is that the threat’s development was aided by policy paralysis that unfolded independently of intelligence advice. These decisions corralled intelligence agencies and security forces into tightly spaced and time-sensitive scenarios, where “actionability” of reports became crucial. What mattered was not how accurately analysts could monitor a threat buildup but whether collectors in the field could acquire precise details of what was imminent. The four cases each have a “crisis moment.” It was at this moment that intelligence coverage of the adversary was exposed as inadequate for the security forces’ operational requirements. The cases also each had a mitigating factor in that the same intelligence agencies that were criticized for not providing specific information later demonstrated a capacity to reduce damage done by the crisis. In this regard, Indian intelligence agencies have been a bit like US naval intelligence in 1941–1942: unable to prevent the strike at Pearl Harbor, but effective in guiding the response thereafter. While information gaps were indeed a causal factor, the professional competence of the agencies could not be denigrated overall. Crisis Case 1: Counterterrorist Assault at the Golden Temple in Indian Punjab

Crisis moment: June 5–6, 1984 Context: For over a year, hundreds of Sikh secessionist militants had taken over the Golden Temple (the holiest shrine of the Sikh faith) and used it as a base to assassinate police officials

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and plan massacres of Hindu civilians. Efforts to negotiate their departure from the sprawling complex proved unsuccessful. To restore order, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered the army to clear the complex while specifying a need to avoid heavy loss of civilian life or structural damage to the temple buildings. What happened: The secessionist militants possessed an assortment of firearms, ranging from hunting rifles to grenades and several dozen machine guns. The army suffered heavy casualties while attempting to dislodge them. Eventually, tanks had to be deployed to blast fortifications that had been constructed inside the temple. The IB was later criticized by army commanders for not having warned of the militants’ readiness to fight a positional battle.5 Precrisis reporting: The IB had provided regular updates on armsstockpiling within the temple complex and accurately estimated the number and types of weapons held by the militants. RAW SFF–Special Group operatives had reconnoitered the complex prior to the assault, mapping out militant fortifications.6 The army’s criticism of intelligence agencies was later viewed as an attempt to shift blame for poor operational planning and preparation by its own staff. Postcrisis mitigation: Four years afterward, another standoff developed between militants and police at the Golden Temple. This time, the IB’s head of Punjab operations personally infiltrated the temple several days prior to the moment of crisis and remained on-site, providing updates of the militants’ morale, plans, and deployment. His detailed information allowed specialist assault troops to conduct room clearances with surgical precision and negligible loss of life. Crisis Case 2: The Synchronized Bombings in Mumbai

Crisis moment: March 12, 1993 Context: Religious riots from December 1992 to January 1993 had left the Muslim community of Mumbai deeply insecure. A Muslim-led drug-trafficking syndicate was approached by Pakistan’s ISI with an offer of training and explosives to carry out retaliatory bombings in the city. Although reluctant, the syndicate leaders eventually agreed. What happened: Using the syndicate as a cutout, the ISI shipped several hundred assault rifles and tons of military-grade explosives to India. The ordnance was locally cached by the syndicate.

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As planned, on March 12, 1993, thirteen near-simultaneous explosions rocked Mumbai, killing 257 people. By this time, the syndicate’s top leaders and their relatives had fled to Pakistan. Precrisis reporting: Neither the RAW nor the IB detected the ISI’s cooperation with the drug-trafficking syndicate. Both agencies knew in general terms that Pakistani spies were looking to support a campaign of urban terrorism in India. In July 1992, an arrested Sikh militant had told the Mumbai police that the ISI was stockpiling weapons on Indian territory. His claims were assessed as credible by Western European intelligence services.7 Postcrisis mitigation: After the bombings, the IB launched an operation based out of Dubai to contact the syndicate leadership hiding in Pakistan and persuade them to surrender to face justice in India. This was a delicate mission, since Islamabad denied that the bombing masterminds were living within its jurisdiction. After a year, the IB persuaded nine family members of the lead mastermind to return to India, where they provided information about ISI involvement in the bombings.8 Crisis Case 3: The Kargil Crisis

Crisis moment: May 27, 1999 Context: Following nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in 1998, international pressure mounted on both countries to hold deescalatory talks. In February 1999, the Indian prime minister traveled to Pakistan to initiate a new round of dialogue. Inflated expectations around this initiative took over the public narrative, suggesting that a thaw in bilateral relations could be imminent. What happened: In May 1999, villagers in the Kargil region of Jammu and Kashmir informed a local Indian army garrison that armed men had been spotted in nearby hills. Patrols established that unidentified men in civilian clothes were using military weaponry to fire at Indian troops. As fighting escalated, the Indian army and political leadership realized that Pakistani soldiers had secretly crossed the line of control that separated Indian and Pakistani positions in Kargil and occupied territory on the Indian side. New Delhi resolved to expel the incursion through a combination of infantry attacks and airpower. On May 27, an Indian fighter jet was shot down by a shoulder-fired missile, demonstrating that the intruders were well prepared to hold their positions.

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Precrisis reporting: During the eleven months that preceded the crisis, the IB had submitted numerous reports of Pakistani troop concentrations opposite Kargil.9 These reports were dismissed by the Indian army, which also responded with skepticism to an RAW warning that Pakistan would escalate its covert offensive in Kashmir. The army did not share its own field intelligence reports with the JIC, arguing later that as the end-user of military information, it had no need to do so.10 Postcrisis mitigation: Even as Indian troops were battling the incursion, the RAW intercepted telephone conversations within the Pakistani high command. The intercepts demonstrated that the Kargil incursion was being carried out on the Pakistani army’s own initiative. They served to discredit Islamabad’s denials that its troops had crossed into Indian territory. Crisis Case 4: The Terrorist Raid on Mumbai

Crisis moment: November 26, 2008 Context: Since September 2006, India and Pakistan had agreed at the urging of Western governments to work together against terrorism. Both countries were facing attacks from jihadist militants who operated out of Pakistani territory. Initial meetings between security officials of the two sides were cordial but did not yield practical measures, due to Islamabad’s insistence that no terrorist attacks on Indian soil originated from Pakistani territory. What happened: A ten-member squad of suicidal terrorists, trained by personnel from the Pakistani military, sailed from Karachi to Mumbai and ran riot through the city, shooting 165 people.11 Over a three-day siege spread across multiple locations, Indian security forces captured one gunman and eliminated the others. The captured gunman revealed that he was a member of the Lashkar e Taiba (LeT), a jihadist group known to be close to the Pakistani army. Precrisis reporting: The RAW had received reports from the CIA in the United States about an upcoming sea-launched terrorist raid on Mumbai. These were duly forwarded to the Mumbai police via the IB. Later, the human source behind the reports was found to have been an LeT double-agent who had reconnoitered the sites that were attacked. His information, though tantalizing, had been bereft of “actionable” details about the raid’s timing.12

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Postcrisis mitigation: While the attack was ongoing, the IB discovered that the ten gunmen in Mumbai were using mobile SIM cards that had been previously infiltrated into an LeT network in Kashmir. By eavesdropping on the terrorists’ calls, the agency was able to establish that the terrorists were being controlled in real time by handlers in Karachi. * * *

All of these cases above encapsulate a flaw in political judgment that had to be mitigated by proactive intelligence collection operations (and not merely predictive analysis):

• In 1984, Sikh secessionists could smuggle weaponry and barricade themselves in Amritsar’s Golden Temple for over a year because Indira Gandhi did not perceive them as a serious threat until they began massacring Hindu civilians in late 1983. • In 1993, the Indian political class failed to protect its Muslim constituents from Hindu rioters, creating a chance for the ISI to project itself as a “protector” of Indian Muslims. • In 1999, the then Indian prime minister launched a peace initiative with Pakistan on the premise that nuclear weapons states could not go to war with each other. The atmospherics around this personalized initiative bred complacency in an army establishment that was inclined to disregard reports from civilian intelligence agencies. • In 2008, a political climate that advocated closer Indo-Pakistani security cooperation precluded India from accusing Pakistan of tolerating the activities of LeT, whose intention to strike at Indian cities was already known within informed circles of government.

Notable Successes: Institutional Patience and Risk-Taking It is noteworthy that the few publicly acknowledged successes of the IB and the RAW all pertain to covert action carried out in the distant past. By itself, this is unsurprising: despite the name, successful covert actions sometimes become semi-overt affairs, as multiple stakeholders seek a share of the credit. Failed covert actions are also exposed because the same stakeholders might seek to distance themselves from

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the result. This section lists four covert actions (see Success Cases 1–4) that point toward the IB and the RAW having an impressive operational record when the time frame of cultivation, recruitment, and placement of deep-penetration human assets is suitably long. Success Case 1: Support for East Pakistani Nationalism

Duration: 1962–1971 Context: In response to Pakistani support for the 1956 Naga uprising, in 1962 the IB’s then foreign intelligence department opened contacts with dissidents in East Pakistan (today’s Bangladesh). After the ISI supported the 1966 Mizoram uprising, the IB intensified its engagement with the dissidents. Both Naga and Mizo rebels set up training camps in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a remote corner of East Pakistan. A growing risk of Chinese assistance to the rebels alarmed New Delhi.13 Process: In 1970–1971, tensions built up between the Pakistani military regime and the Awami League, an ethnically Bengali party in East Pakistan. The RAW ensured that Awami League activists could flee to India following a crackdown by the Pakistani army. The Indian agency trained an 83,000-strong guerrilla force, consisting of East Pakistani refugees. When the Pakistani air force bombed Indian airbases, war broke out and the Indian army swiftly defeated its Pakistani counterpart. During the fourteen-day war, the RAW’s SFF attacked Naga and Mizo training camps in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, forcing their closure.14 The conflict ended with the dissolution of East Pakistan and the formation of a new state called Bangladesh. Actionable intelligence for the Indian army proved readily available, due to voluntary support provided by RAW-trained guerrillas.

Success Case 2: The Mizo Peace Process

Duration: 1971–1986 Context: Following the closure of training camps in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, the Mizo rebel leadership fled to today’s Pakistan. The rebel’s supreme leader, Pu Laldenga, and his family stayed in Pakistan under the protection of the ISI. Process: As a result of secret talks facilitated in 1971 by local clergymen in Mizoram, the IB and the RAW learned that the Pakistanbased rebel leadership was looking for a negotiated settlement

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with New Delhi. Starting in 1974, the IB’s senior representative in Mizoram opened a dialogue with field commanders of the rebel army, while the RAW arranged for Laldenga to be smuggled out of Pakistan. In a six-month operation, Indian operatives smuggled the rebel chief and his family to Europe, where they were settled. Once away from Pakistani control, Laldenga met with a senior RAW officer in Switzerland.15 The officer conveyed the Indian government’s willingness to reach a settlement. Meanwhile, the IB representative in Mizoram continued with parallel efforts to win over rebel field commanders. He succeeded in persuading six out of seven to surrender their arms, in effect leaving Laldenga out in the cold.16 The rebel chief was left with no choice but to sign a peace accord, which has held to the present day and represents one of the most successful cases of a peaceful end to an insurgency. Success Case 3: The Merger of Sikkim

Duration: 1973–1975 Context: The Kingdom of Sikkim was from 1947 to 1975 a protectorate of India, under an agreement that dated from the end of colonial rule. Indian prime minister Nehru resisted calls from local politicians in Sikkim to accept a merger, preferring instead to have the kingdom as a buffer state with China. After Nehru’s death in 1964, the Sikkim monarch began to demand greater foreign policy autonomy. With India by then facing a hostile China to the north, and growing tensions with the United States over Indian assistance to the East Pakistani rebellion, Nehru’s daughter Indira Gandhi was no longer prepared to accept a semi-independent status for the kingdom. Renewed calls for a merger met with her support.17 Process: The RAW chief drew up a plan in December 1972, in consultation with a Calcutta-based subordinate and the agency representative in Sikkim, to assist pro-democracy politicians in weakening the monarch’s rule. The three-man RAW station in Sikkim lobbied local politicians known to be in favor of merger with India and urged them to legislate for closer ties with Delhi.18 The entire process of merger took two years, during which indigenous support reached sufficient magnitude as to forestall the risk of bloodshed. Owing to the peaceful nature of the transition, international opinion viewed the process with equanimity.

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Success Case 4: The Defeat of Secessionism in Punjab

Duration: 1985–1993 Context: Following the 1984 army assault at the Golden Temple, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two police bodyguards who happened to be Sikh. Violent pogroms broke out across India, targeting innocent Sikhs. Secessionist discourse intensified in Punjab, with moderate Sikh politicians being intimidated to stay silent by radicalized youth. Process: The IB played a dual role in combating the secessionist movement: providing informational support to the Punjab police in counterterrorism missions while holding secret talks with some of the very same militant leaders being hunted by the police. The objective of such talks was to explore prospects for a negotiated settlement, as was being reached with the Mizo rebels. However, since Punjab was located adjacent to Pakistani territory, the ISI could not be prevented from exerting a spoiling effect on peace talks. In 1992, province-wide elections were held. The IB learned through technical surveillance that the ISI had advised all pro-secessionist politicians to abstain from participating in the polls.19 The Indian agency used this insight to assemble an anti-secessionist political coalition, which then provided executive backing to the police in hunting down militants. * * *

Each of these actions have had beneficial long-term effects.20 The creation of Bangladesh eliminated the risk of a Sino-Pakistani pincer movement against India’s geographically isolated northeastern provinces. It also weakened the secessionist rebellions in these provinces. Four years later, the merger of Sikkim strengthened India’s military position vis-à-vis China by reducing Beijing’s room for incrementally encroaching along the disputed Sino-Indian frontier. The negotiated settlement of the Mizo rebellion and the police-led suppression of secessionism in Punjab have stood the test of time over three and two decades respectively. In all of these cases, human assets—not technical ones—proved decisive in winning over local stakeholders to the policy adopted by New Delhi. It seems that when used for covert action, Indian intelligence agencies, if given adequate preparation time, can penetrate an adversary’s decisionmaking structure and influence it from within. Where they struggle is when asked to deliver time-sensitive threat

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assessments of an adversary’s capability or intentions to fight—a situation in which they prioritize accuracy over granularity of reportage. Conclusion Intelligence in India has gone through three phases. From 1947 to 1962, the dominant challenge was threat identification as New Delhi sought to ascertain who its real adversary was: Pakistan, China, or even the imperialist West (as some suspected in those early postcolonial days, when decolonization was not an accomplished fact of international relations). The next phase was one of capability growth. It spanned 1963 to 1977 and saw the IB bifurcated according to foreign and domestic specialization. Covert action and technical collection assets for foreign intelligence were increased. The third phase began in 1977 and was one of bureaucratization. It is still ongoing today. There are worries that the IB and the RAW are slowly losing the qualitative advantage that delivered some of their previous covert action successes.21 Since the mid-1970s, both agencies have changed their recruitment policies. Previously, the IB drafted the country’s best police officers to serve in its executive ranks, while the RAW recruited from both within and outside government to obtain the best possible talent. These agencies were helped by their reputations: a posting to the IB was considered a prestige assignment within the police hierarchy, and working in the RAW offered an opportunity to travel and live abroad. In the 1960s and 1970s, when India still had a socialist economy, these were attractive draws for a permanent career in intelligence work. Beginning in the 1990s, new job opportunities in the private sector pulled away some of the talent that would otherwise have sought stability in a civil service career. The two agencies themselves invested in technical modernization. As collection systems became more automated, regional expertise and language skills were no longer as essential to intelligence generation. Although the IB retained human intelligence at the core of its operations, the RAW is today reported to be short of skilled manpower at its middle and senior ranks.22 The fact that the agency ceased to recruit from the open market and instead relies heavily on deputationists from other government services has made the lack of thematic and geographic specialization acutely felt. Today, Indian intelligence agencies are more dependent than ever before on interpersonal relations between their top managers and the political executive. For the moment, things look good. The current

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Indian national security adviser, Ajit Doval, is a former IB chief. He oversees the functioning of both agencies and is the nodal authority for all policy matters concerning national security. Doval has a Napoleonic reputation within the intelligence fraternity. His story, while being inspirational, demonstrates the frailty of institutions reliant on the personal initiative of exceptionally daring and innovative officers. In his earlier days, Doval was involved in two of the four intelligence successes described in this chapter. He was the IB representative in Mizoram who suborned most of Laldenga’s field commanders. Shortly thereafter, when posted as the agency’s operations chief in Punjab, he was the operative who infiltrated the Golden Temple before the second (successful) assault by security forces. He is also believed to have devised a political strategy for defeating Sikh secessionism. A top IB official who knows him well told me that Doval was the only senior operations man in the 1990s who would take life-threatening risks while running human sources inside terrorist groups. His experience in combating Pakistan-sponsored subversion is believed to have given him an encyclopedic knowledge of the ISI’s operational infrastructure. The fact that he is a counterintelligence specialist makes him wellsuited to oversee the Indian intelligence system. It is important to remember that this system places counterintelligence as its highest priority. Since Doval became the national security adviser in 2014, the IB and the RAW are reported to have chalked up several counterterrorism successes against Pakistan-based groups. Whether the IB and the RAW would be equally effective under a different national security adviser is unclear. Intelligence failures in India have occurred under political leaders of all ideological hues, but successes have been crucially linked to personalities and a proclivity for risk-taking. In both 1971 and 1975, support to East Pakistani rebels and pro-Indian politicians in Sikkim was possible because Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was willing to eventually bring a long-running covert operation above ground. The two other cases (Mizoram and Punjab) were domestic actions where the damage caused by exposure would have been limited. Only Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was first elected in 2014 and won a second term in 2019, has shown a high tolerance for taking risks. It is unsurprising that Modi retained Ajit Doval as his national security adviser, given the latter’s strong reputation within the military and civilian strategic community. A question may be asked as to whether India is in danger of falling into the trap that Prussia fell into during the late nineteenth century— being too reliant on the individual skill of a single top official. Only

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time will tell. For now, indications are that the RAW and the IB need to attract quality talent in order to regain their old competence levels in human intelligence. Years of being part of a loosely knit “community” of intelligence producers that was focused on preserving the military status quo has left them dependent on technical collection. Being reduced to mere producers of information, they are not much different from the many intelligence organizations that make up the community. None of these organizations have the experience base nor the political mandate to carry out covert actions. Whether India’s two intelligence agencies will remain as such or will settle for being less may determine whether the country shall have a promising future. Notes 1. Amarjit Singh Dulat, “The Spy Who Loved Spies,” India Today, June 10, 2017, https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/leisure/story/20170619-the-spy-who-loved-spies -amarjit-singh-dulat-986582-2017-06-10. 2. Matthew Crosston, “Bringing Non-Western Cultures and Conditions into Comparative Intelligence Perspectives: India, Russia, and China,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 29, no. 1 (2016), 113. 3. Amiya K. Samanta, “Growth of Intelligence Institutions in British India,” Indian Police Journal 59, no. 4 (October–December 2012), 13. 4. Ryan Shaffer, “Unraveling India’s Foreign Intelligence: The Origins and Evolution of the Research and Analysis Wing,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 28, no. 2 (2015), 259–260. 5. Inderjit Badhwar and Dilip Bobb, “General Sundarji Leaves Behind a Legacy Most Fiercely Disputed in the History of the Army,” India Today, May 15, 1988, https:// www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/story/19880515-general-sundarji-leaves -behind-a-legacy-most-fiercely-disputed-in-the-history-of-the-army-797243-1988-05-15. 6. Sandeep Unnithan, “Operation Bluestar: The League of Shadows,” India Today, February 11, 2014, https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/the-big-story/story/20140210 -operation-bluestar-indira-gandhi-singh-bhindranwale-army-raw-paramilitary-unit -800036-1999-11-30. 7. B. Raman, “To Counter a Covert Aggressor,” Frontline 17, no. 3 (February 5–18, 2000), https://frontline.thehindu.com/static/html/fl1703/17030150.htm. 8. S. Hussain Zaidi, “From Messenger to Mastermind,” The Hindu, July 25, 2015, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/on-the-death-warrant-issued-to-yakub-memon /article7461264.ece. 9. Rajesh Ahuja, “Medal for Intelligence Official Who Sent First Kargil Alert on Pak Troops,” Hindustan Times, August 15, 2016, https://www.hindustantimes.com/nation -newspaper/medal-for-ib-man-who-sent-first-kargil-alert/story-PsniUhLae9jE6eJiLR6ihK .html. 10. B. Raman, “Dimensions of Intelligence Operations,” April 27, 2004, http:// www.southasiaanalysis.org/paper985. 11. For details on the planning and preparation of the attack, including the role of the Pakistani army and ISI, see “Interrogation Report of David Coleman Headley,” compiled by the National Investigation Agency of India, 61, http://www.investigativeproject

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.org/documents/case_docs/1602.pdf. Headley was one of the key conspirators, reconnoitering targets in India on behalf of Lashkar e Taiba and the ISI. 12. Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark, The Siege: The Attack on the Taj (New Delhi: Penguin, 2013), 58. 13. B. Raman, “Role of R&AW in Liberation of Bangladesh,” Indian Defence Review, October 13, 2018, http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spotlights/role-of-raw -in-liberation-of-bangladesh. 14. Praveen Swami, “India’s Secret War in Bangladesh,” The Hindu, December 26, 2011, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/indias-secret-war-in-bangladesh/article2747538 .ece; Prabir Barua Chowdhury, “Phantoms in the Hills,” Daily Star, November 6, 2015, https://www.thedailystar.net/wide-angle/phantoms-the-hills-168325. 15. O. N. Shrivastava, “My Experience of Life and Work in IB,” Indian Police Journal 59, no. 4 (October–December 2012), 68–69; Santanu Ghosh, “A Holiday for Celebrations,” The Telegraph, June 30, 2011, https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/a -holiday-for-celebrations/cid/380009. 16. Uttam Sengupta, “I Spy a Spy,” Outlook, June 9, 2014, https://www.outlookindia .com/magazine/story/i-spy-a-spy/290878. 17. K. P. Fabian, “The Untold Story of Sikkim,” Frontline, March 15, 2019, https://frontline.thehindu.com/books/article26375946.ece; G. B. S. Sidhu, “How Sikkim Became a Part of India,” The Pioneer, November 4, 2018, https://www.dailypioneer.com /2018/sunday-edition/how-sikkim-became-a-part-of-india.html. 18. Subir Bhaumik, “How Indian Secret Agents Removed the God King of Sikkim and Claimed a New State,” South China Morning Post, December 29, 2018, https:// www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2179904/how-indian-secret-agents -removed-god-king-sikkim-and-claimed. 19. Prem Mahadevan, The Politics of Counterterrorism in India: Strategic Intelligence and National Security in South Asia (London: Tauris, 2012), 110–111. 20. I have a very different view from that advanced by another scholar who asserts that covert action “sometimes resulted in short-term benefits to India, [but] caused longterm problems and hostility toward India.” See Nicolas Groffman, “Indian and Chinese Espionage,” Defense & Security Analysis 32, no. 2 (2016), 152. 21. Coreena Suares, “India Must Spend More on Intelligence, Says Ex-RAW Chief Vikram Sood,” Deccan Chronicle, February 18, 2019, https://www.deccanchronicle.com /nation/current-affairs/180219/india-must-spend-more-on-intelligence-says-ex-raw-chief -vikram-sood.html. 22. R. Prasannan and Namrata Biji Ahuja, “Spies Rule the Roost,” The Week, November 11, 2018, https://www.theweek.in/theweek/cover/2018/11/03/spies-rule-the -roost.html.

6 Iran Carl A. Wege

The Islamic Republic of Iran boasts a history of empire whose revolutionaries and generals rule a people with hearts yearning for the consolation of poets and saints. Persia’s master narrative, the epic Shahnameh, gives poetic voice to this pride while its people, now living in an arc extending from Tehran down the Zargos mountains to the Persian Gulf, remain divided along volatile frontiers inhabited by descendants of Iran’s original mountain people, still contesting with one another across the borders of the modern state. Khomeini’s revolutionary Velayat-e Faqih (Rule of the Jurists)1 is conceptually ahistorical, arising only from ill-defined scholarly progenitors in the somewhat vague historical idea of the vice regency of the Nīābat-e ʿāmma (Hidden Imam), whereby a Shah exercises temporal rule in accordance with Islam until the return of Imām Zamān (Muhammad al-Mahdi). In the Vilayat established by Khomeini, however, militants still follow historical Shia traditions adhering to scholar-jurists based on their Ba’raka (charisma) and, as a result, different personalities among jurists rise and decline as their followings coalesce and disintegrate. The outcome is a set of fluid relationships around the followers of various Twelver Shia ideological currents articulated by regime-favored ulama in the Hawza ‘Ilmiyya (centers of Shia learning) in Qom. Nonetheless the jinn (genie) now released by Khomeini’s Vilayat has awakened a new permutation in Tehran’s imperial aspiration and fanned anew the flames of ambition later exhausted in our time by profane nationalism and petty corruption.

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History of Iranian Services What are sometimes called passion plays (ta’ziyeh) are still common in Iran and memorialize the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, illustrating a long history and cultural affinity of struggling against injustice. The modern culmination of that struggle was the generation that in 1978– 1979 overthrew Iran’s King of Kings and is sometimes referred to as the Nasl-e Sukhteh (Burnt Generation), reflecting both the ferocity of the revolution against the Shah and the horrors of the Iran-Iraq War (1980– 1988). Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence (VEVAK) emerged in 1984 from the ashes of the Shah’s Organization of National Intelligence and Security of the Nation (SAVAK). In the beginning VEVAK incorporated and utilized SAVAK professionals, but the new ministry quickly consolidated power and enforced the suppression of liberal aspirations across Iran through the 1980s. The formal Ministry of Intelligence structure, however, would come to reflect traditional Western-style directorates and functions (see Figures 6.1 and 6.2). Yet, determined to resist the seduction of modernity’s “House of War” (the non-Muslim world) and in keeping with Ayatollah Khomeini’s vision of the Vilayat, every minister of intelligence beginning with Mohammed Rayshahri has been a religious authority rather than an intelligence professional.2 In a larger sense, when we examine intelligence agencies even in Western countries, formal political structures are often opaque reflections of political realities. In countries such as Iran, these formal political structures are even less reflective of organic political norms. In Iran’s intelligence agencies, traditional Weberian patterns are deceptive, as formal structures are only partially descriptive of the underlying organization defining the intelligence apparatus. Reporting lines engage both vertical and lateral pathways between organizations within a matrix of politicized intelligence products reflecting Shia ideology along with a focus on Jewish and Baha’i (a religion teaching the essential worth of all religions) conspiracies appealing to Shiite prejudice.3 The Ministry of Intelligence, emerging more fully in the 1990s, established training liaisons with the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). Ministry of Intelligence personnel, sometimes called the “Unknown Soldiers of the Imam” and numbering roughly 15,000 by the mid-2000s, were trained in traditional KGB tradecraft together with methods of disinformation the Iranians called Nefaq (an Arabic, not Farsi, word for “discord” or “hypocrisy”). The Ministry of Intelligence came to be organized into five major directorates mirroring analogs in many of the world’s intelligence agencies (see Figure 6.2).

95 Figure 6.1 Iran’s Intelligence Organization Supreme National Security Council

Defense Council

State Security Council

Department 101

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

Ministry of Intelligence

Basiji

Figure 6.2 Ministry of Intelligence Ministry of Intelligence (Mahmoud Alavi) Directorate General

Directorate of Analysis Strategy

Directorate of Internal Security

Directorate of National Security

Directorate of Counterintelligence

Directorate of External Intelligence

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This included a directorate of analysis and strategy incorporating the disinformation efforts described earlier, a directorate of internal security tasked with protecting government institutions and monitoring points of international transit, a directorate of counterintelligence, a national security directorate separate from internal security but responsible for surveilling opposition movements, and a directorate of external intelligence that managed other departments organized along geographic lines.4 Additional departments exist and are incorporated into various directorates or housed with other bureaucratic organizations such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the mid-1990s, rising popular aspirations created the possibility of loosing police-state constraints on civil society and were seen to threaten clerical authority under the Vilayat. When confronted with the potential of genuine liberal reform, what was later known informally as the Parallel Intelligence Apparatus (PIA) emerged, made up of rogue elements of the security services allied with the Revolutionary Guard acting as vigilantes for conservative clerics to crush the reformist impulse by arresting and imprisoning those deemed supportive of such reform (these became known informally as the Chain Murders).5 President Mohammed Khatami appointed Ghorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi intelligence minister in 1997 as the “off the books” PIA activity became a political liability. Dorri-Najafabadi’s deputy Saeid Emami was eventually charged with murders associated with PIA crimes and effectively became a “fall guy” in the resulting political clashes. He died in 1999 under questionable circumstances in Lugman Hospital in Tehran. Dorri-Najafabadi was replaced by Hojatolislam Gholamhussein Mohseni-Ejehi (served 2005–2009), who was politically allied with conservative cleric Mohammad Yazdi. MohseniEjehi 6 then went to great lengths to restore the Ministry of Intelligence’s conservative bona fides, resulting in the gradual dissolution of the vigilante PIA. The ministry itself has been changing in such a way that the current intelligence minister, Mahmoud Alavi, heads an organization now less like a traditional ministry and more like an executive body answering directly to Ali Hosseini Khamenei. Recently, as the administration in Washington, D.C., has abrogated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) (the Iran nuclear deal), Tehran’s executive bodies have significantly increased their military cooperation with Moscow, despite historic conflicts between the two nations. Concurrent with the growth of the Ministry of Intelligence in the decades since the revolution and distrustful of the imperial foundations of the traditional military Iranian army (Artesh), Khomeini’s govern-

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ment from its beginnings systematically promoted the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which ultimately achieved the preeminent role in defending Iran’s sovereignty (see Figure 6.3). This arrangement was not itself ahistorical in Persian history, as there is tradition dating back to the Achaemenid Empire with its Ten Thousand Immortals (Zahayedan) of a dual system of both professional army and separate irregular militia checking each other politically, although both defend the country. While both the Revolutionary Guard and the Artesh are subordinate to the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (MODFL), the importance of the Artesh in defending Iran throughout the bitter combat of the 1980s Iran-Iraq War was tempered by Khomeini’s suspicion of the counter-revolutionary potential Khomeini always saw hiding in the shadows of the Artesh. To preclude such disloyalty to the revolution, Khomeini instituted what amounted to a commissar system of clerics administratively coordinated utilizing the PoliticalIdeological Directorate in the General Staff. This directorate extends to every level of the Ministry of Defense and Artesh, the Revolutionary Guard, the volunteer militia Basiji, and the like. The purpose of this commissar system is to identify persons whose propensities might tarnish what supporters of Iran’s revolution would consider as the quintessential pearl of the Vilayat.

Figure 6.3 Intelligence Organization of the Revolutionary Guard Security Directorate

Intelligence Organization of the Revolutionary Guard

Cyberspace Command Ammar Headquarters

Oghab 2

Operations Directorate Logistics and Support Directorate Technical Directorate Counterintelligence Directorate

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Integral to the organization of the Ministry of Intelligence and the Guard, the infrastructure of Iran’s intelligence ecosystem also incorporates a substantial counterintelligence grid with a mission of regime preservation, the repression of dissent, and thwarting penetrations by foreign services. This counterintelligence enterprise, spread across multiple agencies and despite technological limitations, is reasonably effective in fulfilling its charge. The focus is on internal security wherein the commissar system of clerical informants ensures loyalty in the Artesh, a separate Basiji informant system targets civil society for signs of dissent, and additional informant networks report to the Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guard. This massive system of compartmentalized informants reporting to different agencies across both direct and lateral reporting lines prevents concentrations of power outside of the Vilayat as well as precluding the likelihood of any dissidents escaping the eyes of every informant network. Legislation In the modern era, even many authoritarian nation-states at least feign a pretense of adhering to Western-style legal norms, and the Islamic Republic follows this approach. The operational authority of Iran’s intelligence organs exists within a legal framework whose application is filtered through informal relationships. Tehran’s constitution along with statutory codes outlines these formal legal edifices defining the authority and role of the security services. Iran’s Enghelāb-e Mashrūteh (Constitutional Revolution) was the basis for Iran’s first constitution, in 1906, which concurrently holds the distinction of being the first constitution in the Near East. That first constitution created a two-tiered system whereby legislation could be written using republican standards, although it required approval by Shia religious authorities for conformance with Islam. Iran’s 1979 constitution had some continuity with the 1906 document, as Khomeini’s revolution incorporated some republican ideas into the Vilayat, establishing spaces for democratic expression within the larger Islamist authoritarian structure. The constitution effectively allows approved candidates to run in fairly free elections for a republican-style elected president, assembly of experts, and parliament along with a judiciary operated under the supervision of the Guardian Council and the Supreme Leader. Outside specified categories, the Supreme Leader exercises direct personal authority over everything from the security

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organs to the independent Charitable Foundations and Bonyads (roughly a hundred Benevolent Trusts ultimately controlled by the Supreme Leader). As a result, such democratic spaces are limited to what practically amounts to an advisory realm providing expression for consideration by the Supreme Leader. Statutorily, the Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guard have specific legal authority and relationships between them. Under Iranian law the Artesh along with all governmental and corporate entities must coordinate with the Ministry of Intelligence, which, along with the Revolutionary Guard (and Law Enforcement Forces), are given broad authority to address threats against the republic or the revolution.7 Additionally, Chapter XIII, Article 176, of Iran’s constitution organizes a Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and charges it with “preserving the Islamic Revolution, territorial integrity, and national sovereignty.”8 As head of the Supreme National Security Council, the president helps coordinate the Supreme Leader’s foreign policy directives. In theory the president has nominal control over the Supreme National Security Council and the Ministry of Intelligence, while in practice the Supreme Leader dictates all matters of foreign and domestic security. Functionally, however, the Supreme National Security Council serves less as a coherent national security decisionmaking structure reflecting formal Weberian organization and more as a venue of contention. Here a constellation of factions, cliques, and informal groupings with national security authority anchored in patron-client relationships and Dowreh9 groups spanning multiple Shia power centers and Bonyads vie with one another to influence security policy. The SNSC has two major committees, the first being a Defense Council run by the chief of the General Staff and responsible for military policy and doctrine, and the second, more important for this discussion, a State Security Council directed by the interior minister as an ancillary to the Supreme National Security Council coordinating with the Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guard to manage Iran’s internal security. Functionally, however, the Ministry of Interior, under Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, plays a somewhat ancillary role in Tehran’s security architecture, controlling ordinary crime as well as suppressing political dissent. In addition to the constitution, a relatively new Iranian criminal procedural code effective in 2015 formalizes the authority of security service officers utilizing two legal categories of judicial officers: the general judicial officers and the special judicial officers. Special judicial officers are referred to in Article 29 of the criminal procedural code as

100 Carl A. Wege including officials of the Ministry of Intelligence, the Basij forces, and the Intelligence Organization of the Revolutionary Guard.10 These judicial designations provide additional codification of legal authority for the security services. Functions and Operations As Tehran sought nuclear-power status, the Revolutionary Guard became the main vehicle for Iranian procurement of nuclear-relevant technologies outside the country. It is likely, but not publicly known, that some dedicated entity within the Ministry of Intelligence is responsible for collecting relevant technical intelligence for the nuclear program. The emergence of Iran as a nuclear-threshold power stressed both the Guard and the Ministry of Intelligence as first world adversary intelligence services targeted Tehran’s nuclear assets via assassinations of senior nuclear scientists and engineers as well as launching covert attacks on the Tehran suburb Khavarshahar and the desert of Kavir Lut. Cyber attacks against Iran’s nuclear program spearheaded by Stuxnet (and a newer version discovered in 2018)11 and other malware had a predictable but unavoidable consequence of teaching Tehran how to both defend against and mount such attacks. The Revolutionary Guard took the lead in responding to Stuxnet and established a discrete dedicated organization they called the Oghab 2 (Eagle 2), tasked with the protection of Iran’s nuclear assets and initially headed by Ahmad Wahidi. The organization, while formally under the Guard, now has roughly 10,000 employees and appears to report laterally to the Ministry of Intelligence’s Counterintelligence Directorate. Iran’s improving counterintelligence capabilities along with its ability to obtain nuclear know-how from North Korea has meant that adversary powers can only distort rather than entirely preclude Iran’s nuclear intentions. Iran’s intelligence services see themselves as the heart of the Islamic Resistance, which seeks to further Tehran’s now imperial ambitions. Hypothetically the Ministry of Intelligence does not directly engage in foreign operations, as the Revolutionary Guard executes such responsibilities, but the blurring of operational tasks can make such distinctions less discrete than they might appear. In 2009 the Khamenei government reorganized many security organizations, including several associated with the Revolutionary Guard, creating a new entity called the Intelligence Organization (also sometimes called the Intelligence Protection Organization) of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard. Essen-

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tially Khamenei reorganized existing Revolutionary Guard intelligence activities to incorporate a dedicated bureaucratic structure under Hojatoleslam Hossein Taeb’s Revolutionary Guard Intelligence Organization. It is also now administratively managing both the Internal Security Directorate at the Ministry of Intelligence and the security apparatus of the Basiji, illustrating again the lateral reporting lines crossing agency jurisdictions and obscuring the functional relationships between Iranian intelligence bodies. It is also worth noting that in 2011, Mehdi Taeb, the brother of Hossein Taeb, and Hojatoleslam Ali-reza Panahian helped establish an entity called the Ammar Headquarters, or Center for Doctrinal Analysis and National Security, following the near revolt after the fraudulent elections in 2009. Acting as a think tank for Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard and including prominent Guard intelligence officers and strategic thinkers like Qasemi Ravanbakhsh, its purpose is to weaponize “soft power” doctrine to sustain the Guard politically and to combat reformist or liberal ideological currents within the Iranian polity. One work product of this institute was an apparent bureaucratic change within the Basiji incorporating lessons learned from the 2009 election debacle, creating separate Ayon (eyes) and Ashraf (surveillance) organizations, with the former addressing traditional threats to the state such as criminality while the latter is tasked with ferreting out and assessing local ideological currents thought contrary to the Velayat.12 In narrating public domain intelligence operations of a given state there is always a temptation to note everything available in open literature. A topical discussion of every venue of Iranian intelligence presence from Venezuela and the “three borders” region in Latin America to operations against Bahrain’s ruling al-Khalifa family may be less than productive. What is perhaps more noteworthy is the depth and density of Tehran’s intelligence assets in a given space. The depth and density of Iran’s intelligence infrastructure outside the country’s borders follow a reasonably predictable pattern. The most substantial presence is in the geographically contiguous areas facing the Near East where Tehran’s rivalry with Saudi Arabia for regional influence is most pronounced; so Iraq and the Gulf states see substantial Iranian intelligence activity particularly in Dubai, which is a major operational center of contending adversarial intelligence services. In addition to the United States and Israel, the foremost among the Abu Jahls13 of Iranian ire are Saudi Arabi’s General Intelligence Presidency (sometimes called Directorate), under General Khalid al-Humaidan, along with the increasing professionalization of Qatar State Security,

102 Carl A. Wege under General Ghanem al-Kubaisi, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) State Security Department (particularly in information technologies), under General Hamid al-Shamsi, within a rapidly changing landscape. Iranian penetration of Iraqi intelligence is such that the independence of the Iraqi services from Tehran’s influence is problematic at best. There is now an extensive Iranian presence in Syria along with a major presence and strong military-to-military relations with Jordan. Given the very significant Israeli and US presence in Aman, this makes Jordan a key point of adversarial contact, although the very tight ship King Abdullah runs limits open operational conflict. Aman and Dubai have become the most significant focal points where Iran and other contending Near East services confront one another. Iranian infrastructure in Central Asia is more limited, with a substantial presence in Azerbaijan and a more limited physical presence in Tajikistan despite Iranian interests in opening an arc of friendly powers from Afghanistan to Azerbaijan across Tehran’s northern frontiers. Iran’s intelligence infrastructure in Africa had a focal point on the Horn of Africa and shared interests with Hezbollah in the Lebanese Shiite diaspora communities south of the Sahel. Iranian intelligence infrastructure in Latin America was characterized by some efforts to build a substantive presence in places like Venezuela while pairing with Hezbollah in infiltrating Shiite diaspora communities on the continent and participating in mutually beneficial transactional arrangements with some drug-trafficking organizations. Iran’s most significant external intelligence relationship is of course with Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The Matawila or Twelver Shiite community has a centuries-long relationship with Iran. A generation ago that relationship grew into an international alliance when the political confluence of Tehran’s seething revolutionary fervor coincided with the gathering of Islamist factions from Amal Islamiyah under Hussein Musawi, along with Sheikh Subhi Tufaly’s cadre from Lebanon’s al-Dawah in the Nabisheet and Baalbeck regions of Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Leading al-Quds elements from what would for many years be called the Department 2000 Lebanon Corps of the Revolutionary Guard deployed to the Beqaa to confront Israel during that summer. Instead of directly engaging Israel, though, Tehran shaped the Lebanese Islamists they found in the Beqaa into one of the most fearsome organizations in the world. Hezbollah’s full-time fighters (“Allah’s men” or Rijal Allah) initially, using disposable monikers (e.g., Islamic Jihad Organization), would eventually number in the thousands, come to dominate the

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Lebanese polity, fight the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to a standstill, bear the brunt of serious fighting in Syria’s civil war, and act as Tehran’s Foreign Legion across the whole Middle East. Hezbollah’s intelligence apparatus, initially reflecting the influence of Fatah’s Jihaz al-Razd surveillance apparatus, was quickly built under Iranian intelligence influence into a formidable organization that would take years for the Israelis and others to successfully penetrate. Tehran’s intelligence apparatus has historically maintained correct and sometimes mutually beneficial relations with Sunni extremist organizations such as the early iterations of the West Bank Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Gaza’s Hamas, primarily coordinated through Hezbollah’s Unit 1800 (Nun). Following the US-led invasion that toppled the Saddam regime in Iraq, the Guard demonstrated an ability to infiltrate and came to dominate Iraqi Shiite militias such as Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade. Iran was often assisted by Hezbollah’s Unit 3800 (sometimes called 2800) from the al-Amn al-Khariji (External Security Organization, also called Unit 910), deployed against the Coalition forces, and successfully challenged the counter-insurgency operations of a first world adversary power (primarily the United States). Later, Iran’s massive intervention in Syria’s civil war, allied with both the Assad regime and now the Russians, is arguably Iran’s most significant and sustained foreign operation since the establishment of the Vilayat following the 1979 revolution. While the military aspects of that intervention are, to a certain extent, beyond the scope of this discussion, Tehran’s intelligence and operational management of the plethora of roughly seven major Iraqi Shiite militias, with thousands of fighters as well as Afghan Fatimiyoun and Khaddan al-Aqila brigades, a Pakistani Shiite Zamebiyoun brigade, and even a small Yemeni Houthi al-Saada brigade, is noteworthy. These multiple and diverse militias deployed by the Revolutionary Guard in support of the Assad regime reveal an administrative capacity to manage complex foreign operations not previously demonstrated by Iran. The depth and density of Iran’s intelligence penetration into Central Asia, by contrast, has been more sporadic. While Turkey and Persia have historically vied for influence in the region, the major focal points for Iranian operational activity are now Azerbaijan and Tajikistan. In Azerbaijan, even aging military assets such as Azerbaijan’s obsolete Gabala Defense Complex on the Russian-Azerbaijani border have seen ever-larger sets of signals intelligence (SIGINT) and technical collection operations populated by multiple adversary services monitoring

104 Carl A. Wege Iran. Azerbaijan presents Iran with some unique challenges, with Baku having close relations with Israel while at the same time ethnic Azeris constitute a large fraction of the Iranian population. Baku concurrently seems rather resistant to Iranian infiltration efforts in what hypothetically should be fertile ground for Tehran’s services (Iran compensates for this geopolitical difficulty by having solid relations with Azerbaijan’s rival Christian Armenia). In 2012, for example, Baku exposed an Iraniansupported Hezbollah effort to attack Israeli targets in revenge for the assassination of their number-two leader, Imad Mugniyah. Azerbaijan’s Ministry of National Security claimed that some of the suspected actors had been recruited and trained by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as far back as 1999.14 Azerbaijani authorities may have been covertly assisted in finding this network by Israel via Mohammad Shawraba, who functioned as a Mossad informer while being a deputy chief in Hezbollah’s External Security Organization’s operations arm. While thousands of Revolutionary Guard operatives engage with adversary services on Azeri territory, the Revolutionary Guard and Ministry of Intelligence appear to be primarily occupied with defensive efforts to prevent Mossad operations from using Azerbaijan as an entry point into Iranian territory. Tajikistan, one of the poorest countries in Central Asia, is the other major focal point of Iran’s Central Asian operations. Tehran’s intelligence and security relationship with Tajikistan has developed along multiple lines. Historically, Tajiki-Iranian security cooperation has had a focus on narcotics interdiction, although Iran has attempted to expand that cooperation to include the training of border guards where it finds itself in competition with Russia and the United States for the privilege. Iran was one of the first countries to recognize a newly independent Tajikistan and open an embassy in 1992, although the Tajikis suffered a civil war in the mid-1990s, secondary to the collapse of the Soviet Union, that included some peripheral operational involvement by the Revolutionary Guard. This was a straightforward two-sided affair (1992–1997) between those supporting Soviet-era bureaucrats and Tajikis living in the northern and southern lowlands on one side, and the United Tajik Opposition (UTO) consisting of a variety of regime opponents from proto-democrats to Islamists on the other. While less than decisive, the pro-government forces gained the upper hand and now ostensibly control the country. Tajiki rebels supported a national orientation facing the Persian world at the expense of Moscow, and the now banned Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) of Tajikistan received some funding and ideological support from both Tehran and, ironically, Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance.15 A more recent concern of the Revolutionary Guard has focused on efforts to

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smother Salafi Jihadism targeting Iranian interests particularly in Syria, where several hundred Tajiki fighters have joined Salafist Jihadi organizations including the Islamic State. Those fighters potentially could return to Tajiki territory and pose a threat both to the Tajiki regime in Dushanbe and to Tehran. Tajiki cultural history would lead it in the direction of Tehran, yet its poverty renders Dushanbe susceptible to Saudi financial blandishments. Riyadh’s efforts to curb Iranian influence persuaded the Tajik Ministry of Justice to declare the Iran-friendly IRP a terrorist organization in 2015.16 Historic Russian dominance, however, remains a primary vector of influence, and the Tajiki balance seems to remain based on keeping a Russia-friendly secular face in Dushanbe while turning a cultural face in the direction of Persia. A continent away, in Africa, Iran spent a generation seeding operational arms-trafficking networks and intelligence networks exploiting selected Sunni extremist organizations and building a regional presence in the Horn of Africa. The Horn, like Azerbaijan, is a teeming field of competing adversarial intelligence services and a focal point for US Africa Command’s counterterrorism efforts, anchored in the Combined Joint Task Force–Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), which is based at the old French military compound Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. The once dusty backwater of Djibouti has itself been becoming a little crowded of late, with China joining Japan, France, and the United States in establishing a military presence to support their respective political interests in the region. While Western attention in the Horn has focused on skirmishes with local pirates and al-Qaeda’s intermittent support of al-Shabaab, with emergent apprehension directed at links between al-Shabaab and Boko Haram, Iran has quietly continued its long-term efforts to maintain and enhance its presence. The center of Iran’s efforts in the Horn of Africa was Sudan and, to a lesser extent, Somalia. Iran’s efforts began a decade after Iran’s own revolution supporting Hassan Turabi’s National Islamic Front in Sudan. Iran traded money for influence in Khartoum, and Sudan became a fulcrum for Iranian intelligence officers liaising with networks of Sunni Islamists whose operations Tehran thought might further its larger political interests. The Revolutionary Guard was also willing over more than a decade to engage in politically neutral transactional exchanges with elements of al-Qaeda when reciprocally advantageous. Sudan also served as a safe-haven for some wanted Middle Eastern terrorists, who through distance could avoid unwelcome attention from smaller adversary services yet rejoin the struggle by transiting from Khartoum to Iran and then infiltrating back into operational areas of the Middle East. In 2008, Sudan’s importance in Iran’s arms-smuggling

106 Carl A. Wege networks was enhanced by an Iranian-Sudanese defense agreement expanding Sudan’s role as a regional center for larger Iranian armstrafficking operations. A secret codicil in that 2008 agreement envisioned Sudanese weapons production facilities operating through Khartoum’s Military Industrial Corporation repurposed under the tutelage of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to operate to the advantage of both Khartoum and Tehran. Operationally, one branch of that effort facilitated Hezbollah actors coordinating with Sudan’s Ababda tribe (a subgroup Beja nomads) to run weapons north through Egypt and move them to local smugglers for transit into the Sinai and Gaza. However, Iranian fortunes in Sudan suffered a sudden reversal in 2014 when Khartoum ordered the closing of all Iranian Cultural Centers, which were abruptly accused of promoting Shiism in the country. Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir, perhaps exhausted from years of sanctions and isolation from the larger Arab world, finally broke relations with Tehran in 2016 and returned, likely with Saudi money bulging in his pockets, into the Arab fold. Tehran at this juncture became a supplicant to the benevolence of Hezbollah and its network of assets in Africa’s Shiite Lebanese diaspora communities while struggling to recover from the disaster in Sudan and rebuilding utilizing Shiite-allied Houthi to create an Iranian presence in Yemen. Beyond the boundaries of geography and political borders, Iran’s intelligence functions and operations have expanded over the past decade into cyber domains. While first world intelligence organizations are integrating cyber modalities as part of a seamless presence in their operational spaces, Iran’s cyber operations are still characterized by discrete cyber organizations with considerably less integration of their entire intelligence enterprise into an emergent total-information environment. The disastrous impact of the Stuxnet virus first awakened Iran to its cyber vulnerabilities, leading to a response across the Iranian security sector. Iran formally acknowledged its government-wide entry into the creation of cyber borders and establishing a presence across the cyber realm, beginning with the 2010 establishment of a Cyber Defense Command as part of an Artesh Passive Defense Organization initially tasked with defending Iran’s information infrastructure. In 2012 a Supreme Council of Cyberspace was decreed by Khamenei and directed by Mohammad Hassan Entezar to coordinate government-wide efforts to secure Iran’s cyber domain,17 with most activity focused on suppression of any potential challenge to the Vilayat.18 As part of the physical effort to secure its cyber borders, Tehran attempts to route all internet communications through a Telecommunications Infrastructure Company19 (ini-

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tially with the assistance of China’s ZTEsec Special Equipment Company and now utilizing ZTE’s ZXMT deep-packet inspection surveillance product). Tehran more recently has attempted to create some soft digital borders utilizing a National Information Network, or Halal Internet, using greater connection speeds and steep price discounts as a tool of persuasion to encourage popular usage while concomitantly easing the challenge of monitoring digital activity within the country.20 However, while Iran can effectively monitor social media to identify dissent, that is a different thing than using information technologies to further intelligence analytics and operations on a national scale. The clerical masters of the regime confronted a dilemma in which those with greater technical skill were the ones whose religious reliability was the most suspect. One solution created by the Revolutionary Guard and functional from a counterintelligence standpoint was the development of a compartmented system of tiered cyber operators executing assigned tasks furthering the Vilayat in cyber domains. This creates a somewhat amorphous system parallel with dedicated government entities. These cyber operators, who often populate Iranian security forums, are contracted by the Revolutionary Guard to code particular tasks, taking advantage of their technical skills without risking penetration of government services with politically unreliable or potentially dissident personnel. The Revolutionary Guard can then administratively combine work product created by the contracted coders and written in these separate compartments to implement intelligence priorities.21 The process of administrative assembly of the contracted code is itself highly technical, so a balance of skilled personnel, modalities to ensure political and religious reliability, and functional cyber capacity is one of the Guard’s ongoing challenges. Nonetheless, Iranian cyber capacity is mostly limited to second world standards. For example, Iran is not known to have assets comparable to the tailored access operations (TAOs) of the US National Security Agency (NSA), which are used in identifying, monitoring, infiltrating, and gathering intelligence on foreign computer systems. That said, the release of NSA toolkits by Edward Snowden, and Shadow Brokers’ release of the NSA’s Eternal Blue kits provided additional cyber arms to the Chafer Organization and other Iran-affiliated actors. The Snowden materials also allowed Iran access to scriptspecialized NSA teams used to scan for “indications of compromise,” educating Iran as to how it can defend its own networks. Nonetheless, global cyber networks, now fueled by artificial intelligence, are expanding exponentially while Iran struggles to keep up, with the country less able to exploit additional opportunities across the cyber realm.

108 Carl A. Wege International Cooperation Iran, like many authoritarian regimes, will participate in international cooperation to further its own interests, and cooperates with organizations ranging from Interpol to the International Postal Union. In the security arena, Iran cooperates with international law enforcement particularly in the area of narcotics and has interdicted eight times more opium than any other country even as it struggles with its own population of addicts. Its geographic proximity to Afghanistan makes it one of the major transshipment points for Afghan opium, with major smuggling routes transiting Iran. The northern smuggling route across Iran moving through Razari and south Khorasan province transports narcotics destined for Russia. The southern route moves opium via Sistan and Baluchistan province, transiting Bander Abbas en route to Europe and North America. Traffickers themselves sometimes travel from Tehran to Azerbaijan and Urumiyeh province near Turkey. Compounding the opium problem is the emergent production and trafficking of what the UN calls amphetamine-type stimulants, including methamphetamine product known locally as Shisheh.22 Iran, like many so-called rogue states, must configure its commercial relationships around various sanctions regimes imposed by adversary states, primarily the United States, and some international bodies. This has intensified following recent US efforts to undo the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and reestablish previous economic sanctions. Iran’s most important economic relationships involve Germany in the West and China in the East. Iran’s ties with Germany were established in the nineteenth century and so Germany has led Europe in a so-called critical dialogue that sustained an important German-Iranian commercial relationship. Secondary to this commercial relationship, Berlin has maintained a reasonable and businesslike intelligence relationship with Iran.23 Iran’s relations with China have been anchored in an exchange of Iranian petroleum products for Chinese goods (including gasoline refined in China), with a likely enhancement of that relationship as China’s “One Belt, One Road” project matures and Chinese and Asian companies fill the void resulting from Western economic sanctions. The trillion-dollar Chinese initiative of infrastructure development linking China with Central Asian and European markets will place Iran in an economically pivotal position respecting trade astride a new Silk Road linking Europe and Asia. A large number of Chinese state companies now operate in Iran, and extensive Chinese efforts aimed at standardizing and modernizing rail links across Iran (with its current focus on the Urumqi, Xinjiang–to–

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Tehran line), in support of the “One Belt, One Road” enterprise, are under way. Additionally, President Xi Jinping signed a twenty-five-year strategic cooperation agreement in 2016 (which will include redesign of the Arak heavy-water reactor and completion of additional nuclear plants), aimed at fostering closer military and intelligence ties. Iran’s other particularly significant relationship in Asia is with North Korea. Iran has maintained diplomatic relations with the country since 1973, but its alliance with North Korea, which began during the Iran-Iraq War when North Korea (and China) provided arms to Iran, is currently anchored in Tehran’s intent to acquire and deploy a nuclear deterrent serving the twin aims of safeguarding Iran’s Islamic Revolution and achieving regional great power status. North Korea will engage in any activity that will provide hard currency, and Beijing appears willing to avert its eyes from this nuclear cooperation. Oversight Oversight of Iran’s security organs is both intentionally opaque and exercised in a way congruent with shifting political alliances favored by the Supreme Leader at any given moment. Organizationally, a traditional concept called the House of the Leader has been put into service to help govern Iran’s Revolutionary Vilayat. While immediately after the revolution the focus of Khomeini’s House was on his son Ahmad, who acted as a facilitator between Khomeini and government bodies, Khamenei has modernized and modified the concept to create a personalized bureaucracy. A modernized form of this traditional House gave Khamenei an extensive Weberian-style organization with multiple administrative departments and thousands of employees, including the Sepah Vali-e Amr, effectively a personal army, commanded by the Revolutionary Guard. Like any organization of significant size, the House of the Leader is itself factionalized. One faction led primarily by Khamenei foreign policy adviser Ali Akbar Velayati and former Majles speaker Ali Akbar Nategh-Nouri, is conservative but relatively more open to dialog even with the West. Another faction is led by one of Khamenei’s own sons, Sayyed Mojtaba, a mid-ranking but hard-line cleric close to other hardliners who insists on maintaining core revolutionary principles of the Vilayat and is much less open to dialog. In a practical sense this bureaucracy has become the headquarters of the entire security apparatus, in part because much of the leadership, including Khamenei’s chief of staff running the General Office, Mohammad Golpayegani (one of the cofounders

110 Carl A. Wege of the Ministry of Intelligence), have spent their professional lives in security roles. The Vilayat itself, being conceptually and politically ahistorical, is especially sensitive to any potential challenges from the scholar-jurists, so the Center for Services of Islamic Seminaries and the Islamic Propagation Office in Qom are watched carefully by the House of the Leader through the good offices of the Revolutionary Guard for any hint of serious dissent. To manage political rivalries among the constellation of competing factions and patronage networks affiliated with the formal organizational structures of the Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guard, Khamenei uses an administrative device sometimes called Department 101 (and possibly other descriptors not in the public domain) within the House of the Leader. Department 101 acts as a special intelligence entity under Khamenei associate Asghar Mir Hejazi and is charged with arbitrating conflict and administrative coordination of intelligence-related activities between the Ministry of Intelligence and the Guard (including the Basiji under the Guard).24 While the Guard, never known for nuance, seems to have edged out the Ministry of Intelligence in overt political prominence in the country at large, within the House of the Leader it is persons in the more professional Ministry of Intelligence who appear closer to Khamenei. Conclusion The innovation of Khomeini’s Vilayat is both an anomaly and a focal point in the long history of Persian ambition. Khomeini’s revolution again saw Iran draw its own strength and shed both its dependence and its subservience to foreign powers. Holding ambitions for regional dominance but fearing the tides of global modernity, Iran seeks its place in the sun with its intelligence services serving as both sword and shield. Yet the élan of Iran’s revolution has waned and the now dominant Revolutionary Guard, originally a maelstrom of passionate fidelity to the Vilayat, has become a Praetorian Guard heavily influenced by patronage and a kleptocracy anchored in crony capitalism and patron-client relations. In the long march of Iranian civilization, the great poet Ḥāfeẓ Shīrāzī (1315–1390 on the Gregorian calendar), lover of wine and women, wrote when the hordes of Amir Timur (Tamerlane) were rampaging across Asia. Ḥāfeẓ’s writing combined his poet’s soul and the heart of a saint while the verses he penned foreshadowed the Muawiyah25 of the Revolutionary Guard, teaching:

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You can buy everyone with gold; Either in one shot, or slowly are sold. Even the narcissus, pride of the world, Sold itself, why, its crown of gold behold.26

Alas, the Guard’s corruption, covered in hypocrisy and false loyalty to the Revolution, has tarnished the pearl of the Vilayat for the price of gold in the eyes of a people whose belief is required to sustain its legitimacy.

Notes 1. The Rule of the Jurists, which formed the basis for the Khomeini revolution, is one of the major events of the twentieth century, replacing the ancient tripartite foundation of King-Clergy, Army, and Market. Khomeini’s new government was built on the Twelver (Ithna-Ashari) Shiite claim that any government outside that of the hidden imam was illegitimate. The twelfth imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, recognized by the Shiites, was hidden from the world by divine intervention in 874 and his return will usher in the day of judgment. See Roger M. Savory, “The Problem of Sovereignty in an Ithna Ashari (‘Twelver’) Shi’i State,” in Michael Curtis, ed., Religion and Politics in the Middle East (Boulder: Westview, 1981), 135–137. 2. “Iran’s Clerical Spymasters,” Asia Times, July 21, 2007. 3. US Marine Corps, “Cultural Intelligence for Military Operations: Iran,” in Cultural Field Guide on Iran, unclassified (Quantico, 2008). The political vulnerability of the Baha’i is not helped by the fact that most of their leadership reside in the United States or Haifa, Israel. 4. Alain Rodier, “Iran’s Intelligence Services,” Current Note no. 200, January 2010, https://www.cf2r.org/actualite/les-services-de-renseignement-iraniens. 5. “Covert Terror: Iran’s Parallel Intelligence Apparatus” (New Haven, CT: Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, April 2009). 6. In 2018 he served as the first–vice chief of justice in Iran. 7. See Iran: Procedural and Legal Information About Arrest and Detention Procedures by Different Security Organs, Austrian Red Cross ACCORD, June 12, 2017, 4. 8. Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 36–37, http://www.wipo .int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/ir/ir001en.pdf. 9. Dowreh circles are peer associate groups wherein Iranian social norms encourage open and frank conversation. With increasing social status, one can become a member of multiple Dowreh circles, where relaxed social standards can create security challenges. 10. See Iran: Procedural and Legal Information, 3. 11. Sean Gallagher, “Stuxnet 2.0? Iran Claims Israel Launched New Cyber Attacks,” November 5, 2018, https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018 /11/iran-accuses-israel-of-cyber-attacks-including-new-stuxnet. 12. Raz Zimmt, “The ‘Ammar Headquarters’ and the Challenges of the Iranian Political System” (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, February 5, 2012). 13. “Abu Jahl” refers to a metaphor used by Tehran to describe its fiercest enemies. 14. “Azerbaijan Breaks Iranian-Linked Spy Network,” Eurasia Daily Monitor, March 20, 2012.

112 Carl A. Wege 15. After a 1997 peace agreement the IRP of Tajikistan split into three factions, one of which is a Shiite faction headed by former vice premier of Tajikistan Akbar Turadjonzoda, who is a regular visitor to Iran. See Sébastien Peyrouse and Sadykzhan Ibraimov, “Iran’s Central Asia Temptations,” Current Trends in Islamic Ideology, 10 (August 2010), Hudson Institute Center on Islam, Democracy, and the Future of the Muslim World, https://www.hudson.org/content/researchattachments /attachment/1290/peyrouse_ibraimov.pdf, 95. 16. “Shuttered Tajik Islamic Party Branded as Terrorist Group,” Radio Free Europe–Radio Liberty, September 29, 2015. 17. Eric K. Shafa, “Iran’s Emergence as a Cyber Power,” August 20, 2014, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/index.cfm/articles/Irans-emergence -as-cyber-power/2014/08/20n. 18. For example, Fox IT discovered 500 secure socket layer certificates fabricated to compromise 300,000 Iranian Gmail accounts via hacking of Dutch DigiNotar servers. See “Hackers Spied on 300,000 Iranians Using Fake Google Certificates,” Computerworld, September 6, 2011. 19. “Iran’s Web Spying Aided by Western Technology,” Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2009. 20. See “Iran Country Report: Freedom on the Net 2017” (Washington, DC: Freedom House, June 2016–May 2017). It also appears that Iran uses what is sometimes called a dual shock approach wherein Iranian servers are assigned dual domestic as well as global internet addresses. 21. Levi Gundert, Samil Chohanm, and Greg Lesnewich, “Iran’s Hacker Hierarchy Exposed,” in Recorded Future Cyber Threat Analysis, https://www.recordedfuture .com/iran-hacker-hierarchy. Also note that Gerdab.ir was a major contractor writing code used by the Revolutionary Guard for internal censorship and monitoring of the population. 22. See United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Country Programme for Islamic Republic of Iran 2011–2014, “Drug Trafficking and Border Control Situational Analysis” (New York, May 9, 2019). Iran, despite its other confrontations with external powers, has good relations with foreign drug enforcement police. Iran stops eight times more opium than any other country; “The West’s Stalwart Ally in the War of Drugs: Iran (Yes, That Iran),” New York Times, October 11, 2012. 23. In the 1990s there were even reciprocal visits between German and Iranian intelligence ministers. See “Iran’s State of Terror,” Time, Atlantic Edition, November 11, 1996; Brief on Iran no. 462, July 25, 1996. Germany has also supplied computer equipment and training to the Iranian services. See Edgar O’Ballance, Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997), 157. It is also noteworthy that cofounder of the Ministry of Intelligence Abu al-Kassam Misbahi defected to Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) in 1996. See “Former Official Disclosed Iran’s Complicity in Murders,” Washington Post, April 12, 1997, 1. 24. “Iran Exile Group: Khamenei Tightens Intelligence Grip,” Reuters, November 12, 2009. 25. In Iranian politics an allusion to Muawiyah ibn Abu Sufyan, a governor of the Levant during the time of Ali and symbol of illegitimate rule by money and deception. 26. “Rubaiyat 19,” Shams al-Din Hafiz Shirazi: Poems, 2004, 62, https://www .poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pdf/hafiz_2004_9.pdf.

7 Iraq Ibrahim al-Marashi

The formative juncture in the evolution of Iraq’s security and intelligence services can be traced to the 1968 coup d’état that brought the Arab Socialist Baath Party and Saddam Hussein, as vice president of Iraq, into power. In 1979 Saddam Hussein became president and infused Baath Party ideology and control structures throughout the Iraqi polity, elevated loyal family and tribal networks within the Iraqi government, and established numerous competing security and intelligence agencies, elite military units, and dedicated paramilitary forces that culminated in a “coup-proof” system. Collectively, Iraq’s security apparatus in its many manifestations served as a crucial instrument of state control during Saddam Hussein’s rule and was a central factor in the preservation of his status as leader of the nation. Indeed, in the modern history of the Iraqi nation, Saddam Hussein presided as the head of state longer than all of his predecessors, despite suffering great financial and human costs in three wars, numerous internal insurrections, multiple coup attempts, and a crippling sanctions regime. While the system Hussein created was effective in maintaining internal control during the long eight-year war with Iran (1980–1988), it was overwhelmed in the face of US and Coalition forces in 1991 and the invasion of 2003, which ultimately led to the collapse of the Baathist state. The evolution and the far reach of the intelligence apparatus and security services during the Baathist era have set a precedent for post2003 Iraq. While Saddam Hussein’s security apparatus has been dismantled and the elites may have changed, the new Iraqi government is

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114 Ibrahim al-Marashi creating a security architecture with similarities to its predecessor, particularly the duplication of responsibilities of rival security agencies. An examination of the transformation of the Iraqi intelligence services underlines one of the variables that explain why the new Iraqi government has failed to craft an effective security apparatus. Under Saddam Hussein, the worldview (or Weltanschauung) of the security services was cohesive, albeit leading to one of the most brutal yet effective police states in the modern Middle East. Iraq’s security services as of 2003 would be characterized as having worldviews, a reflection of the hybridity and fractious nature in a state that is still evolving after the US invasion. History of Intelligence Services Sigmund Freud defines Weltanschauung as “an intellectual construction which gives a unified solution of all the problems of our existence in virtue of a comprehensive hypothesis, a construction, therefore, in which no question is left open and in which everything in which we are interested finds a place.”1 This section provides a history of how the Iraqi security services evolved, particularly under Saddam Hussein, and then examines how the events would influence the development of the institution’s worldview, providing a comparison of how the post-2003 security services developed in the shadow of its predecessor. Saddam Hussein had developed a vast, complex, and wide-ranging labyrinth of security organizations, with mutually independent intelligence and military units, ensuring the protection of the president and pervading all layers of Iraqi society. The number and size of these agencies grew dramatically after the Baath takeover in 1968, with five primary intelligence agencies constituting the Iraqi security apparatus on the eve of its fall in 2003 (see Table 7.1). Their abbreviated titles are Special Security, General Security, General Intelligence (the Iraqi Intelligence Service), Military Intelligence, and Military Security.2 Additionally, myriad military units, civil police forces, paramilitary militias, executive agencies, and Baath Party organs interacted together, but more often competed with each other in pursuing the ultimate goal of preserving the leadership of Saddam Hussein. Hussein ultimately created a coup-proof system, whose effectiveness was proven by the fact that his rule lasted more than three decades. The Iraqi leadership created a pervasive sense of internal fear by penetrating society at every level and making known it had done so,

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Table 7.1 Evolution of Iraqi Intelligence Services and Military Forces Under Saddam Hussein Name

Intelligence services

Date Founded

General Security Military Intelligence

1920s 1932

Special Security

1979

General Intelligence

Military Security

Military forces Army, Air Force, Navy Republican Guard

Popular Army Special Republican Guard Saddam Fidayin al-Quds Army

Baath Party Baath Security Military Bureau

1973

1992 1920s–1930s

Function Domestic surveillance Strategic military intelligence, surveillance of armed forces Domestic surveillance, foreign intelligence Domestic surveillance, foreign intelligence, monitoring of military, procurement of weapons of mass destruction Surveillance of armed forces

2001

Regular armed forces also involved in internal suppression Praetorian guard, turned frontline force Popular Baath Party militia Praetorian guard to protect the capital and president Militia, mostly from Tikrit, involved in internal repression; 2003 Iraq War Popular militia

1968 1968

Surveillance of party Indoctrination of military

1963

1970 1992

1996

creating what Iraqi writer Kanan Makiya described as a “Republic of Fear.”3 The security apparatus set out to eliminate opposition through sustained, institutionalized repression of both combatants and civilians. Such tactics included the intensification of the use of informants, forced disappearances, arrests, mass detentions, torture, executions, deportations, and a systematic campaign to eliminate certain types of Iraqi subjects (e.g., Kurds and Marsh Arabs). The state and party was also responsible for maintaining fear within the Iraqi military, by imposing heavy penalties on soldiers who deserted, accepted bribes, or looted for their personal benefit. When the Baath Party came to power in 1968, there were only two preexisting intelligence agencies—General Security and Military

116 Ibrahim al-Marashi Intelligence. The General Security Directorate was the oldest security agency in the country, created in 1921 during the British Mandate era. The General Military Intelligence Directorate was created in 1932, the year of Iraq’s independence.4 While the new government sought to ensure the loyalty of these two security services, even five years after coming to power it was the target of a coup attempt from within one of the agencies ostensibly designed to protect the leadership. This coup attempt in 1973, in addition to an Israeli air raid in 1981 and an assassination attempt in 1982, served as notable experiences in the institutional formation of Iraq’s security structure under Saddam Hussein. The Kazzar Coup and Creation of the Iraqi Intelligence Service

In 1973, Nadhim Kazzar, director of General Security, attempted to use this organization to topple the government.5 After failing to secure support from elements within the military, the coup attempt failed and Kazzar was captured. Saddam Hussein, in his capacity as vice president, sought an overhaul of the entire directorate to prevent another coup from occurring within General Security. The agency was transferred from the Ministry of Interior into an independent agency reporting directly to the Presidential Palace, and the KGB was asked to aid in a reorganization and modernization of this agency.6 Despite the reorganization of General Security, its duties remained essentially the same. General Security acted as a political security police force that monitored the day-to-day lives of the population, creating a pervasive local presence in Iraqi society. General Security had branches in each Iraqi governorate and maintained a unit in every civilian police station. Its extensive records contained personal files, including birth certificates, marriages records, and death certificates. General Security essentially documented an Iraqi’s life from the cradle to the grave. It detected political dissent and economic crimes among the Iraqi general public, including smuggling or manifestations of opposition to the leadership. It monitored telephone conversations and radio frequencies. Members of Hussein’s family rose to prominence once he became president, including his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, who in 1980 became the director of General Security. This promotion augured in one of the security pillars of the new president, the recruitment of relatives and fellow clansmen into sensitive positions within the security appara-

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tus. These reliable lieutenants included members of Hussein’s Albu Nasir tribe and recruits from Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit. Once Hussein felt secure enough that his cousin was in full control of General Security, he strengthened the agency by transferring a number of detectives from the investigative section of the civilian police.7 General Security was also delegated more political intelligence responsibilities during the Iran-Iraq War, including countering any manifestations of dissent in the Kurdish areas. Despite this agency’s far reach into Iraqi society, the Kazzar coup motivated Vice President Hussein to create another agency to serve as a check on the power of General Security. The events of 1973 illustrate how Hussein would begin a pattern of creating separate institutions to counter perceived threats or failings from other security agencies. After the 1973 coup attempt, Hussein ordered the formation of the General Intelligence Department, the Iraqi Intelligence Service.8 To further consolidate his power, Hussein transferred many of General Security’s responsibilities to the newly formed Iraqi Intelligence Service. The Iraqi Intelligence Service was roughly divided into two departments, responsible for internal and international operations, respectively. Like General Security, the Iraqi Intelligence Service maintained its own network of informants and conducted internal activities, such as monitoring grassroots organizations, including youth, women, and union groups, and foreigners and foreign embassies in Iraq. Its internal activities were coordinated through provincial offices, targeting the Shiite and Kurdish groups and other opposition members inside Iraq. The Iraqi Intelligence Service’s external operations consisted of infiltrating and monitoring Iraqi opposition groups abroad and at times eliminating members of these exiled organizations. Iraqi embassies served as logistical bases to conduct the agency’s international operations. Not only did this service collect overseas intelligence from within the embassies, but it also monitored the Iraqi state’s embassies from which they were working.9 Similarly, each agency had an inner security unit that monitored any internal dissent within the agency itself. The head of this unit reported directly to the agency chief, who reported directly to the president or the office of the Presidential Palace. The creation of the Iraqi Intelligence Service after 1973 served as a milestone in Iraq’s political history. A new organ of the Iraqi government had emerged from within the state, a manifestation of intensification of institutionalized structural violence against its own population.

118 Ibrahim al-Marashi Israel’s June 1981 Attack on the Osirak Reactor and Military Intelligence

Since 1932, the General Military Intelligence Directorate had gathered information on strategic threats to the Iraqi state. Under the direction of Saddam Hussein, Military Intelligence was also tasked with ensuring the loyalty of the military and even became involved in foreign operations, including assassinations of opponents of the regime.10 Military Intelligence was allegedly responsible for the 1978 assassination in London of Abd al-Razzaq al-Nayif, an exiled Baathist official.11 Although initially under the Ministry of Defense, in the early 1980s Military Intelligence was resubordinated to report directly to the Presidential Palace. Military Intelligence’s task of monitoring the Iraqi armed forces and ensuring the loyalty of the officer corps was crucial during the Iran-Iraq War, particularly as career officers chafed under Hussein’s personal management of the war front. The agency also gathered military intelligence, including tactical and strategic reconnaissance of hostile states, and assessed threats of a military nature, particularly emanating from Iran. Defense attachés in Iraqi diplomatic missions and a network of informants in the Middle East and abroad served as the agency’s international human intelligence sources.12 It maintained regional headquarters throughout Iraq in four administrative areas known as manthumat. The four areas included Kirkuk (responsible for the northern Iran border region and the Kurdish region of northern Iraq), Mosul (Turkey and Syria), Basra (the Gulf states and the southern Iranian border region), and finally Baghdad (which was separate from the main headquarters in the capital), which monitored Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the central Iranian border region, and Iraqi opposition groups.13 During the Iran-Iraq War the greatest failure of Military Intelligence came not from inaccurately assessing Iranian threats but from failing to detect that Israel was planning an air raid in June 1981 against Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor. Military Intelligence had been warned that the reactor was vulnerable when in September 1980 the Iranians tried to destroy the facility in a failed bombing run. Hussein was displeased with the failure of Military Intelligence to act upon the earlier attack and to provide the necessary protective measures against the Israeli raid. Just as the KGB had assisted with the reorganization of General Security, Iraq turned to the Soviets for assistance with Military Intelligence after the successful Israeli air raid. 14 From 1982 to 1985, the KGB aided Military Intelligence in concealment and protection tech-

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niques of its military program and facilities, as well as deception methods to use against spying by foreign satellites. The 1982 Dujayl Assassination Attempt and the Expansion of Special Security

In 1982 the Shiite opposition Islamic Dawa Party attempted to assassinate Saddam Hussein as his convoy passed through the Iraqi town of Dujayl. Hussein had been disappointed with the failure of both General Security and the Iraqi Intelligence Service to preempt this attack. In order to provide better security for the president, in 1983 he appointed Hussein Kamil, Saddam Hussein’s second cousin, to head the newly created Special Security Apparatus, or Special Security, designed to provide security for Saddam Hussein and secure all his facilities, including his palaces. Special Security had been created in 1979 after Hussein became president but was relatively small compared to the other agencies.15 It was after 1983 that it evolved into the most powerful security agency in Iraq. Hussein Kamil selected loyal and devoted agents from General Security, Military Intelligence, and the Iraqi Intelligence Service to serve in this ultra-elite intelligence unit.16 In return for their loyalty, the members of this agency reaped the benefits of Hussein’s patronage, enjoying a higher standard of living than the officers in other agencies. By creating Special Security, the Iraqi leader entrusted a relative to maintain greater control over the growing number of units in the security network. Special Security soon emerged as the innermost intelligence agency of the state and the central coordinating body between General Security, the Iraqi Intelligence Service, Military Intelligence, and the Military-Industrial Commission, another organization that Hussein Kamil headed, to covertly procure the necessary components for Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Special Security was tasked with the surveillance of all the other security agencies, essentially spying on Iraqi “spies.” Not only did Special Security watch over Military Intelligence but it also monitored the cooperation between Military Intelligence and the KGB during the IranIraq War. According to one source, “It is the eyes and ears of the President, as well as the hand to implement, directly or indirectly, the President’s security directives. This body is in charge of collecting information about the activities of all high ranking officials and even information about members of the President’s immediate family.” 17 While its primary duty was protecting the president, it would later control the

120 Ibrahim al-Marashi praetorian units, the Republican Guard (and the Special Republican Guard after it was created following the 1991 Gulf War), whose duty was also to prevent a coup from unseating Saddam Hussein. The two events during the Iran-Iraq War demonstrated how Hussein created new agencies when he had deemed that existing organs within the security apparatus had failed. While serving as president, Hussein formed separate security bodies from within existing security organizations in response to the ineffectiveness of these intelligence agencies or from a perceived internal threat from within this growing apparatus of state control. The motivation for such a policy emerged when Hussein criticized the performance of some of its elements and served his strategy of divide and rule to better control the security apparatus. Hussein ensured that a clear division of labor among the Iraqi security agencies was never established, and in fact some agencies were charged with the specific task of monitoring the activities of the others. 18 After 2003, the new Iraqi security apparatus inherited the structures and practices of its predecessor and, it appears, has sought to maintain them. Despite these divisions, Hussein had created an effective structure whose collective responsibilities were to protect the president; maintain internal security by countering domestic dissention, including coups and mass insurrection; prevent external threats to the leadership’s interests; conduct foreign operations; and monitor the Iraqi military—the institution responsible for every change of government in Iraq since the 1920s. Weltanschauung served as one of the variables examined by Rob Johnston, with its constituent parts of affiliation, psychology, education, training, and readiness.19 In Iraq, it is affiliation, and its constituent parts— familial, cultural, ethnic, religious, social, linguistic, and political—that had a primary influence on Saddam Hussein’s security services. In terms of familial affiliation, as Saddam Hussein consolidated power as president as of 1979, more of his immediate family members were promoted to positions as heads of the security agencies. Members of his Albu Nasir clan, or people from his hometown of Tikrit, filled the ranks further down the hierarchy.20 This pattern created a cultural, ethnic, and religious predominance in the ranks of the security services. Culturally, the highest echelons of this apparatus came from the rural periphery, Tikrit, as opposed to the metropolitan centers such as Baghdad or Mosul. Ethnically, they were all Arab and were Sunni Muslims, a majority in the greater Muslim world, but a minority in Iraq vis-à-vis its more numerous Shiite Muslims. The security services served as the institutional mechanism to protect a rural family and its affiliated tribal

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members, who happened to belong to a minority ethnic and sectarian group within Iraq, thus serving as a repressive bulwark against the majority Shiite population, as well as ethnic Kurds. On the political level, the Weltanschauung was infused with the ideology of the Arab Socialist Baath Party, theoretically as a pan-Arab party that exalted both the ethnic and the linguistic. In terms of ethnicity, the party promoted both the Arab ethnic group and the Arabic language. Thus the actions of Iraq’s security services were conducted not in the name of Iraq unity per se but rather paid lip service to Arab unity. Hostility to Israel was justified with pan-Arab terminology. Israel, which did not border Iraq, was conceptualized as a threat not just to the Iraqi nation but also to the imagined collective Arab nation, an imaginary the Iraqi state utilized after the 1981 Israeli air raid, couching the attack as not just on Iraq’s nuclear facility but also on the Arab nation. The war with Iran was not taken up against its eastern neighbor but rather portrayed as a grander effort to secure the eastern flank of the Arab world. Iraq, acting on behalf of a collective Arab nation, would automatically exclude Iraq’s Kurds, a group whose identity is formed by speaking Kurdish as a mother tongue as opposed to Arabic. Thus Israel, Iran and its Shiite proxies within Iraq, and the Kurdish rebel parties were all a threat to the Arab character of Iraq. This worldview proliferated in the otherwise bureaucratic language of the Iraqi security services. In reality, Saddam Hussein sought to craft an Iraqi nationalism that would include both Kurds and Shiites in a unified body politic, particularly to stand up to Iran during the eightyear war. Nonetheless, the pan-Arab signifiers had to be adhered to within the discourse of Iraq’s security services. While the Baath was an avowedly secular party, Saddam Hussein later invoked religious terminology in his public pronouncements, as war with the United States and the Coalition loomed over Kuwait in 1990. While the war with Iran was couched as a war to defend Arabism from a Persian nemesis, the war with the Coalition was labeled a jihad, and the Islamic mantra Allahu Akbar, or “God Is Great,” was newly emblazoned on the Iraqi flag. Saddam Hussein’s ostensible pivot to religious terminology was reflected in the paperwork produced by the security agencies, whereupon terms such as “jihad” and the new flag of Iraq were featured on its stationeries. The assessment of this worldview is based on my sifting and analysis of thousands of captured Iraqi intelligence documents after the 1991 and 2003 wars. 21 The documentation of the post-2003 Iraqi services remains classified, but nonetheless an assessment of its worldview can

122 Ibrahim al-Marashi be examined based on its structural and institutional evolution, and by the fact that it remains relatively less opaque than its predecessor, as its constitution and mandate were dictated with US oversight after 2003. Iraq’s Current Institutional Infrastructure The existence of parallel, competing intelligence agencies continued in post-2003 Iraq, albeit without a cohesive chain-of-command structure.22 As part of the post-2003 de-Baathification process, the former security apparatus, made up primarily of members of the Baath Party, was dismantled after the Iraq War.23 Due to security concerns of allowing former Baathists into the machinery of the state, the nascent Iraqi government lacked a pool of trained security officers and intelligence analysts. The dismissal of thousands of experienced mid-level intelligence officers and analysts affected Iraq’s security by depriving it of a talent pool that could monitor the emerging threats, such as cross-border infiltration from Syria as of 2003, culminating in the invasion of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) of Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, in 2014. One of the results of US cooperation with the Iraqi state was the insistence of de-Baathification. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), when it ordered the disbanding of the Saddam-era military and intelligence services in 2003, created a pool of unemployed men, some of whom would eventually gravitate toward ISIS. An examination of ISIS’s leaders after the invasion of Mosul in 2014, based on their last names, indicated that its primary leaders were Iraqi Arab and Turkmen Sunnis, with military or security-related careers under the Baath.24 A fair number of ISIS’s leaders originate from the rural town of Tal Afar, in the vicinity of Mosul. Most had reached the rank of colonel in the Baathist era, and served in the air force or Military Intelligence. For example, Abu Muslim al-Afari al-Turkmani—a member of the ISIS Shura Council (the highest executive body of ISIS)—was incarcerated in the US-administered Camp Bucca; he had served in the Baath-era Military Intelligence and then in the Iraqi Special Forces. Another member of the council, Abu Ayman alIraqi, also held at the same camp, was also an intelligence officer. ISIS, in this respect, served as a means of employment for former Iraqi career military and intelligence officers under Saddam Hussein. In 2004 a new security agency was created under the title of Iraqi National Intelligence Service (INIS).25 The INIS was initially understaffed and lacked experience, and even though the US government allocated billions of dollars in funds to the agency, time was needed for the training of

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new Iraqi agents at a period when the insurgency rapidly spread throughout the nation. To meet the security needs of postwar Iraq, the INIS sought to recruit former intelligence agents from the Saddam Hussein era as long as they were not responsible for major crimes against the Iraqi people. Muhammad Abdallah al-Shahwani served as the first director-general of the INIS. Al-Shahwani, from the ethnic Turkmen minority in Iraq, served as a successful commander of the Iraqi Special Forces during the Iran-Iraq War. Saddam Hussein had been wary of skilled officers, whose popularity could outstrip that of the Iraqi leader after the war ended in 1988, and al-Shahwani fled Iraq prior to the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and became an opponent of Saddam Hussein. Upon returning to Iraq after 2003, al-Shahwani headed the INIS and began to recruit former intelligence officers.26 Oversight Shiite political parties that emerged victorious following Iraq’s first elections in 2005 were suspicious of al-Shahwani, who belonged to the Sunni Muslim community in Iraq, albeit from the ethnic Turkmen community, as he was recruiting former Saddam-era intelligence officers, who happened to be primarily Sunni Arabs, back into the institutions that had repressed the Shiites in the past.27 When the US government encouraged the new government to not interfere with the leadership and activities of the INIS, Iraq’s Shiite leaders decided to create a parallel security organization in 2007 called the Ministry of Security. Within a period of only three years after the 2003 war, the Iraqi state witnessed an institutional practice that characterized Saddam Hussein’s rule. From the rise of Hussein to his demise, most of the security services tended to be Arab Sunni, whereas the new security apparatus in Iraq is divided along sectarian and ethnic lines.28 Within the new Iraqi security bureaucracy, a shadow state prevalent during the Baathist era had reemerged, wherein bureaucrats used their positions to advance their own (often sectarian or ethnic) agendas and personal influence. The post-2003 bureaucracy serves as a reflection of the neopatrimonial system, characterized by patronage and favoritism. While this system augments the interests of the ethno-sectarian parties, it hinders democratization as the state’s resources are distributed through the networks of a shadow state within two competing security agencies. As in the Saddam Hussein era, these security agencies have employed extralegal violence to pursue the agendas of the political

124 Ibrahim al-Marashi factions to which they belong, without any accountability to the government. 29 The security agencies in Iraq, even after the expulsion of ISIS in 2018 from all major urban Iraqi centers, still faces a formidable challenge—to form a professional ideology and ethic that prevents it from interfering in affairs of the state and loyalty to the nation that supersedes that of narrow communal loyalties. The new security apparatus that emerged after 2003 differs from its predecessor, even though one component may have recruited former Mukhabarat (intelligence service) agents. The new security structure is not devoted to sustaining the rule of a single dictator—Saddam Hussein. On the contrary, some Iraqis say that the intelligence services support multiple “Saddams.” What this popular saying communicates is a feeling in Iraq that Saddam was replaced by a series of competing exiles, tribal chiefs, warlords turned members of parliament, and religious leaders. Thus, the popular sentiment emerged that one Saddam was replaced by many tyrants. Functions and Operations Iraq after 2003 adopted a federal constitution, which resulted in an intelligence infrastructure that operates on the federal level, alongside regional intelligence agencies. “Alongside,” however, does not mean these forces necessarily cooperate with each other on national security issues. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), two parties that historically sought greater freedoms for Iraq’s Kurds and faced the brunt of Saddam Hussein’s repression, had developed their own intelligence agencies while in opposition. The KDP and PUK transformed what had been their respective parties’ intelligence agencies into the official security agencies of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), the federated body that formed in the north of Iraq after 2003. In the area under the KRG’s jurisdiction, the security services are recruited among the ranks of the KDP and PUK, rather than Iraq’s federal agencies.30 This division of labor would bring the number of Iraqi intelligence services to four, created within a period of ten years. The INIS, the Ministry of Security, and the two agencies affiliated with the KDP and PUK rarely coordinate their activities. While these agencies are not in service of a dictator, the fact that they pursue their own agendas proved equally troubling for the state in 2013 as ISIS began to prepare for its foray into Iraq.

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International Cooperation and the ISIS Threat The major actor in the development of Iraq’s post-Baathist intelligence agencies was the United States. In its capacity as trainer of Iraq’s intelligence agents, the United States attempted and failed to persuade the Iraqis that it was to their benefit to create a system based on merit rather than continuing the Saddam-era patronage-based system that favors ethnicity or sect. The greatest challenge the US training efforts faced was encouraging cooperation among Iraq’s security services and sharing of intelligence in monitoring the ISIS threat rather than compete among themselves. However, the division between the INIS, Ministry of Security, and security agencies affiliated with the KDP and PUK meant they rarely coordinated their activities and intelligence, instead pursuing their own agendas and even spying on their rival Iraqi intelligence agencies. The Iraqi state thus lacked a central institution to monitor and respond to ISIS’s cross-border infiltration from Syria following the Syrian civil war, in addition to having been deprived of drone and satellite intelligence that had been provided before the withdrawal by US forces in 2011. The emergence of a shadow state within the security forces, combined with corruption of the ruling elite and their management of the armed forces, poor intelligence, and a raging Syrian civil war on the borders of Iraq, left the regular Iraqi army eviscerated and an Iraqi state without the institutions to prevent an increase of ISIS suicide attacks in the capital as of 2013. Divisions between the central government and the KRG festered during Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s tenure (2006–2014). On the eve of the fall of Mosul to ISIS, al-Maliki apparently failed to act on Iraqi Kurdish intelligence that ISIS was planning its Mosul offensive, one of the occasions that the KRG needed the central government to develop a robust defense of Iraq’s borders.31 Assessing the Worldview of the Post-2003 Services In terms of the Weltanschauung of the new Iraqi security services, the nature of its affiliation represents a rupture with the past, as its constituent parts—familial, cultural, ethnic, religious, social, linguistic, and political—have all been rearranged with the collapse of the Baathist state. There is no one familial affiliation connected to a single dictator that dominates the Iraqi security services. In theory, the heads of the new security services are to be chosen on merit, but in reality the heads

126 Ibrahim al-Marashi of the agencies are selected due to their affiliation to the dominant political party in power, and agencies are staffed accordingly. In terms of cultural, ethnic, and religious patterns, the security agencies reflect the concentration of power of the opposition parties to Saddam Hussein, the Shiite exiled parties, and the Kurdish parties operating from the north of Iraq. If the security services under Saddam Hussein served as the institutional mechanism to protect an elite against the majority Shiite population, as well as ethnic Kurds, this relationship has now been inverted. The new security elites are dedicated to preventing that minority Arab Sunni elite, with a Baathist facade, who ruled up until 2003, from taking power again. On the political level, while the former Weltanschauung of the security services was infused with the ideology of the Baath Party, the new security services represent the segment of the population traumatized by the brutality of the security services of that era, violence justified in the name of the Baathist cause. While the security services of the Baathist era were dedicated to maintaining internal security, as well as dealing with foreign threats such as Israel, Iran, and the United States, the new security services are primarily tasked with providing the new state with a modicum of security, and thus primarily tasked with rooting out internal foes, be they former Baathists, insurgents of various allegiances, or finally ISIS. Even though there were numerous, competing agencies under Saddam Hussein, their ultimate mandate was to sustain the leader’s rule and in turn protect their in-group status. Iraq’s new security services are divided by ethnic and linguistic divisions, and thus, while a single Weltanschauung infused the Baath-era security services, the post-2003 agencies have multiple, if not competing, worldviews. In reality, the post-2003 government has not been able to craft an Iraqi nationalism that would include both Kurds and Shiites in a unified body politic. The intelligence agencies of the KRG seek to protect the autonomy of its region, while those of the federal government seek to maintain the integrity of the nation. In the run-up to the KRG’s vote for independence in fall 2017, it would have not been unusual if Iraq’s security services were spying on each other.

Conclusion As of October 2018, Iraq formed a new government after the May elections of that year. Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite, became Iraq’s new prime minister, and Barham Salih, a Kurd from the PUK, was appointed Iraq’s

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new president. Both are holding office for the first time. These new personalities have to overcome tensions between the central government and the KRG, after the latter’s failed initiative to declare independence in October 2017. Such reconciliation will ultimately determine the nature of cooperation and intelligence sharing between Iraq’s agencies. As for Iraq’s future, intelligence cooperation between the central government and the KRG is paramount, as ISIS operates sleeper cells in Iraq and holds on to territory in eastern Syria. Saddam Hussein fostered a system wherein rival military agencies and security forces would operate in a system of checks and balances against each other. This parallel structure in post-Baathist Iraq occurred by accident rather than by the plans of a dictator. The multiplicity of such organs in the new Iraq has resulted in competition rather than in the emergence of an effective, vigorous, and streamlined intelligence capability for the Iraqi state. The existence of multiple and parallel agencies is not in and of itself an indicator that they will emerge as organs of oppression in Iraq, although there have been reports of extralegal detentions by these agencies. Nonetheless, their development may be a useful indicator of emerging autocratic tendencies in Iraq. Notwithstanding this structural continuity, Iraq’s post-2003 intelligence services are by no means as brutal or pervasive as those of Saddam Hussein’s. The “Republic of Fear” that characterized Iraq under Saddam, in which his intelligence and security agencies were central, serves as a tragic chapter in the nation’s history. The new intelligence services in Iraq will be crucial in transitioning Iraq away from that era and providing a modicum of security to guarantee its tenuous future. Notes 1. Rob Johnston, “Foundations for Meta-Analysis: Developing a Taxonomy of Intelligence Analysis Variables,” in Sharad S. Chauhan, ed., Inside C.I.A. Lessons in Intelligence (New Delhi: APH, 2004), 265. 2. Ibrahim al-Marashi, “Iraq’s Security and Intelligence Network: A Guide and Analysis,” Middle East Review of International Affairs 6, no. 3 (Fall 2002), 1–13. 3. Kanan Makiya, Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). 4. Joseph Sassoon, Saddam Hussein’s Ba’th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 95. 5. Eberhard Kienle, Ba’th v Ba’th: The Conflict Between Syria and Iraq, 1968–1989 (New York: St. Martin’s, 1990), 85. 6. Central Intelligence Agency, “Iraq: Foreign Intelligence and Security Services,” Report no. 276, August 1985, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB167/05.pdf. 7. Human Rights Watch, Bureaucracy of Repression: The Iraqi Government in Its Own Words (New York, 1994), 3.

128 Ibrahim al-Marashi 8. Makiya, Republic of Fear, 15. 9. Iraq Survey Group, Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD, vol. 1 (2005), 74–75. 10. Makiya, Republic of Fear, 14. 11. Ibid., 13. 12. Iraq Survey Group, Comprehensive Report, 8. 13. Human Rights Watch, Bureaucracy of Repression, 4. 14. Central Intelligence Agency, “Iraq,” 6. 15. Iraq Survey Group, Comprehensive Report, 87. 16. Charles Tripp, A History of Iraq (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 254. 17. Mustafa Alani, “Saddam’s Support Structure,” in Sean McKnight, Neil Patrick, and Francis Toase, eds., Gulf Security: Opportunities and Challenges for the New Generation (London: Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, 2000), 43. 18. Joseph Sassoon, Anatomy of Authoritarianism in the Arab Republics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 117. 19. Johnston, “Foundations for Meta-Analysis,” 265. 20. See Ibrahim al-Marashi, “The Clan, Tribal, and Family Network of Saddam’s Intelligence Apparatus,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counter Intelligence 16, no. 2 (Summer 2003), 202–211. 21. See Ibrahim al-Marashi “The Mindset of Iraq’s Security Apparatus,” Journal of Intelligence and National Security 18, no. 3 (Fall 2003), 1–23. 22. Ned Parker, “Divided Iraq Has Two Spy Agencies,” Los Angeles Times, April 15, 2007, http://articles.latimes.com/2007/apr/15/world/fg-intel15. 23. James P. Pfiffner, “US Blunders in Iraq: De-Baathification and Disbanding the Army,” Intelligence and National Security 25, no. 1 (February 2010), 76. 24. “Most of Islamic State’s Leaders Were Officers in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq,” Washington Post, April 4, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/most-of-islamic -states-leaders-were-officers-in-saddam-husseins-iraq/2015/04/04/f3d2da00-db24-11e4 -b3f2-607bd612aeac_graphic.html?utm_term=.ff89e80dd405. 25. See Coalition Provisional Authority Order no. 69, http://www.fas.org/irp/world /iraq/cpa69.pdf; Charter for the Iraqi National Intelligence Service, http://www.fas.org /irp/world/iraq/inis.pdf. 26. See, for example, Gordon Bennett, “Iraq’s Security and Intelligence Structures: More Problems” (Swindon, UK: Conflict Studies Research Center, May 2006). 27. Anthony H. Cordesman, “Iraqi Force Development,” CSIS, September 2007, 78–79. 28. Ed Blanche, “Shades of Saddam,” Middle East Magazine no. 431 (April 2012), 14. 29. Robert M. Perito, “The Iraq Federal Police” (Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace, October 2011), 5–6. 30. Jacqueline Devigne, “Iraqoncilable Differences? The Political Nature of the Peshmerga,” New Initiative for Middle East Peace (NIMEP) Insights (2011), 48–64. 31. Judith Neurink, “Isis in Iraq: The Fall of Mosul to the Jihadists Was Less of a Surprise to Baghdad Than Many Were Led to Believe,” The Independent, February 25, 2016, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-in-iraq-the-fall-of-mosul-to -the-jihadists-was-less-of-a-surprise-to-baghdad-than-many-were-led-a6895896.html.

8 Israel Ephraim Kahana

The State of Israel was established on May 15, 1948. On that date the Jewish population was small in terms of number of people and surrounded by hostile Arab countries; therefore, for Israel, a strong military and excellent intelligence were matters of life or death. Ever since its establishment, Israel has confronted an external environment of nearly unremitting hostility. Repeated wars, perpetual hostilities at lower levels, failed peace processes with the Palestinians and Syria, and even the “cold” peace with Egypt and Jordan have reinforced this image. As a result, national security has been at the forefront of Israeli life for more than seven decades. During its seventy years of existence, the population increased substantially to about 9 million people. The army is large and strong, and the various Israeli intelligence agencies have an excellent reputation. The best known of these agencies is Mossad. The word mossad has become the second most known Hebrew word after shalom. The Israeli intelligence community was established even before the independence of the State of Israel. During the British mandate in Palestine, the Haganah (the main military militia of the Jewish community in Palestine) had intelligence units. The main intelligence unit of the Haganah was the Information Service, known by its Hebrew acronym SHAI. The Information Service was disbanded on June 30, 1948, and instead, three Israeli intelligence organizations were formed: the Military Intelligence (MI), also known by its Hebrew acronym AMAN; the Israeli Security Agency (ISA), known by its Hebrew acronym SHABAK; and the Political Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.1 129

130 Ephraim Kahana The Military Intelligence The Military Intelligence collects information on the Arab armies and is responsible for state-level intelligence evaluation for war and peace, providing a warning of war and hostile and terrorist acts, and indicating the rise of opportunities for political agreements. When it was established, the MI was also engaged in counter-espionage; however, this function has since been transferred to the ISA. Its first commander—the director of military intelligence—was Isser Be’eri. The MI is structured as two main units: the Collection Department and the Research Division. The Collection Department is responsible for signals intelligence (SIGINT), through its Unit 8200, and imagery intelligence (IMINT), especially through its Unit 9200. Unit 8200 collects intelligence information by plugging into the telephone systems of Arab countries to eavesdrop and record landline conversations. The Collection Department also operates human intelligence (HUMINT), running agents and informers just over Israel’s borders through its Unit 504. The Collection Department is responsible for collecting open-source intelligence (OSINT) through a section known as Hatsav that scans the print and electronic media, including the internet, for unwittingly exposed military matter. The MI serves as the professional authority for the Israeli air force’s Air Intelligence Squadron, which through Unit 9200 activates unmanned small aircraft; the Israeli navy’s Naval Intelligence Squadron; and the intelligence units at the headquarters of the various field corps and in the regional commands. The Intelligence Corps, headed by the chief intelligence officer, with the rank of brigadier-general, is subordinate to the director of military intelligence, with the rank of major-general. Intelligence Corps headquarters oversees the collection units and is in charge of the corps’ professionalism and administrative organization. The Research Division is the largest part of the MI, with 3,000– 7,000 officers and other ranks. This division receives and analyzes information assembled by the entire Israeli intelligence community—the MI itself, Mossad, and the ISA. It publishes the Daily Information Digest and other periodical assessments, of which the best known is the Annual National Intelligence Evaluation. The Research Division is organized into subunits, divided according to geographical and functional targets. Prior to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, each subunit was called an anaf (branch). Branch 2 was responsible for Jordan and the Arabian Peninsula; Branch 3 for the world powers; Branch 5 for Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq; Branch 6 for Egypt, Sudan, and North Africa; and Branch 7 for technological developments. Branch Air 4 was the intelligence squadron

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of the air force. Today the Research Division is divided into “theaters.” The North Theater is responsible for Lebanon and Syria; the Central Theater for Iran, Iraq, northern Jordan, and Saudi Arabia; and the South Theater for Egypt and southern Jordan. In addition, there are the Terror Theater, World Theater, and Technological Theater; the last of these is in charge of technological developments, especially for weapons. Following the recommendation of the 1974 Agranat Commission, the MI created the Control Unit. This unit produces the “devil’s advocate” assessments. It consists of a few experienced officers who are subordinate directly to the director of military intelligence and not to the Research Division, so that these officers will not be affected by any influence from the head of the Research Division. The MI is also responsible for assigning military attachés to Israeli embassies overseas. A special task is press censorship and information security (previously known as field security) to prevent leaking of secret matters. There is a unit for liaison with foreign intelligence communities and another engaged in computer hardware and software to assist in intelligence collection. Following the disbanding in April 1951 of the foreign ministry’s Political Department, its intelligence missions in Arab countries were transferred to a new unit in the MI known as Unit 131. In 1963, Unit 131 was dismantled, and responsibility for dispatching spies, collecting intelligence, and sabotage in Arab countries was moved to Mossad. Its sister Unit 132 was charged with conducting propaganda in Arab countries. The Israeli Security Agency The Israeli Security Agency was established with the declaration of Israeli independence as Unit 184 in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Its first director was Isser Harel (1949–1952). At that time, all its personnel were IDF officers and soldiers. Harel wore an IDF uniform with the insignia of lieutenant-colonel. In 1950, responsibility for the ISA activity was moved from the IDF to the Israeli defense ministry, and soon after it was moved again, this time to the office of the prime minister. Upon establishment, the ISA was divided into units, which later became sections. These were given numbers or titles. Section One was concerned with preventing subversion by the Israeli extreme right. In practice, this was political espionage, as the collection of information was about the adversaries of the then ruling party, Mapai. A great controversy arose when two ISA agents were caught on January 29, 1953,

132 Ephraim Kahana installing a bugging device in the office of Meir Ya’ari, leader of the United Workers Party (Mapam). Although a socialist Zionist party, Mapam favored the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin. The importance of Section One declined with the rising perception of Israel as a democratic state, and political espionage was halted. The third director of the ISA, Amos Manor, ordered the destruction of the section’s political archive, which contained material and information on members of political parties. Under Manor’s directorship, the ISA changed from an organization close to the ruling party into a state body without political affiliation. Section Two was formed in summer 1950 after the Political Department in the foreign ministry was disbanded and its functions were transferred to other intelligence agencies in Israel. This section dealt with counter-espionage (espionage obstruction), and it consisted of departments for the obstruction of Soviet espionage, obstruction of communist espionage (by other states in the Eastern bloc), and obstruction of espionage by other foreigners (mainly from Western states). Section Two also had a registration department whose function was the security filtering and examination of candidates for positions in state service and at defense plants. At the end of the 1960s, Sections One and Two were merged into a new branch titled the Branch for Prevention of Subversion and Obstruction of Espionage, better known as the “non-Arab branch” or simply the “Jewish branch.” The new branch consisted of the three espionage obstruction departments that had belonged to Section Two as well as the department for obstruction of political subversion in the Jewish sector, the department for registration and security filtering, an archive, and a department for communication with foreign security services. Section Three was concerned with Arab affairs, namely, monitoring and tracing the political mood of the Arabs of Israel, who at that time were under military government. Also active in this section were departments for the obstruction of espionage by Arab states—which until the 1967 Six Day War saw most of Section Three’s activity—and for prevention of hostile sabotage activity. Out of Section Three grew the division known today as the Arab Affairs Branch. Since the Six Day War of 1967, the fight against subversive action in the territories and the struggle against Palestinian terrorist organizations have been the major missions of this branch. Another unit was concerned with new immigrants. In the early days of the state, this unit kept its finger on the pulse of new immigrants, first from Yemen and Eastern Europe and then from Morocco and Iraq. The unit functioned only briefly and was disbanded at the time of Amos

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Manor’s directorship of the ISA (1953–1963). Yet operations among new immigrants did not cease. In the ISA there existed a nameless unit, or one isolated from the other sections and units, whose function was to obtain information on the Soviet Union and the communist bloc by means of questioning new immigrants from Eastern Europe. The information obtained in this way was important to the State of Israel, as it greatly assisted in establishing intelligence relations with the United States. The information culled from the new immigrants arriving from the countries of the communist bloc was passed on to intelligence agencies in the United States, which at that time was locked in the Cold War and needed this information. Section Five was responsible for the security of installations of the defense system; it was also responsible for the Bureau of Scientific Liaison. Out of this section developed the Protective Security Branch and the unit of the Director of Security for the Defense Establishment (DSDE), known by its Hebrew acronym MALMAB. There was also the Operations Unit, on whose foundations arose the Operations Branch of the ISA. From the moment of the creation of this unit to the present, this branch has been shrouded in the utmost secrecy. It is subordinate to and directly managed by the deputy director of the ISA. Because of the silence that surrounds this branch, hardly anything can be written about it. The Operations Unit was also responsible for the Technical Services Unit, which supplied eavesdropping equipment, micro cameras, recording devices, invisible ink, and so forth. In the 1970s, the Technical Services Unit was given the status of a branch, renamed the Technological Branch. The Interrogations Unit was from its formation responsible for interrogations conducted by the ISA. In the 1960s, the unit was given the status of a branch and renamed the Interrogations Branch. Section Eight was responsible for the security of installations, filling positions of security officers in government ministries, safeguarding secrets, and checking public figures. Over the years, Section Eight became the Protective Security Branch. Its duties include securing important infrastructure and government buildings in Israel and Israeli legations abroad and protecting flights of the Israeli airlines El Al, Arkia, and Israir. The Protective Security Branch also included the unit protecting the lives of senior Israeli public figures, ministers, and the state’s president. This unit received the status of a division after the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. Today the ISA is responsible for security against any who seek to undermine Israel by terrorist activity or violent revolution. It is also

134 Ephraim Kahana charged with providing the IDF with intelligence to support counterterrorism operations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and for counterespionage. The most notable counter-espionage achievement of the ISA was the capture in 1961 of Yisrael Baer, an Israeli military historian who was revealed to be a Soviet spy. Baer was an IDF reserve lieutenant-colonel, a senior security commentator, and a close friend of Prime Minister Ben-Gurion, with access to high Israeli circles. Baer was tried and sentenced to life in prison, where he died. The same year, Kurt Sitta, a Christian Sudeten German who succeeded in becoming a professor at the Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, was uncovered as a Czech spy. After the Six Day War, the ISA was assigned to monitor terrorist activity in the Occupied Territories. This became the organization’s most salient role, but it was ill-prepared for this mission and its challenges. Its work force until then had consisted of 600 agents. The ISA director at the time, Yosef Harmelin (1964–1974), did not want to employ any superfluous people. He considered the ISA a solid, modest, and effective body primarily engaged in preventing espionage. In the first few years after the Six Day War, the ISA acquired hardly any information on any of the villages in the Occupied Territories. Later, under the directorship of Avraham Ahituv (1974–1981), it adjusted to the new mission. Ahituv transformed the ISA, making it a fighting organization. The title of the professional in the central phalanx of the service came to be “intelligence fighter.” From 1984 to 1986 the ISA underwent a major crisis following the Bus 300 affair, in which two terrorists who hijacked a bus and took hostages were executed without trial by ISA officers, who later covered up the event and gave false evidence. Following the affair, the ISA director at the time, Avraham Shalom (1981–1986), was forced to resign. The event resulted in the creation of the Landau Commission (1987), headed by a judge of Israel’s Supreme Court, which regulated ISA interrogation methods. Another crisis erupted in 1995 with the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin by Yigal Amir. An investigation committee found serious flaws in the personal security unit. It also revealed provocative and inciting behavior by Avishay Raviv, an agent-provocateur of the ISA’s Jewish Department who was responsible for photo-montage pictures of Rabin in Nazi SS uniform displayed at a right-wing rally, intended to provoke and inflame the audience. Following the assassination, ISA director Carmi Gillon (1995–1996) was forced to resign. Still, toward the end of his directorship, the ISA had scored a success with the killing

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of Hamas’s chief bomb-maker, Yahya Ayash, by planting an explosive device in his cellular phone. The operation had been carried out on the instructions of Prime Minister Shimon Peres. Gillon was replaced by reserve admiral Ami Ayalon (1996–2000), a nominee from outside the ISA ranks. Ayalon successfully accomplished the ISA rehabilitation necessary after Rabin’s assassination and strove to regain its fine reputation. The ISA tightened cooperation with the IDF and the Israel Police, especially the elite police unit known as Yamam. After the 1993 Oslo Accords, the ISA was obliged to undergo a technological revolution and a complete change of its work methods. It adapted itself to collecting intelligence in areas over which the IDF no longer held control under the Oslo agreement. In addition, the ISA initiated cooperation with the Palestinian Authority. During the Palestinian uprising known as the al-Aqsa Intifada, which erupted in the fall of 2000 after the collapse of the Camp David summit that had been intended to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the ISA reacted speedily to the Arab violence. Since then, it has become a prominent player in Israel’s war against the Palestinian terrorism that has plagued Israeli cities. The ISA produces intelligence permitting the IDF to stop some of the suicide bombers before they reach their destination. This is usually done by preventive arrests and the deployment of roadblocks when there is a serious alert. The ISA cooperates with the air force to pinpoint and kill terror masterminds and terrorist leaders via precise air strikes. The targets are field commanders and senior leaders of Palestinian militant factions whom Israel considers terrorists, mainly those of Hamas but also of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades, and al-Fatah; even an al-Qaeda facilitator, Iyad AlBik, has been killed. These assassinations, or “targeted killings,” are usually executed by helicopter gunships. Air force commanders and ISA agents sit together at the command center and monitor the operation.2 The ISA’s task is to provide intelligence on when and where the target will be vulnerable to strike. The required information for a successful targeted killing is when the target is present at some spot not surrounded by civilians. The next task is to react to air force drone feedback to be certain that the people at the site are indeed the wanted terrorists. This part is known as identification and incrimination. The ISA has likewise succeeded in uncovering dozens of terrorist groups within the Israeli Arab population. Most of these were directed by the Iranian-Lebanese group Hezbollah and by Palestinian terrorist factions such as the aforementioned al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

136 Ephraim Kahana In terms of quality and quantity of intelligence gathering, the ISA is considered to be one of the best intelligence services in the world. It relies mainly on HUMINT from the local population for collecting information about planned terror attacks or about the location of terror leaders. The organization has enjoyed overwhelming success with informants in its targeted killings. The killings of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin on March 22, 2004, and of Abd al-Aziz Rantissi on April 17, 2004, show how deeply the ISA has penetrated the Palestinian militias. As a result, the Palestinian groups, mainly the al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades, have started lynching suspected collaborators or killing them on the street without trial. The ISA also extracts information by interrogating suspects. Until the 1980s the ISA used controversial methods, including beatings, to extract information. But in 1987, after complaints of excessive use of violence in the interrogations of Palestinian prisoners, the Landau Commission published a directive setting criteria for lawful interrogation methods. Only moderate physical pressure was to be permitted, and then only in the case of a “time bomb”—an imminent terrorist attack requiring immediate steps to be taken to thwart it. In 1999, the Israeli Supreme Court discussed the ISA interrogation methods and ruled that physical pressure was to be banned altogether. Accordingly, the ISA now bases its interrogations on psychological pressure, in which it has become highly effective. However, complaints about physical pressure continue. In 2002, the Knesset passed a law regulating ISA activity. According to the law, the prime minister carries ministerial responsibility for this activity; the director of the ISA will serve a term of no more than five years, except in a state of emergency. The law’s provisions concerning interrogation methods have not been made public. The ISA has reached another turning point necessitating yet another change—this time more evolutionary than revolutionary. It is required to assess opportunities of dialogue with the Palestinian Authority, in addition to threat warnings. The future challenges of the ISA are to analyze more than one scenario regarding anticipated developments. Considering that it is difficult to develop a perfect research team, the ISA is out of necessity turning to academic professionals for their help. The organization is required to supply various assessments of possible upcoming political processes of negotiations in situations of uncertainty. In addition, the ISA focuses on the Jewish sector, especially preventing Jewish terrorism, and also focuses on subversive individuals among Israeli Arabs. Dealing with the Jewish and Arab sectors has likewise been adjusted to the public mood, which champions human rights.

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Mossad Mossad, the official name of the Israeli Secret Intelligence Service, was established in Israel on December 13, 1949, as the Institution for Coordination at the recommendation of Reuven Shiloah, adviser to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Shiloah wanted a central body to coordinate and improve cooperation among the existing security services: the MI, the ISA, and the Political Department, the latter of which was the intelligence unit of the foreign ministry. Shiloah proposed establishing Mossad as a central institution for organizing and coordinating intelligence and security services.3 Mossad began life under the wing of the foreign ministry. For all practical purposes, it was the Political Department, although in fact not all of the Political Department was transferred to Mossad. However, it soon underwent a reorganization process. On February 8, 1951, BenGurion, after consulting with Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett and Mossad director Shiloah, decided to reorganize Mossad. The Political Department in the foreign ministry was to be dismantled, and its intelligence-collecting and operational activities in foreign countries were to be assigned to Mossad. In March 1951, it was made a part of the prime minister’s office, reporting directly to the prime minister. The immediate result was that senior operations officers of the Political Department collectively submitted their resignations in what became known as the Spies’ Revolt. The revolt did not last long, and the day it broke, April 1, 1951, is considered Mossad’s official birth date. That day, the operations branch of the Political Department was replaced in Mossad by the Foreign Intelligence Authority, also known by its code names Rashut (Authority) and Rashut Green (Green Authority). The authority was headed by Haim Ya’ari. Operational activities and operating spies in Arab countries were assigned to the MI.4 Over the years, Mossad was given several more tasks previously fulfilled by Israel’s other intelligence agencies, such as handling Israeli spies abroad. This mission was assigned to Mossad in 1963; until then it had been accomplished by Unit 131 of the MI. In 1963, Mossad was given the name Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations. Mossad is a civilian organization. Its employees do not have military ranks, although most of them have served in the IDF, and many even served in the MI. Its current staff is estimated at 1,200–2,000 employees. Mossad is organized into several main units, with headquarters in Tel Aviv. Tsomet is the largest branch, with responsibility for collecting intelligence information mainly by its case officers who activate spies and

138 Ephraim Kahana operatives in target countries. INeviot (formerly known as Queshet) collects intelligence for Mossad via break-ins, street surveillance, listening devices, and other covert actions. Metsada (formerly known as Caesarea) is the special operations division, conducting sabotage and paramilitary projects. A top classified subdepartment known as Kidon (Bayonet) conducts assassinations, as approved by a committee chaired by the prime minister. The Intelligence Branch of Mossad is responsible for “literature and publications”—psychological warfare involving propaganda and deception. The Intelligence Branch is also responsible for collecting information on prisoners of war and those missing in action, nonconventional weapons, and hostile sabotage activities. Tevel is the political action and liaison department, conducting political activities and liaison work with friendly foreign intelligence services and with nations with which Israel does not have normal diplomatic relations. Tsafririm is a unique department distinguished by its concern for the security of the Jewish people around the globe. This department, among other things, directed the Moses Operation (Mivtsa Moshe) and Solomon Operation (Mivtsa Shlomo) with the goal of bringing Ethiopian Jews to Israel. In the 1950s and 1960s, Tsafririm was engaged in setting up defense groups in Jewish communities outside of Israel, mainly in the Maghreb, known by the Hebrew name Misgereth (Framework). All of these units are under the aegis of the deputy director of Mossad for activating the force. The administrator for construction of the force is responsible for units covering training, personnel and finances, technology and spy gadgets, research, and the chief security officer. Mossad is one of the leading intelligence agencies in the world in the field of high-tech electronics. It has developed a powerful computer database, known as Promis, that can store and retrieve enormous quantities of information. This technology is even sold by Mossad to intelligence communities of foreign countries. One of Mossad’s best-known successful operations is the capture of Khrushchev’s 1956 speech revealing Stalin’s crimes against humanity. Mossad passed it on to the United States, which published the speech, embarrassing the Soviet Union. Also prominent, in 1960, in Operation Garibaldi, Mossad succeeded in locating Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires, identifying him and kidnapping him, and later bringing him to justice in Israel. In 1966, in Operation Diamond, Mossad succeed in obtaining the Soviet MiG-21 from Iraq by convincing the Iraqi pilot to land the air-

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craft in Israel. After the massacre of the Israeli athletes during the Summer Olympics in Munich, Mossad, in a series of covert assassinations known as the Wrath of God, assassinated the terrorists who were connected in one way or another to terror organizations. In 1976, Mossad succeeded in collecting intelligence regarding the planned rescue operation from Entebbe of the Air France passengers who were hijacked by Palestinians and remained in custody in Entebbe. This operation was known as Operation Entebbe, or Operation Yehonathan, after the name of one of the commanders of the operation who was killed in action. In 1979, Mossad succeeded in assassinating Zuheir Mohsen, the leader of the terror group as-Sa’iqa. On June 13, 1980, Mossad assassinated the Egyptian nuclear scientist Yehya el-Mashad in Paris because of his involvement in developing the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. In 1981, Mossad succeeded in collecting intelligence about the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. This information contributed much to the success of the Israeli air force bombing of the Iraqi reactor on June 7, 1981, known as Operation Opera. During the period between November 1984 and January 1985, Mossad engaged in secretly bringing 8,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel, known as Operation Moses. In 1986, Mossad succeeded in the abduction of Israeli traitor Mordechai Vanunu, who was formerly a technician at the Dimona nuclear reactor and revealed secrets to the Sunday Times. In Rome he was lured by a Mossad woman, Sindi. From Rome he was smuggled secretly to Israel and tried for treason. On March 22, 1990, Canadian scientist Gerald Bull was assassinated because he was working for the Iraqis on the secret project Babylon, developing long-range artillery. On June 8, 1992, the head of intelligence of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Atef Bseiso, was assassinated, and on September 26, 1995, Fathi Shaqaqi, who established the Islamic Jihad, was assassinated in Malta, allegedly by Mossad agents. Bseiso and Shaqaqi were allegedly planning terror activities against Israelis. On September 26, 2004, Hamas leader Izz elDeal Sheikh Khalil was assassinated in Damascus, allegedly by Mossad, for planning terror activities against Israelis. On September 6, 2007, in what was known as Operation Orchard, the Israeli air force successfully destroyed the Syrian nuclear reactor due to intelligence collected by Mossad. On February 12, 2008, Imad Mughniyah, a leader of Hezbollah, was assassinated in Tartus, Syria, and on January 19, 2010, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a Hamas senior, was assassinated in Dubai, both of them by Mossad agents. One of the greatest achievements of Mossad came in 2018, when its agents smuggled

140 Ephraim Kahana hundreds of kilograms of paper and digital files on Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program out of the Islamic Republic. However, alongside this long list of achievements, there have been several failures and fiascos. Mossad’s best-known mishaps are the Lillehammer affair—the killing in 1973 of Ahmed Bouchiki, an innocent Moroccan waiter mistakenly identified as the leader of the Black September terrorist organization, Ali Hassan Salameh; the Khaled Mash’al fiasco—the failed assassination of Sheikh Khaled Mash’al, a leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, by poison injection in 1997 on Jordanian soil when Mossad agents used forged Canadian passports, which angered the Canadian government no less than the Jordanians; the use of forged British passports, discovered in 1981 in a grocery bag in a London telephone booth, which sparked a diplomatic row between Britain and Israel over Mossad’s involvement in an attempt to infiltrate China; and an attempt in July 2004 by Uriel Kelman and Eli Cara (former head of Neviot) to fraudulently obtain New Zealand passports. From time to time, Mossad undergoes a reorganization. Efraim Halevy, as director of Mossad, wanted to pattern it based on the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) model with a few big divisions. He envisioned three wings: a collection wing, a research wing, and an operations wing. All the departments described earlier would have been incorporated in one way or another into these three large wings. Halevy actually succeeded in establishing the first two wings. To date, the operations wing has not been created—not even by Halevy’s successor, who devoted special attention to operations. Current director Meir Dagan created the Forum of Unit Directors, the position of deputy director of Mossad for activating the force, and the position of administrator for construction of the force. Director of Security for the Defense Establishment Another Israeli organization pretending to be an intelligence agency is MALMAB, the unit of the Director of Security for the Defense Establishment, in the Israeli defense ministry. The full title of this unit is not known exactly on account of its ultrasecrecy. When MALMAB was established is also a matter of conjecture. Some claim that it was set up in 1974. However, according to certain documents recently released by the defense ministry, MALMAB was created in the 1960s as part of the Bureau of Scientific Liaison (LAKAM). It was so secret that it could be referred to in the Israeli press only as “Y.”

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MALMAB is apparently responsible for physical security of the defense ministry and its research facilities, including the nuclear reactor at Dimona. MALMAB is also charged with preventing leaks from the Israeli security institutions, including Mossad and the ISA. MALMAB, together with Security Support (Siyua Bithoni, or SIBAT) in the defense ministry, closely supervises Israeli arms manufacturers in order to reduce any potential damage caused by spreading Israeli weapons technology too far around the world. The first DSDE was Chaim Carmon. MALMAB was then a small unit under the authority of the ISA. Carmon frequently met with Avraham Shalom, then head of the security section of the ISA, and Avraham Ahituv, director of the ISA. Carmon received his instructions from these two men. In the mid-1980s, MALMAB failed in securing the Dimona nuclear reactor. A joint internal investigation by the ISA and MALMAB after the disclosure of the Mordechai Vanunu affair concluded that no one was directly responsible for the lapse, and no one was held accountable for the fact that the information on Vanunu’s political activities at Ben-Gurion University in Beer Sheba—his relations with Arab students and his comments critical of Israel’s nuclear policy—never sounded a warning bell. The Israeli Foreign Ministry’s Center for Political Research The Intelligence Unit in the Israeli foreign ministry is the Center for Political Research (CPR), known by its Hebrew acronym MAMAD. Prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, two political departments existed. One was formed in the Information Service and the other in the Jewish Agency. Soon after the state’s establishment in May 1948, the Political Department was set up in the foreign ministry and took over most of the tasks of its two forerunners. The first director of the Political Department was Boris Guriel, who created an ultra-secret subdepartment, Heker 2, in charge of espionage and propaganda in Arab countries. The foreign ministry’s Political Department was in charge of the operations branch known as Da’at (Knowledge). Asher Ben-Natan was appointed head of this department and stationed in Paris. Most of the staff of the operations section were stationed in Europe. With the creation of Mossad in April 1949, it took over most of the functions of the Political Department, which began to be dismantled. Heker 2 was transformed into Unit 131 in the MI. Da’at was replaced in April 1951 by the Foreign

142 Ephraim Kahana Intelligence Authority in Mossad and was directed by Haim Ya’ari. Following these changes, Guriel resigned from the intelligence service. After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, following the recommendation of the Agranat Commission, a small research department was set up in the foreign ministry with the aim of producing independent politicalstrategic intelligence evaluations. Foreign Minister Yigal Alon (1974– 1977) wished to upgrade this department into an important political instrument that could change the status of the foreign ministry and make it a significant actor in the domain of decisionmaking on issues of foreign policy. Alon’s first step was to change the name of the department to the Center for Political Planning and Research (CPPR). It was given a twofold task: to research and evaluate what was taking place in the Middle East and the world and to advise the foreign minister and the government of Israel on foreign policy. The CPPR was intended to serve as a central factor in the work of the foreign ministry’s staff. Its work force was tripled to 120, and intelligence researchers were taken on, principally those with a background in the military intelligence system. This pursuit lasted three years; in 1977, the government of Menachem Begin took power and Moshe Dayan became foreign minister (1977–1979). The head of the CPPR, reserve brigadier-general Yehoshua Raviv, resigned for personal reasons upon Dayan’s appointment. Dayan expunged the word “planning” from the center’s title, giving it its current name. He did not ascribe great value to the center’s activity or evaluations. Moshe Sasson was appointed head of the CPR, and the number of its operatives plummeted in two months to fewer than eighty. The center’s researchers were not party to the secret meetings held by the minister in the search for a political breakthrough. Dayan’s military background had trained him to work with the MI and Mossad, and he had no need for the intelligence service in his own ministry. To remove pressure from himself on the question of responsibility for the non-operation of the center, Dayan appointed reserve-general Aharon Yariv to chair a committee whose task it was to define the duties and responsibilities of the CPR. Dayan also informed the committee that he did not expect the center to engage at all in planning. The committee submitted its conclusions, asserting that the CPR had an important staff function (contrary to the minister’s expectations), but the report added that if the minister found no interest in the center, it was not required at all. The MI and Mossad disregarded the CPR and did not convey raw intelligence material to it. The result was that the center did not manage to rise to the status of a significant intelligence factor, although with far smaller budgets than those of other intelligence bodies in Israel, it was able to supply

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evaluations that sometimes were better. For example, when the MI estimated that the brother of King Hussein would succeed him, the CPR correctly estimated that his successor would be one of his sons. Currently, the CPR consists of ten sections and monitors events, developments, and political processes, mainly in the Middle East, including international involvement there. The center’s main tasks include gathering, analyzing, and evaluating political information, as required by the foreign ministry; providing regular political briefings and guidance to Israel’s missions throughout the world; and assisting the political information network, in Israel and overseas, with its expertise in Middle East affairs. The CPR has succeeded in building its image as a body capable of producing intelligence assessments on international political affairs generally. Still, when Ehud Barak served as foreign minister (November 1995 to June 1996), he preferred the assessments of the MI to those of the CPR in his own ministry. The CPR was regarded as a kind of “deep freeze” for Israeli diplomats returning from missions abroad and awaiting new jobs in Jerusalem or overseas. However, in recent years, the CPR has succeeded in becoming an important intelligence agency in the Israeli intelligence community. In order to coordinate between the various intelligence organizations, a special committee was established for this purpose, the Committee of Directors, known by its Hebrew acronym VARASH. It was created by Reuven Shiloah and first convened in mid-1949. Its purpose is primarily to coordinate all Israeli domestic and foreign intelligence activity. The committee members are the director of Mossad, the director of the MI, and the director of the Israeli Security Agency; in addition, the inspector-general of the Israel Police, the director of the Center for Political Research in the foreign ministry, the counterterrorism adviser to the prime minister, and the director of Nativ were formerly members of VARASH. The director of Mossad chairs the committee, and in this capacity he is responsible directly to the prime minister. The members of VARASH are quasi-equal in their status. Meetings of VARASH occur no less frequently than biweekly. In addition to the earlier-mentioned existing Israeli intelligence organizations, there were more organizations that were dismantled. The Bureau of Scientific Liaison LAKAM is one of the intelligence organizations that was dismantled as a result of the big scandal of operating an American Jew as a spy in

144 Ephraim Kahana the United States. The English name of LAKAM is the Bureau of Scientific Liaison. LAKAM was created in 1957 under the directorship of Binyamin Blumberg (1957–1981). It was initially called the Office of Special Assignments. Its mission was to collect scientific and technical intelligence by whatever means necessary, including stealing from or bribing open or covert sources. LAKAM offices were established in the United States in Boston, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C., from which technical journals were shipped to Israel on a weekly basis. The organization was under surveillance for a long time by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). LAKAM’s best-known success was obtaining the blueprint of the French Mirage-III fighter aircraft from Swiss engineer Alfred Frauenknecht in 1968. Thereafter, its successes were minor. The LAKAM database contained the names of American Jewish scientists, including Zalman Shapiro, who was the president of Israel’s Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC). Shapiro was a pioneer in the nuclear industry in the United States and a strong supporter of Israel. Through NUMEC, LAKAM was able to obtain uranium for the Israeli nuclear weapons program. Binyamin Blumberg was succeeded by Rafael (Rafi) Eitan, who directed LAKAM until 1986. Under Eitan’s directorship, Jonathan Jay Pollard was led by LAKAM to commit espionage for Israel. Due to LAKAM’s lack of professionalism, Pollard’s identity was uncovered, and there was a great deal of scandal surrounding the case. LAKAM was disbanded as a result. From its inception, Mossad had been dissatisfied with the unprofessional nature of the bureau, largely because its agents were not trained as professional intelligence officers. A unit of the Israeli foreign ministry now obtains the technological and scientific information previously gathered by LAKAM. The Liaison Bureau The Liaison Bureau, known as Nativ, was established in March 1951 after the dismantling of the Mossad Le’Aliyah Beth, which was active in illegal immigration to Palestine during the period of the British Mandate. Its first director was Shaul Avigur. Nativ was responsible for connection with Jews in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and for immigration to Israel from those countries. Over the years, Nativ became an inseparable part of the Israeli intelligence community. It established research and intelligence-gathering units and carried out

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clandestine operations, such as sending agents under diplomatic cover to Israeli consulates in countries behind the Iron Curtain. Nativ also ran secret operations to establish contact with Jews and provide them with informational materials about Israel, prayer books, Hebrew dictionaries, and the like. To this end, it recruited Jews who were citizens of countries other than Israel and members of youth movements abroad. As a cover for its operations, Nativ also used vessels of the Israeli merchant fleet that visited Soviet harbors, especially Odessa. Every ship carried a Nativ operative, who was routinely suspected by the Soviet KGB and tailed along with the other crewmen. In 1961, Nativ expanded its operations and set up a unit called Bar, which received funding from organizations in the United States controlled by the CIA, among others. The unit was charged with spearheading a movement among Jewish organizations and leaders throughout the world to apply pressure on the Soviet Union to allow Jews to emigrate to Israel. The Kremlin considered Nativ a hostile espionage organization inciting the Jewish population to emigrate, and every effort was made to repress it, including placing the Nativ operatives under surveillance by the KGB. The expansion of its operations enabled Nativ to set up stations at Israeli embassies in Western Europe, Latin America, and the United States. The benefit to the United States in supporting Nativ was access to intelligence about the Soviet Union and other communistbloc countries, which the Israelis obtained by questioning new immigrants in order to detect any Soviet spy that might attempt to enter Israel under the guise of being an immigrant. In fact, Nativ, with its interviewing of new immigrants, was the main instrument of the intelligence community in its efforts to gather information about the Soviet Union and its satellites. Mossad played no part here and did not operate any case officers in Eastern European countries. Prior to the Six Day War of June 1967, Nativ representatives were stationed in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries as envoys with diplomatic passports and diplomatic immunity. After the severance of relations with those countries in the wake of the war, Nativ continued to send emissaries, assisted by anyone who had access to the Eastern bloc. The organization was behind the worldwide propaganda and information campaign whose slogan was “Let My People Go.” For about thirty years, Nativ secretly organized the emigration of Jews from Romania through an agreement with the regime of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Ceausescu and other senior officials in his regime received bribes in return for this agreement, which over time amounted to tens of millions of dollars deposited in secret bank accounts in Austria and Switzerland.

146 Ephraim Kahana Nativ’s clandestine operations to bring immigrants from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe largely terminated with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. After the renewal of diplomatic relations between Israel and the Eastern-bloc countries at the end of the 1980s, and still more with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Jews were increasingly able to emigrate freely from those countries. Occasionally the old methods of using connections with authorities through the transfer of funds still had to be employed. In September 1992, Nativ organized an operation to take Jews out of the city of Sukhumi, Georgia, which was under attack by Muslim rebels. That same month, it operated an airlift of Jews from Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, which was also being attacked by members of an extremist Muslim rebel group. Still, the overall change raised questions about the need for a clandestine organization like Nativ. At its peak, Nativ had about 500 employees operating from its Tel Aviv headquarters and branch offices in Israeli embassies in the countries of the former Soviet Union, as well as in Israeli consulates in the West. Clearly, the current situation no longer calls for such a large-scale operation. Yet a series of Israeli prime ministers and senior officials continued to ponder what to do with Nativ. In the 1990s, three committees were successively formed to consider Nativ’s future. In July 2000, Prime Minister Ehud Barak gave the former director of Mossad, Danny Yatom, the task of overseeing Nativ. Mossad felt that Nativ’s unit for research and intelligence should be dismantled, and in the end this was done. In the early 2000s, the task of discussing the fate of Nativ was given to yet a fourth committee. The main thrust of its recommendations was that Nativ should be reduced but not closed. The conclusion seemed to be to let the organization die a slow death. In any event, the Israeli government decided on a substantial reduction of Nativ’s annual budget and transferred part of its functions to other governmental bodies. According to one proposition, Nativ should continue merely as a cultural center. In fact, the Israeli government has already given Nativ the mission of organizing Israeli cultural centers in countries of the former Soviet Union, as well as educational systems for the Jewish communities there. Academic Institutions Several Israeli academic research institutions dealing with national security can be regarded as intelligence organizations, although officially

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they do not belong to the Israeli intelligence community. The main independent institute doing intelligence analysis on national security issues is the Institute of National Security Studies (INSS). Formerly it was named the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies (JCSS). Founded in 1977 as the Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, the JCSS received its current name in 1983 in honor of Mel Jaffee. The purpose of the JCSS and now the INSS is to conduct basic research on security-related matters, including national, regional, and international security, as well as to contribute to the public debate on the major national security issues in Israel. This academic center may be considered the academic equivalent to the MI unit of the Israel Defense Forces, though its analyses are based on unclassified material. The second most important academic center is the Moshe Dayan Center for the Middle East. Established in 1983 at Tel Aviv University, the Moshe Dayan Center concentrates its research on the Arab world, including North Africa, Turkey, and Iran. It grew out of the Reuven Shiloah Institute, which was formed in 1959 under the aegis of the Israel Oriental Society and incorporated into Tel Aviv University in 1965. The Moshe Dayan Center focuses on the modern history, politics, and current affairs of the Islamic world. As an academic institution, however, the center does not adopt or promote particular positions or policies. Its approach to furthering peace is by enhancing understanding among academics, policymakers, journalists, and the public at large about the complexities of the Middle East. A similar organization to the INSS, however smaller by means of manpower and budget, is Begin-Sadat (BESA), or Center for Strategic Studies. BESA was founded in 1991 at Bar-Ilan University in RamatGan. The center is named in memory of Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, whose groundbreaking efforts to broker peace agreements paved the way for future conflict resolution in the Middle East. It conducts research on regional and national security issues, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, Israel’s relations with the United States and other friendly countries, Middle East water resources, and Middle East arms control. The center also provides consultations for Israeli policymakers on matters of strategy, security, and peace in the Middle East, and sponsors conferences and symposiums for international and local audiences. Another academic center focusing on terror is the International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism (ICT). The ICT was established in 1966 at the Academic Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, and its sole focus is on the subject of terrorism and counterterrorism. The

148 Ephraim Kahana ICT is unique in that it combines academic knowledge with the practical experience of experts from many fields related to terrorism and counterterrorism. It assumes a global perspective on the issue of terrorism, treating it as a strategic problem not only for Israel but for other countries as well. Research is conducted on many aspects of terrorism, including the psychological effects of acts of terror and the influence of the public’s fear of terrorism on political, social, and economic decisions, both regionally and internationally. The emphasis of the organization is on the need to improve the ability of the population to cope with the psychological damage of terrorism. Although the ICT is first and foremost an academic body, it may also be considered an intelligence group insofar as its research and analysis provide decisionmakers with recommendations on how to deal with all aspects of terrorism. Conclusion The Israeli intelligence community has an essential role in safeguarding the country. Mossad, which can be considered the flagship of the Israeli intelligence agencies, and also the Military Intelligence and the Intelligence Security Agency are fighting a war for the country’s existence as a nation, to the contrary of other intelligence agencies. They are part of this war, and their fight against terrorism is essential because it is a lethal menace to the security of Israel. For that reason, the Israeli intelligence community is often asked to intervene in scenarios that are developing quickly and to confront not only the conventional forms of terrorism but also the constantly evolving tactics of the terrorists, including cyber attacks. So far, the Israeli intelligence community is doing the job well, despite several inevitable failures. Notes 1. I. Black and B. Morris, Israel’s Secret Wars: A History of Israel’s Intelligence Services (New York: Grove, 1991). 2. R. Bergman, Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations (New York: Random, 2018). 3. M. Bar-Zohar and N. Mishal, Mossad: The Greatest Missions of the Israeli Secret Service (New York: Ecco, 2012). 4. M. Bar-Zohar, Spies in the Promised Land: Iser Harel and the Israeli Secret Service (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1972).

9 Japan Yoshiki Kobayashi

Japan’s intelligence community, created after World War II, has a unique culture and characteristics compared to other Western developed countries. Although Japan has been one of the world’s largest economic powers for decades, its intelligence community is smaller in size and has limited capabilities and activities compared to those of the other Group of Seven (G7) countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States). This can be attributed to Japan’s post–World War II history. In the early 2000s, however, the government of Japan made intensive efforts to reform its intelligence community in response to the rapid changes in its national security environment, such as increasing threats of terrorism, North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs, and the potential threat in the East China Sea. In addition, hosting the 2020 Olympic Games seems to have accelerated such efforts, particularly in the counterterrorism arena.

The Intelligence Community Organizational Structure

Currently, the intelligence community in Japan consists of five core organizations (see Figure 9.1): the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office (CIRO), the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

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150 Yoshiki Kobayashi the Public Security Intelligence Agency (PSIA), and the National Police Agency (NPA). Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office. The CIRO was established

in 1952 within the cabinet secretariat. Its roles and functions are somewhat similar to those of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in the United States, although the CIRO’s powers and authorities are much smaller. Since the CIRO is a part of the cabinet secretariat, it is directly connected to the prime minister and is responsible for coordinating the entire intelligence community. Figure 9.1 Japan’s Intelligence Community Prime Minister

Chief Cabinet Secretary

Cabinet Intelligence Council

National Security Council

Director of Cabinet Intelligence

Intelligence Community

Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office

Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Intelligence and Analysis Service)

Ministry of Defense (Defense Intelligence Headquarters)

National Police Agency (Public Security Bureau)

Ministry of Justice (Public Security and Intelligence Agency)

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The head of the CIRO is the director of cabinet intelligence. As a well-established customary practice, the director meets with the prime minister on a regular basis (usually at least once or twice a week) to provide updated intelligence briefings. The director also attends National Security Council (NSC) meetings. The CIRO does not have much intelligence collection capabilities of its own, except for the Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Center (CSIC) and the International Counterterrorism Intelligence Collection Unit (CTU), which are affiliated with the CIRO. On the other hand, the CIRO has fairly intensive analytical capabilities and is responsible for producing intelligence estimate reports, which are “all-sourced” intelligence products representing the official views of the entire intelligence community, similar to the national intelligence estimates in the United States. These functions of the CIRO have been enhanced as a result of the ongoing reforms to the intelligence community. Detailed information on the CIRO’s personnel and budget is not publicly available. According to the limited data available on the official website of the cabinet secretariat of Japan, however, in fiscal year 2018 (April 2018–March 2019) the CIRO had an annual budget of 3.3 billion Japanese yen (US$33 million), while the CSIC had a separate annual budget of approximately 62 billion Japanese yen (US$620 million). It is also estimated that both the CIRO and the CSIC have 200 to 300 personnel.

Ministry of Defense. Within the Ministry of Defense, the Defense Intel-

ligence Headquarters (DIH) deals with military intelligence, including signals intelligence (SIGINT) and imagery intelligence (IMINT). The DIH’s roles and functions are similar to those of the Defense Intelligence Agency in the United States. It is estimated that in fiscal year 2019, the DIH had approximately 2,500 staff members with a budget of 51 billion yen (US$500 million).1

Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the

Intelligence and Analysis Service (IAS) provides general analyses of the international situation for diplomatic purposes. The IAS is somewhat equivalent to the US State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The main sources of the IAS’s intelligence analysis are diplomatic cables sent from Japan’s diplomatic missions overseas. It is estimated that in fiscal year 2012, the IAS had approximately 80 staff members and a budget of 500 million yen (US$5 million).

152 Yoshiki Kobayashi Public Security Intelligence Agency. The PSIA was established in 1952

based on the Subversive Activities Prevention Act as an affiliated agency of the Ministry of Justice. Its mission is to investigate organizations that allegedly engage in violent subversive activities. For example, Aum Shinrikyo, which carried out the sarin gas attack on the subway system in Tokyo in 1995, as well as groups alleged to have adopted Aum’s ideas, have been under the PSIA’s surveillance. It is estimated that in fiscal year 2019, the PSIA had approximately 1,600 staff members with a budget of 15 billion yen (US$150 million).

National Police Agency. Within the NPA, the Security Bureau is in charge of counterterrorism, counterintelligence, counterproliferation, and the investigation of national security-related criminal cases. Unlike the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States, the NPA does not have its own investigative powers or jurisdiction. Instead, it is responsible for supervising and coordinating all forty-seven local prefectural police forces in the country. There are approximately 300,000 police officers in Japan in total. Since Japan does not have an organization specializing in domestic intelligence activities, the police fill this functional vacuum, together with the PSIA. Associate member organizations. The basic structure of Japan’s intelli-

gence community was established in 1952 when the CIRO was created, and it has not fundamentally changed since. In March 2008, however, four organizations joined the intelligence community as associate member organizations: the Financial Services Agency; the Ministry of Finance; the Ministry of Economics, Trade, and Industry; and the Coast Guard. This was a part of the reform efforts, which started in 2008. These associate members are supposed to participate in intelligence community activities on an ad hoc basis. For instance, the Coast Guard may be involved in the assessment of maritime territorial disputes between Japan and neighboring countries. Policymakers and the Intelligence Community

According to the intelligence cycle theory, the primary mission of the intelligence community is to support decisionmaking by policymakers, and intelligence activities should be initiated by the delivery of policymakers’ intelligence requirements to the intelligence community. Therefore, there should be a mechanism within the government that effectively connects policymakers with the intelligence community.2 Otherwise, policy-

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makers’ intelligence requirements cannot be properly delivered to the community and, as a consequence, the community cannot function adequately. Within the government of Japan, the Cabinet Intelligence Council (CIC) is regarded as the primary hub connecting policymakers and the intelligence community.3 Created in October 1998 within the cabinet secretariat, the CIC is chaired by the chief cabinet secretary, and its members include senior officials (i.e., vice ministerial–level officials) of major policy departments as well as the heads of the member organizations of the intelligence community, with the CIRO performing secretarial functions. The CIC is responsible for assembling and deciding the medium- and long-term intelligence requirements of the entire government as well as for delivering these requirements to the intelligence community. The community, in turn, is supposed to produce intelligence products such as the intelligence estimate reports based on the given requirements and to report these products back to the CIC. In addition, as noted earlier, the head of the CIRO meets regularly with the prime minister to deliver intelligence briefings. This practice is similar to the ODNI’s presidential daily briefing in the United States, although the frequencies of the meetings differ. Given that, it could be said that the director of cabinet intelligence also functions as another primary institutional hub connecting policymakers and the intelligence community. While the CIC deals with the medium- and long-term intelligence requirements of the entire government, the director of cabinet intelligence deals with relatively short-term requirements directly from the prime minister. In December 2013, the Abe Shinzo administration created the National Security Council, which is similar to the same-named council in the United States. Its primary mission is to examine and decide national security policies efficiently. The NSC is chaired by the prime minister, and its core members include the chief cabinet secretary, foreign minister, and defense minister. The director of cabinet intelligence is also almost always invited to attend NSC meetings, representing the intelligence community. This is similar to the fact that, in the United States, the director of national intelligence is also almost always invited to attend National Security Council meetings as a primary intelligence adviser to the president. Thus Japan’s recently created NSC also functions as one of institutional hubs connecting policymakers and the intelligence community. Democratic Oversight Mechanism

Japan has had a parliamentary system since its political modernization in the late nineteenth century, so in theory all governmental activities

154 Yoshiki Kobayashi including those of the intelligence community should be accountable to the National Diet. For instance, the governmental budget including the intelligence community’s is subject to the Diet’s approval. Cabinet ministers related to the intelligence community (such as chief cabinet secretary, foreign minister, defense minister, and justice minister) are supposed to answer to the Diet’s inquiries regarding the intelligence community’s activities. Beyond that, however, Japan has had no major mechanism specialized in the oversight of the intelligence community, equivalent to congressional intelligence committees in the United States or the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee in the United Kingdom. Given the relatively smaller size and limited capabilities and activities of Japan’s intelligence community after World War II, there have been few political or public calls to enhance the external oversight of the intelligence community. For decades, neither policymakers nor the general public have paid much attention to the issue of oversight. Moreover, the general public has been somewhat skeptical of parliamentary oversight of intelligence and law enforcement organizations (even though the National Diet is the democratic representative of the general public). This could be because since both the intelligence community and law enforcement in Japan were highly politicized before and during World War II, the general public has preferred maintaining the political neutrality of the intelligence community rather than putting it under the oversight of politicians. Characteristics of Japan’s Intelligence Community In terms of comparison with intelligence communities in other major Western developed nations, such as G7 countries and Australia, the main characteristics of Japan’s intelligence community can be summarized as follows.4 First, the size, capabilities and activities of Japan’s intelligence community seem smaller, although accurate information is not publicly available due to the secrecy-oriented nature of the intelligence business. It should be noted that, among G7 countries and Australia, Japan is the only country that has no major organization specializing in clandestine foreign HUMINT (human intelligence) activities equivalent to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or British Military Intelligence 6 (MI6). In addition, Japan has no organization specializing in domestic intelligence activities equivalent to that of the British Military Intelligence 5 (MI5) or Australian Security Intelligence Organization. Among the G7 countries

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and Australia, only the United States and Japan do not have such organizations. (This chapter assumes that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service [CSIS] is primarily a domestic intelligence service, although these days the CSIS has expanded its overseas activities.) In Japan, the police and the PSIA, whose primary missions are not necessarily domestic intelligence, have filled this functional vacuum. This situation could be attributed to the fact that, after World War II, a large part of Japan’s national security establishment was abandoned, including intelligence organizations that used to be very active before and during the war. Since then, Japan has relied on the United States and other allies for a large part of its national security capacity, including intelligence. Second, the integration of the intelligence community in Japan seems looser or weaker. One of the major reasons for this is the fact that neither the CIRO nor the director of cabinet intelligence, head of the CIRO, has sufficient powers or authority to supervise the other member organizations of the community, even though the CIRO is responsible for coordinating the entire community. In particular, neither the CIRO nor the director of cabinet intelligence has any budgetary or personnel authority or influence over the other member organizations. It is true that the director of national intelligence in the United States has faced similar problems. The powers and authority of Japan’s director of cabinet intelligence, however, seem even weaker than those of the US counterpart. As a result, the integration and cooperation within the intelligence community in Japan, including effective information sharing, seems weaker than those in other major countries. The recent intelligence community reforms have improved this situation to some extent. It seems that the integration of Japan’s intelligence community, however, still remains vulnerable and lags behind the other major countries in this regard. Intelligence Community Reforms As mentioned earlier, the basic structure of Japan’s current intelligence community was established in 1952 and has not changed much since. At the same time, however, a number of reforms have been undertaken, in particular since the early 2000s. These efforts, aimed at improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the community, have come in response to the changing international security environment. In August 1998, for instance, North Korea conducted intermediate-range ballistic missile tests and these missiles flew over Japan’s territory. Since then, Pyongyang has repeatedly conducted various intermediate-range ballistic missile and

156 Yoshiki Kobayashi nuclear program tests, which represent serious national security threats to Japan. In addition, since 9/11, Japan has been a potential target of “antiWestern” terrorist attacks, because it is a close ally of the United States and the host of many US military facilities. Given these conditions, a number of policy recommendations regarding possible intelligence community reforms were published by political parties, private policy think tanks, and academic scholars (e.g., reports by the Liberal Democratic Party in 2002 and 2006, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2005, and the Peace and Happiness Through Prosperity Policy Institute in 2006). Although these recommendations were different in their details, they contain common elements:

1. Problem of intelligence requirements. The government lacked effective mechanisms to deliver intelligence requirements from policymakers to the intelligence community properly due in part to the lack of community integration and weak leadership authority given to the CIRO and the director of cabinet intelligence. 2. Problem of intelligence collection. The community lacked sufficient intelligence collection capability in almost all areas, including HUMINT, SIGINT, IMINT, and so on. 3. Problem of intelligence analysis. Intelligence sharing and analytical cooperation within the government was very inactive. There was no community-wide “all-sourced” intelligence analysis product. The weak integration of the community made the situation worse. 4. Problem of counterintelligence. The community lacked even a basic counterintelligence mechanism, such as a reliable security clearance system, laws to protect secret information, and so on. This may be one of the major obstacles that prevented effective intelligence sharing with foreign counterparts, as well as within the Japanese intelligence community.

The Government Panel on Intelligence Community Reform and the 2008 Report

Given this situation, in December 2006 the government of Japan set up a special panel to explore the enhancement of intelligence capabilities, chaired by the chief cabinet secretary. This was less than three months after Prime Minister Abe, who seemed keener to reestablish Japan’s national security mechanism than his predecessors, began his first term in September 2006. On February 14, 2008, after a series of discussions, the panel released its final report—“The Policy Program to Enhance

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Intelligence Capabilities of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Cabinet”—which contained a list of policy recommendations. This 2008 report has been an important basis for Japan’s intelligence community reform. Its policy recommendations included (1) enhancement of intelligence capabilities (establishing the mechanism to connect policymakers and the intelligence community, improving intelligence collection, and improving intelligence analysis and sharing) and (2) enhancement of information security (counterintelligence). The 2008 report reflected the previous studies mentioned earlier, conducted by political parties, private policy think tanks, and scholars. This means that the 2008 report was the product not just of studies by the government panel, but also of a series of discussions both within and outside the government that started in the early 2000s. The 2008 report was the first official document of the government of Japan to examine the nation’s intelligence community in a comprehensive and theoretical manner, based on the intelligence cycle theory, according to which the primary purpose of intelligence activities is to support decisionmaking by top policymakers, such as the president and the prime minister. The entire intelligence process includes requirements, collection, analysis and production, dissemination and consumption, and feedback.5 The 2008 report stated that the purpose of the intelligence reforms was to support decisionmaking by the prime minister and the cabinet. It also provided a comprehensive analysis of each step of the intelligence process, based on the intelligence cycle theory. As a result, its final policy recommendations covered not only popular subjects (e.g., the possibility of creating a foreign HUMINT organization) but also relatively inconspicuous but theoretically important issues such as establishing the mechanism to connect policymakers and the intelligence community. This is contrary to previous studies of Japan’s intelligence community, which tended to focus on only a few main topics while paying very little attention to the intelligence process as a whole. Implementation of the 2008 Report

After the release of the report in February 2008, the government started reforming the intelligence community and, to date, a large part of its policy recommendations have been implemented Establishing the mechanism to connect policymakers and the intelligence community. As mentioned earlier, one of the major criticisms

of Japan’s intelligence community in preceding studies was the lack of

158 Yoshiki Kobayashi an effective mechanism to deliver intelligence requirements from policymakers to the community. In response, the 2008 report recommended the establishment of an institutional mechanism, with the director of cabinet intelligence and the CIC serving as institutional hubs connecting policymakers and the intelligence community. Even before the 2008 report, the director of cabinet intelligence had been regarded as a leader of the intelligence community, delivering intelligence briefings to the prime minister, a role that had no formal basis, however, and that was not widely acknowledged. In fact, some members of the intelligence community preferred having direct contact with the prime minister and often bypassed the director of cabinet intelligence or the CIRO. The 2008 report was the first official government document that designated the director of cabinet intelligence as an institutional hub and that provided a formal basis for the director’s role as a head of the intelligence community. At the time of the creation of the CIC in 1998, its original roles and missions were so vague that it was not necessarily considered a hub. In fact, the CIC used to be limited to members of the intelligence community, and did not include policy departments except for the chief cabinet secretary, who was its chairperson. The 2008 report recommended restructuring the CIC in accordance with this new mission as a hub. Consequently, on March 28, 2008, the government made a cabinet decision to reorganize the CIC, as well as to formally designate the CIC and the director of cabinet intelligence as hubs connecting policymakers and the intelligence community. For instance, the cabinet decision provided the CIC with the new responsibility of assembling and deciding the intelligence requirements of the entire government and delivering them to the intelligence community. It also required the intelligence community to produce intelligence products such as intelligence estimate reports based on the given requirements and to report the products back to the CIC. In accordance with the change in its missions, the membership of the CIC was expanded not only to intelligence organizations but also to policy departments.

Improving intelligence collection capabilities. The most important part of Japan’s efforts to improve intelligence collection capabilities was the creation of a reconnaissance satellite program. Such efforts had started even before the government established the panel on intelligence reform in 2006, although the program had not reached a fully operational status at that time. Thus, the 2008 report recommended assurance that the program would achieve full operational status as soon as possible.

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In December 1998, the government of Japan made a cabinet decision to establish an indigenous reconnaissance satellite program, approximately four months after North Korea launched intermediate-range ballistic missiles over Japan’s territory. The government had been actively exploring the possibility of creating such a program since the early 1990s, but it is likely that Pyongyang’s missile test, which surprised and frightened the Japanese public, triggered Tokyo’s decision to proactively step forward.6 Consequently, in April 2001 the Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Center was created within the CIRO to be in charge of running the reconnaissance satellite program. In March 2003, the first two indigenously produced reconnaissance satellites were launched. In April 2013, after a series of failures and delays, the program finally achieved full operational status as originally planned. Since then, the program has operated two synthetic-aperture radar satellites as well as electro-optical satellites, according to the official website of the cabinet secretariat of Japan. In addition to this program, in December 2015 the government of Japan established the International Counterterrorism Intelligence Collection Unit within the cabinet secretariat, which is responsible for collecting terrorism-related intelligence abroad. While the 2008 report mentioned very little about the possibility of creating an organization specializing in overseas intelligence collection activities, the political momentum to enhance counterterrorism intelligence functions accelerated after the International Olympic Committee decided to hold the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo in September 2013. The increasing terrorism threats by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) at that time also accelerated this trend.

Improving intelligence analysis and sharing. As mentioned, one of the major criticisms of Japan’s intelligence community by earlier studies was the fact that intelligence sharing and analytical cooperation within the government were very weak and that, as a consequence, there was no community-wide “all-sourced” intelligence analysis product. In response to such criticism, the 2008 report recommended that allsourced intelligence analysis products be produced under the supervision of the director of cabinet intelligence; high-rank analyst positions be created within the CIRO to take charge of producing these allsourced intelligence analysis products; and community membership be expanded to enhance intelligence sharing within the government. In March 2008, the government made a cabinet decision that required the intelligence community to produce intelligence estimate

160 Yoshiki Kobayashi reports as community-wide “all-sourced” intelligence analysis products under the director of cabinet intelligence’s leadership, based on intelligence requirements given by the CIC, and to report the products back to the CIC. In addition, in April 2008, cabinet intelligence officer positions were created within the CIRO. The cabinet intelligence officers are somewhat equivalent to national intelligence officers in the United States and are responsible for producing intelligence estimate reports under the supervision of the director of cabinet intelligence. The cabinet decision in March 2008 also expanded the membership of the intelligence community. As a result, in addition to the five core member organizations, four other organizations joined the community as associate members.

Enhancing information security (counterintelligence). In December 2006, the government of Japan established a panel to explore enhancing counterintelligence, chaired by the chief cabinet secretary. The 2008 report basically endorsed the discussions of this panel and recommended that community-wide standards, such as the common security clearance system, be established for information security, and that laws to protect secret information be introduced. In April 2008, the government created the Counterintelligence Center within the CIRO, in charge of coordinating counterintelligence policies in the government. At the same time, the government introduced the standard security clearance program, which would be applied to the entire government. Moreover, in 2014, after several years of preparation, the government proposed a bill to create a new secrets protection program, the official name of which was the Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets. The Japanese Diet passed the bill on December 6, 2013, and the new law became effective on December 10, 2014. This law was aimed at protecting highly sensitive secrets related to defense, diplomacy, counterterrorism, and so on. It was expected that the new law, along with the new security clearance program, which was also enhanced by the new law, would improve the overall counterintelligence capabilities of the government and, as a result, enhance intelligence sharing within the intelligence community and with foreign counterparts.

Conclusion Yoshiki Kobayashi produced an assessment in 2015 of the outcome of the reforms based on quantitative analysis of publicly available data as well as qualitative analysis of interviews with former and current gov-

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ernment officials.7 This study concluded that Japan had successfully achieved some of the initial purposes of the intelligence community reforms based on the 2008 report, particularly in terms of first, establishing an effective institutional mechanism connecting policymakers and the intelligence community, enhancing the relationship between the director of cabinet intelligence and the prime minister, as well as the integration of the community under the director of cabinet intelligence’s leadership; and second, improving intelligence collection capabilities particularly through the reconnaissance satellite intelligence program. The study had several limitations, however, mostly due to the lack of publicly available data. Moreover, the assessment of other issues, such as enhancing intelligence analysis and counterintelligence capabilities, remains to be done, as there is a lack of sufficient information. The ongoing intelligence community reforms outlined by the 2008 report might have missed some important issues (although discussing these issues in depth is beyond the scope of the present study). First, the 2008 report recommended strengthening the director of cabinet intelligence’s status as a leader of the intelligence community in order to enhance community integration. The ongoing reforms have improved the situation and achieved this goal to some extent, but the director has no personnel or budgetary authority over the other members of the community, so the position’s status still remains vulnerable and weak in comparison with counterparts in other major countries. Second, the 2008 report emphasized the importance of close communication between policymakers and the intelligence community, while paying little attention to how to prevent some possible negative effects of this policy, namely, the possible politicization of intelligence. Third, the 2008 report neglected to cover the issue of democratic oversight of the intelligence community. These shortcomings could be a reflection of the fact that the scale of Japan’s intelligence activities is still very minimal, so that these issues are not seriously acknowledged. Earlier experiences in other countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, however, indicate that advanced intelligence communities do face these issues. It is possible that, if Japan continues to enhance its intelligence capabilities, it will have to address the same challenges. Notes 1. Taro Kono, Sumio Mabuchi, and Koichi Yamauchi, “Nihon-gata ‘Spy-Soshiki’ no Tsukurikata” (How to Establish a Spy Agency Suitable for Japan), Chuo Koron no. 5 (2013), 94–101.

162 Yoshiki Kobayashi 2. Mark Lowenthal, Intelligence from Secrets to Policy, 6th ed. (Los Angeles: Congressional Quarterly, 2015), 254. 3. Cabinet Secretariat of Japan, Wagakuni no Jyoho-kino ni Tsuite (Japan’s Intelligence Functions) (Tokyo, 2013). 4. Yoshiki Kobayashi, Fundamentals of Intelligence, 2nd ed. (Tokyo: Tachibana Shobo, 2014), 58–59. 5. Lowenthal, Intelligence from Secrets to Policy, 70–86. 6. William Radcliffe, “Origins and Current State of Japan’s Reconnaissance Satellite Program,” Studies in Intelligence 54 no. 3 (2010), 9–21. 7. Yoshiki Kobayashi, “Assessing Reform of the Japanese Intelligence Community,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 28, no. 4 (2015), 717–733.

10 Jordan Hani Al Jbour

Jordan is a relatively small country situated at the junction of the Levantine and Arabian areas of the Middle East, bordered on the north by Syria, to the east by Iraq, and by Saudi Arabia on the east and south. To the west are Israel and the occupied West Bank, while Jordan’s only outlet to the sea, the Gulf of Aqaba, is to the south. Jordan occupies an area of approximately 96,100 square kilometers including the Dead Sea, making it similar in size to Austria or Portugal. However, Jordan’s diverse terrain and landscape belie its actual size, demonstrating a variety usually found only in large countries. Jordan can be divided into three main geographic and climatic areas: the Jordan Valley, the Mountain Heights Plateau, and the eastern desert, or Badia region. With a population numbering 10 million, Jordan is the eleventh most populous Arab country. Sunni Islam, practiced by around 95 percent of the population, is the dominant religion in Jordan and coexists with an indigenous Christian minority. Amman is the capital city of Jordan, located in north-central Jordan. It is Jordan’s most populous city as well as the country’s economic, political, and cultural center. The country is divided into twelve governorates (informally grouped into three regions: northern, central, and southern). Jordan is a unitary state under a constitutional monarchy. For most of its history since independence from British administration in 1946, it was ruled by King Hussein (1953–1999). A pragmatic ruler, he successfully navigated competing pressures from the major powers (United States, Soviet Union, and United Kingdom), various Arab states, Israel, and a large internal Palestinian population through several wars and 163

164 Hani Al Jbour coup attempts. In 1989 he resumed parliamentary elections and gradually permitted political liberalization. In 1994 a formal peace treaty was signed with Israel. King Abdullah II, the eldest son of King Hussein and Princess Muna, ascended the throne following his father’s death in February 1999. Since then, he has consolidated his power and established his domestic priorities, including an aggressive economic reform program. Jordan acceded to the World Trade Organization in January 2000 and signed free trade agreements with the United States in 2000 and with the European Free Trade Association in 2001. Jordan is a founding member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and of the Arab League. It has an association agreement with the European Union and is part of the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP), which aims to increase links between the EU and its neighbors. There are about 50,000 Jordanian troops working with the United Nations in peacekeeping missions across the world. Jordan ranks third internationally in participation in UN peacekeeping missions. Jordan has also dispatched several field hospitals to conflict zones and areas affected by natural disasters across the region. Jordan has been repeatedly referred to as an “oasis of stability” in a turbulent region. It has been mostly unscathed by the violence that swept the region following the Arab Spring in 2010. From as early as 1948, Jordan has accepted refugees from multiple neighboring countries in conflict. An estimated 2.1 million Palestinian and 1.4 million Syrian refugees are present in Jordan as of a 2015 census.1 The kingdom is also a refuge to thousands of Iraqi Christians fleeing persecution by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).2 While Jordan continues to accept refugees, the recent large influx from Syria has placed substantial strain on national resources and infrastructure. Challenges The geopolitical situation of Jordan and its existence between many unstable countries and conflict areas, in addition to its closeness to the Palestinian issue, and the struggle with Israel have posed many economic, political, and social challenges to Jordan, not to mention the big imbalances between its population and its resources that have arisen as a result of a continuous influx of refugees from neighboring areas. Consequently, the most challenging security issues today for the kingdom are terrorism, refugees, the Palestinian issue, and the economic situation.

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Terrorism

The challenge of terrorism is associated with the security and political conditions in the countries and areas near Jordan, such as the Palestinian regions, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, and Libya. This is increasingly due to the events and protests taking place in these areas and their state of lawlessness, exacerbated by forces of extremism and terrorism headed by al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Jordan is being exposed to constant and numerous attempts by these terrorist organizations and forces to destabilize its internal security. They not only strike the Jordanian interests inside and outside the country, as well as foreign interests in Jordan, but they also smuggle terrorist individuals, weapons, and explosives for implementing terrorist attacks in Jordan or in Israel. The extent of the borders between Jordan and its neighboring countries (Iraq, Syria, Israel), estimated at 1,740 kilometers, shows the security burden that the Jordanian security forces face in monitoring these borders and stopping the infiltration and smuggling operations. Al-Qaeda launched coordinated explosions under Abu Musab alZarqawi’s leadership in three hotel lobbies in Amman on November 9, 2005, resulting in 60 dead and 115 injured. The bombings, which targeted civilians, caused widespread outrage among Jordanians. The attack is now considered to have been a rare event in the country, and Jordan’s internal security was dramatically improved afterward. No major terrorist attacks have occurred since then. Still, King Abdullah II and Jordan are viewed with contempt by Islamic extremists for the country’s peace treaty with Israel and Jordan’s relations with the West.3 It should not be forgotten that King Abdullah I was assassinated at the al-Aqsa Mosque in 1951 by a Palestinian militant amid rumors that he intended to sign a peace treaty with Israel. Also, in 2014, Jordan joined an aerial bombardment campaign by an international coalition led by the United States against ISIS as part of its role in the international campaign against terrorism. Refugees

Despite the substantial strain the influx of Syrian refugees has placed on the country, the Kingdom of Jordan has continued to demonstrate hospitality. This, however, is affecting Jordanian communities, as the vast majority of Syrian refugees do not live in camps. These effects include competition for job opportunities, water resources, and other state-provided services, along with the strain on the national infrastructure.4 The costs of the Syrian refugees are roughly US$2.9 billion (8

166 Hani Al Jbour percent of Jordan’s gross domestic product [GDP]), according to the government, of which only 5.5 percent has been covered by the international community. The influx has placed immense strains on public services. About 140,000 Syrian children have been enrolled in Jordan’s already crowded public schools, and housing costs in the north have risen by a staggering 300 percent, according to the government, and with the arrival of more than 200,000 Syrian laborers, around 10 percent of Jordan’s work force, who are willing to work at below-market wages, there are mounting pressures on the labor market.5 The Palestinian Issue

Jordan is one of the big Arabic countries involved with the Palestinian issue. No other country is as tied politically, socially, demographically, historically, and geographically to the Palestinians, and no other country’s political dynamics are as adversely affected by their ongoing predicament. Hardly a day passes without Jordan being reminded that the central cause of instability in the region is the Palestinian issue. The lack of progress on establishing a two-state solution and the immeasurable human suffering in Palestinian territories continue to weigh heavily on Jordan, including on the fate of the more than 1.8 million registered Palestinian refugees in Jordan. Continuing the Palestinian issue with no fair solution causes big problems to Jordan’s stability and creates pressure spots in the country. Jordan contains the majority of Palestinian refugees outside the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and those refugees with strong Islamic convictions agitate to the public and on the Jordanian street against Israeli violence against the Palestinians in occupied territory. This situation plays a major role in enhancing terrorism in Jordan and the wider region. The Economic Situation

Since 1948, and especially after 1967, the political instability caused by the Arab-Israeli conflict has cast its shadow on Jordan’s economic development. Despite these constraints, it is hard to classify Jordan’s progress in the past quarter of a century as anything but a success story. Reforms saw the country’s economy explode with an eightfold GDP increase between 1990 and 2014, and an average growth of 7 percent per year from 2000 to 2008, according to Jordan’s central bank. However, since then, growth has slowed down and private investment has dwindled, and despite achieving relative financial stability, Jor-

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dan still depends on foreign aid. One of the biggest problems could end up being unemployment. More than seven out of ten people in Jordan are under age twenty-nine. The economy would have to grow 6 percent each year just to keep them all employed, and the current growth rate of around 3 percent means only half of the needed jobs will be created. For many in Jordan, economic reform is a necessary but not sufficient recipe for success. Like in many other developing countries, transitioning from the old system to a modern, merit-based, inclusive civil society will be a long and difficult process. In resource-poor Jordan this will be no easy task. On the one hand, depending on foreign aid makes donor conditions very important for change. But on the other hand, embarking on important economic reforms without advancing better governance, political freedoms, and accountability is almost impossible to achieve anywhere. The problem is that reform measures are, and will always be, opposed and perceived as an existential threat by major constituencies in the country. For the reform process in Jordan to be credible, complete, and successful, a national consensus is required to define the road ahead. The 2005 national agenda, an attempt at wholesale changes to Jordan’s political and fiscal systems, failed to produce its desired outcome because it lacked the necessary national buy-in. For any reform process to succeed, a consensus must be reached among all parties to chart the way ahead. The quicker Jordan succeeds in forging a national consensus on its reform efforts, the easier it will be to positively address and fulfill the aspirations of its youth, regardless of the constraints. This is as true in Jordan as in most Arab countries today. Jordan is classified by the World Bank as an upper-middle-income country. However, approximately 14.4 percent of the population still live below the national poverty line on a long-term basis (as of 2010), while almost a third fall below the national poverty line during some time of the year, a phenomenon known as transient poverty.6 The proportion of well-educated and skilled workers in Jordan is among the highest in the region in sectors such as information communications technology and industry due to a relatively modern educational system. This has attracted large foreign investments to Jordan and has enabled the country to export its work force to Arabian Gulf countries.7 Flows of remittances to Jordan grew rapidly particularly during the end of the 1970s and 1980s and remain an important source of external funding. Remittances from Jordanian expatriates were US$3.8 billion in 2015, a notable rise in the amount of transfers compared to 2014, when remittances reached almost US$3.7 billion, making Jordan the fourth largest recipient in the region.8 The tourism sector is considered a

168 Hani Al Jbour cornerstone of the economy and is a large source of employment, hard currency, and economic growth. In 2010, there were 8 million visitors to Jordan, the majority of them coming from European and other Arab countries.9 In terms of water resources per capita, Jordan is the world’s second poorest country, and scarce water resources have been aggravated by the influx of Syrian refugees.10 The Jordanian General Intelligence Department Despite the negative repercussions of some of their activities, intelligence services are vital and fundamental tools against threats to national security. However, the noble purpose of preserving national security, whatever it is, and the measures taken to achieve this goal must be carried out in accordance with the rule of law and the constitution. On its website, the Jordanian General Intelligence Department (GID) confirms that it is committed in all its actions and intelligence procedures to the Jordanian constitution and the laws, regulations, and legislations in force.11 It also abides by and respects Jordan’s obligations under international treaties and conventions, in particular the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention Against Torture, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1984. The Jordanian General Intelligence Department was established in 1964 as a national security department under a law that states that it aims to preserve the security and stability of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Historically known for its high efficiency in maintaining the state’s security, it is considered today an institution with an exceptional presence in the affairs of the Jordanian state. In addition, the GID plays nowadays a large and growing role in international efforts against terrorism and extremism. However, for obvious reasons, the academic literature on the GID is almost nonexistent. Consequently, in this research I have relied on less traditional sources of information such as the website of the GID, other electronic sites, foreign newspapers, and personal and public information as audio sources. The GID is one of the most famous official institutions in Jordan because of its influence and presence on the domestic scene. Consequently, in Jordan the word “department” has become exclusively synonymous with the GID. Since the GID was established, it has not remained hidden from view. Its headquarters are well known and considered one of the capital’s main buildings, and its buildings in the provinces are also known, as citizens may be called there for an interview or investigation, or

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to complete transactions related to them. In addition, the director of the department appears in the media and performs official public functions. The department’s officers are known to the public and interact with community members without attempting to conceal their jobs or their names. The department’s own website explains in detail its organizations, work, duties, vision, and mechanisms. It also describes the anticorruption activity practiced by the department and the uniqueness of its own directorate. The GID website explains how it was the first Arab intelligence service to have such a site on the internet. Later, many Arabic intelligence services took the same online step as had the GID. However, it is worth looking into the GID’s actions in an attempt to draw a picture that is closest to reality. The General Intelligence Act The General Intelligence Act is a short law consisting of fourteen articles, stipulating the establishment of a General Intelligence Department in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan that is subordinate to the prime minister. The law stipulates that the GID consists of what were then called the Bureau of Political Investigations and the Department of Public Investigation, the former belonging to the army’s general command office and the latter falling in the domain of the Directorate of Public Security, or the so-called police force. The law detailed the GID’s relationship with the executive authority and its military character, its personnel and officers, its functions, its administration, and its financial budget. Status of the GID in the Executive Branch

The General Intelligence Department is one of the institutions of the executive and is directly linked to the prime minister. It does not follow any ministry or other governmental or military authority. This is clear from the second article of its law, which states, “A department called the General Intelligence Department shall be established in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and shall be directly linked to the prime minister.” The GID, as stated in its law, is an independent department with its own cadres and systems that can address other ministries and departments directly. The director of the GID is appointed and dismissed directly by the king according to the provisions of Article 127 of the constitution. The officers are appointed by royal decree and upon the recommendation of the director and the prime minister. Intelligence personnel are selected from a pool of people who apply for appointments. A candidate will

170 Hani Al Jbour undergo a series of tests and will need to meet educational and good conduct requirements. The GID includes qualified cadres of men and women from various disciplines. They are trained according to the nature of their duties. The general director of the GID is accountable to the prime minister for the department’s work, results, and expenses. He must periodically review the information affecting the state’s security, as well as the intelligence budget, its accounts, and financial results. The Intelligence Law also stipulates that the prime minister has the authority to mandate the General Intelligence Department to carry out secret operations. Muhammad Rasul al-Kilani was the first director of the GID when it was established in 1964. This founder was succeeded successively by Mudar Badran, who later became three times Jordan’s prime minister; Nazir Rashid, who later became interior minister; Ahmed Obeidat, who later took over the Ministry of Interior and then became prime minister; Tariq Aladdin, who was appointed by the late King Hussein as his special adviser; Mustafa al-Qaisi, who was appointed after his dismissal from the Senate; Samih al-Batikhi, who was appointed by the current king in the Senate; and Samih Asfoura, who was appointed by current king Abdullah II. Asfoura had not been in power for more than eight months when he was sacked in the wake of the hotel bombings in Amman in 2005 carried out by the Islamic State. Afterward, the department was successively led by Mohammed al-Dahabi, Mohammed al-Rikad, Faisal al-Shobaki, and Adnan al-Jundi. In April 2019, Ahmed Hassan Hatokai, a Jordanian of Circassian origin, was appointed director. The GID therefore is part of the executive institutions headed by the prime minister and is directly responsible for its actions before him. The Council of Ministers is the holder of the general mandate in the conduct of the affairs of the Jordanian state, as stipulated in Article 145 of the constitution, which states, “The Council of Ministers shall be responsible for the administration of all internal and external affairs of the State, except as may be entrusted to any other person or entity under the Constitution or any other legislation.” It also follows that the government is responsible to the House of Representatives for any acts carried out by the GID in the event that the House of Representatives decides to extend its control over these acts. Military Status of the GID

The GID has a clear military character, made evident from Article 1 of its law, which states that all members of the GID, including officers, petty officers, and other individuals, are considered to be members of

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the Jordanian armed forces. However, this does not mean that the GID is part of the army or is affiliated in any way with its leadership. Contrary to the civil and gendarmerie forces, it falls under the remit of the prime minister, as noted earlier. The Intelligence Law also stipulates that members of the GID shall be subject to the provisions of the Armed Forces Act concerning rights, duties, prohibitions, military ranks, salaries, recruitment, appointment, classification, promotion, transportation, vacations, military discipline and courtesy, trial, resignation, termination of service, retirement, and responsibility of public funds in their custody or possession. They thus fall under the provisions of the military penal code with regard to crimes committed during their service. Employees and members of the General Intelligence Department who commit a crime will be tried by a special military council of the department. The general prosecutor’s office is headed by a judicial officer from the GID corps. Article 15 of the Law on the Formation of Temporary Military Courts of 2002 applies in such cases, stating, “The judicial authority includes investigating bodies, officers, members of the military police, public security, military security and general intelligence, within its competence, unit commanders, military formations, site commanders and detachments, all in relation to their subordinates in the crimes committed in their units and formations.” Jurisdiction of the GID

Article 8 of the Intelligence Law stipulates the two main tasks of the GID. The first is to carry out operations and intelligence tasks to protect the security of the kingdom and ensure its safety. The second is the secret business assigned to it by the prime minister under written orders. According to the same article, the legislator entrusts the security forces with the assistance of the intelligence service in carrying out its tasks. No other article refers to the jurisdiction or nature of the work of the GID or gives more details, but the third article refers to it indirectly, stating that the GID consists of a Department of Public Investigation; a Bureau of Political Investigations; and a number of officers, noncommissioned officers, and other individuals as needed. The link between the aforementioned department and bureau may be canceled by the armed forces and the Public Security Directorate. The two agencies referred to in this article were subject to the Directorate of Public Security and Army General Command office at the time of the issuance of the GID law, and there is no law in force or revocation of any mention of these two agencies indicating the nature of their work,

172 Hani Al Jbour but it appears that they were doing what the GID is doing today. The establishment of a new apparatus was an organizational objective aiming at separating the intelligence work from the army and Directorate of Public Security and the attachment of that work to the new department.12 According to the law, the General Intelligence Department should be assigned to a general director, who is normally appointed by the king from one of its officers or retirees. He should issue its policies and be responsible for their implementation. He should also issue procedural orders relating to its work. The GID’s Budget and Financial Affairs

As with most intelligence services in the world, the budget of the GID is kept secret. At the end of each fiscal year, the director of the GID shares his financial report with only the prime minister. The financial procedures of the GID and related restrictions are all confidential. The director of the GID can also manage his secret expenses without being subjected to any means of surveillance control. What applies to the intelligence expenses also applies to its purchases in accordance with its supply system. Missions The most detailed public source of the GID’s work is the department’s interpretation of it on its website. According to the website, the tasks of the GID are as follows: collect, analyze, and submit information to policymakers; counter intellectual and physical sabotage; counter any attempts to infiltrate the Jordanian society; fight terrorism; conduct counterintelligence; track corruption and illegal activities through the anticorruption department founded, in 1996, in coordination with the other regulatory bodies in the country. This is rather general, and the duties mentioned have not been assigned to specific sources or legal rules; nor have legal mechanisms for the execution of such duties been specified. Collecting Information

Collecting information is the backbone and core function of any intelligence apparatus in any country in the world. It is the means of supplying the state with the ammunition needed to carry out its main duty and to ensure that it is able to make its political and security decisions at the external and internal levels.

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Although intelligence gathering is carried out in multiple ways, neither the GID’s website nor its law specify the means used to collect information, and therefore they do not impose any control on those means. But we can say that the General Intelligence Department, like other security services, relies on the collection of secret and public sources. The secret methods depend on human resources and other intelligence operations such as surveillance, interrogation, and partnerships with other security services, especially of those countries that have relations and intelligence exchange with the department. The department of course also has access to open sources of information such as various media including press, radio, news agencies, and local and foreign television and satellite channels, in addition to the internet, social media, and research agencies. Countering Sabotage

Resisting intellectual subversion, which is actually materially destructive, means pursuing extremist ideologues, whether religious or not, and those who use their influence to disseminate political views or beliefs to oppose the system of government. In the penal code, these are considered crimes against the internal security of the state. The GID may refer such cases to the prosecutor of the State Security Court or act at its discretion. This duty is also undertaken to counter those who raise issues considered sensitive that can affect security or go against the prevailing power. One simple example of this is when the intelligence service calls on a mosque preacher who has gone out of his habitual or acceptable manner during his Friday sermon and has criticized the government or the entire regime over state policy on a local or regional issue. Combating Terrorism

Terrorism is classified in the penal code as a crime against the security of the state. GID activity in relation to terrorism is based on gathering intelligence to anticipate and stop any terrorist act that threatens the security and safety of the community. The intelligence service follows up on individuals revealed through intelligence operations and information collection to be involved in terrorist activities, who may be arrested and interrogated and referred to the prosecutor of the State Security Court. In addition to Jordan’s attempts to keep and guarantee its national security, the GID has taken up a major role in the international campaign against terrorism. It has succeeded in maintaining the stability and security of Jordan by stopping several Jordanian terrorist cells, some of which were

174 Hani Al Jbour planning to carry out operations domestically or through Jordan. The GID has thwarted many of the military operations planned by these cells, notably the Army of Muhammad in 1989, the Khader Abu Hosher cell in 1999, the Jund al-Sham in 2000, the Afghan Jordanians in 2001, the reform movement and challenge of 1998, truck bombings by the Jayyousi in 2004, and the attack on Queen Alia International Airport in 2006. It is known that the GID is a close ally of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other Western, British, and European intelligence agencies. The department also has strong relationships with various intelligence services that it regards as friends or allies. These services rely on their information and their ability to follow extremist elements and groups within the framework of the international campaign against terrorism. The GID has carried out and managed joint intelligence operations with many of these organizations against extremist organizations and leaders. One of the most noteworthy is the operation carried out by the Jordanian intelligence services in the termination of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq in 2006, Muhammad Nazzal Fadil al-Khalayleh, known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. This operation began when the GID managed to lure Ziad Khalaf Karbouli (nicknamed Abu Hudayfah), the official supply line of the organization, from the Jordanian Iraqi border and the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, by GID agents working inside the Islamic State organization. He was arrested on the Iraqi-Jordanian border by the Frsan al-Haq (Knights of Right) Military Group of the GID, a group specialized in arresting terrorists. During the investigation, Karbouli revealed details about a number of al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq who were considered close to Zarqawi and knew his whereabouts. The Jordanian intelligence services informed their US counterpart, which was then able, through the presence of US forces in Iraq, to arrest a number of these leaders and consequently reach the hiding place of Zarqawi and bomb his headquarters, killing him.13 The Jordanian intelligence services are well aware of the activities of extremist groups, their abilities and characteristics from various sources and informants, and other political and religious groups, whether Sunni or Shiite, such as the Palestinian Hamas movement, the global Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and others. Combating Corruption

Anticorruption is an unusual intelligence activity carried out by the GID, one related to the fight against administrative and financial cor-

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ruption and bribery. The GID’s Directorate of Anticorruption was established in 1996, following a decision by the prime minister to investigate cases of financial and administrative corruption that could not be monitored by the other governmental departments.14 This directorate was entrusted with combating financial and administrative bribery and corruption; combating bureaucracy and red tape and everything that can cause the disruption of work and investment; and combating nepotism and cronyism to guarantee the rights of all citizens.15 A prosecutor from the Ministry of Justice and officers of the Directorate of Public Security were appointed to the Directorate of Anticorruption to serve as members of the judicial police, to give the directorate the legal capacity to prosecute the crimes that fall under its jurisdiction.16 The directorate monitors various issues related to the private and public sectors, including customs smuggling, tax evasion, forgery, money laundering, manipulation of standards, commercial fraud, communications piracy, and protection of intellectual property.17 The Directorate of Anticorruption considers itself a governmental supervisory authority with the right to play a deterrent role in the state apparatus. In some cases, it has given itself the freedom to mediate between investors and government entities to overcome obstacles to investment. In other cases, the directorate has aimed at simplifying government procedures for investors and facilitating economic activities. As part of the democratic process, Jordan has transformed the anticorruption capacity into a civil supervisory authority called the Integrity and Anticorruption Department, which started its work in 2008 under a special law. The Directorate of Anticorruption is directly linked to the head of the ministry and takes part in all activities and responsibilities carried out by the Anticorruption Department of the GID, which works in coordination with the Department of Integrity in providing intelligence about corruption cases. Conclusion Jordan has been seen as an “oasis of stability” in a turbulent region, a country mostly unscathed by the violence that swept the region in the wake of the 2010 Arab Spring revolts. Nevertheless, Jordan epitomizes the political and economic challenges that one country’s conflict can impose on a neighbor, for example, through refugees and terrorism, which together with the Palestinian issue and the economic situation are nowadays Jordan’s most pressing security problems. All these issues

176 Hani Al Jbour belong to the range of duties of the Jordanian General Intelligence Department, which furthermore plays a large and growing role in the international efforts against extremism and the fight against corruption. In the remit of the prime minister, the GID plays a rather efficient, prominent, and remarkably visible role in the Jordanian state system. Notes 1. Mohammad Ghazal, “Population Stands at Around 9.5 Million, Including 2.9 Million Guests,” Jordan Times, January 22, 2016. 2. Justin Vela, “Jordan: The Safe Haven for Christians Fleeing ISIL,” The National, February 14, 2015. 3. Hassan Fattah and Michael Slackmannov, “3 Hotels Bombed in Jordan, At Least 57 Die,” New York Times, November 10, 2005. 4. “2015 UNHCR Country Operations Profile—Jordan,” https://wayback.archiveit .org/all/20141002061205/http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e486566.html. 5. Bassem I. Awadallah, “Jordan’s Five Biggest Challenges, from ISIS to the Palestinian Question,” June 23, 2015, https://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/23/opinions/jordan -five-challenges/index.html. 6. UNHCR, “UNHCR Country Operations Profile—Jordan Working Environment,” http://haqqi.info/en/haqqi/research/unhcr-country-operations-profile-jordan-working -environment; Omar Obeidat, “Third of Jordan’s Population Lives Below Poverty Line at Some Point of One Year—Study,” Jordan Times, July 2, 2014. 7. Hamid el-Said and Kip Becker, Management and International Business Issues in Jordan (New York: Routledge, 2001), 88. 8. G. al-Assaf and A. al-Malki, “Modelling the Macroeconomic Determinants of Workers’ Remittances: The Case of Jordan,” International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues 4, no. 3 (2014), 514–526; Khetam Malkawi, “Jordan Ranks Fourth in the Region in Recipient Remittances,” Jordan Times, January 11, 2016. 9. “Jordan Second Best Arab Destination for German Tourists,” Jordan Times, March 12, 2016. 10. “Registration for Jordan Trail’s Thru-Hike Opens,” Jordan Times, February 17, 2018. 11. See https://gid.gov.jo. 12. Oral information from Ahmed Obeidat, former director of the GID from 1974 to 1982. 13. Khalid al-Hamouri, Defense Arab Forum, August 4, 2008, https://defense -arab.com/vb/threads/6935. 14. “Prime Minister’s Letter Addressed to the Director of General Intelligence,” no. 16/5/1/1322, February 24, 1996. 15. “Letter of the Director of General Intelligence to the Prime Minister,” March 19, 1996. 16. “Prime Minister’s Letter,” no. 3004/5/16, March 25, 1996. 17. “A Brief Submitted by the Director of the Anti-Corruption Directorate to His Majesty the King During His Visit to the Directorate,” Al-Ra’i Newspaper, April 23, 2003.

11 Kazakhstan Filip Kovacevic

In his classic study of the Soviet intelligence apparatus, John Dziak coined the term “counterintelligence state.” Dziak defined this type of state as being the symbiosis of the political leadership and the leadership of intelligence services with power to bend and break any existing rules, regulations, and laws for the sake of their interests.1 He noted that the primary focus of the counterintelligence state was the search for real and alleged domestic and foreign enemies who serve as the “sacrificial lambs” for all the problems that the state is confronted with. Dziak also warned that “Western security and foreign intelligence services are poor models for analyzing counterintelligence states” and that the latter must be approached “on their own terms and in the context of their own political traditions.”2 In other words, these states possess a specific operational culture that can be understood only if their own paths of origin and development are studied with an open mind. Evaluating them according to the standards of Western intelligence would be like comparing oranges and forest mushrooms. Yes, both are edible, but if you miss certain distinctions and nuances while gathering mushrooms, you can get sick or worse. However, a further distinction within Dziak’s concept of the counterintelligence state is needed to make it more appropriate for the geopolitical realities of the post–Cold War world. A distinction can be made between high-intensity and low-intensity counterintelligence states. A high-intensity counterintelligence state is a state based on a totalitarian model. Its control of the public space and internal political discourse is near-absolute, and all real and imagined enemies—often 177

178 Filip Kovacevic defined by characteristics over which they have little or no control, such as religion, ethnicity, or class origin—are severely punished, if not exterminated. In this category, we could include North Korea and the so-called Islamic State while it held territories in Syria and Iraq. On the other hand, a low-intensity counterintelligence state is a state ruled by the tightly linked political and intelligence apparatuses, which, though always in readiness to use institutionalized violence against those whom the state perceives as its political enemies, uses violence selectively and then makes strenuous efforts to present its use to the domestic public and the international community as having been necessary to preserve political order and stability. Such states are not a rarity in today’s world. In fact, their numbers seem to be growing since the turn of the twenty-first century. Kazakhstan under the regime of the longtime, now former, President Nursultan Nazarbayev has become a low-intensity counterintelligence state. Historical Overview The historical experiences of the ethnic Kazakh have been shaped by the fact that since the seventeenth century they have found themselves under external pressure by two great empires: the Russian Empire from the west and the Chinese Empire from the east. Over time, independent tribal groups, called the Hordes, of which the most important were the Great Horde, the Middle Horde, and the Lesser Horde, have come under the political control of the Russian tsars.3 Anuar Alimzhanov, the bestknown Kazakh novelist during the Soviet period, offered a memorable account of the genesis of this process in his popular historical novel The Messenger. Faced by the overwhelming force of the Chinese army and its allies, the Kazakh tribes had no choice but to seek the protection of the Russians in the 1720s. The last to be subsumed under the Russian empire and hence the least-exposed to the tsarist repression was the Great Horde, inhabiting the areas of central and southern Kazakhstan. Most of today’s political leadership of Kazakhstan, including the former president Nazarbayev, traces its heritage to this group, which may be one of the reasons for the present commitment of the Kazakh government to an allied relationship with Russia. However, this is not to say that the relations between Russia and the Kazakhs have always been unproblematic. The most serious disturbance under the Russian Empire took place in 1916, during World War I, when the Central Asian populations, including the Kazakhs, rebelled against

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the conscription into the Russian Imperial Army ordered by Tsar Nicholas II. The rebellion was brutally repressed, and thousands were killed or fled the region. This outcome greatly contributed to the popular support for the Bolsheviks, who took over the Kazakh territories in the early 1920s. The present-day borders of Kazakhstan were drawn in 1936 when Stalin created the Kazakh Soviet Republic. From the 1930s to the 1950s, thousands of political dissidents as well as the members of ethnic groups deemed antagonistic to Stalin’s regime were deported to Kazakhstan. Another great influx of ethnic Russian population took place in the late 1950s and early 1960s during Khrushchev’s vast agricultural mobilization campaigns. These events dramatically changed the demographic structure of the population, making the ethnic Kazakhs a minority. The trend was reversed in the 1990s when millions of Russians and other ethnic groups, including several hundred thousand Germans, left Kazakhstan, while hundreds of thousands of Kazakhs from other former Soviet republics as well as Mongolia and China, the socalled oralmans, were repatriated. Today’s ethnic structure of Kazakhstan is 63.1 percent Kazakh and 23.7 percent Russian. In 1984, the person who was to become the founding father of independent Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, entered the political scene. He was nominated to the post of prime minister by longtime communist leader of Kazakhstan and member of the Soviet Politburo Dinmukhamed Kunayev. When Kunayev was accused of egregious corruption and cronyism by the newly appointed reformist leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nazarbayev did not defend him but sided with Gorbachev instead. The replacement of Kunayev in December 1986 by Gorbachev’s appointee, Gennady Kolbin, an ethnic Russian, led to the outbreak of student and worker protests in the then capital, Alma-Ata (Almaty), protests that came to be known as the Jeltoqsan (December) riots. The protests were brutally suppressed by the Soviet security forces, including the KGB, with dozens of protesters killed and hundreds arrested and imprisoned. The role of Nazarbayev in these events remains unclear, but the fact remains that he kept his prime ministerial position. His political career was on the upswing and he replaced Kolbin in 1989 as the Communist Party’s head of Kazakhstan. The following year Nazarbayev was appointed by the Supreme Soviet (parliament) of Kazakhstan to the post of president. He ran as the only person on the ballot in the country’s first presidential election on December 1, 1991, and won 91.5 percent of the vote. As the Soviet Union was about to be dissolved by the joint decision of the presidents of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus—Boris Yeltsin, Leonid Kravchuk,

180 Filip Kovacevic and Stanislav Shushkevich—Kazakhstan declared its independence on December 15, 1991. It was the last Soviet republic to do so. After 1991, Nazarbayev ran for president four more times, in 1999, 2005, 2011, and 2015. In each of these elections, he won more than 95 percent of the vote, and most recently, in 2015, he received 97.75 percent. In May 2007, a constitutional amendment was approved making Nazarbayev essentially the president for life. Not surprisingly, the political party that Nazarbayev chairs, called Nur Otan (Radiant Homeland), has done extremely well in all the parliamentary elections and has full control of the Kazakh parliament—the upper house called the Senate and the lower house called the Mazhilis (Assembly). In the most recent parliamentary elections, held on March 20, 2016, Nur Otan won 82.2 percent of the vote with eighty-four seats in the Mazhilis. The remaining seats are divided between two opposition parties—the Democratic Party of Kazakhstan, Ak Zhol, (seven seats) and the Communist People’s Party of Kazakhstan (seven seats).4 No Western-based electionmonitoring organization has recognized any Kazakh elections held since independence as free and fair, while the CIA World Factbook describes the Kazakh political system as “authoritarian presidential rule, with little power outside the executive branch.”5 In 2019, two important and, for many observers, unexpected events took place on the Kazakh political scene. First, in February 2019, Nazarbayev dismissed the government of Bakhytzhan Sagintayev, in power since the parliamentary elections of 2016, accusing the ministers of not doing enough to improve the living standards of ordinary people. The growing number of social protests throughout the country might have contributed to his decision.6 Sagintayev was replaced by his deputy prime minister, Askar Mamin, which suggests that the personnel changes at the top were not meant to involve any radical reorientation of government policies but were merely cosmetic and designed to distract the public and deflate the energy of protests. The second, much more dramatic political event took place about a month later, on March 19. After twenty-nine years of presidential rule, Nazarbayev suddenly resigned. For his immediate successor, he chose his close political ally Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, speaker of the Senate, the upper house of the Kazakh parliament.7 With Nazarbayev’s full support, Tokayev ran for president in his own right in the June 9, 2019, presidential election, which he won with 71 percent of the vote. The election was accompanied by widespread protests of a size not seen in Kazakhstan before, which shows that no matter how well Nazarbayev engineered the transfer of supreme political power to his associates, the move was bound to open the country to political instability.8

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However, even though he is no longer president, Nazarbayev remains the most powerful political figure in Kazakhstan and is likely to remain so until his death. In a move reminiscent of the Soviet communist past, the capital city of Kazakhstan, Astana, was renamed Nursultan in his honor. Notwithstanding the obvious political deficiencies of Nazarbayev’s regime, Kazakhstan has turned out to be very successful in terms of its post-Soviet economic growth and macroeconomic and fiscal stability. Thanks to its vast reserves of oil and natural gas, Kazakhstan’s gross domestic product (GDP) has risen 8 percent per year since the mid1990s.9 Its public debt in 2016 was only 15 percent of GDP. Kazakhstan also has significant reserves of uranium, copper, and zinc, and is a major exporter of grain and livestock. However, just as was the case during the late Soviet period, this massive influx of foreign currency into the country has been accompanied by wide-ranging, extremely extensive corruption inside the ruling political class, going all the way to the top of the pyramid.10 It is this fiscal well-being, making available the vast amounts of money for security and intelligence structures, that is one of the main reasons for the loyalty and compliance of the lowintensity counterintelligence state personnel, even in high-risk crises.11 There may be other reasons as well that, as emphasized by Dziak’s approach to counterintelligence states, would remain obscure if we approached them through the prism of the Western intelligence models. Both high- and low-intensity counterintelligence states need to be understood on their own terms by examining the historical and cultural contexts in which they have been created and in which they function. It is to this important piece of the puzzle in the studies of intelligence culture that I now turn. Genesis and Development of the Intelligence Apparatus According to the historical account of the Kazakh intelligence apparatus provided on the official website of the Kazakh Foreign Intelligence Agency, Syrbar, Kazakh spycraft can be traced back to the early rulers of the Kazakh khanates in the seventeenth century.12 The account specifically mentions the khans Abulkhair, Janybek, and Ablaykhan, who sent spies into China and the rival Turkic khanates and established friendly intelligence links with the Russian Empire, which, as pointed out earlier, eventually took control over their territories. Another series of successful operations by the Kazakh intelligence apparatus emphasized by the Syrbar account took place in the early

182 Filip Kovacevic years of the Soviet Union, when many of the Soviet Union’s most powerful opponents crossed into the Xinjiang province of China and organized anti-Soviet subversive activities and raids from there. In this respect, two covert operations carried out by the Kazakh members of the Soviet Cheka on Chinese soil stand out: the assassination of one of the leaders of the 1918 anti-Soviet uprising in the Urals, Cossack ataman (leader) Alexander Dutov in 1921; and the kidnapping of another Cossack ataman, Boris Annenkov, and his intelligence chief, General Nikolay Denisov, in 1926. It should be noted that throughout the subsequent decades of Soviet rule, the Kazakh branch of the Soviet intelligence apparatus (since 1954 called the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic KGB) actively ran espionage activities and undercover agents in the neighboring regions, including Xinjiang. In addition, the headquarters of the Soviet Central Asian military district, with a sophisticated and well-funded military intelligence component, the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), was based in Kazakhstan. Many of its officers became the core staff of Kazakhstan’s own military intelligence after independence. The history of the independent Kazakh intelligence apparatus began on July 13, 1992, when former president Nazarbayev signed a decree reshaping the Soviet-era Kazakh KGB into the Committee for National Security (KNB). As one can see, the name remained almost identical and the same can be said about its mission and functions. The KNB is a state security organization subordinated directly to the president (the commander-in-chief), who in turn selects its president from among his most trusted associates. Since its founding, the KNB has had more than ten presidents and these frequent changes at the top can be interpreted as a sign that Nazarbayev has not trusted anybody too much. The present KNB president, appointed in September 2016, is Karim Massimov, a former prime minister (2007–2012 and 2014–2016), who finished his university studies in Moscow but also spent time at universities in China and the United States. He is considered a close ally of Nazarbayev and was considered one of his potential successors. In 2010, it was reported that Nazarbayev appointed his nephew Samat Abish to direct the KNB’s human resources department.13 This is not the first time a Nazarbayev family member has held a top position within the KNB (such as another nephew, Kayrat Satybaldy, and a former son-in-law, Rakhat Aliyev). In terms of its structure, the KNB retained the imprint of the Soviet KGB (many staff members remained the same) and has under its official jurisdiction the government communication service, the service for the special tasks “A” (the best equipped Kazakh special forces, earlier

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called Arystan [The Lion], the direct successor of the Soviet KGB special forces group Alpha),14 and the border guards. It also directs the KNB Academy, three regional military hospitals, and a prison.15 Moreover, the KNB has a network of stations in every major city and every region of Kazakhstan (see Figure 11.1). There are many similarities between the KNB and the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). The main tasks and responsibilities of the KNB are defined as follows:

1. Participation in the setting and implementation of state policies in the field of providing security of the personnel, society, and the state. 2. Collecting intelligence in the national interest of the Republic of Kazakhstan. 3. Detection, warning, and suppression of intelligence and other activities directed to cause damage to the security of the republic by intelligence agencies of other states or by unaffiliated individuals. 4. Detection, warning, and suppression of terrorism and other activities directed to making violent changes in the constitutional order, territorial integrity, and security of the republic. 5. Detection, suppression, disclosure, and investigation of criminal activities legally determined to fall under the purview of national security organizations. 6. Ensuring the security of the government communication network of the president of the republic, state institutions, and the military in peace and wartime. 7. Organization of cryptographic activities in the state institutions and the military of the republic. 8. Ensuring the protection and defense of the state borders of the republic.16

As can be seen, the fight against terrorism and extremism represents one of the main tasks of the KNB. In fact, the president of the KNB also directs the Anti-Terrorist Center, a high-level state executive body that includes all the ministers of the cabinet as well as the heads of the other two Kazakh civilian intelligence services: the Foreign Intelligence Service, Syrbar; and the State Security Service. 17 The KNB website chronicles several successful operations against various radical jihadist organizations in the territory of Kazakhstan over the past several years. It also provides a list of the nineteen organizations that the government of Kazakhstan considers terrorist.18 In 2017 the KNB celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary and, to mark this occasion, sponsored the publication of a book on the history

184 Filip Kovacevic Figure 11.1 Kazakhstan’s Intelligence Community President

State Security Service

Foreign Intelligence Service (Syrbar)

Committee for National Security (KNB) 3 Military/KNB Hospitals

Prime Minister Minister of Defense

Prison

Military Intelligence Service

Academy

Army, Navy, and Air Force Intelligence Units

Border Guards 16 Regional/ Territorial Divisions Special Forces ("A") Government Commnunication Service

of Kazakh intelligence entitled Syrtky Barlau (Foreign Intelligence), written by journalist and veteran Soviet navy officer Kairzhan Turezhanov.19 This is the first and, so far, only book of its kind. Interestingly, however, the book came out only in a limited, hardcover edition of 1,200 exemplars for state institutions and public libraries; it is not available for commercial purchase and was not translated into either

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Russian or English. Apparently the KNB does not really want the historical overview of its activities to be known far and wide. The Kazakh Foreign Intelligence Service, Syrbar, was established by a decree of former president Nazarbayev on February 17, 2009. By the same decree, Nazarbayev also dissolved the previous foreign intelligence service, Barlau, which operated within the KNB. The reasons for such a radical gesture have never been completely elucidated, but I suspect one of them is the publication of a book by Nazarbayev’s son-in-law-turned-fugitive Rakhat Aliyev in which, in the style of former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer Philip Agee, he disclosed the names and official cover identities of the entire network of the Kazakh intelligence personnel in Europe. It is logical that this made it necessary to reconstruct the entire service from scratch as well as to renew its personnel. Nazarbayev appointed Amanzhol Zhankuliyev as Syrbar’s first director. A former Soviet diplomat who graduated from the Soviet Union’s Diplomatic Academy in Moscow in the 1980s, Zhankuliyev was previously Kazakh ambassador to Turkey, Tajikistan, and France, and Kazakh permanent representative at the UN organizations in Geneva, a well-known spy-versus-spy hunting ground.20 Zhankuliyev led Syrbar for six years until 2015, when he was appointed to the position of deputy secretary-general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (ODKB), a Russian-sponsored military alliance of which Kazakhstan is a founding member. His replacement at Syrbar was his first deputy, Major-General Gabit Bayzhanov, who was also the deputy director of the dissolved Barlau. Considering that Bayzhanov belongs to the younger generation of the Kazakh intelligence officers (born 1963) and that there is no public indication that he was educated in Moscow, chances are that he might not be as pro-Russian as Zhankuliyev. Syrbar is a separate intelligence entity from the KNB and is subordinated directly to the president. Its main tasks and responsibilities are defined as follows: 1. Collection of intelligence in the national interest of the Republic of Kazakhstan.21 2. Providing the president, the government, and other state institutions with intelligence and analysis of the political, economicfinancial, military-political, science and technology, humanitarian, and environmental fields. 3. Assistance to the economic development and scientific-technological progress and the military-technological security of the republic.

186 Filip Kovacevic 4. Participation in setting and implementing the government’s national security agenda. 5. Implementation of measures directed to prevent real and potential damage to the republic and its national interests by intelligence services of other states, terrorist and extremist organizations, and individuals. 6. Participation in the protection of Kazakh diplomatic personnel and properties. 7. Coordination of the activities of other (domestic) intelligence organizations dealing with foreign threats. 8. Other tasks as determined by the laws and decrees of the president of the republic.22

Syrbar also has its Veterans Council, headed by a retired majorgeneral, Bulat Mechenbayev, who oversaw the First Chief Directorate of the Kazakh KGB at the time of Kazakhstan’s independence in 1991. The council’s main task is transmitting intelligence expertise to the younger members of the service and Kazakh society in general by organizing lectures, discussion panels, and exhibitions dealing with the operations of Soviet and Kazakh foreign intelligence.23 The council also publishes books of memoirs and other intelligence literature and works on establishing contacts with the veterans’ organizations of other countries (mostly with the services of other former Soviet republics, notably with Russia). Currently, the council has more than a hundred members. In addition to the KNB and Syrbar, Kazakhstan has another civilian intelligence service, the State Security Service. Its main tasks and responsibilities are defined as follows:

1. Ensuring the safety of the first president of the republic—the leader of the nation.24 2. Ensuring the safety of other high-level government personnel. 3. Detection, warning, and suppression of criminal activities directed against the life, health, rights, liberties, dignity, and property of the president and other high-level government personnel. 4. Protection of government property and ensuring security and order in government buildings and other places of work and residence of government personnel. 5. Countering terrorism within the limits of its authority and competence. 6. Anticipation and detection of potential threats to government personnel and implementation of measures to counter and neutralize them.

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7. Participation in government ceremonial and protocol events. 8. Other tasks as determined by laws and decrees of the president of the republic.25

The department of the State Security Service that deals with the protection of government buildings and other property is called the Republican Guard and is staffed with military personnel. Interestingly, the first head of the Kazakh State Security Service was a famed KGB special forces commander and hero of the Soviet Union, Viktor Karpukhin. Karpukhin led the KGB special forces group Alpha into the successful storming of the Taj-Bek Palace, the residence of Afghan president Hafizullah Amin, on December 27, 1979. More than a decade later, he was instrumental in causing the failure of the anti-Gorbachev putsch in August 1991 when he explicitly refused to carry out the order of KGB president Vladimir Kryuchkov to storm the Russian government’s headquarters and arrest Boris Yeltsin and his associates.26 After one year in this position (1991–1992), Karpukhin was replaced by another (ethnic) Russian, General Sergey Sinitsyn, who graduated from the Soviet KGB Academy in Minsk in the 1980s. In 2002, an ethnic Kazakh, General Amangeldy Shabdarbayev, was appointed to head the State Security Service, and in fact this follows the general trend in the Kazakh intelligence apparatus at that time to replace ethnic Russians with ethnic Kazakhs. Currently there are no ethnic Russians in the leadership positions in the Kazakh intelligence apparatus. The present chief of the State Security Service is Anuar Sadykulov, appointed in June 2019. Previously, Sadykulov was the commander of the Kazakh special forces group “A” (Arystan).27 His immediate predecessor was Lieutenant-General Amantay Kurenbekov, a graduate of the Soviet KGB Academy in the 1980s. Before being appointed to this position by Nazarbayev, Kurenbekov was a deputy minister of interior (2009–2014).28 As already mentioned, the Kazakh military intelligence service traces its heritage to the Soviet Central Asian military district, headquartered in Kazakhstan. Even today, Kazakh military intelligence is modeled on the Soviet GRU. Its tasks and responsibilities are defined by Article 21 of the Kazakh law on defense and the armed forces promulgated in 2009.29 The service is under direct control of the minister of defense, Nurlan Yermekbayev, a Moscow-educated former Kazakh ambassador to China, Vietnam, and North Korea, appointed in August 2018. Each service of the Kazakh military (army, navy, air force) has its own intelligence unit. Publicly available biographies of the Kazakh top military leadership indicate that most generals and admirals have been educated in Russian military academies and other Russian state

188 Filip Kovacevic institutions. Yermekbayev’s predecessor, Colonel-General Saken Zhasuzakov, for instance, attended the famous Soviet M. V. Frunze Military Academy and completed his education in the early 1990s in the Military Academy of the Russian General Staff.30 In 2013 it was reported that one of President Nazarbayev’s grandsons, Aysultan, was appointed to a position with the Kazakh military intelligence service in the rank of senior lieutenant.31 A graduate of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in London, Aysultan Nazarbayev seemed to have been groomed for a promising high-level intelligence and political career that could orient the Kazakh political scene in a proWestern and pro–North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) direction. However, due to his messy personal life, including a drug addiction he publicly confessed to in September 2017,32 it is doubtful that any such plans will be realized in practice. The pro-Russian faction within Kazakh military intelligence will continue to exert its dominance. Major Controversies Since independence in 1991, the Kazakh intelligence apparatus has undergone three major controversies or crises. The first took place in mid-February 2006, when former government minister and cofounder of the opposition political party Naghyz Ak Zhol, Altynbek Sarsenbayev, and his two associates were kidnapped near Almaty and found dead two days later. At that time, Sarsenbayev, who was also a former ambassador to Russia, was working on forming a joint opposition platform against then-president Nazarbayev. The government investigation, which still raises serious doubts in the Kazakh political opposition and the small, liberal, pro-Western section of the Kazakh population, found that the assassination was organized and carried out by nine former and present members of the KNB special forces group Arystan.33 The government prosecutors claimed that the murder was contracted by the former administrative head of the Kazakh Senate, Erzhan Utembayev, for reasons of personal revenge. The Arystan member indicted as the person who committed the triple murder, Rustam Ibragimov, was sentenced to death, but since Kazakhstan had earlier abolished the death penalty, his sentence was commuted to life in prison, while the others, including Utembayev, received from three to twenty years. Most of them have left prison by now. The question remains whether justice has been served.34 The fact that the Arystan members were involved in the assassination sent shock waves through the Kazakh intelligence apparatus. The

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head of the KNB, Lieutenant-General Nartay Dutbayev, who held that post for the previous five years, soon resigned, but did not suffer any additional consequences. However, since then, Dutbayev (and the members of his immediate family) have apparently been involved in several questionable financial schemes and intrigues, and in September 2017 he was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison by a military tribunal for divulging state secrets.35 He was also stripped of his rank and state awards. The circumstances of the entire case remain murky, but there is no doubt that Dutbayev is that proverbial “man who knew too much” in Kazakh political life. His imprisonment is one of the most recent manifestations of the Kazakh counterintelligence state. The second controversy or crisis in the operation of the Kazakh intelligence apparatus, which in contrast to the previous one had a significant international dimension, was the case of Nazarbayev’s son-in-law Rakhat Aliyev. Aliyev met and married Dariga, one of the three daughters of former president Nazarbayev, in the early 1980s while he was still a medical student in Moscow. His father was a well-known medical doctor and a minister in the Kazakh Soviet government and, at that time, was more politically powerful than Nazarbayev himself. During the first decade of Kazakh independence, Aliyev was involved in many backdoor privatization deals and became enormously wealthy. It was reported that he and his wife controlled most of the media companies in Kazakhstan. Having become a rich oligarch, Aliyev cast his eye on state power. In the early 2000s, Nazarbayev appointed him the first deputy director of the KNB and the first deputy director of the State Security Service.36 The special forces group Arystan was under his direct control. However, it appears that Aliyev turned out to be overly ambitious in his high-level intelligence positions and started openly to covet the Kazakh presidency. That was the red line for Nazarbayev, and Aliyev was forced to resign. As punishment, he was sent to Austria as the Kazakh ambassador, where he spent three years, from 2002 to 2005. After his return to Kazakhstan, relations between him and his father-inlaw did not improve. He was sent to the same position in Austria again in early 2007, but things soon deteriorated much further. In May 2007, when the constitutional amendment making Nazarbayev president for life was passed, Aliyev began to attack Nazarbayev publicly from his position in Austria, calling him a dictator. Retaliation soon followed. As Aliyev chronicles in his 2009 book The Godfather-in-Law: A Documentary Story, he was immediately stripped of all his diplomatic privileges, and two charter planes with KNB officers aboard flew into Vienna in order to seize him and bring him back to Kazakhstan.37 At the

190 Filip Kovacevic same time, in Kazakhstan, he was accused of masterminding the kidnapping of two high-level bank managers (who were later found dead) and was eventually convicted and sentenced to twenty years in prison. However, Austria refused to extradite Aliyev, although he was initially arrested due to the fact that Interpol issued an arrest warrant based on the request of Kazakhstan. Aliyev later alleged that he was poisoned by an Austrian police officer linked to the Kazakh intelligence apparatus while temporarily held in the Austrian jail.38 Amazingly, Aliyev was also promptly divorced from his wife, Dariga, without his agreement, or even his signature. This was obviously the manifestation of the tremendous reach of the Kazakh counterintelligence state firmly under Nazarbayev’s control. Aliyev fought back and exposed the entire network of the Kazakh intelligence officers in Europe by publishing their full names, positions, and dates of birth in the appendix of his book.39 As pointed out earlier, this could be one of the reasons Nazarbayev dissolved the foreign intelligence service Barlau and founded Syrbar in 2009. In 2013, Aliyev announced that he was publishing a second volume of his book in which he would reveal corrupt links between the Kazakh government and the politicians of several European states, including Austria.40 This led to another round of legal proceedings against him in Kazakhstan, where he was then found guilty for involvement in the assassination of opposition leader Altynbek Sarsenbayev. He was sentenced to another twenty years in prison and Interpol again issued an arrest warrant at the request of Kazakhstan. Aliyev was then arrested by the Austrian authorities in 2014. On February 24, 2015, Aliyev was found dead in his jail cell in Vienna. The official investigation declared his death to be a suicide, but some prominent German medical authorities recently questioned the official account and posited that he could have been murdered.41 The third controversy or crisis in the operations of the Kazakh intelligence apparatus did not have to do with prominent dissident individuals, as in the two previous cases, but with an anti-government social protest that turned violent and resulted in dozens of casualties. In May 2011, workers employed at one of the Kazakh oilfields near the towns of Zhanaozen and Shepte in rural western Kazakhstan began a series of protests demanding higher wages and better working conditions.42 Many among the workers were ethnic Kazakhs, recent immigrants from neighboring countries, the so-called oralmans, who have been poorly integrated into Kazakh society. The protests lasted for months, until December 2011, when on the eve of the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Kazakh independence, some among the workers (it was never determined who they were, perhaps agents provocateurs) started attacking the police, and special forces, including

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those belonging to the Kazakh intelligence services, were sent to the region to ensure law and order. In the ensuing bloody clashes, more than a dozen protesters were killed (the numbers range from fourteen to fifty depending on the source) and many more were injured. This was the most violent crackdown by the security services in recent Kazakh history. It was even more violent than the Soviet response during the 1986 Jeltoqsan riots mentioned earlier. The government declared a twenty-day curfew, blocked social media, jailed opposition activists and critics, and exponentially increased the number of police and intelligence personnel in the affected region and in the big cities. Former president Nazarbayev fired the leadership of the Kazakh sovereign fund Sumruk-Kazyna, in charge of the Kazakh oilfields, including its head, his billionaire son-in-law Timur Kulibayev. Just like Aliyev at an earlier time, Kulibayev was seen as one of Nazarbayev’s potential successors. Now he too was taken out of the succession game. It seems that Nazarbayev successfully utilized the crisis for furthering his own political agenda, and his political party, Nur Otan, won an overwhelming victory in the 2012 parliamentary elections. This fact makes it plausible to suppose that the Kazakh intelligence apparatus was perhaps on both sides of the barricades in Zhanaozen. Although Western human rights and civil liberties organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International strongly condemned the Kazakh government’s brutal handling of the worker protests, the response of Western governments was muted. Perhaps one of the reasons for that is the fact that in the past decade the Kazakh government has hired as lobbyists former high-level Western officials, such as former British prime minister Tony Blair. According to an article published in The Telegraph, Blair directly counseled Nazarbayev on how to frame the Zhanaozen events in his speech at the University of Cambridge in 2012.43 International Engagements Despite the rigid and often brutal operations of the Kazakh counterintelligence state against its perceived domestic opponents and critics, Kazakhstan continues to enjoy a great deal of prominence in the international community. In 2010, Kazakhstan chaired the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and, in 2011, the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC). It is the first Central Asian state to be awarded a nonpermanent seat on the United Nations Security Council and its two-year term lasted from January 2017 until January 2019. According to the Kazakh embassy in the United States, Kazakhstan

192 Filip Kovacevic approached its position in the Security Council as a means to promote the idea of four types of security: energy, food, water, and nuclear.44 In addition, Kazakhstan hosted the 2017 International Exposition (EXPO) in the capital city of Astana (Nursultan), which was attended by more than a hundred countries and dozens of international organizations. 45 The theme of the EXPO was “future energy,” emphasizing sustainable development and new energy technologies. Moreover, since January 2017, Kazakhstan has hosted the Syrian peace talks in Astana (Nursultan), which according to many international observers led to the formation of the new Middle Eastern axis of power: Russia, Turkey, and Iran. The international cooperation activities of the Kazakh intelligence agencies have not been as versatile as the activities of the Kazakh government. The Kazakh intelligence apparatus, the KNB in particular, has focused on regional cooperation with a special emphasis on the activities of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). In April 2017, the KNB hosted the twelfth meeting of the secretaries of the national security councils of the SCO. The discussion focused the issues of terrorism and counterterrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking, illegal immigration, and cyber security.46 In September 2017 the KNB organized an international exhibition of advanced equipment and software for national security and civil defense.47 The name of the exhibition was Kazakhstan Security Systems 2017 and more than eighty companies from twelve countries were represented. The exhibition also included an international conference and two roundtables devoted to discussion of terrorist threats and counterterrorism strategies. In addition, the KNB special forces have taken part in dozens of counterterrorism exercises organized by regional organizations, such as the SCO and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).48 Moreover, the KNB Academy, the KNB’s higher-education institution, modeled on the Soviet Higher School of the KGB (now the FSB Academy), has provided intelligence and counterterrorism education and training for many future intelligence and counterterrorism officers of the neighboring Central Asian states. Last, there are two strategically important Russian-controlled sites located in the territory of Kazakhstan, the functioning of which necessitates close cooperation between the Kazakh and Russian intelligence and military structures. The first is the former Soviet space-rocket launching site (cosmodrome) Baikonur (Leninsk), which launched the first-ever artificial satellite Sputnik in October 1957 as well as the Yuri Gagarin Earthorbiting mission in April 1961. Russia has leased the site, together with

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the nearby small town (around 6,000 square kilometers in total) until 2050 for the price of US$115 million a year.49 Though most of the Russian soldiers seem to have left, the site remains an essential element of the Russian military and intelligence presence outside Russian borders. The second site is called Uzel Balkhash and was a component of the Soviet Early Anti-Missile Warning System. It was substantially upgraded by Russia in recent years and serves not only for ballistic missile testing (with the nearby site called Saryshagan) but also for radioelectronic and space surveillance of the entire Central Asian region. In addition, Uzel Balkhash plays a crucial role in the existing Russian antimissile defense shield.50 This site includes a Russian military base (with a kindergarten and a school), but the number of soldiers and their families is not publicly available. Conclusion The most significant issue for the future of the Kazakh intelligence apparatus is the question of what will happen after the death of the most powerful leader in Kazakh history. Since its formation in the early 1990s, the Kazakh intelligence has served the interests of only one man—the now former president Nursultan Nazarbayev. At this writing, the top Kazakh intelligence leadership remains subordinated to Nazarbayev and it can be said that although he is no longer formally in charge (having resigned the presidency), he is still making all the relevant decisions for the future of the country. Throughout his long political career, Nazarbayev has hired and fired the chiefs of intelligence according to what he thinks best for the preservation of his personal power and the wealth of his family. In my assessment, he will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Though he is already close to eighty years old, he appears to be in good health and very much in the public eye. No decision regarding Kazakh domestic, foreign, defense, or security policies can be made without Nazarbayev’s input and supervision. Kazakhstan must be understood as a low-intensity counterintelligence state, meaning that the Kazakh intelligence community will continue to play a determining role in the country’s post-Nazarbayev future. Even Nazarbayev’s immediate successor, Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev, considering his graduation from the prestigious Moscow Institute for International Relations (MGIMO) and the Diplomatic Academy of the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as his politically sensitive postings in the

194 Filip Kovacevic Soviet diplomatic mission in China and Singapore, can be suspected of intelligence links.51 Moreover, if we take into consideration the career path of Nazarbayev’s son-in-law Rakhat Aliyev at the time when he was groomed to become Nazarbayev’s successor, we will see that Aliyev held high-level positions in the KNB and the State Security Service. However, instead of patiently waiting for his turn (and playing by the rules), Aliyev turned out to be overly ambitious, which ultimately precipitated his untimely demise. After the subsequent firing of his other son-in-law, Timur Kulibayev, and the muted political career of his daughter Dariga (she was a deputy prime minister just for a year, from 2015 to 2016),52 Nazarbayev seems to have run out of family members who could follow him into the presidency. This makes it even more probable that the Kazakh intelligence community will play the role of a kingmaker in the post-Nazarbayev era. As pointed out earlier, the head of the KNB is a longtime prime minister of Kazakhstan, Karim Massimov. Massimov seems to have all the necessary political qualifications to take over the leadership of Kazakhstan after Tokayev, and his continued leadership of the KNB could be the final step toward presidency. The power of the intelligence apparatus over all aspects of Kazakh society will hardly diminish in the conceivable future, notwithstanding recent, much more frequent manifestations of open social protest by the country’s democracy activists. Notes

1. John J. Dziak, Chekisty: A History of the KGB (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1988), xv–xvi. 2. Ibid., 2. 3. Glenn E. Curtis, ed., Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan: Country Studies (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Federal Research Division, 1996), 13–20. The historical account presented here, unless noted otherwise, is based on this study. 4. “Kazakh Leader’s Party Wins Vote Criticized by Western Monitors,” Reuters, March 20, 2016. 5. CIA World Factbook: Kazakhstan 2016/2017 (Washington, DC, 2018), 392. 6. “Nazarbayev Fires Kazakh Government over Living Standards, Economic Failures,” RFE/RL, February 21, 2019. 7. Olzhas Auyezov, “Kazakhstan’s Leader Nazarbayev Resigns After Three Decades in Power,” Reuters, March 19, 2019. 8. “Kazakhstan: Tokayev Named Winner of Presidency Amid Protests,” Associated Press, June 10, 2019. 9. Dossym Satpayev and Tolganay Umbetaliyeva, “The Protests in Zhanaozen and the Kazakh Oil Sector: Conflicting Interests in a Rentier State,” Journal of Eurasian Studies no. 6 (2015), 122. 10. Seymour M. Hersh, “The Price of Oil,” New Yorker, July 9, 2001, 48–65. 11. Lucan A. Way and Steven Levitsky, “The Dynamic of Autocratic Coercion After the Cold War,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 39, no. 4 (2006), 396.

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12. The website http://www.svr.kz is available in three languages: Kazakh, Russian, and English. However, the posts available in English are very few and the quality of the translation is poor. The same can be said for most of the Kazakh government’s websites consulted for this study. All translations from the Russian language, unless otherwise noted, are my own. 13. “Kazakh President’s Nephew Gets Post in Security Service,” RFE/RL, January 12, 2010. 14. In 2017 the service “A” celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary and the progovernment Khabar TV made a documentary video, which can be viewed at https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksRuAtKc_VU. 15. “Struktura KNB” (The KNB Structure), http://www.knb.kz/ru/article/struktura. 16. “Osnovniye Zadachi KNB” (The Main Tasks of the KNB), http://military-kz .ucoz.org/index/knb_rk/0-16. 17. “Sostav Antiterroristicheskoga Centra” (The Leadership of the Antiterrorist Center), https://atc.gov.kz/ru/o-tsentre/sostav. 18. “Perechen Terroristicheskikh i Ekstremistkikh Organizacii” (The List of the Terrorist and Extremist Organizations), http://www.knb.kz/ru/article/perechen-terroristiceskih -i-ekstremistskih-organizacii-predstavlausih-ugrozu-bezopasnosti. 19. “Rassekrecheno” (Declassified), October 3, 2017, http://www.knb.kz/ru/news /rassekreceno. 20. “Amanzhol Zhankuliyev’s Biography,” http://odkb-csto.org/structure/latypov.php. 21. Note that this task is also assigned to the KNB. This may lead to rivalry and jurisdictional disputes and conflicts, especially regarding intelligence work outside the country (e.g., the long-running turf wars between the CIA and the FBI). 22. “Celi i Zadachi Syrbar” (The Tasks and Responsibilities of the Syrbar), http:// military-kz.ucoz.org/index/sluzhba_vneshnej_razvedki_quot_syrbar_quot/0-68. This last point could be interpreted to grant the Syrbar legal authority to conduct covert action. 23. “Sovet Veteranov” (Veterans’ Council), http://military-kz.ucoz.org/index/sluzhba _vneshnej_razvedki_quot_syrbar_quot/0-68. 24. This is the official title of Nazarbayev. 25. “Gosudarstvenaya Sluzhba Okhrany” (State Security Service), https://www .sgork.gov.kz/ru/state-security-service/goals-and-objectives. 26. “Viktor Karpukhin’s Biography,” http://www.warheroes.ru/hero/hero.asp?Hero _id=1091. Karpukhin died suddenly due to a heart attack on a Minsk-to-Moscow train in March 2003 just as he began to organize the former Soviet special forces veterans to be more forceful in demanding the respect for their rights from the Russian government. He was fifty-six years old. 27. “Anuar Sadykulov Naznachen Nachalnikom Slyzhby Gosudarstvennoy Okhrany” (Anuar Sadykulov Appointed the Chief of the State Security Service), June 13, 2019, https://informburo.kz/novosti/anuar-sadykulov-naznachen-nachalnikom-sluzhby -gosudarstvennoy-ohrany-91293.html. 28. “Amantay Kurenbekov’s Biography,” https://www.sgork.gov.kz/ru/state-security -service/management/head-of-service. 29. “Ob Oborone i Vooruzhennyh Silah Respubliky Kazahstan” (On Defense and Armed Forces of the Republic of Kazakhstan), January 7, 2005, https://zakon.uchet.kz /rus/docs/Z050000029. 30. “Saken Zhasuzakov’s Biography,” https://mod.gov.kz/rus/rukovodstvo/ministr _oborony. 31. “Aysultanu Nazarbayevu Prisvoeno Zvanie Starsheva Leytenenta” (Aysultan Nazarbayev Was Commissioned As Senior Lieutenant), Forbes Kazakhstan, August 12, 2013. 32. “Aysultan Nazarbayev Shokiroval Kazakhstan Svoym Priznaniem” (Aysultan Nazarbayev Shocked Kazakhstan with His Confession), September 5, 2017, https://centre1 .com/kazakhstan/ajsultan-nazarbaev-shokiroval-kazahstan-svoim-priznaniem. 33. Kazis Toguzbayev, “Ubiystvo Altynbeka Sarsenbayeva: Desyat let Sporov” (The Murder of Altybek Sarsenbayev: Ten Years of Disputes), Radio Azattyk, February 11, 2016.

196 Filip Kovacevic 34. Another opposition politician, Zamanbek Nurkadilov, was murdered three months before Sarsenbayev. 35. “Kazakhstan: Former Top Security Chief Convicted, but Why?” September 11, 2017, https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-former-top-security-chief-convicted-but-why. 36. “Izvestnoe i Neizvesnoe pro Rahata Aliyeva” (The Known and the Unknown About Rakhat Aliyev), February 25, 2015, http://www.matritca.kz/other-sites/19016 -izvestnoe-i-neizvestnoe-pro-rahata-alieva.html. 37. Rakhat Aliyev, Kresny Test: Dokumentalnaya Povest (The Godfather-in-Law: A Documentary Story) (Berlin: Trafo Verlag, 2009). This book is also available in English translation. The reference in the title is to Nazarbayev in the context of Mario Puzzo’s novel on the Italian mafia, The Godfather. The sale of this book (and even the reading of it) was officially prohibited on the territory of Kazakhstan and all found copies were to be destroyed. Interestingly, the KNB produced a book under the same title, but with a paranoid, wild-conspiracy-theory content (evidently) in order to discredit Aliyev. 38. In his book, Aliyev claims that the Austrian doctors found unknown metallic substances in his body and that he suffered serious health problems for years after his 2007 jail experience. 39. Aliyev, Kresny Test, 487–489 (digital version). 40. Rakhat Aliyev, “Kresny Test 2: Mesto Prestupleniya—Avstria” (The Godfatherin-Law 2: The Location of the Crime—Austria), July 7, 2014, https://m.facebook.com /notes/rakhat-mukhtarovitch-aliyev/рахат-алиев-крестный-тесть-2-место-преступления -австрия/281518462032032/. 41. “Poyavilas Novaya Verziya Smerty Rahata Aliyeva” (A New Version of the Death of Rakhat Aliyev), Sputnik Kazakhstan, December 12, 2016. 42. Erica Marat, “Post-Violence Regime Survival and Expansion in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan,” Central Asian Survey 35, no. 4 (2016), 537–538, 540–541. 43. Robert Mendrick, “Tony Blair Gives Kazakhstan’s Autocratic President Tips on How to Defend a Massacre,” The Telegraph, August 24, 2014. 44. “UNSC Kazakhstan: Non-Permanent Member, 2017–2018,” https://www .kazakhembus.com/content/un-security-council. 45. Dina Omarkulova, “115 States and 22 International Organizations to Take Part in EXPO, Kazakh National Commissioner Says,” Astana Times, May 31, 2017. 46. “Press Release on the Outcome of the 12th meeting of the SCO National Security Council Secretaries,” April 6, 2017, http://eng.sectsco.org/news/20170406/245531.html. 47. “O Mezhdunarodnoy Vystavkye ‘Kazakhstan Security Systems 2017’” (About International Exhibition ‘Kazakhstan Security Systems 2017’), September 28, 2017, http://www.knb.kz/ru/news/o-mezdunarodnoi-vystavke-kazakhstan-security-systems-2017. 48. “Rol KNB v Obespechenii Regionalnoy Bezopasnosti” (The Role of the KNB in the Provision of Regional Security), October 1, 2010, http://www.knb.kz/ru/news/rol -komiteta-nacionalnoi-bezopasnosti-v-obespecenii-regionalnoi-bezopasnosti. 49. “Kazakhstan’s Spaceport: Final Countdown,” The Economist, November 8, 2014. 50. “Minoborony: Uzel ‘Balkhash’ Vazhen dlya Predupredzhdenia Raketnykh Napadeniy” (Defense Ministry: Uzel Balkhash Important for Missile Attack Warning), RIA Novosti, November 20, 2015. 51. “The United Nations Office at Geneva Director-General’s Biography,” https:// web.archive.org/web/20130116204654/http://www.unog.ch/80256EE600583A0B/(httpPages )/747572BE619A22EA80256EF700760AF6?OpenDocument. 52. At this time, Dariga Nazarbayeva is the speaker of the Kazakh Senate, which according to some commentators positions her to run for president some time in the future. See, for instance, Neil MacFarquhar, “Daughter of Departing Kazakhstan President May Succeed Him,” New York Times, March 20, 2019. I, however, do not believe this will be the case, considering the powerful grip on power by those linked to the Kazakh intelligence community.

12 Myanmar Andrew Selth

Over the past 200 years, Myanmar (known before 1989 as Burma) has experienced almost every major system of government. After the kingdom was annexed by the British in the nineteenth century, it endured various forms of colonial rule and military administration before it regained its independence and became a parliamentary democracy in 1948. From 1958 to 1960, the country was run by an unelected “caretaker” government. The military dictatorship installed in 1962 morphed into an authoritarian one-party state in 1974. An abortive prodemocracy uprising in 1988 was followed by another military junta. Finally, in 2011, a “disciplined democracy” was allowed to emerge under mixed civilian-military rule. For almost all of this period, but particularly between 1962 and 2011, Myanmar’s government was supported by a powerful national intelligence apparatus. Indeed, rather than being the textbook example of a police state, as it was often called, Myanmar could be described instead as a classic intelligence state.1 Historical Development When Myanmar was under colonial rule, the British relied on intelligence provided by their civil and paramilitary police forces to anticipate and respond to challenges to political, economic, and social stability.2 As the country was conquered in three stages, a network of police posts was established, charged with wide reporting responsibilities. Soon after the fall of Mandalay in 1885, an Intelligence Branch was formed. In 1906, it 197

198 Andrew Selth was absorbed into the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and later became the Special Intelligence Branch (usually known as Special Branch, or SB). Most British and Indian army units were withdrawn from Myanmar after the province was “pacified” in the 1890s.3 The few who remained had the usual complement of military intelligence officers but there were no real external threats and internal security remained the responsibility of the police forces. A Burma Defense Bureau was created by the army in 1937, after the perceived failure of the police to warn of the 1930–1932 Saya San rebellion, but it lacked resources and had barely begun operations before the outbreak of World War II. During and immediately after the war, the Japanese, puppet Myanmar, and British administrations drew on intelligence reports to stay informed, but the civil organizations involved were always subordinate to the relevant military authorities. After 1948, the integration of police and military intelligence was important for coordinated operations against the insurgent groups and bandit gangs that dominated the countryside. The fledgling intelligence apparatus was “nearly useless,” however, and did not play a significant part in U Nu’s democratic government.4 In 1951, the prime minister created a Bureau of Special Investigations (BSI) to counter corruption and other financial crimes, but “an excess of zeal and suspicion and an insufficient regard for the privacy and motives of the individual, as well as disregard of due process of law, made the BSI more a menace than a help.”5 The most significant development in this field occurred after the 1962 coup, when General Ne Win increased the role, size, and capabilities of the Military Intelligence Service (MIS), later known as the Directorate of Defense Services Intelligence (DDSI). Between 1962 and the advent of a quasi-civilian government in 2011, Myanmar’s military rulers came to rely heavily on the state’s intelligence apparatus. The DDSI and, after 1994, its Office of Strategic Studies (OSS), dominated the field, limiting the roles of the SB, CID and BSI, and other organs like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The military element became even stronger when the DDSI and OSS combined in 2001 to form the Defense Services Intelligence Bureau, more widely known as the Office of the Chief of Military Intelligence (OCMI). Since 1964, the activities of all agencies had been coordinated by a National Intelligence Bureau (NIB). However, the NIB was abolished in 2004 when the chief of intelligence, General Khin Nyunt, was arrested and the OCMI comprehensively purged. A new Office of the Chief of Military Security Affairs (OCMSA) was created in 2005 and additional responsibilities were given to the Myanmar Police Force

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(MPF). However, the intelligence apparatus has still not fully recovered from the shocks of 2004. This has likely contributed to several intelligence failures, including the sudden emergence in 2016 of a militant Muslim group in Rakhine state.6 This multifaceted apparatus performed a wide range of functions. The military element collected and analyzed strategic and operational intelligence. Assisted by the civilian agencies, it also rooted out dissidents in the public service and security forces, and conducted counterespionage operations against suspected foreign agents. Diplomatic missions were closely watched. The civil population was monitored through an extensive surveillance network. Agencies routinely intercepted radio traffic, listened to domestic and overseas telephone calls, recorded private conversations, and opened mail. From the mid-1990s, they kept a watchful eye on computer activity in Myanmar, monitored email and social media accounts, and engaged in information warfare. A few agencies exploited aerial photography and, after it became available, commercial satellite imagery. After the formation of the OSS and until its collapse in 2004, the military intelligence organization extended its reach well beyond these traditional roles to embrace a wide range of official functions, to the extent that it was described as an “invisible government.”7 Throughout this period, the government maintained a string of spies and informers overseas, mainly in neighboring countries. Together with the diplomats and defense attachés based in Myanmar’s embassies, agents and regime sympathizers reported on the activities of ethnic insurgents, black-marketeers, narcotics and sex traffickers, and refugees and expatriates, including political activists and exile communities. International organizations with an interest in Myanmar were monitored, as were the activities of foreign academics and journalists. A blacklist was maintained, identifying enemies of the state. After a few unexplained deaths, activist groups claimed that Myanmar employed assassins to eliminate regime critics when they traveled abroad. At different levels, and in different ways, liaison relationships were developed with intelligence agencies in South Asia, China, and the states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). There were also reported to be links with the security services of friendly countries, like Israel. It was widely expected that the transfer of power to a quasi-civilian government in 2011, and more particularly the installation of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) government in 2016, would trigger a dramatic change in the political climate in Myanmar,

200 Andrew Selth and in the employment of the national intelligence apparatus. The atmosphere has certainly changed, and there are now fewer reports of arbitrary arrests and torture. However, as far as can be judged, intelligence continues to play an important part in the management of civil affairs. It has also remained an essential tool of the armed forces (Tatmadaw), which remains the most powerful institution in the country. Enduring Characteristics Reliable information is difficult to obtain, but it is possible to identify five features that have marked Myanmar’s intelligence culture since 1948. First, the primary focus of the national intelligence effort has always been on domestic affairs. During the 1950s, the growth of the DDSI was encouraged by the presence in northern Myanmar of nationalist Chinese (Kuomintang [KMT]) forces who escaped communist China in 1949. Rangoon’s concerns were heightened by the clandestine support given to these KMT remnants by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Taiwan. Questions of sovereignty aside, the KMT presence had serious implications for the stability of northern Myanmar. It also complicated the efforts being made to combat the multiple insurgencies being waged against the central government by ethnic, religious, and ideological groups. The government also faced threats from so-called economic insurgents, drug barons, political activists, and other dissidents. These issues dominated the government’s security concerns, encouraging a siege mentality that has characterized the intelligence community for over a half a century. Prime Minister U Nu once described Myanmar as being “hemmed in like a tender gourd among the cactus,” a reference to its powerful and potentially hostile neighbors, notably China and India but also Thailand.8 During the Cold War, Myanmar was a cockpit for great power rivalry, played out for example through the KMT remnants.9 After Ne Win’s coup in 1962, Myanmar retreated into economic autarky and strict neutrality in international affairs. In 1979, it even withdrew from the NonAligned Movement. Successive military governments dedicated few resources to foreign intelligence collection and analysis, but they were not ignored. Military intelligence officers were posted abroad, usually to diplomatic missions, with instructions to report on expatriate Myanmar communities. Other agents were sent to neighboring countries, but the collection of strategic intelligence was a low priority. The task of following external developments was left to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

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and, while it existed, the OSS. As far as is known, Myanmar has never had a separate foreign intelligence service. Second, Myanmar’s intelligence effort has been characterized by a total commitment to the preservation of the union. Since the colonial period, governments and military leaders have been acutely aware of the dangers arising from internal fractures. As Martin Smith has noted, Myanmar is “one of the most ethnically diverse countries in Asia.”10 The official count is 135 ethno-linguistic groups, most of which have taken up arms against the central government at one time or another. Also, despite the dominance of Buddhism, there are volatile religious tensions. Add to this the popular calls for a truly democratic government, demands for a higher standard of living, and the possibility of divisions in the security forces, and it is no wonder that successive governments have feared what they call “chaos.”11 The country’s intelligence agencies have been employed to defend the unitary state, by whatever means available. In the name of the “three national causes” of stability, unity, and sovereignty, they have ruthlessly exercised sweeping powers, including blanket surveillance of the population, arbitrary arrest, and torture. Some observers have traced this uncompromising approach back to the training provided by Myanmar’s Japanese allies during World War II. They have claimed, for example, that Ne Win was trained in torture and other interrogation techniques by the Kempeitai military police. This has even prompted suggestions that the Kempeitai was a model for the military intelligence service that he created after Myanmar’s independence, by extension helping to explain the brutal methods also employed by the other intelligence agencies.12 However, the Kempetai link remains unconfirmed and such claims ignore the training provided to Myanmar by the CIA in the 1950s.13 More likely, the systematic violation of human rights, by the DDSI/OCMI and SB in particular, stemmed from a range of factors. These included the military regime’s intense nationalism, its pervasive sense of vulnerability to both internal and external threats, the conviction that only a strong central government dominated by the Tatmadaw could protect Myanmar, and the impunity it enjoyed in the exercise of power against the civil population. Third, ever since Myanmar regained its independence, its intelligence apparatus has been dominated by the armed forces, in one way or another. This is in contrast to arrangements during the colonial period, when the police force was primarily responsible for the collection and analysis of security-related intelligence. The Burma Defense Bureau was technically independent, albeit under army control, but it was

202 Andrew Selth mostly staffed by policemen who usually had more experience and technical expertise than the military officers temporarily stationed in the colony.14 Under U Nu, there was at times unhealthy competition between the police and the Tatmadaw, but after 1962 the armed forces were firmly in control.15 The SB and the CID continued to play a role, particularly as the integration of intelligence was important in maintaining internal stability, but from then on the police force was always subordinate to the armed forces. After the purge of Khin Nyunt’s intelligence empire in 2004, the military regime turned to the Special Branch to take primary responsibility for internal security. Yet even then, the armed forces remained firmly in control. Many police officers were former members of the Tatmadaw or army officers on secondment to the MPF. Despite the transfer of some political power to a quasi-civilian government in 2011, the influence of the armed forces has remained. Under both President Thein Sein and State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi a major effort has been made to “civilianize” security in Myanmar.16 However, as decreed by the 2008 constitution, the minister for home affairs (who oversees both MPF agencies and the BSI) is a serving military officer, appointed by the commander-in-chief of the Defense Services. Thus all the key elements of the national intelligence apparatus are still controlled, directly or indirectly, by the armed forces. Fourth, due largely to Myanmar’s isolation and persistent economic problems, its security agencies have relied on human intelligence (HUMINT) rather than technical sources. For decades, the vast bulk of the data gathered, mainly by the DDSI and SB, came from tens of thousands of officials, professional agents, and unpaid informers who monitored the civil population and security forces. Records were laboriously kept in mountains of paper files. Under Khin Nyunt, the DDSI/OCMI developed the country’s ability to monitor commercial and insurgent radio transmissions and satellite telephones, but progress was slow. From the mid-1990s, an effort was made to master information technology, and to monitor computer use in Myanmar, but the country’s signals intelligence (SIGINT) capabilities remained modest, reflecting the country’s low level of technological development.17 In 2001, for example, there were only 295,000 telephone subscribers, a penetration of only 0.6 percent.18 The same year, there were barely a thousand internet users.19 This situation has changed dramatically, as Myanmar has experienced “the fastest digital uptake in human history.”20 By May 2018, there were over 56.8 million mobile phone subscribers (in a population

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of 53.4 million).21 There were over 16 million Facebook users.22 As Myanmar entered the electronic age, leapfrogging several steps, it seems that the intelligence agencies have tried to keep up. A major effort has reportedly been made to monitor and control computer usage and social media networks. Facebook has become the prime source of news for most people in Myanmar, making it ripe for exploitation by the security forces. For many years, imagery intelligence (IMINT) in Myanmar was restricted to overhead photography taken by vintage aircraft and pictures from hand-held cameras. According to unconfirmed reports, this situation too has changed, as more resources have been put into intelligence collection, more sophisticated equipment has been acquired, and commercial satellite imagery options have been explored. Fifth, in terms of intelligence management, there has always been tension in Myanmar between two competing imperatives. The first has been to have a single person or organization to guide and direct the national intelligence apparatus, coordinate policies and operations, and guarantee the necessary links between collection, analysis, and dissemination. Such a system offers benefits in terms of centralized control and less duplication of effort and resources. The second imperative is to create multiple agencies under different managers, each designed to perform specialized functions, and to safeguard their independence. This helps prevent the acquisition of excessive power by a particular individual or agency. In Myanmar, as elsewhere, knowledge is power, and there have been several examples of chiefs of intelligence acquiring and exerting so much influence that they have attracted the ire of their fellow officers.23 A number have been viewed as challengers for the Tatmadaw’s leadership, and thus a threat to stability. Since 1962, such tensions have prompted the removal of several intelligence chiefs. For example, Colonel Maung Lwin was dismissed in 1965, Brigadier Tin Oo in 1983, and General Khin Nyunt in 2004. On each occasion, there were major upheavals in the intelligence apparatus. Some of these measures were to punish individuals or agencies for perceived incompetence or corruption, some reflected professional jealousies and personal rivalries, while others were aimed at weeding out suspected dissidence or excessive ambition. All these factors contributed to Khin Nyunt’s arrest. Given the personal nature of power in Myanmar, and the entourage system it encourages, the fall of an intelligence chief tends to be accompanied by the dismissal of his subordinates and supporters, both in intelligence circles and elsewhere in the armed forces and bureaucracy. As seen in 2004, such purges can lead to a major loss of capability and, in some cases, adverse consequences for the country’s security.

204 Andrew Selth Current Structure and Mission Little is definitively known about developments in Myanmar’s intelligence community since the ruling State Peace and Development Council formally handed over political power to Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government in 2011. The same can be said for the period since 2016, when Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD administration took office. As always, observers are dependent on anecdotal evidence, unconfirmed news reports, and rumors. At one level, there are unmistakable signs of change, but at the same time much appears to have remained the same. Also, as in the past, the lines of authority for security matters are blurred and responsibilities overlap. In the immediate aftermath of Khin Nyunt’s fall and the collapse of the OCMI, the MPF was given increased responsibilities. It is now widely accepted as “the primary institution charged with internal security.”24 Its efforts are directed mainly through an expanded Special Branch. In early 2015, the SB had a personnel strength of about 2,500, of which 300 were based at SB headquarters in Naypyidaw, under a police brigadier-general.25 The headquarters is divided into five sections: internal security, internal relations, prosecution, passports, and training.26 There were SB documentation centers in Naypyidaw and Rangoon. There were also fifty-five mobile platoons, covering 165 areas across the country. Each of the fourteen states and regions has its own SB command, most under police lieutenant-colonels. There are also SB outposts in most townships.27 Sensitive areas like northern Rakhine state have been allocated additional resources. Under the NLD government, the CID seems to be focusing on its traditional duties of investigating serious crime. With other MPF units, it has also assumed an important role in the fight against narcotics production and distribution. In 2015, the CID had about 700 members.28 It was headed by a police brigadier, based in Naypyidaw. There were regional branches in Naypyidaw, Rangoon, and Mandalay, headed by police lieutenant-colonels, as well as twenty local units spread between the state and regional capitals. In addition, there were eleven special sections based in Rangoon. The CID has been suffering from a shortage of modern equipment and personnel with the necessary education and skills, but it still makes a contribution to the national intelligence effort. The OCMSA seems to be concentrating on military matters, notably campaigns against ethnic armed groups and operations like those conducted in 2016 and 2017 against the Muslim Rohingyas.29 Outside conflict zones, it is believed to focus mainly on the maintenance of law and

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order in the rural and border areas.30 Its headquarters structure is thought to reflect that of its predecessor. Sources differ, but most agree that the OCMI has had seven departments: internal affairs, border security, counterintelligence, international relations, science and technology, administration, and security and training.31 However, department heads have been downgraded to the lieutenant-colonel level, probably because OCMSA headquarters now only performs administrative and analytical functions.32 Operational matters have been left to intelligence battalions attached to the country’s fourteen regional military commands. There are also company- or platoon-sized units responsible for designated geographical areas and embedded in the navy and air force. After the OCMI’s demise in 2004, the BSI’s jurisdiction was reportedly expanded to include political crimes. Like the SB, it reported directly to the minister for home affairs, who, in the absence of a chief of intelligence, took on a greater responsibility for providing the government with security-related advice. Since 2011, the BSI seems to have largely reverted to its formal investigative functions relating to financial crimes. However, one of its publicly stated objectives is still “to collect intelligence for national security.”33 The BSI has six divisions in its Naypyidaw headquarters: administration, law and prosecution, information technology, investigation and finance, crime, and inspection. There are also BSI offices in the capitals of the fourteen provinces. As already noted, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has always fulfilled an important intelligence function, mainly through its forty-seven overseas missions.34 It not only exercises the usual diplomatic roles, including open-source intelligence (OSINT) collection and analysis but also provides diplomatic cover and administrative support for military intelligence officers posted overseas. Myanmar’s defense attachés used to report only to the DDSI/OCMI but now appear to report to both the OCMSA and SB, as the latter is now responsible for monitoring Myanmar citizens outside the country. Albeit to a lesser extent than before 2011, Myanmar’s ambassadors are sometimes former military officers or have an intelligence background. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also provides the government with strategic intelligence assessments. The national security adviser position created by Aung San Suu Kyi in 2017, to give her an independent source of advice, was filled by an experienced diplomat. In addition to the main agencies, there are several small investigative units in ministries that deal with issues relating to customs, immigration, and finance.35 They are rarely included in descriptions of Myanmar’s national intelligence apparatus because of their modest sizes and

206 Andrew Selth the fact that they focus on specialized areas. However, if the past is anything to go by, they too can contribute to the broader intelligence effort. The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications also helps extend the state’s surveillance capabilities. From time to time, stories have appeared in the news media claiming that the government was contemplating the recreation of the National Intelligence Bureau, or an organization like it. A few suggested that this had already occurred. In January 2015, after one such report, the president’s office denied that there were any moves to reestablish the NIB or an equivalent organization.36 However, senior officials have continued to express concern over the fragmentation of the country’s intelligence effort and the lack of coordination. They appear to share the view of a former US chargé d’affaires in Myanmar who in 2012 described the country’s intelligence system as “a creature that has lost its central nervous system. The legs are flailing, and it doesn’t know which way to turn.”37 Soon after Thein Sein took office, there were unconfirmed reports that the Tatmadaw commander-in-chief had formed a new intelligence unit charged with “investigating domestic political and security affairs.”38 Among its reported duties was the surveillance of political parties and ethnic armed groups. It was claimed that the unit was about 200 strong and consisted of members of all three service arms, ranked from captain to colonel. It also included representatives of the MPF, BSI, and Ministry of Border Affairs. According to these reports, the new unit oversees all intelligence agencies and reports to both military and civilian authorities at the provincial and national levels.39 These reports seem to be related to claims that the government has reconstituted the NIB to provide a mechanism for the oversight and coordination of a “new security system” that would include an expanded surveillance network, including increased electronic monitoring.40 It is possible that the NIB, or a similar body, has been revived but not yet publicly announced. A confidential report prepared by a foreign nongovernmental organization (NGO) in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2014 referred specifically to a “National Intelligence Bureau.”41 This body reportedly coordinated the activities of the Special Branch and other agencies making up Myanmar’s intelligence apparatus. If and when this new NIB was formed, however, who constitutes its membership, how it operates, how its director is chosen, and to whom it reports are not known. Even if this NGO report proves to be inaccurate and there is no new NIB, the need for better high-level direction and coordination of the national intelligence effort will remain.

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As decades-old restrictions on political activity, freedom of speech, and freedom of association were relaxed under Thein Sein, so the level of overt oppression in Myanmar declined. Organizations like Human Rights Watch acknowledged that under the new quasi-civilian government, there was a marked drop in the number of reported arrests, detentions, and cases of torture.42 Despite the freer atmosphere prevailing throughout most of the country, however, old habits seemed to die hard. There are still serious abuses.43 In its 2015 human rights country report, for example, the US State Department noted that “security forces continued to exert a pervasive influence on the lives of inhabitants through the fear of arbitrary arrest and detention and through threats to individual livelihoods. These forces enjoyed impunity.”44 By law, warrants to conduct searches and make arrests were required, but the OCMSA and SB still did both at will. Violence was still a routine aspect of police and military interrogations. Also, as Karin Dean has noted, “the decrease of authoritarianism does not necessarily lead to a decline in surveillance for political and social control, and Myanmar is an exemplary case.”45 After 2011, the level of surveillance appeared to decline, but a number of mechanisms were still in place to permit the civilian and military authorities to keep a close watch on anyone suspected of challenging the state. The surveillance of community leaders, political party members, diplomats, and journalists has continued.46 One well-informed Myanmar-watcher described the “surveillance machine” as “frighteningly thorough and efficient.”47 Some of this activity may have been driven by junior officers, as a precautionary measure in the absence of orders from their superiors. However, if that was ever true, then it is unlikely to have remained the case after an initial period of confusion over intelligence priorities and operational deployments.48 Since Aung San Suu Kyi’s government took office, reports of intelligence activity in Myanmar have been mixed. In its country report for 2016, for example, the US State Department observed, “Outside of conflict areas, security forces generally operated with respect for the rule of law, and various organizations noted the significant decrease under the new government of the pervasive and threatening influence security forces previously exerted on the lives of inhabitants.”49 The same assessment was made in the 2017 report, but it included the caveat that “others noted an increase in police surveillance and monitoring during the year.”50 Indeed, Aung San Suu Kyi’s critics have charged that, in some respects, Myanmar has changed little from the days of the military regime, when the authorities were quick to crack down on dissent. They

208 Andrew Selth claim that the intelligence apparatus is less in evidence, but the same kinds of restrictions on speech and behavior remain in force.51 There may be fewer arrests and summary trials in Myanmar under the NLD government, but the overall level of surveillance “remains comparable to that in the past or is even wider, while its pattern has changed.” According to the same observer, there has been “a shift from high intensity force to low intensity coercion of lesser visibility, with shifting targets and modes of performance.”52 This pattern can be seen in the increased use since 2016 of public laws and regulations, many of which date back to the colonial period and military dictatorship, to restrict protests and silence critics of the government and the security forces. For example, there has been a marked increase in the use of the 2013 Telecommunications Act to punish “offensive” or “insulting” online comments about the authorities.53 Other laws have been used to punish journalists and others who have dared to criticize the government or security forces. International Cooperation After the advent of a quasi-civilian administration, Myanmar’s international relations blossomed as foreign governments ventured into areas of bilateral cooperation that had once been considered too sensitive. At the same time, Myanmar’s intelligence agencies appear to have reached out more to their foreign counterparts, both in the region and farther afield. There have also been efforts to stimulate multilateral cooperation, prompted in large part by problems like international terrorism and transnational crime. For example, in 2016 the ASEAN Regional Forum undertook to increase intelligence exchanges on issues like terrorism and trafficking in arms, narcotics, women, and funds.54 Myanmar’s intelligence apparatus stands to benefit from such initiatives. The Tatmadaw already participates in the ASEAN Military Intelligence Informal Meeting (AMIIM) forum, which sponsors high-level discussions and analyst-level exchanges, mainly on nontraditional security threats. In 2014, it hosted the eleventh annual AMIIM. A cloud hangs over some of these relationships, however, as a result of the latest Rohingya crisis and the international outcry over the Tatmadaw’s brutal “area clearance operations,” which the UN has labeled ethnic cleansing, if not genocide.55 Naypyidaw is facing the prospect of a return to international isolation and punitive sanctions. Already, most Western countries have reduced or canceled nascent military-to-military

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exchanges.56 Another casualty of Myanmar’s renewed pariah status may be developing intelligence contacts.57 However, the liaison relationships already forged with agencies in Myanmar’s regional neighbors and other ASEAN states will survive any international measures taken against Myanmar’s government and armed forces. As seen so often in the past, including in the period following the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, mutual self-interest always trumps concerns about universal human rights or internationally accepted standards of behavior. Intelligence and Accountability Aung San Suu Kyi is the de facto leader of Myanmar and acts “above the president.”58 However, she has little control over the country’s intelligence apparatus, almost all elements of which are answerable, directly or indirectly, to the commander-in-chief of the Defense Services. Under the 2008 constitution, he appoints the ministers for defense and home affairs, under whose jurisdictions the OCMSA, SB, CID, and BSI fall. He also appoints the minister for border affairs. Aung San Suu Kyi is the minister for foreign affairs and is thus responsible for Myanmar’s diplomatic missions. This gives her a role in the collection of OSINT, but the defense attachés are appointed by the armed forces. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has very little control over their intelligence activities. Aung San Suu Kyi thus cannot be held directly responsible for the behavior of Myanmar’s intelligence apparatus or the actions of any particular agencies. However, this does not absolve her of any responsibility. Since taking office, Aung San Suu Kyi has shown little inclination to curb the excesses of the intelligence agencies or to adjust their formal roles, despite her repeated calls for universal human rights and the rule of law when she was a political prisoner. In the new Myanmar, for example, it might be expected that responsibility for the investigation of political crimes—those that relate primarily to domestic, and certain aspects of external, security—would fall exclusively to the MPF, or to a dedicated civilian agency, as occurs in most democratic countries. That may yet occur, but these duties still seem to be shared between the police and the armed forces. If and when reforms are introduced, relations between them could become more problematical. Formally, the SB has responsibility for the collection and assessment of political intelligence. The OCMSA is supposed to concern itself only with defense matters.59 However, given the Tatmadaw’s self-appointed

210 Andrew Selth national guardianship role and the power wielded by military intelligence agencies in the past, it is unlikely that the armed forces would be prepared to give up their ability independently to monitor domestic developments. Not only do the generals distrust the civilian agencies but also the Tatmadaw has always preferred to rely on its own resources when it comes to “national security,” a term with a very wide meaning in Myanmar. This will remain the case while the military leadership perceives continuing threats to the country—and itself—from a wide range of ethnic armed groups, political activists, religious extremists, and foreign governments. There is thus the potential for the continued duplication of functions, with the attendant jurisdictional disputes, professional jealousies, and competition for scarce resources. There are doubtless some in Myanmar who view the more open political environment since 2011 with unease, if not concern, and thus deserving of close attention by official agencies. However, an entirely new security system seems unlikely. Whether or not there is a restructuring of the national intelligence apparatus, it will need a clearly defined mission that fully takes into account Aung San Suu Kyi’s reformist aims and the more liberal atmosphere that now prevails in the country. That guidance currently seems to be lacking, or is poorly enforced. Also, a strong argument could be mounted for a rationalization and redistribution of intelligence duties. This would not only increase the level of cooperation between agencies and better exploit their limited resources but also provide a clearer delineation of their responsibilities, in particular the separation of military and civilian functions. This in turn could aid in the future oversight of intelligence operations in Myanmar by a genuinely elected civilian government. Conclusion When Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD took power after an election landslide in 2015, a wave of euphoria swept over Myanmar and other parts of the world. At the time, there was a rather naive belief that everything would be transformed. It was assumed, for example, that key components of the police state would be dismantled and it would soon become a bad memory. Clearly, that has not happened and, as most experienced Myanmar-watchers predicted, was never going to happen. It might have helped the popular pundits to keep in mind Robert Taylor’s observation that “military intelligence has served as a means of social control throughout the existence of independent Burma,” and to

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ask if and how the NLD government planned to depart from this pattern.60 Since 2016, Aung San Suu Kyi has faced many of the same challenges as the military regime but seems to have relied on the same mechanisms to tackle them. Indeed, eight years after the armed forces stepped back from direct rule, and despite the promise of sweeping reforms, there are no indications that Myanmar’s approach to security matters has changed significantly. The vast intelligence apparatus that underpinned military rule is still in place. It is no longer dominated by a large military intelligence organization, as it was under General Khin Nyunt, but either directly or indirectly it still answers to the Tatmadaw’s commander-in-chief. Also, there have been some changes in the way that the intelligence agencies operate, but the greatest shifts seem to have been in manner and style, rather than in substance. The agencies retain many of the same powers and display many of the same characteristics that made the intelligence apparatus a powerful and feared arm of the military government. Despite some movement toward a real democracy, it is unlikely that the government’s dependence on the national intelligence apparatus will diminish. Myanmar is currently facing a number of new external challenges, from both national and transnational threats, but the priority currently given to internal security is unlikely to change. Both the NLD government and the Tatmadaw leadership know that their survival— and, in their view, the country’s survival—is threatened more by disunity and domestic instability than by any foreign developments. Myanmar has weathered international pressure in the past and is confident it can do so again. The greatest threats will come from within the country. This will ensure that the intelligence apparatus will continue to occupy a major place in government and will remain firmly under the control of the armed forces. Notes 1. The “police state” description is by Brad Adams, head of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division, cited in N. A. Englehart, Sovereignty, State Failure, and Human Rights: Petty Despots and Exemplary Villains (London: Routledge, 2017), 104. 2. For most of the period Myanmar was under British rule, there was a civil Burma police and a paramilitary Burma military police. Andrew Selth, “Myanmar’s Police Forces: Coercion, Continuity, and Change,” Contemporary Southeast Asia 34, no. 1 (April 2012), 53–79. 3. British Burma was a province of India until 1937, when it became a colony in its own right. 4. M. P. Callahan, Making Enemies: War and State Building in Burma (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), 199.

212 Andrew Selth 5. L. J. Walinsky, “The Rise and Fall of U Nu,” Pacific Affairs 38, nos. 3–4 (Autumn 1965–Winter 1965/1966), 278. 6. Andrew Selth, Secrets and Power in Myanmar: Intelligence and the Fall of General Khin Nyunt (Singapore: ISEAS, 2019). 7. D. M. Seekins, “Burma in 1998: Little to Celebrate,” Asian Survey 39, no. 1 (1999), 13. 8. U Nu, September 5, 1950, quoted in J. S. Thompson, “Burmese Neutralism,” Political Science Quarterly 72, no. 2 (June 1957), 266. 9. Matthew Foley, The Cold War and National Assertion in Southeast Asia: Britain, the United States, and Burma, 1948–1962 (London: Routledge, 2010). 10. Martin Smith, Burma (Myanmar): The Time for Change (London: Minority Rights Group International, 2002), 4. 11. D. I. Steinberg, Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 140. 12. Kin Oung, Who Killed Aung San? (Bangkok: White Lotus, 1993), 30; D. M. Seekins, State and Society in Modern Rangoon (London: Routledge, 2011), 116. 13. In 1958, the CIA helped create an intelligence unit in the army’s Directorate of Education. Also, a number of Myanmar army officers undertook intelligence training at a secret CIA facility on Saipan. Callahan, Making Enemies, 198–199. 14. Edmund Clipson, “‘For Purposes of Political Camouflage’: Intelligence Gathering in Colonial Burma, 1933–35,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 40, no. 4 (November 2012), 643–667. 15. Under U Nu there were the civil police force and a paramilitary force known as the Union Military Police, renamed the Union Constabulary by the 1958–1960 “caretaker government.” This force was absorbed into the Tatmadaw soon after Ne Win’s coup. 16. Under the 2008 constitution, Aung San Suu Kyi cannot become president, as her children are foreign nationals. Andrew Selth, “Police Reform and the ‘Civilianisation’ of Security in Myanmar,” in Melissa Crouch and Tim Lindsey, eds., Law, Society, and Transition in Myanmar (Oxford: Hart, 2014), 271–288. 17. Desmond Ball, Burma’s Military Secrets: Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) from 1941 to Cyber Warfare (Bangkok: White Lotus, 1998). 18. Miki Ebara, The Fall of Military Intelligence Under Khin Nyunt: An Analysis of Power Dynamics in Myanmar, thesis, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, 2005, 9. 19. “Internet Usage in Asia,” September 12, 2018, https://www.internetworldstats .com/asia.htm#mm. 20. Kayleigh Long, “Facebook Has Banned Myanmar’s Top General Min Aung Hlaing, but What’s Next?” ABC News, August 30, 2018, https://www.abc.net.au/news /2018-08-30/facebook-bans-myanmars-top-general-min-aung-hlaing/10178642. 21. “Mobile Phone Usage in Myanmar Increases 110 Percent,” Mizzima News, May 23, 2018, http://www.mizzima.com/business-domestic/mobile-phone-usage-myanmar -increases-110-percent. In 1998, a SIM card cost over US$7,000. It now costs a few dollars. 22. “Internet Usage in Asia.” 23. It was standard practice for chiefs of intelligence to compile dossiers on other members of the armed forces. 24. “Burma 2017 Human Rights Report” (Washington, DC: US Department of State, 2018), https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/277313.pdf. 25. Myanmar’s administrative capital was moved from Rangoon (Yangon) to Naypyidaw (Nay Pyi Taw) in November 2005. 26. Personal communication from Rangoon, March 2017. 27. Personal communication from Rangoon, January 2015. 28. Ibid. 29. Andrew Selth, Myanmar’s Armed Forces and the Rohingya Crisis, Peaceworks no. 140 (Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace, 2018), https://www.usip.org/sites /default/files/2018-08/pw140-myanmars-armed-forces-and-the-rohingya-crisis.pdf.

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30. The OCMSA has also been called the Office of the Chief of Military Affairs Security, or simply Military Affairs Security. The different names may be the result of different translations of the original title into English, or may reflect a slight name change soon after the organization was created. 31. Another source has listed the seven departments as politics and counterintelligence, border security and intelligence, ethnic nationalities and ceasefire groups, narcotics suppression, naval and air intelligence, science and technology, and international relations. See Maung Aung Myoe, Building the Tatmadaw: Myanmar Armed Forces Since 1948 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009), 83. 32. “Burma (Union of Myanmar),” country-of-origin information report, UK Border Agency, July 23, 2010, 34, http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/4c529d1a2.pdf. 33. “BSI Biography,” Republic of the Union of Myanmar, Ministry of Home Affairs, http://myanmarmoha.org/eng/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=92&Itemid =542&lang=en. 34. Myanmar currently has thirty-six embassies, six consulates-general, one trade office (in Taiwan), and four permanent missions to international organizations. 35. Andrew Selth, “Burma’s Intelligence Apparatus,” Intelligence and National Security 13, no. 4 (Winter 1998), 33–70. 36. “Myanmar (Burma): President’s Office Denies Re-establishing Feared NIB,” Asia News Monitor (Bangkok), January 6, 2015. 37. Priscilla Clapp, quoted in Evan Osnos, “The Burmese Spring,” New Yorker, August 6, 2012, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/08/06/the-burmese-spring. 38. “Burma Forms New Intelligence Unit,” The Irrawaddy, May 3, 2011, http://www2 .irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21223. 39. Wai Moe, “Tatmadaw Commanders Discuss Recent Ethnic Conflicts,” The Irrawaddy, June 29, 2011, http://www2.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=21593. 40. “Yangon: Regime Pours Funds into Army and Intelligence to Block Web Protests,” September 3, 2011, http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Yangon:-regime-pours -funds-into-army-and-intelligence-to-block-web-protests-20983.html#. See also Aung Zaw, “Burmese Spy Reveals MI’s Dirty Deeds,” The Irrawaddy, April 24, 2006, http:// www2.irrawaddy.com/article.php?art_id=5681&Submit=Submit. 41. Author interview, Rangoon, March 2014. 42. “Burma 2012 Human Rights Report” (Washington, DC: US Department of State, 2013), https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/204400.pdf. 43. See, for example, Nick Davies, “Myanmar’s Moment of Truth,” The Guardian, March 9, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/09/myanmar-moment-of -truth-aung-san-suu-kyi. 44. “Burma 2015 Human Rights Report” (Washington, DC: US Department of State, 2016), https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/252963.pdf, 6. 45. Karin Dean, “Myanmar: Surveillance and the Turn from Authoritarianism?” Surveillance and Society 15, nos. 3–4 (2017), 503. 46. See, for example, Todd Pitman, “In Myanmar, Internal Spy Network Lives On,” The Hindu, July 30, 2013, http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/in-myanmar-internal -spy-network-lives-on/article4967357.ece. 47. Emma Larkin, Finding George Orwell in Burma (London: Granta, 2011), 57. 48. Phil Rees, “Are Myanmar Secret Agents Still Playing ‘Dirty Tricks’?” October 28, 2015, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/10/myanmar-secret-agents -playing-dirty-tricks-151027085402365.html. 49. “Burma 2016 Human Rights Report” (Washington, DC: US Department of State, 2017), 6, https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/265536.pdf. 50. “Burma 2017 Human Rights Report,” 8. 51. “‘They Can Arrest You at Any Time’: The Criminalisation of Peaceful Expression in Burma” (New York: Human Rights Watch, June 29, 2016), https://www.hrw.org/report /2016/06/29/they-can-arrest-you-any-time/criminalization-peaceful-expression-burma.

214 Andrew Selth 52. Dean, “Myanmar,” 503. 53. Between November 2015 and November 2017, 106 criminal complaints were made under the telecommunications law. Of these, 95 cases (or 90 percent) were made under the current NLD government. See “No Real Change—An Analysis of Complaints Made Before and After the 2017 Amendment,” December 2017, 16, http://freeexpressionmyanmar .org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/66d-no-real-change.pdf. 54. For example, in 2016, following the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meeting in Vientiane, a statement was issued linking the intelligence efforts of the ten ASEAN member states with its fourteen ARF partners. See “ASEAN, Partners Agree to Boost Intelligence Sharing,” July 26, 2016, http://aseanregionalforum.asean.org/news-21895 /13-asean-partners-agree-to-boost-intelligence-sharing.html. 55. UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, September 12, 2018, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC /MyanmarFFM/Pages/ReportoftheMyanmarFFM.aspx. 56. See, for example, Roland Oliphant and Neil Connor, “Britain to Stop Training Burmese Military Until Rohingya Crisis Is Resolved,” The Telegraph, September 19, 2017, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/19/britain-stop-training-burmese-military -rohingya-crisis-resolved; Michael Peel and John Reed, “EU to Scale Back Relations with Myanmar’s Military,” Financial Times, October 17, 2017, https://www.ft.com/content /cf0b94f6-b25d-11e7-a398-73d59db9e399. 57. Cameron Hill, Defence Cooperation with Myanmar: Australia and Other Countries—A Quick Guide, Research Paper Series 2017–2018 (Canberra: Parliamentary Library, Parliament of Australia, October 13, 2017), http://apo.org.au/system/files /114236/apo-nid114236-450741.pdf. 58. “Myanmar Election: Aung San Suu Kyi Will Be ‘Above President,’” BBC News, November 5, 2015, http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-34729691/myanmar-election -aung-san-suu-kyi-will-be-above-president. 59. Author interview, Naypyidaw, February 2013. 60. R. H. Taylor, “The Military in Myanmar (Burma): What Scope for a New Role?” in Viberto Selochan, ed., The Military, the State, and Development in Asia and the Pacific (Boulder: Westview, 1991), 145.

13 North Korea Stephan Blancke

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), today’s North Korea, is the result of a crisis-ridden Korean history. After Korea was occupied by Japan in 1910 and had to capitulate in 1945, the Korean Peninsula was divided. The northern part was supported by the Soviet Union, the southern part by the United States. After all negotiations for reunification failed, two states were proclaimed in 1948: North Korea and South Korea, or Republic of Korea (ROK). An invasion of the South by North Korea led to the Korean War (1950–1953), which ended with a ceasefire but no peace treaty. The first North Korean leader, Kim Il-sung, implemented the myth of the legendary origins and abilities of both himself and the Kim clan. He not only successfully cultivated this myth in a way that it would thrive to the present day but also pursued a policy of “self-reliance.” Over the next decades, this state philosophy, called Juche, led to an oligarchic system based on absolute control, a state apparatus with Stalinist and nationalist tendencies, as well as a dominant military and security bureaucracy. North Korea’s centralized economic system also meant that the state’s economy increasingly depended on the Soviet Union, despite its initially prosperous heavy industry. Although official statements repeatedly claimed a successful policy, international aid supplies were added in later years to contain the worst excesses—even today, famines and medical shortages are no uncommon occurrence. From an economic and infrastructural point of view, North Korea has developed into a failed state over the course of the Kim family’s years of rule—Kim Il-sung was followed by Kim Jong-il (1994–2011) and eventually by Kim Jong-un. 215

216 Stephan Blancke North Korea has always known how to take advantage of international power gaps in order to make political capital. Furthermore, it has successfully avoided international sanctions to procure not only luxury goods for the nepotistic system but all kinds of technology for military programs as well. As far as the role of North Korean intelligence agencies is concerned, the following three factors are essential: complete control of society to prevent any friction; continued existence of the regime—that is, the Kim clan and their luxurious lifestyle; and maintenance of military and nuclear potential in particular. History of Intelligence Agencies The evolution of North Korean intelligence agencies was heavily influenced by the Soviet Union and based on two imperatives: the political and military survival of Kim Il-sung. In the face of the allied occupation of Korea, the Northern and the Southern wing of the Korean Communist Party (KCP) formed in 1945. Kim Il-sung, who was massively supported by the Soviet Union, founded the North Korean Communist Party in June 1946, which eventually led to the formation of the Workers Party of North Korea, or Korean Workers Party (KWP). First elections for party membership in the KWP were held in 1946 and 1947, and a People’s Assembly—later Supreme People’s Assembly—was developed. Under Kim Il-sung as North Korea’s first prime minister, a constitution was passed in April 1948 that officially established the DPRK. From the beginning, Kim Il-sung realized—as did his successors in office—that he was not unassailable: his political opponents such as KCP member Pak Hon-yong also had a claim to leadership over all Korean communists. Over the course of Kim Il-sung’s subsequent struggle for power and related “cleanup” operations, Pak was one of the many opponents who were murdered.1 He had founded the Kangdong Political Institute, where idealist South Koreans had been recruited for the communist guerrilla war since mid-1947.2 Around 2,400 individuals were trained at the institute and sent back to South Korea. Founding his own establishment was Pak’s reaction to the Security Officers Training Center (presumably equivalent to the Central Security Officers School), which Kim Il-sung had established as a spin-off of the Pyongyang Institute in 1946.3 In the end, it was Kim Il-sung’s facility that thrived, and its former students are still revered as heroes at official ceremonies and in propaganda publications, most recently at the celebrations marking North Korea’s seventieth

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anniversary. Both establishments can be seen as North Korea’s first intelligence institutes, which not only taught political agitation but also operated under difficult circumstances. In the following decades, there were sporadic restructurings, personnel changes, and the creation of new subunits. The main aim was to build an all-controlling security bureaucracy, strictly adhering to a divide-andrule motto; however, the various offices have yet to be centralized, and a corresponding power gap within the intelligence structure has not been established. Following the Soviet Union’s standards and example, the 1950s saw an evolution of the structures that preceded today’s intelligence agencies, including the Reconnaissance Bureau of the Korean People’s Army (KPA), the Party’s Liaison Department, and the Social Security Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Hence, double-agent George Blake’s handover to the Soviet intelligence agency was virtually inevitable. Between October 1951 and January 1952, there was an almost unimpeded exchange of information between Blake and Soviet agents.4 In 1955, the following organizations existed: the National Intelligence Committee, the Cabinet General Intelligence Bureau, the KWP’s Liaison Department, the KPA’s Reconnaissance Bureau, the KPA’s General Political Bureau, and the Social Security Bureau (formerly Social Security Department) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.5 North Korean operations continued to focus on intensive domestic control, monitoring potential opposition and sources of unrest, as well as infiltrating the South. The situation in the South still seemed promising for destabilization or even intervention by means of the military. The US Secret Service came to a similar conclusion, at least as far as the early 1950s were concerned: “ROK forces were markedly inferior to those of the North in manpower, equipment, and training. North Korean espionage, military probes, and subversion had further reduced South Korean effectiveness.”6 In 1952, various offices of Kim Il-sung’s Intelligence School specifically focused on the conditions in the ROK, as well as on special requirements for North Korean agents operating in the ROK.7 During these years, North Korean intelligence agencies also had to deal with covert operations organized by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in their own territory aimed at disrupting important links with China: “The CIA/OPC [Office of Policy Coordination] group recruited and trained Koreans to fight in irregular units behind Communist lines . . . harassing the Communist lines of communications and supply from China.”8 The operational focus of North Korean intelligence agencies expanded as the regime became more established, which meant that other countries were now attractive bases for their activities. To provide

218 Stephan Blancke new bases for operations against the ROK, offices were opened in China, Japan, and Hong Kong. The so-called Chosen Soren (various names exist) played a major part in such operations, as they were an organization of pro-Pyongyang Koreans living in Japan.9 Upon various occasions, Kim Il-sung himself instructed leading members of the organization and explained on September 30, 1965: “The most vital task of Chosen Soren today is to infiltrate Marxist Leninists into South Korea to establish a party apparatus.”10 Despite the Japanese authorities’ continued efforts to gain control of this organization and their headquarters, which served as a de facto North Korean embassy in Japan, it remained crucial to North Korea. The US Intelligence Threat Handbook noted: “The Chosen Soren supports intelligence operations in Japan, assists in the infiltration of agents into South Korea, collects open source information, and diverts advanced technology for use by North Korea.”11 Founded in 1959, the Korean Science and Technology Association (KSTA) was another Japanese-based cover organization that carried out intelligence operations for North Korea. Sporadic investigations against the KSTA have been ongoing and “Japanese police have uncovered several incidents in which members of the KSTA have facilitated the illegal export of computers, chemicals, equipment, and machinery critical to Pyongyang’s weapons programs.”12 Toward the late 1960s, North Korean intelligence agencies were increasingly occupied with counterintelligence operations from the ROK. With the help of the United States, South Korean agents developed an increasingly professional approach to preventing infiltration and sabotage. Even today, signs of North Korean intelligence operations, such as conspicuous travels or the founding of obscure associations and companies, resemble those of the 1960s: “A national assemblyman belonging to the government party was arrested on May 1 on charges of ‘travelling to North Korea’ a few years ago, reportedly during his student days in London. According to a National Assembly official, the case could take on bigger proportions than the arrests in 1967 of the members of an East Berlin–based North Korean spy ring which involved several prominent South Korean intellectuals at home and abroad.”13 Although the German case was rarely covered in the media, it served to illustrate North Korea’s relations with the Eastern bloc and that such relations were sometimes combated not only in a rather aggressive manner but also in a legal gray area: “A watershed incident occurred in the late sixties, when KCIA [Korean Central Intelligence Agency] agents kidnapped almost two dozen students and professors in West Germany who allegedly were in contact with North Korean secret police agents

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working out of East Germany.”14 Aside from traditional intelligence operations, North Korea started to increasingly perform or support operations that, in hindsight, may be classed as terrorist operations. A cornerstone was laid in 1967: “Following the secret Fourteenth Plenum of the Central Committee, in March 1967, a decision was reached to force the issue of ‘revolution in the south’ by instituting a more aggressive policy of active guerrilla warfare within the ROK. This policy led to yet another reorganization of the DPRK’s intelligence services and other organizations involved in supporting insurgency operations within the ROK.”15 In 1968, North Korean special forces tried to assassinate Park Chunghee, then president of the ROK, but it was not until 1979 that the KCIA’s director succeeded. The president’s wife had already been murdered by a sympathizer of the North Korean regime in 1974. ROK authorities believed that the aforementioned Chosen Soren had initiated the operation: “Seoul continues to press for an explicit Japanese commitment to crack down on Chosen Soren, the pro-Pyongyang association of Korean residents in Japan that Seoul holds responsible for the death of President Pak’s wife.”16 There were various other examples that illustrated the North Korean intelligence agencies’ increasing willingness to pursue and support unconventional or so-called asymmetric operations. The country’s isolation from international affairs was based on a number of abductions, terrorist attacks, as well as support of terrorist groups.17 In part, such operations were aimed at bringing unrest into South Korean domestic politics and society as well as a sense of insecurity. An analysis related to the bombing of (South) Korean Airlines flight 858 in 1987 correctly recorded the following: “North Korea presumably intended to embarrass Seoul and cast doubt on its ability to protect potential visitors.”18 A list of such and similar operations from the period of 1950–2007 is equally extensive: “Armed invasion; border violations; infiltration of armed saboteurs and spies; hijacking; kidnapping; terrorism (including assassination and bombing); threats/intimidation against political leaders, media personnel, and institutions; incitement aimed at the overthrow of the South Korean government; actions undertaken to impede progress in major negotiations; and tests of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.”19 It is remarkable that North Korea was able to maintain operational access to competing intelligence agencies, which primarily concerned the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. From the latter, the Pyongyang regime occasionally received secret documents from the Central Committee in Beijing—which were passed on to the KGB by the source “Fenix,” a North Korean diplomat.20 The following statement from 1987 is also revealing with regard to the tactics of North Korea:

220 Stephan Blancke “Although they were once as totally under Soviet control . . . , the North Koreans have been able to wriggle out from that control to a considerable degree by playing off the Chinese against the Russians, and vice versa.”21 Kim Il-sung developed an increasing tendency toward mistrust and paranoia while simultaneously trying to satisfy the few so-called core families and their members in order to secure their loyalty. In the past, other dictators and despots had found themselves in similar situations, which likely affected their psychological disposition.22 Even with Kim Ilsung, it was impossible to eliminate all side-effects of this extremely narcissistic, despotic authority on practical administrative measures such as “cleanup” operations or the restructuring of the state and party apparatuses.23 Efforts to analyze the psychological disposition of the North Korean ruling elite often failed to find adequate answers to their seemingly irrational actions. If anything, even the behavior of today’s North Korean diplomats and agents abroad seems irrational, unpredictable, and far from the common rules of intelligence operations when comparing them to their Western counterparts. Such actions include threats against individuals who supposedly ridiculed North Korean leaders,24 attacks on North Korean refugees in the West,25 or a strange fondness of various leftand right-wing extremist micro-groups in countries such as Germany and France. Compared to his grandfather and father, who often displayed a paranoid, distrustful behavior and who were shy of interacting with the media, today’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has a relatively extrovert manner that makes it easier to conduct psychological assessments: “[His] profile will also include intelligence gathered in past debriefings of others who have interacted with Kim, including ex-NBA star Dennis Rodman, Kim’s former classmates at a Swiss boarding school and South Korean envoys, other US officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.“26 The years leading up to Kim Il-sung’s death in 1994 brought a further increase in political isolation, no improvement in the economic situation, as well as an aggressive and steadily expanding establishment of an almost cult worship of the Kim clan. In addition, the Eastern bloc collapsed and the Soviet Union was lost as an important ally. Hence, North Korean intelligence agencies were forced to take action. In addition to the comprehensive control of and spying on the population—similar to the system of former Eastern-bloc states, especially the Soviet Union— it was necessary to take on an international position: spreading propaganda, observing disagreeable critics, avoiding international sanctions, as well as procuring foreign exchange and luxury goods of all kinds. Due to increasingly complicated conditions, the pursuit of such goals was not only maintained but also intensified when Kim Jong-il came to power in

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July 1994: he was “described as paranoid, spoiled, and suspicious, not having his father’s abilities, and his access to the government bureaucracy is through a clique. The country is facing insurmountable internal problems and is unstable politically, economically, and socially.”27 As a precautionary measure for his successor, Kim Il-sung had given orders for potential adversaries in the intelligence agencies to be murdered, including Kim Byung-ha. Others were removed under the rule of Kim Jong-il, such as the North Korean army’s former commander Lee Bongwon, who was accused of espionage, or members of the security bureaucracy who were accused of sabotaging the failed agricultural and selfsufficiency policy.28 Until his death in December 2011, Kim Jong-il feared assassination and conspiracies, which may have been related to an experience in the late 1980s when one of his bodyguards tried to kill him.29 There have also been a number of reports on attempted coups during change of power.30 When the Ryongchon train disaster occurred in 2004, Kim Jong-il suspected an attack against him and the country and even went as far as seeing an Israeli operation behind the explosion, as Syrian technicians were killed in the fire.31 After losing Russia as their ally, North Korean intelligence agencies increasingly had to rely on their human intelligence (HUMINT) capacities—human sources and agents. Although North Korea and Russia had signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation in February 2000 as well as an agreement on military cooperation in 2001, Russia was occupied with anything but providing the problematic and unpredictable partner with signals intelligence (SIGINT). As a result, North Korea managed to pursue electronic reconnaissance and surveillance only within its state borders, albeit not nationwide and only with the help of Western surveillance technology. Authorities primarily focused on the Chinese border region to keep track of any escapes and the strictly prohibited use of mobile phones. Hence, the millennium saw a number of relevant organizations operating mainly on HUMINT, be it through the traditional employment of agents abroad or different kinds of spying and control: • State Security Department: counter intelligence at home and abroad, surveillance of population, protection and surveillance of elite, supervision of penal camps, surveillance of airports and harbors. • Liaison Department: subversive operation in South Korea, contact with local political extremists, propaganda, reconnaissance of the US armed forces stationed there. • Ministry of Public Security: police and customs duty, surveillance of potential opposition.

222 Stephan Blancke • Research Department for External Intelligence: responsible for Chosen Soren and Japan as well as for Europe, including an office in Berlin. • Reconnaissance Bureau: military reconnaissance worldwide, also operating cargo vessels. • Korean Central News Agency (KCNA): espionage under journalistic camouflage, various foreign offices with “overseas correspondents in over ten cities, including Moscow, Beijing, Havana, and Jakarta.”32 • Unification Front Department: involved in official negotiations with South Korea, but maintains a number of covert contacts worldwide, including sympathizers, friendship clubs, Juche groups, as well as some religious associations.

The state’s increasing surveillance could not prevent frictions within society or a growing number of people from fleeing the country. This led to an intensified cooperation between North Korean and Chinese intelligence agencies, especially in the border region.33 Nevertheless, North Korean embassies in European countries also made efforts to obtain information about refugees living abroad and even to monitor them.34 The Kim clan’s concern about a loss of power, incidents of unrest in the country, and rampant corruption as well as various failures in foreign espionage led to a further centralization of intelligence agencies under the command of Kim Jong-il. After a restructuring in 2009, the National Defense Commission’s power over the security bureaucracy was expanded considerably. The Ministry of People’s Security, which is also responsible for prisons, was now under the control of the National Defense Commission (State Affairs Commission as of 2016). The Reconnaissance General Bureau served as a newly created organizational unit comprising not only military espionage but also the Operations Bureau of the KWP and Office 35, the latter of which is concerned with espionage.35 The overall aim was to streamline and increase Kim Jong-il’s control so he could oversee and guide all intelligence operations via the Reconnaissance General Bureau. The survival of structures is typical for large bureaucratic systems in which corruption and nepotism play a major role. Despite the concentration of power in the Reconnaissance General Bureau, parts of the State Security Department were still able to conduct intelligence operations. In 2011, Kim Jong-un came to power after his father’s death and was therefore in charge of the country’s intelligence agencies. Various sources assume that the KWP’s Organization and Guidance Department (OGD) had developed into the most powerful organizational unit with great influ-

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ence on the security bureaucracy. In 1964, this was also where Kim Jongil had had his first assignment after graduating college. The famous refugee Jang Jin-sung is cited to have said that the OGD “controls everything. This is where all roads end, all chains of command, and all power structures go.”36 The OGD’s significance last showed on December 10, 2018, when the United States designated the OGD’s director, Choe Ryong-hae, on its sanctions list. The US Office of Foreign Assets Control explained its decision with the following statement: “The OGD is a powerful body of the North Korean regime, is instrumental in implementing censorship policies, and purports to control the political affairs of all North Koreans. The OGD also assumes oversight responsibilities over organizations undergoing party audits to inspect for ideological discipline.”37 With regard to administrative functions within the intelligence agencies, however, the OGD’s role under Kim Jong-un remains unclear. Rather, the OGD seems to operate on a political meta-level that serves the execution and preservation of the Kim clan’s power. Kim Jong-un has managed to reform the country’s intelligence agencies in his own interest: a further tightening and subordination under his direct supervision in order to pursue a timely policy, both internally and externally. He receives daily reports containing foreign policy developments as well as the results of monitoring individual members of the North Korean elite. Yet the actual extent of the restructuring remains unclear to the external eye. Much of the information is vague or based on statements of few high-ranking defectors. Nevertheless, it can be said, “As a consequence of these changes, the power and influence of individual organizations and leaders has risen and fallen (and sometimes risen again) with remarkable speed.”38 Legislation Totalitarian systems such as in North Korea tend to conceal the extent of their security bureaucracy and thus their disproportionately large surveillance measures. It would be counteractive to their claim of being a “workers’ paradise” or an “ideal society.” The Kim clan also avoids embedding the repressive and—under international law—criminal surveillance apparatuses at home as well as the internationally questionable, often illegal operation of its secret services in an explicit and legalistic structure. “However, such bodies, in spite of their tremendous power and political significance, are not even mentioned in the Constitution of the DPRK. This is an interesting paradox of communist states: They were (and those that remain still are) run by the party, but the party itself,

224 Stephan Blancke including its structure and chain of command, was almost never described officially and remains, to a large extent, outside the formal legal system. In essence, it was a shadow government, the existence of which was known to everybody.”39 This is also true for all documents from the security apparatus, which are available to only a limited number of people and which—as is to be expected—are not subject to any legal supervision or conviction.40 In short, there are internal instructions and regulations that relate to the business processes within the individual intelligence areas as well as their operational processes and tactics. A secret service law that is comparable to something known in the West simply does not exist.41 All North Korean laws and regulations are based on ideological guidelines— and the people as well as judges need to interpret them accordingly. “North Korea defines legislation as a process of realizing the legal thoughts and theories of Juche Ideology developed by the Great Suryong (Kim Il-sung) and the Dear Leader (Kim Jong-il).”42 Since legislation is obliged to treat the political system as inviolable and absolutely worthy of protection, there is a sufficient “legal” basis for the work of the intelligence agencies. The latter protective aspect is the task of the military and the intelligence agencies. The law of the DPRK on external civil relations emphasizes this, as does the civil procedural law of the DPRK and numerous other regulations.43 Also the criminal law of the DPRK states in an unmistakably clear manner: “The criminal law of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea defends the sovereignty of the state and the socialist system.”44 The offenses of treason and espionage are mentioned in this law.45 There are no other open documents. Institutional Infrastructure The sources of information available on institutional structures within the North Korean security bureaucracy are similar to the situation found with the Warsaw Pact. There are a number of sources, reports of defectors, as well as some gray literature on various military and intelligence areas. Today, there are also countless, often redundant internet sources. As with other intelligence agencies, the internet has also led to the formation of various cyber subunits within this infrastructure. Compared to static ministerial departments, it is a lot more difficult to document their mere existence, let alone their structure. This is particularly true of totalitarian regimes such as North Korea, which have no reason to fear any parliamentary or journalistic inquiries about the structure and function of their intelligence agencies. As a result, they are able to use rather unconventional

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means: state and nonstate hackers who carry out intelligence operations can hardly be located institutionally and are thus a great advantage for all undemocratic systems. This also applies to criminal organizations, which can be used to obtain information about dissidents or sanctioned goods. Consequently, representations of any North Korean intelligence agency can be merely an approximation and ultimately a speculation—until a defector is able to present an official, complete organizational chart. Authoritarian systems such as North Korea have a comparably large intelligence agency apparatus, as they are more likely to face instances of unrest, upheavals, and invasions. Furthermore, they operate a largely centralized state economy and, sooner or later, are bound to confront considerable and permanent supply shortages. The dictatorial ruling elite believe that intelligence agencies can remedy all of these concerns. Intelligence connections, controls, and hierarchies of orders can be found in almost all areas of the bureaucracy. Here, only the aforementioned are explicitly shown, while the “civilian” areas are left out; the focus is still on international activities.46 An analysis owned by myself that was presented in 2018 in the environment of the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) mentions some sections of the North Korean Ministry of State Security (MSS) that are largely ignored by Western analysts but relevant to regional operations, even outside North Korea. These include a Guidance Department, which is exclusively responsible for counterintelligence and also for the observation of foreigners. There is a Surveillance Department, which also performs these tasks, but it is explicitly also in charge of observation of North Koreans abroad, for example in Europe. If this department finds appropriate evidence, a Preliminary Investigations Department is employed, which takes care of the further processing of individual cases. Who ultimately leads an investigation from the beginning to the end remains a mystery, and this is probably intentional. In this respect, the mentioned analysis relativizes that an exact reproduction of the actual structure is not feasible. North Korea’s specific bureaucratic milieu has also produced an apparatus in which unconditional loyalty is pledged to this apparatus—at least superficially. Beneath the surface, however, there is a broken society composed of members who try to make the best of it.47 Corruption, drug abuse, money laundering, black-market trading—the Warsaw Pact states vehemently denied their existence, yet they thrived. The same is true for North Korean intelligence agencies, while authorities only occasionally try to set an example. However, these usually serve to pursue political goals—especially in the case of high-ranking delinquents. Generally,

226 Stephan Blancke anything goes, as long as it is conducive to the ruling elite: “revolution tax” and “gifts” are obligatory duties for North Korean representatives abroad, while simultaneously pursuing all kinds of illegal business.48 Figure 13.1 therefore shows only the official institutions—to the extent known—that play a major role or participate in intelligence activities. There is a lack of clarity about various offices and departments, with regard to both names as well as functions and positions in the hierarchy. This also concerns Bureau 225, which is sometimes described as an intelligence agency, sometimes as a new name for a former office.49 The current situation is unclear, although it is believed to have been actively involved in espionage operations a few years ago.50 There have also been sporadic reports on new MSS nominations. Consequently, the MSS structure cannot be further specified without reservations. This is also true for organizations such as the infamous Office 39. The office’s activities have been covered in various reports over a number of decades, sometimes associated with legal, sometimes with illegal proceedings. Perhaps both are true, as well as reports on Office 39 having merged with other offices. Considering that even in Western democratic states there are only vague assumptions about various subunits, a paranoid regime such as North Korea must have a great interest in promoting these imponderables and interpretative gray areas. The few existing statements of defectors, as interesting as they may be, should therefore always be treated with caution. They are particularly valuable, however, if they confirm wellknown or suspected developments—irrespective of the information that is already available.51 Looking at the development of other past or still-existing authoritarian regimes, the gradual emergence of smaller structures seems inevitable. Such microstructures usually serve individual interests, such as ministries or departments, powerful interest groups, well-known North Korean core families, individual companies, or so-called epistemic communities. The latter display typical “fear mechanisms”: their members face persecution and execution if they do not provide loyalty, material assets, money, and various services to the elite. A common definition can also be applied to unconventional North Korean intelligence operations: “An epistemic community is a network of professionals with recognized expertise and competence in a particular domain and an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within that domain or issue-area.”52 An example of such microstructures can be found with individuals working for North Korean embassies abroad, who combine their expertise in order to make a profit. Since they have learned to disguise, lie, and forge, they may use such skills as an advantage over others. If they are unable

Figure 13.1 North Korea’s Intelligence Community Department of Military Intelligence

KWP OGD

Poltical Intelligence (Japan, South Korea) External Liaison Department

Kim Kin Jong-un Jong-un

United Front Department

Bureau 38

Propaganda Foreign trade

State Affairs Commission

Military intelligence

Department of Hacking

RGB

North Korean Diaspora

Department of International Operations (Bureau 35)

Central Committee Legal finance activities

Military

Bureau 39 Illegal/legal finance activities

International relations

Political/party intelligence

Foreign Trade Bureau

Weaponry Bureau MPS

Embassies, diplomats, expats

Foreign policy MSS

International counterespionage

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Notes: KWP: (North) Korean Workers’ Party; MPS: Ministry of Public Security; MSS: Ministry of State Security; OGD: Organization and Guidance Department; RGB: Reconnaissance National Bureau.

228 Stephan Blancke or unwilling to pay part of the profit to North Korea as “revolution tax” for the elite or as a “gift” for the superior in the hierarchy, they may face their return to North Korea, political processes, or labor camps. If they prove capable, however, they can use part of the profit for themselves and their families. Other individuals may not even need to leave North Korea to deploy their skills and resources: hackers in China can be commissioned and instructed from the MSS office near the Chinese border. In cash, the profits can then be brought into North Korea without any risk, as the involved parties are familiar with the border patrol’s procedures. Overall, a polar structure seems the most likely: an overpowering, enormous bureaucratic apparatus on the one hand, and a multitude of suboffices, special departments, special units, and outsourced substructures on the other. The latter operate self-sufficiently but ultimately depend on a regime founded in extortion and coercion. Only a few try to escape this cycle, as they either fear acts of reprisal against their families or see this as a way to make a profit and participate in the black market. Within this gray area, political and economic espionage serve the benefit of a single family—the Kim clan—as well as an overall system in which numerous members strive for an improved personal life. Ever since Kim Jong-un came to power, a mixed form of oligarchy, plutocracy, and perverted theocracy has been established, wherefore classical political espionage is no longer practiced. Economic and military espionage, however, are still vital for maintaining this system, such as for providing a nuclear deterrence. Consequently, the analysis of North Korean intelligence agencies is intricately tied to the sociopathological analysis of eroding forms of society. Functions and Operations In contrast to the North Korean intelligence agencies’ early, internationally conducted state terrorist operations (bomb attacks, kidnappings, and support of terrorist groups such as the Japanese Red Army or the Moro Islamic Liberation Front), the current operations pursue only three goals: to secure the internal stability of North Korea, to maintain the potential to deter foreign countries, and to preserve the power of the ruling elite. It is to no surprise then that the inside is structured like a typical repressive apparatus. Their operations are comparable to those of a secret police such as the Third Reich’s Gestapo (Secret State Police) or the Stasi (Ministry for State Security) of the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany). Both inward and some of the outward operations bear characteristics of mafia-like organizations: a person, or the clan to which the

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person belongs, seeks to control all processes as well as potential competitors for power, including their statements, secrets, and private lives. Such organizations use the “punishment and reward” method to attain loyalty and unconditional obedience—the Kim clan displays methods no different from these. Individuals are simply murdered if they break the rules or pose a threat in competition. While organized crime uses hitmen for such matters, repressive regimes have their own specialists and firing squads. Kim Jong-un is said to have had 421 officials murdered since 2010.53 If the delinquent dares to evade this system, his family is prosecuted—just as in mafia feuds—with the help of intelligence agencies. The daughter of the North Korean ambassador in Rome, Jo Song-gil, fell victim to such proceedings: not long after her father had left the country in November 2018, the daughter was reported to have been kidnapped from the streets of Rome and returned to North Korea.54 Christian activists and refugees are equally at risk. Since 2000, their kidnapping and assassination in China and South Korea have been attributed to North Korean intelligence agencies. The same may happen to unpopular diplomats such as South Korean Choe Deok-geun, who was assassinated in 1996, or close family members such as the dictator’s half-brother Kim Jong-nam, who was murdered in Malaysia in 2017. A number of other operations seem equally questionable. In 2004, for example, North Korean agents tried to discreetly transfer the body of Ko Young-hee, a mistress of Kim Jong-il, from Paris to Pyongyang. Another example was the extensive hunt for a North Korean student who had fled to Paris in December 2014 and is the son of a close confidant of Kim Jong-il’s brother-in-law Jang Song-thaek, who was executed in 2013. Furthermore, Benoît Quennedy was arrested in November 2018 for spying for North Korea. Since he is the head of the Franco-Korean Friendship Association, this incident sheds light on the extent to which North Korean intelligence agencies rely on human intelligence. Mainly due to a number of international sanctions, North Korea increasingly must resort to groups of people who can generally be described as dubious. Such groups include so-called friendship associations, anti-imperialist sympathizers, and other extremist groups who provide information for their contacts in embassies or at pro–North Korea events. Some of the cooperation between German scientists or universities and North Korean partner institutions is equally curious, for the latter are often concerned with military research and accept applicants into university only if they are loyal to the system.55 Due to an increasingly restricted operational mobility, scarce resources, and a restrained attitude of formerly cooperative states, North Korean intelligence agencies are left to merely react rather than act, especially in

230 Stephan Blancke Western countries. In an effort to combat political pressure, the services are trying to regroup—the result of which is unlikely to last due to the administration’s political inertia. In 2011, the coordination of European operations was shifted to the embassy in London, which now processes various other European states. Since there is no North Korean embassy in Paris, the office of the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) serves to coordinate various operations, just like the office of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Rome. Here the first secret agents were uncovered in 2015. In 2016, Thae Yong-ho, one of the highest-ranking officials in North Korean history, fled from the London embassy. For some time now, the heavily reduced staff of the Berlin embassy has been occupied with supervising the North Korean community in Europe and coordinating individual operations. In February 2019, however, only five officials were still registered at this embassy; it seems highly unlikely that such few employees are able to pursue intelligence operations under the watchful eyes of Western intelligence agencies.56 In short, there is an operative patchwork that forces North Korean intelligence agencies to expand their HUMINT capacities and deepen affiliated contacts. However, their operational efficiency is not only permanently affected but at times also even blocked due to the political leadership’s mistrust.57 The various operations designed to enhance personal reputation within the leadership further add to this problem. Proof can be found in a case where 90,000 smuggled vodka bottles—apparently a special gift for the Kim clan—were discovered in Rotterdam thanks to the information provided by a German intelligence agency. Apparently the order came from a “nameless Chinese company” and went to a Russian vodka manufacturer whose managing director had already been targeted by Russian authorities for illegal financial transactions; his business partner had to flee to Russia to avoid imprisonment. Dutch authorities searched the ship, which belongs to the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO)—a company that had already attracted attention for smuggling for the benefit of North Korea. To put it simply, this is an example of a poorly thought-out, unvetted operation that was therefore bound to fail. The adventurous attack on the North Korean embassy in Madrid in February 2019, which involved hostages and stolen computers, was yet another example of dubious transactions associated with North Korean intelligence agencies. It is quite possible that the robbery simply served to collect outstanding payments owed to dubious business partners in Spain.58 Recent reports also mention CIA involvement,59 while others see the operation of an ominous exile organization called Cheollima Civil Defense, which may be associated with the CIA and seems to have only just surfaced.60

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In the future, more complex operations in the East Asian region may be assigned to military intelligence agencies—although partial intersections with civilian organizations may occur. An example of an earlier operation was reported in 2006: “We also have information that the North Korean passenger ship Mangyongbong 92 . . . has been used by North Korean intelligence services Office 35, External Liaison Department (ELD), and the Unification Front Department (UFD) as a safehouse to facilitate agent meetings while docked in Niigata, Japan.”61 There have also been reports on isolated use of unmanned aerial vehicles over South Korean territory. The regime is likely to try to work on its military reputation by deploying special units that they have been presenting in a rather self-confident manner at military parades. In Europe, however, North Korean intelligence agencies are currently facing precarious operational conditions. Their network of relevant contacts consists of the following groups:

• Sympathizers, friendship associations, Juche studies (small groups), and extremist splinter groups from various political directions. • Universities, research institutions, think tanks, individual professors, as well as academic teaching staff with a tendency to distinguish themselves. • Entrepreneurs (often former Eastern-bloc), white-collar criminals, and freight forwarders. • Specialized tour operators and their clientele. • Individual parliamentary representatives (half wittingly, half unwittingly). • Individual members of nongovernmental organizations, often instrumentalized and controlled over several years. • Individual journalists and photographers. • Former intelligence agents from the former Eastern bloc.

The area of intelligence operations in cyberspace is rather vague. Aside from typical criminal actions for generating profit or money laundering, social engineering is likely to be the main focus. Although there are a number of assessments, assigning individual cyber operations to explicit organizations is a rather delicate undertaking. For Western intelligence agencies, it is therefore important to know the type of international cooperation that North Korean intelligence agencies are (still) able to pursue as well as the extent of their partners’ resources.

232 Stephan Blancke International Cooperation Western intelligence agencies often make the mistake of underestimating and ignoring the usually informal cooperation between North Korean intelligence agencies and regional partners, which is planned and carried out in deceivingly casual meetings. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum (ARF) is a relatively well-known forum for said exchange. Since North Korea’s admission in 2000, the forum has developed into a meeting place for Western and North Korean officials. “Reportedly, the ARF members have begun to exchange intelligence to combat transnational crime;”62 however, the cooperation on nonpolice issues takes place beyond institutionalized frameworks. Usually, the involved states have been maintaining a friendly exchange for a while and their intelligence agencies share similar views on the content and proceedings of their work, which are often diametrically opposed to Western ideas: Pakistan, Vietnam, Myanmar, or Cambodia to name a few. Other regional forums such as the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) facilitate the exchange of intelligence—even if North Korea does not hold a membership. More important, it needs a contact person who has a seat in the forums and shows interest in said exchange. In other words, North Korea and a group of other states are relatively hesitant about exchanging information or coordinating operations that violate national and international law or that may violate international sanctions. Just as North Korean intelligence agencies kidnap their citizens in China or Europe and “return” them, Vietnam has no problem kidnapping unwanted individuals in the middle of Berlin and flying them back home via cooperative states such as Russia.63 North Korean intelligence agencies also organize technical and military cooperation, including that of proliferation. Various sources report that Hezbollah members have visited North Korea on a number of occasions and that the terrorist organization cooperates with the regime on many levels: “This material support included professional military and intelligence training and assistance in building a massive network of underground military installations, tunnels, bunkers, depots and storage facilities in southern Lebanon.”64 It is only logical that this cooperation should continue to the present day—provided it is financially worthwhile. In addition to Syria, the long-standing customer for ballistic missile technology and numerous chemical weapon–related supplies, “North Korea also intends to help . . . Hezbollah, to bury its underground facilities more effectively. Engineers from Pyongyang were in Beirut on January 20 [2019], accompanied by Iranian advisers.”65 North Korean expert teams

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abroad are systematically accompanied, shielded, and, alongside their partners, monitored by their own intelligence agents—so great is the concern that the expertise of Western intelligence agencies will be skimmed off or that there may be targeted assassination, such as by Israeli units. An example of such behavior could be seen in Iran in 2015, where the North Korean “delegates included nuclear experts, nuclear warhead experts, and experts in various areas of ballistic missiles, including guidance systems. [They] also provided assistance and consultation in the areas of aerodynamics, missile body design, and electronic components of warheads.”66 Various African countries, which North Korea mainly cooperates with on military business, represent a relatively secure field for North Korean intelligence agencies—especially since they often have personal, predominantly informal, yet helpful contact with local representatives of Chinese intelligence agencies or the responsible Chinese residencies. Their fruitful cooperation is based on decades of lively exchange, which the CIA quantifies as follows: “We estimate that at the end of 1983 about 450 confirmed North Korean military personnel were assigned overseas, primarily in Africa.”67 A current public list, which has long been backed by various reports of the UN Panel of Experts, mentions North Korea, Namibia, Sudan, Uganda, Angola, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Tanzania as well as the Democratic Republic of Congo.68 In addition to their cooperation in the field of armaments, there are further orders from African potentates that generate profit for the regime. Consequently, these are subject to international sanctions and also serve as camouflage for North Korean operations to procure foreign currency. One example is the Mansudae Art Studio,69 which produces large-scale statues but also deals with state-supervised North Korean art.70 Various occasions illustrated the friendly, personal contact between North Korean diplomats and several African diplomats in Western Europe, which is likely to extend to the exchange of intelligence information too. Some of the countries mentioned have a similar attitude toward human rights, violate sanctions regulations, and may even be involved in criminal activities. Consequently, Pyongyang and certain African intelligence agencies maintain predominantly low-institutionalized but highly informal intelligence cooperation. Traditional partners China and Russia, on the other hand, fluctuate in their willingness to exchange intelligence and to cooperate officially. This is particularly true of border controls. Yet there is a frequent circumvention of the respective agreements.71 Contact is often made with the help of informal channels or long-term acquaintances.72 Especially with regard to Beijing’s relations with the United States,73 North Korea and its partly

234 Stephan Blancke provocative operations—sometimes even conducted on Chinese territory—are now a burden for China. Russian authorities, however, seem less afraid of maintaining relations with North Korea. Rather, they are currently filling the gaps that sanctions policies have imposed on Western authorities and politicians. In February 2019, the North Korean ambassador to Russia, Kim Hyun-joong, met with the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian upper house, Konstantin Kosachev. Among other things, a meeting of the Russian–North Korean intergovernmental commission on economic cooperation was agreed for March 2019. Already in 2016, it was stated that “the new strategic relationship between North Korea and Russia raised the possibility of cooperation on aerial defense, intelligence, and North Korea’s nuclear arsenal (with nothing substantive or specific stated publicly as yet).”74 Such cooperation would favor Russian naval activities in Northeast Asia over the United States and benefit North Korea’s military intelligence operations. Such developments throw a new light on the activities of the Russian internet company TransTeleCom. The regime in Pyongyang as well as its intelligence agencies and related hacker groups hope for improved access to the internet with the help of said company—a cooperation that first started in 2006 and peaked in 2017.75 Such deepening cooperation leads to the following assessment: “Whether it is by sending unmarked soldiers across borders, occupying a neighbouring country, hacking power grids, or launching ransomware attacks against hospital computers—a strong Russia–North Korea partnership presents a much graver cyber threat than ever before.”76 China pursues intelligence cooperation in a way that benefits Beijing or provides stability in certain areas, including police and intelligence cooperation in the border region.77 Especially with a view to the current disputes between the United States and China, China’s interests are particularly “motivated by Beijing’s fear of negotiations about the future of the Korean Peninsula proceeding without an essential role for China.”78 While an earlier cooperation agreement emphasized the “fraternal relations of friendship, co-operation and mutual assistance between the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,”79 today’s statements seem rather casual, cautious, and informal— such as the celebrations commemorating the fifty-seventh anniversary of the signing of the friendship treaty between the two countries.80 Another aspect is gradually affecting intelligence cooperation between the two countries: the old guard is dying out, meaning that old networks are slowly disappearing, while new heads in the respective intelligence agencies are working toward new interests and changed political agendas. Corruption does not stop at the security apparatus of either of the coun-

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tries, wherefore Western intelligence agencies need to monitor the informal contacts of both countries—for example through the staff of their embassies or commercial branches in European states. Conclusion In states and government systems where there is an ongoing process of transformation or erosion, the intelligence agencies tend to develop a partial life of their own. They are fragmented into interest-led areas and kleptocratic groupings, which constitute a special, negative type of epistemic communities. Just as members of the Soviet intelligence agencies put their expertise at the service of various mafia groups,81 employees of the North Korean MSS, for example, use their knowledge of duty rosters, patrols, surveillance measures, smuggling routes, and the like for their own benefit.82 “The cut of money being pocketed by state authorities is rising because agents now have to send money to their senior supervisors as well, according to the report.”83 Another indication of this fragmentation is a tendency to decompose from within, be it through slander, accusation, betrayal, or “political cleansing.”84 Absurd or ridiculous reproaches are another typical example, which mostly refers to disparagement of the “pure teachings” or the sacrosanct Kim clan.85 Although China is far from being a decaying or eroding state, there are signs of a long-term negative development that could be seen with the overpowering intelligence bureaucracies of other authoritarian, partly dictatorial states. This is particularly apparent within the framework of the government’s so-called anticorruption campaign. Parts of the intelligence agencies are used for the “fight against corruption” declared indispensable by the state propaganda—in order to also remove politically disagreeable and possibly too ambitious individuals. New intelligence agency structures are emerging within traditional departments—directed by members close to the government elite— while other authorities receive immense investigative and executive powers, even across borders, and are directly involved in the interests of individual powerful people.86 So far, the North Korean rulers have been able to cut back the power of their intelligence agencies time and again by clever division of competencies. Since his appointment in 2011, Kim Jong-un has distinguished himself through rather drastic means such as murders in order to restrict the power of others: since then, as mentioned, 421 high-ranking officials have been executed (with each official’s entire family also executed, so

236 Stephan Blancke multiply that number by five people), and 38 other officials have been purged, that is, killed, sometimes with their complete families as well.87 At the same time, these measures continue to bring an increasing number of people—hitherto hidden—to revolt against the leadership: “This may only be the tip of the iceberg, since our knowledge of specific cases of purging comes from the testimonies of defectors alone.”88 The few known attempts to assassinate the North Korean dictator must not be underestimated, for such actions may reoccur at any time, even from the ranks of the military or intelligence agencies.89 Simultaneously, such measures generate stress and anxiety—which leads to the isolation of smaller areas or even to self-sufficient actions and operations. Since the regime cannot win the people’s honest loyalty, its aim is to generate the biggest profit possible. Ultimately, these circumstances foster a typical feature of all secretly working organizations: “Intelligence networks are self-referential systems. As a consequence of secrecy, the networks are harder to manage except to the extent that their self-regulatory capacity can be utilized. . . . But such ‘self-regulation’ can also operate negatively: for example, it might sustain ‘groupthink.’”90 Individual, nearly uncontrollable structures have formed within bureaucracy. They can work “subversively” and in their own interest as long as they do not raise the question of power or doubt the position of the leadership. Parts of these structures belong to the prosperous middle class (donju), who want their share of prosperity and are linked to the few core families in North Korea. Kim Jong-un depends on them, but their prosperity is accompanied by a new cosmopolitanism and access to information. You cannot tell them lies unless their silence is bought. “One thing is clear, however: Just as Kim has come to rely on the donju, the donju rely on the survival of Kim’s regime.”91 In the long run, the murder of individual members cannot lead to the desired success, as the example of other similarly repressive dictatorships has shown.92 Other systemic defects also weaken the North Korean intelligence agencies’ relevance and the quality of their work: their main weakness in the field of political intelligence is their ability to interpret what they collect. Stalin and Khrushchev “acted as their own, ill-qualified chief intelligence analysts,”93 and this analysis of the Soviet intelligence agencies’ failure also applies to North Korea—possibly even more so because the employees of North Korea’s intelligence agencies are completely cut off from the outside world and from discussion opportunities as to avoid any reflection on their work. An earlier, critical view of the US intelligence agencies can also be applied to the situation of the North Korean intelligence agencies—multiplied many times over: “If there is any danger to

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the system today, it is . . . that excessive formality or emphasis on coordination and unanimity can lead to watered down judgments or suppression of minority views.”94 The intelligence agencies’ absolute political and ideological control by Kim Jong-un and selected cadres thus prevents the application of the simplest rules of intelligence work, such as the integration of alternative models, the weighing of pros and cons, or the development of the often necessary, rapid tactical intelligence capacities.95 Personal conversations with North Korean officials have shown that even the slightest discussion of internal political decisions is met with complete incomprehension, and at best fear. The question of how to deal with politicization,96 which also needs to be asked by employees of Western intelligence agencies, has probably never before been asked in North Korea. The bunker mentality and doomsday mood that have been spreading within North Korean intelligence agencies ever since Kim Jong-un came into office not only lead to increased nepotism and corruption but ultimately also give rise to the hope that the regime will be eliminated by these very circles. Notes

1. See, for example, Yiu Myung-kun, “Unification of the Workers’ Party of Korea,” India Quarterly: A Journal of International Affairs 28, no. 4 (October 1972), 347–357. 2. Robert A. Scalapino and Dalchoong Kim, eds., Asian Communism (Berkeley: Continuity and Transition Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Center for Korean Studies, 1988). 3. History of Revolutionary Activities of President Kim Il Sung (Pyongyang: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 2012). 4. See, for example, Austin B. Matschulat, “Coordination and Cooperation in Counterintelligence,” Studies in Intelligence 13, no. 2 (Spring 1969), 25–36. 5. Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., North Korean Special Forces (Annapolis: Naval Institute, 1998). 6. Memo, October 10, 1967. 7. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), “Information Report: North Korean Intelligence Schools,” June 15, 1953. 8. G. J. A. O’Toole, The Encyclopedia of American Intelligence and Espionage: From the Revolutionary War to the Present (New York: Facts on File, 1988), 267. 9. Although such groups do not solely consist of Koreans, single North Korean agents of Chinese or Korean descent often operate within such structures to fulfill their political agenda. 10. CIA, Directorate of Intelligence, “Intelligence Report: Kim Il-Sung’s New Military Adventurism,” November 26, 1968, 29. 11. Interagency OPSEC Support Staff (IOSS), Intelligence Threat Handbook (Greenbelt [today Fort Meade], 1996), 28. 12. James F. Durand, “Japan, Chongryon, and Sanctions,” International Journal of Korean Studies 21, no. 1 (Spring–Summer 2017), 107.

238 Stephan Blancke 13. CIA, Directorate of Intelligence, “The South Koreans Have Uncovered a North Korean Espionage Net,” May 7, 1969, 2. 14. Thomas Plate and Andrea Darvi, Secret Police: The Inside Story of an International Network (London: R. Hale, 1981), 97. 15. Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., “DPRK Intelligence Services 1967–1971,” pt. 3, KPA Journal 1, no. 6 (June 2010), 2. 16. CIA, “The President’s Daily Brief,” September 16, 1974, 3. 17. In this context, it is worth looking at a complaint filed by some of the victims of an attack by the Japanese Red Army terrorist group in 1972, during which several people were killed at random inside the Israeli airport Lod (today Ben Gurion International). The court document on the North Korean background of the crime states that “every action is an official action approved by the intelligence, military and the high leadership of North Korea.” It seems as though Pyongyang supported the Japanese Red Army and that members of the group found shelter in North Korea until very recently. For further reference, see the case against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Cabinet General Intelligence Bureau, Civil no. 08-1367 (FAB), 2010. 18. CIA, Directorate of Intelligence, “Terrorism Review,” December 21, 1987, 2. 19. Hannah Fischer, North Korean Provocative Actions, 1950–2007 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2007), 1. 20. Christopher Andrew and Wassili Mitrochin, Das Schwarzbuch des KGB 2: Moskaus Geheimoperationen in Kalten Krieg (The KGB Blackbook 2: Moscow’s Secret Operations During the Cold War) (Berlin: Propyläen, 2006), 411–412. 21. Ray S. Cline et al., Intelligence Warfare: Penetrating the Secret World of Today’s Advanced Technology Conflict (New York: Crescent, 1987), 57. 22. See, for example, Jerrold M. Post, ed., The Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005). 23. Author conversation with Jerrold M. Post at the conference “Intelligence Failures and Cultural Misperception: Asia, 1945 till the Present,” The Hague, September 27, 2008. 24. “North Korean Officials Visit Salon over Kim Jong-un ‘Bad Hair’ Advert,” BBC News, April 15, 2014, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-27038723. 25. “Suspected North Korean Government Agents Assault Refugee in Denmark,” December 17, 2014, https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/assault-12172014183304.html. 26. “Inside the Dictator’s Mind: How U.S. Intelligence Profiles the Secretive Kim Jong Un,” April 29, 2018, https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/asia-and-australia/how -u-s-intelligence-profiles-the-secretive-Kim-jong-un-1.6034412. 27. US Department of Defense, Marine Corps Intelligence Activity, North Korea Country Handbook (Quantico, 1997), 2–3. 28. South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS), “North Korea Country Profile,” CD-ROM, presumably 1999 (author’s archive). 29. Hakjoon Kim, Dynasty: The Hereditary Succession Politics of North Korea (Stanford, CA: Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, 2015), 112. 30. Adam Rawnsley, “How (Not) to Kill Kim Jong Un,” July 6, 2017, https:// foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/06/how-not-to-kill-Kim-jung-un. 31. Anonymous intelligence source. 32. North Korea Handbook (New York: Yonhap News Agency, 2003), 421. 33. See, for example, Stephan Blancke and Jens Rosenke, “Blut ist Dicker als Wasser: Die Chinesisch-Nordkoreanische Militär und Geheimdienstkooperation” (Blood Is Thicker Than Water: Military and Intelligence Cooperation Between China and North Korea) Zeitschrift für Außen und Sicherheitspolitik 4, no. 2 (2011), 263–294. 34. Author conversations with representatives of several nongovernmental organizations and authorities. 35. See, for example, Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., “38 North Special Report: A New Emphasis on Operations Against South Korea?” June 11, 2010.

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36. Sybil Jones, “The Secret Group That ‘Controls Everything’ in North Korea,” May 13, 2014, https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2014/05/north-korea-ogd. 37. “Treasury Sanctions North Korean Officials and Entities in Response to the Regime’s Serious Human Rights Abuses and Censorship,” December 10, 2018, https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm568. 38. Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., “North Korea Reorganises Security Services,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, December 2016, 2. 39. Andrei Lankov, “Inside North Korea’s Central Committee,” September 29, 2014, https://www.nknews.org/2014/09/inside-north-koreas-central-committee. 40. In North Korea, restrictive access regulations already exist for much more banal documents or newspapers. There are five levels: “for Party members only,” “restricted,” “secret,” “top secret,” and “ultimate secret”; see Fyodor Tertitskiy, “For Your Eyes Only: Keeping Secrets in North Korea,” September 16, 2016, https://www.nknews.org/2016 /09/for-your-eyes-only-keeping-secrets-in-north-korea. 41. Focusing more on Germany, criminologist and police scientist Charles von Denkowski states in his doctoral thesis: “The proactive policing of the SSD is not legally legitimized. The reactive policing draws, in part, on the penal procedural code. In the area of detention for preliminary investigation, the policing often deviates, however, from the legal prescriptions, depending on the particular case and the type of suspect.” Charles von Denkowski, State Security and Secret Policing: An Interdisciplinary Study on State Criminality and Formal Social Control, unpublished thesis, Berlin, 2019, v. 42. Soo Am Kim, The North Korean Penal Code, Criminal Procedures, and Their Actual Applications (Seoul: Korea Institute for National Unification, 2006), 3. 43. A first starting point for researching: https://www.loc.gov/law/help/guide /nations/northkorea.php. 44. Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, “The Criminal Law of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” 2009, https://www.hrnk.org/uploads/pdfs/The%20Criminal %20Law%20of%20the%20Democratic%20Republic%20of%20Korea_2009_%20(1).pdf. 45. “Criminal Law of the DPRK,” https://www.hrnk.org/uploads/pdfs/2012DPRK CriminalCode_HRNK.pdf. 46. Internal (i.e., national) intelligence agencies’ activities in the form of control, surveillance, discrediting, and repression encompass all aspects of North Korean society. 47. See, for example, Mike Ives, “Crystal Meth Is North Korea’s Trendiest Lunar New Year’s Gift,” February 12, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/12/world/asia /north-korea-crystal-meth-methamphetamine-drugs-.html. 48. A description of the criminal incidents of North Korean embassy representatives abroad is beyond the scope of this chapter. 49. See, for example, “North Orders Terror Strikes on South Koreans,” July 27, 2016, http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=3021812; “Chongryon Adrift at Sea As Succession Battle Looms,” July 2, 2015, https://www.japantimes.co.jp /opinion/2015/07/02/commentary/japan-commentary/chongryon-adrift-sea-succession -battle-looms/#.XGQwnuCmlph. 50. Mok Jong Jae, “‘Wangjaesan’ Espionage Ring Unmasked,” August 11, 2011, https://www.dailynk.com/english/wangjaesan-espionage-ring-unmasked. 51. An example is the statement of high-ranking defector Thae Yong-ho, in which he claims that the North Korean embassy in London is “looked after” by the Berlin embassy’s security officer. Due to the small number of employees at the London embassy, this had already been suspected and has thus been confirmed. See Thae Yong-ho, “On Prospects for Peace and Denuclearization,” June 3, 2018, https://www.nknews.org/2018 /06/thae-yong-ho-on-prospects-for-peace-and-denuclearization-nknews-podcast-ep-22. 52. Peter M. Haas, “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination,” International Organization 46, no. 1 (Winter 1992), 3. 53. Eugene Whong, “Kim Jong Un Has Purged a Confirmed 421 Officials,” February 22, 2019, https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/nksc-purge-02222019182245.html.

240 Stephan Blancke 54. Nick Squires, “Daughter of North Korean Diplomat ‘Snatched from Streets of Rome’ and Repatriated,” February 20, 2019, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02 /20/daughter-north-korean-diplomat-snatched-streets-rome-repatriated. 55. Up to the present, I have been able to identify numerous cases in which German institutes and scientists in highly sensitive areas of technology and military have cooperated with North Korean and Chinese partners or even published jointly. It remains unclear whether the only reason behind such cooperation is a hardly credible naiveté. 56. Former numbers for comparison: October 2010, thirteen officials; November 2010, twelve; February 2014, thirteen; December 2014, fourteen; January 2016, twelve; February 2016, ten; April 2017, six; September 2017, seven; November 2017, five; February 2018, six; and from March 2018 onward, five. In August 1986, the US Directorate of Intelligence listed thirty-four individuals for the North Korean embassy in East Berlin. 57. Soviet intelligence agencies faced a similar development because of Stalin’s mistrust as well as that of his successors in office. To avoid ending up in personal or institutional danger, they turned to grave misrepresentations. There are numerous cases in which even lower-ranking individuals from the North Korean intelligence agencies were imprisoned. See, for example, Database Center for North Korean Human Rights and North Korean Political Prison Camps, “A Catalogue of Political Prison Camp Staff, Detainees, and Victims of Enforced Disappearance” (Seoul, 2016). 58. Roberto R. Ballesteros, “Asaltan la Embajada de Corea del Norte en Madrid con Rehenes y Robo de Ordenadores” (Assault of the North Korean Embassy in Madrid with Hostages and Computer Theft), February 27, 2019, https://www.elconfidencial.com/espana /2019-02-27/asalto-embajada-corea-norte-aravaca-rehenes-robo-ordenadores_1849490. 59. Miguel González and Patricia Ortega Dolz, “CIA Implicated in Attack on North Korean Embassy in Madrid,” March 13, 2019, https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/03/13 /inenglish/1552464196_279320.html. 60. “Group Seeking to Overthrow Kim Behind North Korea Embassy Raid in Spain,” Washington Post, March 15, 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea -dissidents/group-seeking-to-overthrow-kim-behind-north-korea-embassy-raid-in-spain -washington-post-idUSKCN1QW2ZL. 61. “DPRK Flags of Convenience,” March 17, 2006, https://wikileaks.org/plusd /cables/06TOKYO1446_a.html. 62. Robert D’A. Henderson, Brassey’s Yearbook International Intelligence 2002 (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2002), 240. 63. Madeline Chambers, “Vietnamese Admits He Helped Agents to Kidnap Ex-Executive in Berlin,” July 18, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-vietnam/vietnamese -admits-he-helped-agents-to-kidnap-ex-executive-in-berlin-idUSKBN1K816J. 64. US District Court for the District of Columbia, Civil Action no. 10-483 (RCL) and Civil Action no. 09-646 (RCL), 2014, 4. 65. “North Korean Experts Come to Assad’s Aid,” Intelligence Online, February 20, 2019, 3, https://www.intelligenceonline.com/government-intelligence/2016/07/13/clash -between-hezbollah-and-syrian-army-in-aleppo,108174424-bre. 66. National Council of Resistance of Iran, Iran’s Ballistic Buildup: The March Toward Nuclear-Capable Missiles (Washington, DC, 2018), 83. 67. CIA, Directorate of Intelligence, “North Korean Activities Overseas” (presumably July 1984), iii. In the same report, the following additional international partners are listed on the basis of specific cases: Benin, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Guyana, Iran, Libya, Madagascar, Malta, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Palestine Liberation Organization, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Suriname, Syria, Tanzania, Uganda, Upper Volta, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. 68. Bruce E. Bechtol Jr., North Korean Military Proliferation in the Middle East and Africa (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2018). 69. In the sanctions list, it is listed as Mansudae Overseas Project Group of Companies, which is part of Mansudae Overseas Projects Architectural and Technical Services Limited.

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70. In the past, controversial exhibitions took place in Berlin and Vienna, while public funds helped to commission the Mansudae Art Studio in Frankfurt am Main in 2005. 71. As far as the actors involved are concerned, there is room for interpretation in the official documents available. Nevertheless, the mostly unpredictable North Korean partners have repeatedly been counteracting such agreements in recent years. 72. One source told me in 2017 that sporadic cooperation between Office/Bureau 39 staff and Russian companies in the border region between Russia and North Korea was a regular occurrence. Russian intelligence agencies are equally aware of this and of the presence of North Korean refugees. 73. Conversation with author, Press Club Brussels, “The Hanoi Summit: What Future for the Korean Peninsula?” March 6, 2019. 74. Anthony Rinna, “North Korea–Russia Defense Relations: Drivers and Developments,” March 2, 2016, https://sinonk.com/2016/03/02/north-korea-russia-defense-relations -drivers-and-developments. 75. “‘Transtelekom’ podklyuchil KNDR k internetu” (Transtelecom Has Connected the DPRK with the Internet), October, 2, 2017, https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3427707. 76. Matthew Newton and Donghui Park, “Russia Is Now Providing North Korea with Internet: What That Could Mean for Cyber Warfare,” December 1, 2017, https:// www.forbes.com/sites/outofasia/2017/12/01/russia-is-now-providing-north-korea-with -internet-what-that-could-mean-for-cyber-warfare/#2038f99e386b. 77. Blancke and Rosenke, “Blut ist Dicker als Wasser.” 78. Yu Sun, “The State of Play in Sino-DPRK Relations,” September 5, 2018, https:// www.38north.org/2018/09/ysun090518. 79. Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance Between the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, July 1961, https:// www.marxists.org/subject/china/documents/china_dprk.htm. 80. Chinese Embassy in the DPRK, “Zhù cháoxiǎn shǐguǎn jǔxíng jìniàn “zhōng cháo yǒuhǎo hézuò hùzhù tiáoyuē” qiānshǔ 57 zhōunián zhāodài huì” (The Embassy in North Korea Organized a Reception on the Occasion of the 57th Anniversary of the Signing of the “China DPRK Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Support Treaty”), July 12, 2018, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/web/zwbd_673032/gzhd_673042/t1576547.shtml. 81. Stephan Blancke, Private Intelligence: Geheimdienstliche Aktivitäten NichtStaatlicher Akteure (Private Intelligence: Secret Service Activities by Non-State Actors) (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2011). 82. There are countless well-documented reports on this subject referring particularly to the border area between North Korea and China. 83. Elizabeth Shim, “North Korean Agents Demanding More Bribes from Defector Networks,” February 23, 2018, https://www.upi.com/North-Korean-agents-demanding -more-bribes-from-defector-networks/8611519391719. 84. Kang Mi Jun, “Seven Additional MSS Officials Dismissed in Ryanggang Province,” March 9, 2017, https://www.dailynk.com/english/seven-additional-mss-officials-dis. 85. “Ryanggang Official Executed Following Low-Level Party Conference,” Daily NK, January 12, 2017, https://www.dailynk.com/english/ryanggang-official-executed-follow. 86. Stephan Blancke, “Tigers, Flies, and Crocodiles: Hunting Season for Chinese Intelligence—Chinese Anti-Corruption Campaigns in an Aggressive Foreign Policy,” Zeitschrift für Außen und Sicherheitspolitik (ZfAS) 11, no. 3 (July 2018), 343–364. 87. North Korea Strategy Center, “The List of Victims of Executions and Purges After Kim Jong Un Came Into Power” (Seoul 2019), 2. 88. North Korea Strategy Center, “Executions and Purges of North Korean Elites: An Investigation into Genocide Based on High-Ranking Officials’ Testimonies” (Seoul, 2019), 67. 89. Sung Min-cho, “Anticipating and Preparing for the Potential Assassination of Kim Jong-Un,” International Journal of Korean Studies 19, no. 1 (2015), 175–195. 90. Peter Gill and Mark Phythian, Intelligence in an Insecure World (Cambridge: Polity, 2006), 59.

242 Stephan Blancke 91. Travis Jeppesen, “Shopping in Pyongyang and Other Adventures in North Korean Capitalism,” New York Times Magazine, February 14, 2019, https://www.nytimes .com/2019/02/14/magazine/north-korea-black-market-economy.html. 92. Moreover, the murder of individuals who draw their allegedly dangerous power from their expertise already leads to a recognizable partial lack of adequate North Korean contacts in security and disarmament matters. This was demonstrated, for example, at the Hanoi Summit in March 2019 in questions of denuclearization (US source directed to author). 93. Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield (New York: Basic, 2001), 555. 94. Cynthia Grabo and Jan Goldman, Handbook of Warning Intelligence: Complete and Declassified Edition (Lanham: Scarecrow, 2015), 6. 95. See Robert M. Clark, Intelligence Analysis: A Target-Centric Approach (Los Angeles: Sage/CQ Press, 2013), 44–60. 96. Katherine Hibbs Pherson and Randolph H. Pherson, Critical Thinking for Strategic Intelligence (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2017), 183–193.

14 Pakistan Kunal Mukherjee

After two centuries of British colonial rule in South Asia, partition took place in 1947, which is when both India and Pakistan came into existence as independent nation-states. Since its creation, Pakistan has had to deal with both internal pressures and external challenges. Internal threats included extreme levels of poverty and illiteracy, the rise of religious extremism, administrative failure, and secessionist movements in the more peripheral parts of Pakistan like Sindh, Baluchistan, and North Western Frontier provinces, now called Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. External pressures have included the ongoing dispute with neighboring India over Kashmir in the east and Afghani irredentist claims on Pakistani territory in the west. Lieven writes that “from the first, therefore, the leaders of the Pakistani state felt acutely endangered from within and without: from India of course but also from Afghanistan with its claim to Pakistan’s Pathan territories, and equally importantly by internal revolt.”1 Pakistan has struggled to hold itself together over the past six decades, and state survival often became the key concern. State survival was often equated with a strong defense posture, emphasis on high defense expenditure, having an assertive federal government, and emphasis on monolithic nationalism. Because the country has been in a state of crisis and emergency for such a long period of time, having a strong state apparatus was given precedence over the introduction of democracy. However, the shift away from the primacy of the civil was a gradual process. Senior commanders joined hands with the bureaucracy and became powerful actors in the decisionmaking process. The country’s powerful intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), also became a part of this. 243

244 Kunal Mukherjee Before we look into the details of the ISI, it is first important to have some understanding of the failure of the democratization process in Pakistan and the rise of the military, since the ISI has consistently maintained strong linkages with the military. The two processes—the failure of democracy in Pakistan and the rise of the military in partnership with the ISI—are most certainly interrelated and we cannot understand the latter without having at least some understanding of the former. In relation to this connection between the military and the intelligence services, Ayesha Siddiqa, a prominent scholar and analyst on Pakistan, writes that “the workings of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) are all for practical purposes controlled by the army chief, despite its being an inter-services agency whose head is answerable only to the prime minister. The control of intelligence agencies bolsters the power of the army chief.”2 Failure of Democracy in Pakistan There are both historical reasons and contemporary factors that have prevented the rise of democracy in Pakistan. It has often been argued that in the early stages of Pakistan’s creation, South Asian Muslims suffered from a leadership crisis and were politically disorganized. One of the major political parties that had been linked with the Pakistan movement was the Muslim League, which came into existence in 1906. Some leaders from the Muslim community felt that they needed a separate homeland for South Asian Muslims, since they feared discrimination in a Hindumajority India once the British had left the subcontinent. There were ongoing talks about what would happen to the future of Islam after independence. There was fear that Muslims would not be represented politically or in military circles and would not get jobs in a post-independence Hindu-majority India. Hence, the creation of a separate homeland was deemed necessary where South Asian Muslims would be able to live in peace and harmony. This has not been the case since Pakistan’s creation as we all know, but this was one of the dominant arguments at that time. The name Pakistan means the “pure” land. Of course the movement that led to the creation of Pakistan was highly fragmented. Not all the leaders wanted a separate homeland for South Asian Muslims. While figures like Mohamed Iqbal and Sir Syed Ahmed Khan wanted a separate homeland, there were other individuals such as Maulana Azad who opposed the Pakistan movement. When the country was coming into existence, the leaders who spearheaded the movement were highly divided, were not a homogeneous group, and did not have a set of uni-

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fied goals, aims, or strategies. In relation to the leadership crisis, it is also worth mentioning that while the South Asian Muslim community had good provincial leaders, they lacked leaders who had a national stature. The only figure of national importance was Mohamed Ali Jinnah, but he died shortly after Pakistan was created in 1948. Musharraf writes: “The death of the father of the nation, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, thirteen months after independence, was a serious setback. With his departure the infant state of Pakistan lost its lead politically, physically, and metaphorically—and even ideologically.”3 After the death of Jinnah, the Pakistan movement lost momentum. His lieutenant, Liaqat Ali Khan, also died shortly after 1947, which created a political vacuum, and hence there was no leader of national importance to lead the country after its creation. Furthermore, many of the individuals who became the new country’s leaders were from Hindu-majority India as opposed to being from Pakistan itself. When these figures migrated to Pakistan to lead the country, the local residents felt a disconnect with these leaders who lacked political legitimacy. In other words, Pakistan lacked strong national leaders like Gandhi in neighboring India, who brought the disparate sections of Indian society together. The Muslim League failed to transform itself from a nationalist movement into a national political party. It did not serve as an effective political machine for aggregating diverse interests and transforming itself into a plural and participatory national framework. By 1956, the Muslim League had disintegrated and became a victim of deliberate neglect and rivalries along personal and provincial lines. Although both India and Pakistan had been subjected to British colonial rule, India became democratic and Pakistan struggled with democracy and faced waves of authoritarian rule. Pakistan’s failure to institute even a formal democracy with regular elections at the national and provincial levels provides the obverse side of the British colonial legacy in South Asia. Some scholars suggest that India inherited the central state apparatus left by the British that was necessary for the smooth functioning of a democracy. Indian politicians could use this inheritance as a basic platform after 1947, which allowed them to take off with democracy. This was not so much the case in Pakistan, where leaders had to start from scratch. One really needs to pay special attention to the economic and strategic consequences of partition.4 The gentler impact on India and the harsher impact on Pakistan need to serve as a reference point as to why one becomes democratic and the other experiences waves of authoritarian rule despite being subjected to a common British colonial legacy.

246 Kunal Mukherjee These are the historical reasons why Pakistan struggled with democracy. However, there are more contemporary reasons that also need to be discussed. Throughout the Cold War phase, the United States consistently supported the military generals in Pakistan to further their own US interests in South Asia. The US security establishment believed that to further its own interests in South Asia, it was easier to do this by keeping one man in power who would act as a puppet on behalf of the United States. If the United States were to introduce democracy in Pakistan and support the civilian leaders, then the people would get involved in politics and the situation would become much more complicated and messy, thereby making it increasingly difficult for the United States to further its own interests in the region. The United States followed this policy of supporting Pakistani dictators during the Cold War era to check the spread of Soviet communism, and in the post-9/11 era in its global war on terror. Washington has not supported the civilian leaders or the more democratic groups in a similar way. This is the hypocrisy of Western democracy. The military generals in Pakistan obtained support not only from Washington but from other quarters as well. The military traditionally has had a positive image and is strongly associated with the concepts of sayeed (martyr), jihad (struggle), and gazi (valor and strength). These ideas of martyrdom, strength, and struggle are viewed positively. They are associated with the military, who then get support from the people. The favorable image of the military was also strengthened during the years of British colonial rule on the Indian subcontinent. The military acted as a shield for the empire, protected the people, and crushed internal rebellions. Kashmiris (with pro-Pakistan leanings) who felt strongly about the Kashmir cause also supported the military. The military has often been backed by the political and bureaucratic elite, who are mainly Punjabi, like a lot of the generals. This factor of common ethnicity strengthened support for the dictators in contemporary Pakistan. The military generals in Pakistan have often argued that Pakistan is in a state of crisis and in a state of emergency primarily because of the ongoing territorial dispute with neighboring India over Kashmir. Until the Kashmir issue gets resolved, democracy cannot be introduced in Pakistan. The country would need to reach a certain level of both political and economic development and stability before democracy can be introduced. Furthermore, the introduction of Western-style democracy could also potentially stir up the existing ethnic tensions. To have a strong democracy, one needs to have a strong, independent, and flourishing judiciary, but currently the state of justice in Pak-

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istan has been a sorry state of affairs. Jaffrelot writes that “in Pakistan, constitutional debates would be hostage to and later victims of security considerations . . . and the judges would end up being courted by both civilians and the military, sometimes even arbitrating uneasily between the two camps, but lately acquiring more room for maneuver.”5 Furthermore, the presence of feudal and semifeudal and aristocratic elements who want to hold on to the status quo have prevented democratization from taking place in the country since it will undermine their own position, power, and privileges. Malik writes: Largely run on a modified colonial pattern, Pakistan’s highly centralized government has been controlled by the army and civil bureaucracy that have often worked towards state building at the expense of nation building. Democratic imperatives, such as constitutionalism, unfettered party politics, and fair and participatory institutional frameworks safeguarded by a free judiciary have been neglected to suit factional and even individual discretion. Every new Pakistani leader, whether military or civilian, has promised a fresh start for the country, only to fall back on the same cronyism that resists long-overdue reforms.6

Mostly the civilian leaders have been quite weak in Pakistan, and whenever there has been a crisis, they have often leaned on the military generals for support. The civilian leaders have not been very effective in dealing with issues of security, governance, and economics. Neither have they used the gaps between military rule to establish a strong democratic government in Pakistan. In relation to this, Talbot writes about the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) federal government, which did not challenge the military’s supremacy over matters relating to security in Baluchistan. The extrajudicial killing of secessionist groups and support for Sunni extremists such as Lashkar-e-Jangvi as a counterbalance to ethnic nationalism continued unabated under Musharraf’s rule. This had serious consequences for national consolidation, as nationalists linked with the Baluchistan Liberation Army engaged in deadly reprisals against Punjabi settlers. Thus the province increasingly showed signs of marginalization. The PPP’s lack of leadership and inability to provide direction in counterinsurgency operations in the federally administered tribal areas led to much criticism. Furthermore, the PPP government ended with exorbitant defense costs, resulting from the operations in the Swat territories and the tribal areas, leaving little funding available for social expenditure.7 In relation to the failure of democracy in Pakistan, Shah mentions that the repeated interventions by Pakistan’s military in domestic politics arrest the country’s development of democracy, with Pakistan being

248 Kunal Mukherjee ruled directly by the military for almost half the country’s existence. Thus between 1947 and 2012, not once did an elected government complete its full tenure and peacefully transfer power to another elected government. Even when the armed forces were not formally in power, they maintained a tight control over national politics. Pakistan made its latest transition to democracy in 2008 when the military ended eight years of authoritarian rule under General Pervez Musharraf (1999–2007). Finally, in 2013, Pakistan experienced its first democratic turnover when the PPP completed its full constitutional term of five years and handed over power to its main challenger, Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League– N (PML-N), which had emerged triumphant in that year’s parliamentary elections, both at the center and in Punjab province.8 Rise of the Warrior State in Pakistan The lack of democracy has been problematized with the rise of the warrior or garrison state in Pakistan.9 For six decades Pakistan has followed geopolitically oriented policies at the expense of democratic reform. This has paved the way for political and economic stagnation and has also led to chaos. Policies of Pakistan’s great power patrons like the United States and China have made the country’s growth and development slow and sluggish. Superpowers like the United States and China needed Pakistan’s land space and air space and this discouraged Pakistan from introducing any meaningful political and economic reform, since it received easy money from these superpowers. Pakistan has a pivotal geographical location that superpowers have needed for their own interests. It is located on the South Asian periphery, where great power interests often intersect. As a result of this it has often been called the fulcrum of Asia. It was used as a base for spy operations in the Cold War phase by the United States against the Soviets to check the spread of Soviet communism. The United States has also needed Pakistan’s land and air space post-9/11 in its so-called war on terror. China has needed Pakistan to gain access to the sea and also to destabilize India. These international partnerships and strategic relationships brought a lot of economic and military resources to Pakistan but did not lead to the country’s prosperity. In the process, the generals got wealthy and the people suffered, since there was no incentive or pressure on the elite to introduce reform. Pakistan’s geostrategic position has laid a geostrategic curse on Pakistan. This is similar to the idea of the resource curse. When a country is blessed with easily extracted natural resources and mineral assets like

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oil, it leaves the political elite with little incentive to introduce political and economic reform. Similarly, if a regime is endowed in a geostrategic arena due to its geographical location and specific attributes regarded as very useful in great power contests and international rivalry, then there is less of an impetus for the elite to prioritize reform. The state can use rents from the international alignments to keep itself afloat and becomes a rentier state in the process. Countries like Pakistan, Egypt, and the Philippines attest to this kind of development. Over the years, Pakistan’s pivotal role in great power contests allowed it to receive foreign aid, and yet this did not lead to the country’s growth or provide it with any kind of internal stability. Since it came into existence, Pakistan has been obsessed with security, especially the military imbalance with neighboring India. While India is weaker than countries like China in the Asia Pacific, it is stronger than countries like Pakistan, particularly when it comes to demographic weight, economics, and military might. Since 1947, India has been four times larger than Pakistan, and since 1971, which is the year when former East Pakistan seceded from West Pakistan and became the independent country of Bangladesh, India is about six to eight times larger than Pakistan. This has been a matter of concern for Pakistan. Apart from the four wars it has fought with India over Kashmir, three of which it initiated itself, it has also been involved in asymmetric warfare by training and sending insurgents to Indian Kashmir since 1989. Pakistan has tried to strengthen its identity in Southern Asia by trying to undermine India. The military elite in partnership with the ISI has tried to secure itself by attaining strategic parity with India through an arms buildup, maintaining strategic partnerships with superpowers, acquiring nuclear weapons, offering a home base for transnational Islamist terrorists, engaging in terrorism on its own, and finally initiating war to extract territorial concessions. War-making in this case came with strong negatives. War-making stunted the growth of civil society and generated continuous years of military rule. It has created a garrison state that is bureaucratic and excessively focused on military control over all domains of society. Martial law damages not only the military but also civilian institutions in general because the military becomes superimposed on different facets of society. In the process the political and bureaucratic elite become heavily dependent on the military to make decisions on crucial matters that they should be making themselves. In 2012, Pakistan was seen as one of the world’s weakest states. Its armed forces did not have control over vast parts of the country, particularly

250 Kunal Mukherjee in the northwestern frontier provinces. The Taliban insurgency had taken over 30 percent of the territory, especially in the northwest in 2009. The country has often been seen as a failing state where the economic and security establishments are on the brink of collapse. Pakistan’s geopolitical centrality has benefited the military but not the people of Pakistan. Participation in the geopolitical contest between the former Soviet Union and the United States brought billions of dollars and modern weapons to Pakistan. It was the military in partnership with the ISI who gained from this, and they had little incentive to innovate in both political and economic spheres. They did not have to reform the semifeudal system to extract resources from it because, as mentioned, they were receiving easy money from these international partnerships and strategic alignments. Money in the form of foreign aid was enough to raise the military’s economic power and wage war against neighboring India. Pakistan’s alliance with the United States has allowed the country to gain foreign aid from other countries and international financial institutions as well. In this connection, Britain, Germany, Japan, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) deserve special mention. Foreign aid has mainly come from Western countries and international institutions, especially when the United States has needed Pakistan’s land and air space. The military not only is the so-called security provider in Pakistan but has also become a key economic force in the country. Senior military officers have been given land grants by the state over the years and they have now become a big landowning class. They have a strong presence in key businesses of the country as well. Finally, since the 1980s the military has made pacts with Islamist groups who have no intention of transforming the country into a modern state but would rather see the country turn into a bastion of radical Islam. The situation today is of course different from earlier times. A civilmilitary hybrid has emerged in recent years. Although the military is not in power directly, it still rules the country from the sidelines in more subtle ways. Although at a superficial level it might seem that civilian leaders like Imran Khan are in power, the real power still rests with the military. Military leaders tend to find it hard to give up power but sooner or later they need to think of a political framework to replace direct rule. They ensure that their interests are not adversely affected through this change. In Pakistan the military gave up power through a process of planned disengagement, a restructuring of the political system according to the preferences of the military by co-opting a subservient section of the political elite and thus ensuring a continuity of major policies and key personnel in the post-withdrawal period. The emphasis has shifted; instead of playing

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a direct role in power-politics, the military are now happy to play an indirect role. They are happy to stay on the sidelines as long as the civilian elite do not attack their corporate interests. Because of the long presence of the military in high-level Pakistani politics, they have established a presence in education, key businesses, communications, the corporate sector, and the like. Thus a direct takeover is no longer necessary. Retired army officers have taken up key positions in the country. There is a connection between the military and the civilian elite, and the two interact. This relationship, however, is often quite strained. Governance is often a balance between the imperative of democracy and the interests and needs of the military. Major bargaining may happen on certain policy issues. The civilian leaders are weak and cannot reverse this trend. They can stay in power as long as they maintain good relations with the military. This is often called a hybrid government, where there are elements of both democracy and authoritarianism coexisting in the same political system, although the authoritarian side is more powerful. It is called the civilianization of military rule or militarization of civilian rule. The durability of this midway arrangement is questionable. The military has an influence over the ISI, the Intelligence Bureau, and the Military Intelligence. The reasons for the military to maintain a strong role are the nuclearization of South Asia, spread of narcotics, rise of religious extremist groups in the region, infiltration of Afghani refugees, proliferation of weapons, sectarian cleavages, and ongoing dispute with India over Kashmir. The Inter-Services Intelligence The failure of democracy in Pakistan has provided scope for martial law to entrench itself, which in turn has given rise to the ISI as an adjunct of the military to become involved in Pakistan’s domestic affairs. The ISI, which is a branch of the Pakistani army, is most certainly one of the dominant political institutions in the country. It has been active during times of both civilian rule and military rule. The military and the ISI are basically two sides of the same coin in Pakistan. Throughout the years the ISI has supported the military and the military has supported the ISI. Like the army, the ISI has been able to stay in power for so long because of the perceived threats to Pakistan’s security and stability. From its headquarters in Islamabad it has worked to control political space and crush dissent, thereby giving the military a freer hand in both internal and external affairs.

252 Kunal Mukherjee The ISI was founded in 1948, not long after the country came into existence. The founding figure of the ISI is considered to be Walter Joseph Cawthorne, who headed the ISI from January to June 1948.10 He was then serving as Pakistan’s army deputy chief of staff. Since then, there has been an army professional heading the ISI as director. The ISI’s aim was to assist the military and the government more generally in matters of security and governance. Created from the three branches of Pakistan’s military and modeled after Iran’s intelligence service, the Organization of National Intelligence and Security of the Nation (SAVAK), the ISI coordinates with the army, navy, and air force intelligence units of the military to collect, analyze, and disseminate intelligence with a primary focus on Pakistan’s arch enemy, India. This is because shortly after coming into existence, Pakistan had to fight four wars with India over the contested territory of Kashmir. India and Pakistan have warred in 1947, 1965, 1971, and 1999. The ISI has a monolithic organizational structure, overseeing both domestic and foreign intelligence operations in Pakistan. That said, there has been a major focus on the domestic affairs of Pakistan. However, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the ISI changed its focus and since then its external agenda has expanded and is also no longer focused mainly on India. Before the ISI came into existence, the Intelligence Bureau had been the main source of intelligence, as a quasi-police organization headed by a senior police officer. Because the Intelligence Bureau’s performance in the first Indo-Pak war in 1947–1948 was quite poor, the political elite felt that a much stronger and powerful intelligence agency was required; hence the creation of the ISI. The ISI has been on the rise since 1948 and gained in strength. The military generals especially from the time of Ayub Khan preferred to rely on the ISI, which had strong links with the military as opposed to the Intelligence Bureau, which had a quasi-police character. To an extent, the ISI–Intelligence Bureau relationship was an extension and reflection of civil-military relations, especially at a time when the civil bureaucracy had weakened due to high levels of corruption, political interference, and fragmentation and lateral entries from the armed forces. The ISI is headed by a director-general who is traditionally serving as a lieutenant-general in the Pakistani army. There are three deputy director-generals who report directly to the director-general. Each deputy heads a wing. The internal wing is responsible for issues relating to domestic intelligence and domestic counterintelligence. The external wing is responsible for external intelligence and external counterintelligence. Finally, the foreign relations wing is responsible for diplomatic intelligence. The general staff consists of military officers of the armed

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forces as well as civilian officers associated with the police, federal investigative agency, Pakistani customs, federal revenue board, and Pakistan’s judiciary. They are recruited on deputations for approximately three to four years. Army officers who perform well professionally are ordinarily given extensions. In terms of staff, some analysts believe that the ISI is the largest intelligence organization in the world. The Joint Intelligence X (JIX) coordinates all the other departments in the ISI. Information is gathered from other departments and submitted to the JIX, which processes the information and from which reports are prepared. Other associated departments include a joint intelligence bureau, which has the responsibility of gathering antistate intelligence; a joint counterintelligence bureau, which focuses primarily on India; a joint north intelligence bureau, which focuses on the contested area of Kashmir; a joint miscellaneous intelligence bureau, responsible for espionage in foreign countries; a joint signals intelligence bureau, which coordinates intelligence gathering across the India-Pakistan border; a joint technical intelligence bureau, which deals with the technical side of things to advance Pakistan’s intelligence gathering; a directorate that monitors terrorist groups; and finally an internal political division, which is now no longer active. The assumption of martial law in 1958 under Ayub Khan (president from 1958 to 1969) brought the ISI into the political realm. During Ayub Khan’s time, it was expected to perform three roles: protect Pakistan’s interests, monitor political opposition and resistance movements, and sustain military rule in Pakistan. It is quite clear from these functions that from the Ayub years onward, the ISI viewed its main purpose in terms of the Pakistani military as opposed to the security of the country as a whole. During Ayub’s time, the ISI kept a watchful eye on social organizations that had potential political influence, such as student groups and trade unions. It did not want these groups to gain in political strength. Islamist groups were also expected to leave any political rhetoric out of their speeches. Ayub Khan expanded the ISI’s powers when he suspected the loyalty of Bengali officers in former East Pakistan, present-day Bangladesh. The actions and political moves of officers in the Intelligence Bureau’s Dhaka branch were monitored. For instance, during the 1964 general elections, the ISI especially kept an eye on the candidates running for office in former East Pakistan. Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, the ISI worked closely with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) under the Nixon administration to provide assistance to the Khalistan movement in Punjab. The CIA and the ISI once again joined hands and worked collaboratively to discredit India’s then prime minister, Indira Gandhi, who had granted naval facilities to the

254 Kunal Mukherjee former Soviet Union in the Bay of Bengal. This came to a close with the death of Gandhi in 1984.11 Under President Yayha Khan (1969–1971), the ISI once again increased its domestic intelligence collection activities in former East Pakistan. It sought to guarantee that no Bengali candidate from former East Pakistan would win the presidential election, although the operation turned out to be a failure. It is generally believed that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (president from 1971 to 1973 and prime minister from 1973 to 1977) strengthened the position of the ISI in Pakistan’s domestic politics by creating ISI political cells in the mid-1970s in places like the North Western Frontier provinces (today’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) and Baluchistan. This was because of the mistrust that existed between the central authorities and the Pashto and Baluch Intelligence Bureau leaders. This mistrust is strongly linked with the outbreak of secessionist movements in Pakistan’s periphery, especially in the North Western Frontier provinces and Baluchistan. Although it is said that Bhutto strengthened the ISI’s role, the latter kept an eye on the Bhutto family both in Pakistan and also when they were abroad in London in political exile. General Zia-ul-Haq (1977–1988), who executed Bhutto, came into power with the aid of the ISI. Zia was one of the army generals who served for an extended period of time. The ISI’s powers were expanded to collect domestic intelligence on political and religious organizations that resisted Zia’s rule. The CIA through Zia and the ISI provided assistance, military aid, and about US$3 billion worth of arms to the Afghan mujahidin to check the spread of Soviet communism. In the post-Zia period, when the military generals played a more subtle role in Pakistan’s politics, the generals used the ISI to manipulate the course of the country’s politics to suit their own interests and agenda. The ISI was variously used to prop up friendly political personas who maintained good relations with the military. The ISI was also used by the military to create unfavorable conditions for individuals who tried to resist the generals. This happened especially during the Bhutto years. After Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s death, when his daughter Benazir tried to challenge Zia’s power, Zia did succeed in strengthening groups that opposed her party, the PPP. Talbot writes: “The ISI was to play a role in organizing them into a coherent grouping in advance of the 1988 elections which followed Zia’s death.”12 It has been argued that the ISI has played a crucial role in the radicalization of Pakistan. It has encouraged Islamist groups to exist on Pakistani soil to destabilize India. As mentioned earlier, it supported the Afghan mujahidin against the former Soviet Union, from which many of today’s Islamist groups have emerged. The ISI is known to have actively supported the Lashkar e Taiba (LeT) and the Jaish e Mohammed, which are

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two prominent Islamist groups in contemporary South Asia. Both of these groups were involved in the Mumbai attacks in India in 2008. The ISI has also worked with the Pakistani Taliban, whose most prominent faction, the Haqqani network, has emerged as one of the potent insurgent groups in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region. Led by Jalaluddin Haqqani, the group had between 5,000 and 15,000 fighters. It is known to create problems in the region, as it obtains money through force, kidnapping, and smuggling. Pakistan’s sponsorship of the Haqqani network had been an open secret for a while, as was the fact that the Haqqani network had been responsible for some of the assaults on the Indian and Western presence in Afghanistan. The Afghan leadership has also pointed out that the ISI has been attacking Indian installations and Indian developmental work in Afghanistan, which of course the Pakistani establishment has quickly denied. The ISI and the military in Pakistan have always viewed Indian developmental activities in Afghanistan with suspicion and believe that India is trying to gain strategic depth there to ultimately undermine Pakistan’s interests. Under the protection of the ISI and the Taliban, Osama bin Laden had begun to expand the activities of al-Qaeda and other transnational terrorist groups for global jihad. In relation to this, Byman writes: Pakistan backed groups are responsible for some of the worst attacks on India, notably Lashkar e Taiba’s December 2001 attack on India’s parliament and its 2008 attack on hotels that catered to westerners, a Jewish community centre, and other targets in Mumbai that killed over 160 people. . . . [W]ith the support of Pakistani intelligence, Lashkar e Taiba regularly conducts attacks on Indian targets, disrupting moves towards peace and seeking to provoke an Indian response. Yet India’s relative restraint is not certain, and another attack on Indian facilities abroad or sensitive sites within India could spark a bigger war.13

Since the ISI has actively supported terrorist groups in both India and Afghanistan, this has most certainly contributed to high levels of insecurity and instability in contemporary South Asia. This instability has often been used as an excuse by the military and the ISI to stay in power in the high-level politics of Pakistan and to prevent the introduction of meaningful democracy in the country. Conclusion

It is difficult to study the ISI in isolation. One first needs to have some understanding of the failure of the democratization process in Pakistan and, second, of the rise of the military, which took advantage of this failure. This is important because the military and the ISI are different sides

256 Kunal Mukherjee of the same coin. They are intertwined and it is not possible to understand one side without having at least some understanding of the other. Pakistan is most certainly a nation that is at the crossroads and needs to make some crucial decisions urgently. While leaders like Imran Khan (prime minister since 2018) might be progressive and may have a clear vision for Pakistan and for the country’s growth and development, there will be challenges from within the party and also from the more powerful military and ISI, which tend to control the country from the sidelines. Although the way forward would be to introduce meaningful democracy for more political transparency, the harsh reality is that the current leaders of Pakistan may very well have to strike a balance between the interests of the military elite, who would want to hold on to the status quo, and the needs of the country. The country may have emerged from its troubled past, but the future still seems to be fraught with uncertainty. Notes 1. A. Lieven, Pakistan: A Hard Country (New Delhi: Penguin India, 2011–2012), 176. 2. A. Siddiqa, Military Inc: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy (Gurgaon: Pluto Penguin, 2017), 71. 3. P. Musharraf, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir (London: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 156. 4. K. Mukherjee, “Why Has Democracy Been Less Successful in Pakistan Than in India?” Asian Affairs 40, no. 1 (2010), 70. 5. C. Jaffrelot, ed., Pakistan at the Crossroads: Domestic Dynamics and External Pressures (Gurgaon: Random House India, 2016), 374. 6. I. Malik, Pakistan: Democracy, Terror, and the Building of a Nation (London: New Holland, 2010), 141. 7. I. Talbot, “Democratic Transition and Security in Pakistan: Historical Perspectives,” in S. Gregory, ed., Democratic Transition and Security in Pakistan (London: Routledge, 2016), 19. 8. A. Shah, “The Military and Democracy,” in Jaffrelot, Pakistan at the Crossroads, 23. 9. T. V. Paul, The Warrior State: Pakistan in the Contemporary World (Gurgaon: Random House India, 2014), 69. 10. H. G. Kiessling, Faith, Unity, Discipline: The ISI of Pakistan (Noida: HarperCollins India, 2016), 14. 11. K. Mukherjee, “Military Governments, the ISI, and Political Hybridity in Contemporary Pakistan: From Independence to Musharraf,” Journal of Intelligence History 16, no. 2 (2017), 186. 12. I. Talbot, Pakistan: A New History, updated and rev. ed. (London: Hurst, 2012), 125. 13. D. Byman, Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Global Jihadist Movement: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 125–126.

15 Palestine Alaa Tartir

When the Palestinian Authority was established by the Oslo Accords in 1993–1994, Edward Said, the renowned Palestinian American scholar, warned that Yasser Arafat, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) chairman and Palestinian Authority president, had established several security forces, five of which were intelligence services tasked with spying on each other.1 In 1996, Ramadan Shallah, the leader of Palestine’s Islamic Jihad movement, made a similar observation: “Arafat has so many intelligence services in the self-rule areas that if you open your window, Preventive Security peeps in; if you open your door, the Presidential Security Service comes in; if you go out to your garden, you bump into Military Intelligence; and if you go out to the street, you come across General Intelligence.”2 In 2011, Yezid Sayigh, the prominent security expert, observed that “in the West Bank, the intelligence agencies are emerging as autonomous power centers that acknowledge no higher, constitutional authority.” This raised the prospect of a security state run in accordance with the established regional model. Sayigh observes: “If there is no credible movement toward statehood within the coming year, they could be turned into little more than the civilian face for yet another Arab polity run by the Mukhabarat (secret police), in this case with a strong, even pervasive behind-the-scenes role for Israel and the CIA.”3 By late 2018, this prediction had proven to be accurate—the intelligence state in-the-making had become further institutionalized and entrenched, with the adopted, implemented, and internationally sponsored security reform processes resulting in the professionalization of Palestinian authoritarianism and repression.4 257

258 Alaa Tartir These authoritarian transformations, which have been enacted over a quarter of a century, have meant that, in addition to living under the brutality of the Israeli colonial military occupation, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip have had to (and continue to) live under additional layers of suppression created by their own national governing bodies and security forces. Thus, the Israeli colonial occupation and Palestinian authoritarianism have created a police state in-the-making where multiple intelligence agencies function within a context that is fraught with fundamental contradictions and imbalances of power. The security framework put in place by the Oslo Accords requires the Palestinian security establishment, and its intelligence branches more specifically, to coordinate and share intelligence information with the Israeli authorities and occupation forces, resulting in a situation where they are perceived by the Palestinian people to be mere subcontractors to the Israeli occupation and a tool that sustains the imbalances of power between the occupied and the occupier. This reality cannot be concealed by invocations of “coordination,” “assistance,” or even the ultimate aspiration of “peacebuilding.” In addition, the multilayered conditions imposed by the international community also require the Palestinian security forces and primarily its intelligence units to counter Palestinian “terrorism.” This has resulted in the suppression and criminalization of resistance to the Israeli occupation, and the silencing and control of political opposition, in turn producing a situation in which the security agencies have come to be popularly perceived as politically oppressive and even opposed to the goal of national liberation. Numerous public opinion polls over the past decade confirm that a majority of respondents feel that they cannot criticize the Palestinian Authority and its security forces without fear, in large part due to the surveillance, monitoring activities, and violations of individual privacy. Other surveys observe that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas intelligence agencies are involved in arbitrary arrest and torture and systematically abuse human rights and basic freedoms, a conclusion that is echoed by numerous local and international human rights organizations. This serves to confirm that the Palestinian security forces have not only failed to ensure the security of the Palestinian people but also further entrenched insecurity, while deepening a legitimacy crisis and trust gap and perpetuating a culture of fear in place of inclusiveness and accountability. It is within these dynamics that the role and functionality of the Palestinian intelligence agencies need to be understood and analyzed. Reference also needs to be made to a context that largely equates

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intelligence with fear. One Palestinian political activist pithily states, “In our context, mukhabarat/intelligence can only generate negative connotation as it means fear, repression, torture, denial of democracy, lack of freedom, protection to the political élite, police state, and free services to the enemy.”5 Historical Overview Palestine is the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River that is bounded to the north by Lebanon and to the south by the Gulf of Aqaba. The Palestinian Nakba (ethnic cleansing that led to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948) and the Palestinian Naksa (Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967) resulted in “Palestine” becoming a reduced version of historical Palestine. In the contemporary period, “Palestine” refers to the occupied Palestinian territories, which include the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and accounts for 22 percent of historical Palestine. The PLO informally accepted this reduction of Palestine in 1974 and formally adopted it in 1988. In 1993, the PLO signed the Oslo Accords with Israel, which anticipated the Palestinian Authority’s emergence as the governing Palestinian body in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It was anticipated that the accords would, by the end of the decade, establish the basis for a Palestinian state that would be established along the “Green Line,” the demarcation set out in the 1949 Armistice Agreements between the armies of Israel and those of its neighbors.6 However, an independent and sovereign Palestinian state never materialized. After two decades of a failed peace process, the Palestinian Authority approached the United Nations in 2011, requesting that Palestine be recognized as an independent state. In 2012, the UN offered Palestine the status of a nonmember observer state. This state exists only on paper though. The recognized State of Palestine lacks the main pillars of state: sovereignty, control over borders, ability to govern, a registered population, and national independence on financial and migration issues. This state does not include or represent the more than half of the Palestinian people who live as refugees-in-exile. Not only is “Palestine” reduced but the Palestinian people have also become reduced to those resident in the occupied Palestinian territories. The Palestinian Authority is partially in charge of ruling the 4.8 million Palestinians living in the West Bank (2.9 million, of whom 57.6 percent are under twenty-five years old) and Gaza Strip (1.9 million, of whom

260 Alaa Tartir 63.6 percent are under twenty-five years old). However, many more Palestinians (another 7.9 million, including 1.8 million “second-class” citizens of Israel) are scattered around the region but are not subject to the Palestinian Authority’s control. Technically, they rely on the PLO, an umbrella organization that federates the majority of nationalist Palestinian parties and that has been internationally recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. However, the PLO institutions are largely absent, coopted by the Palestinian Authority, or simply ineffective. The PLO suffers from a deep legitimacy crisis; in part, this is attributable to the fact that it does not include the Islamic resistance movement (Hamas), which was the dominant political party in the 2006 legislative elections, or Islamic Jihad. Similar criticisms can also be made of the Palestinian Authority, which is governing fragmented spaces in the West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip, both of which are militarily occupied by Israel. Since the intra-Palestinian divide in 2007, the Gaza Strip is internally governed by Hamas and subject to an Israeli-Egyptian siege and blockade. Hamas also suffers from a deep legitimacy crisis in the Gaza Strip, and a number of its actions have further deepened intra-Palestinian fragmentation. The lack of a sovereign Palestinian state and the continuation of the Israeli illegal military occupation (as recognized by international law) have profoundly affected Palestine’s social transformation, institutional development, political economy, and politics. As part of the so-called peace process and statebuilding project, Palestinians have received US$35 billion of international aid since 1993, meaning that they have been one of the highest per capita recipients of nonmilitary aid in the world.7 From 2004 onward, aid represented between 20 and 39 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), with per capita aid for the same period averaging around US$560 per year. In 2015, the economic costs of the Israeli occupation on the Palestinian economy were estimated to be US$9.5 billion, or around 75 percent of the occupied Palestinian territories’ annual GDP. In 2017, per capita GDP was around US$3,097, with poverty and unemployment affecting up to 30 percent of the occupied Palestinian territories’ population; conditions were particularly serious in the Gaza Strip, which has a 45 percent unemployment rate (and a youth unemployment rate in excess of 60 percent); meanwhile, 80 percent of the population require basic humanitarian assistance to survive, 72 percent of households are food-insecure, and 95 percent of the regional aquifer’s water is unsafe for drinking and therefore requires treatment. The United Nations has suggested that the Gaza Strip could become unlivable by as early as 2020.8 In 2018, Pales-

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tine ranked 119 out of 189 countries and territories on the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index; its Gender Development Index scored Palestine at 0.877 points, locating Palestine in the group of countries with medium gender inequality (slightly above the Arab states’ average of 0.855); and its Control of Corruption Index scored Palestine at 26.92 out of 100. Local surveys suggest that 80 percent of respondents perceive Palestinian Authority institutions to be corrupt. Figures issued by Freedom House in the same year provide further clarification. The Strip’s aggregate score for “freedom status” is 12 out of 100 (3 out of 40 in political rights and 9 out of 60 in civil liberties), while the West Bank scored 28 out of 100 (5 out of 40 in political rights and 23 out of 60 in civil liberties). Meanwhile, Palestine’s percentile rank on the 2018 Worldwide Governance Indicators that relate to voice and accountability is 22 out of 100, while the 2018 World Press Freedom Index ranks Palestine 134th out of 180 countries and territories. These political distortions and fundamental deficiencies are driven by a decades-long Israeli colonization of Palestine; as such, processes of de-development should not be theorized as unfortunate or coincidental outcomes, but should instead be traced back to a deliberate and focused colonial strategy. In the absence of a conscious and deliberate strategy of decolonization, these features will not reverse, but will instead solidify and normalize. It is instructive to note that, far from challenging or contesting the colonial power, the Palestinian Authority and its agencies more frequently function as a conduit through which colonial power is reproduced. These dynamics take on a particular significance when they are manifested in the security domain and in the operations of the Palestinian security forces, intelligence agencies included, and this is because these operations are functions of power and instruments that further the interests of the powerful. In the absence of a culture of accountability and institutions that provide checks and balances, in addition to the absence of solid structures that will sustain an inclusive, transparent, and democratic political system, the Palestinian Authority’s security and intelligence establishments have been provided with innumerable opportunities to run Palestinian affairs with an iron fist, with this arrangement being further reinforced by the presidentially declared status of emergency that has been in force in the occupied Palestinian territories since 2007. All of these factors, when considered alongside the fact that the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) has been dysfunctional since 2007, attest that the evolution and reform of the Palestinian security sector is occurring within a highly securitized space that nurtures authoritarianism.

262 Alaa Tartir Evolution and Reform of the Palestinian Security Sector In order to better understand the history of Palestine’s intelligence services and agencies, it is crucial to contextualize the evolution and reform processes of the Palestinian security forces that have been initiated since the Palestinian Authority’s establishment in 1993–1994. This chapter only briefly mentions the intelligence agencies of the PLO in exile and therefore does not engage in depth with the period extending from the late 1960s until the creation of the Palestinian Authority. The evolution and reform of the Palestinian Authority security apparatus can be broadly broken down into three separate phases: the Oslo Accords (1993–1999), the Second Intifada (2000–2006), and the post-2007 Palestinian Authority–led statebuilding project.9 Each phase was not part of an intelligible process but instead reflected shifting donor priorities and conditionalities, Israeli pressure, regional changes, and intra-Palestinian political dynamics. The first phase was characterized by a fundamental clash between the imperatives of statebuilding and national liberation. The former implied the construction of pre-state or statelike institutions (although in reality it produced an inflated bureaucracy); the latter instead implied the pursuit of the revolutionary program for self-determination that was synonymous with the PLO. Over time, the first imperative came to predominate, and Arafat used the Palestinian Authority’s security forces, in addition to nepotistic and patronage-based governing practices, to strengthen his authority and promote stability. Quantity, as opposed to quality, was Arafat’s main priority. This resulted in the emergence of a bloated security establishment and forces with contradictory duties, which nonetheless reported directly to him. The 9,000 recruits envisaged in the 1994 Cairo Agreement had grown, five years later, to more than five times this number (close to 50,000 security personnel). At this stage, between four and nine Palestinian Authority intelligence forces operated in the West Bank and Gaza. This proliferation of the security forces, each of which committed considerable time to spying on each other, had hugely negative consequences for Palestinians. The growth of the security apparatus enabled Arafat to establish security-based political structures, thus strengthening authoritarianism by blocking accountability mechanisms. This eroded legitimacy, contributed to heightened insecurity, and paved the way for future political fragmentation. However, rather than challenging endemic corruption and patronage, the international community chose to turn a blind eye, so as to perpetuate the “peace process.” During the Second Intifada, the Palestinian Authority’s security infrastructure was destroyed by the Israeli army, in direct response to the

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fact that it directly participated in the uprising. This created a security vacuum that was filled by non–Palestinian Authority and nonstatutory armed groups and actors. Growing instability and political infighting meant that external donors, the Palestinian Authority, and Israel became increasingly preoccupied with the development of a strong and dominant security sector. In June 2002, the Palestinian Authority announced a hundred-day reform plan. This was then followed by a 2003 roadmap. The latter explicitly called for a rebuilt and refocused Palestinian Authority security apparatus that would confront terrorists and dismantle their capabilities and infrastructure. The Palestinian Authority’s security sector was therefore tasked with a relatively narrow range of responsibilities. In combating terrorism, it would apprehend suspects, outlaw incitement, and collect illegal weapons. In addition, it would also provide Israel with a list of Palestinian police recruits and report progress in each of these areas to the US government. These commitments pitched the Palestinian Authority into a “war against terror” in which resistance was reinvented as “insurgency” or “instability.” The extent that these commitments reflected Palestinian needs and priorities was clearly open to question. One observer noted that Palestinian security reform “remained . . . an externally-controlled process, driven by the national security interests of Israel and the United States, and characterized by very limited ownership on the part of Palestinian society.”10 The international donor community led this reform in 2005 by establishing the European Union Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support (EUPOL COPPS) and the United States Security Coordinator (USSC). This situation continues to this day, in the form of a “one gun, one law, one authority” strategy that embodies and reinforces the Palestinian Authority’s monopoly on violence. The post-2007 Palestinian Authority statebuilding phase sought to technically engineer the reform of Palestinian Authority security forces (including training and weapons procurement) by primarily working through EUPOL COPPS and the USSC. This was accompanied by a series of political- and security-based operations that would seek to constrain Hamas and its armed wing, curb Fatah-allied militants through cooptation and amnesty, and crack down on criminals. These aspirations were substantially complicated, though, when the “reformed” security forces were accused of human rights abuses and suppressing fundamental freedoms. The post-2007 security reform agenda has undermined Palestinian resistance and security and has subverted the very functioning of Palestinian politics. While blame can clearly be apportioned among a range of actors, it is clear that donors must be foremost in this respect.

264 Alaa Tartir In short, the security of Palestinians has been jeopardized because their own leadership has been subcontracted to carry out repression on behalf of the Israeli colonial authorities. As security sector reform proceeded, the occupied West Bank became a securitized space and the theater for Palestinian Authority security campaigns whose ostensible purpose was to establish law and order. The Palestinian Authority’s intelligence agencies were foremost in implementing a security doctrine that sought to ensure the Palestinian Authority’s monopoly on the use of violence in Palestinian society. Hamas intelligence agencies in the Gaza Strip also engaged in similar conduct with the intention of promoting stability and asserting Hamas’s rule over the Gaza Strip. Both parties acted as if they were sovereign bodies and sought to present their behavior as “professional,” while issuing the refrain “We are doing our job” when challenged for using excessive violence and unjustifiable aggression.11 Hence, the political circles and intelligence bodies were totally synchronized: political leaders justified the actions of the intelligence agencies, while the intelligence agencies protected the political leadership. In order to understand the magnitude of this enterprise, it is useful to bear in mind that the Palestinian security sector currently comprises about 83,000 individuals (65,000 receive a salary from the Palestinian Authority and 18,000 are paid by the Hamas de facto government in Gaza), and this figure includes about 310 brigadier-generals, of whom about 230 report to the Palestinian Authority and 80 to Hamas.12 The security sector employs around 44 percent of all civil servants, accounts for nearly US$1 billion of the Palestinian Authority’s budget, and absorbs around 30 percent of total international aid disbursed to Palestinians.13 The security sector consumes more of the Palestinian Authority’s budget than the education, health, and agriculture sectors combined. The ratio of security personnel to the population is as high as 1 to 48, among the highest in the world. This substantial security assistance notwithstanding, the main cause of Palestinian insecurity, namely, the Israeli colonial occupation, is yet to be sufficiently acknowledged, let alone addressed, by the international donor community. The Palestinian Intelligence Forces The history of Palestinian intelligence agencies can be traced back to the multiple PLO security and intelligence bodies that operated in exile wherever the PLO leadership was based across the Arab world, including in Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia. These agencies were tasked with

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protecting the Palestinian revolution, its leaders, and the national liberation project. They were also tasked with coordinating security matters with host countries, and were considered to be a strong security apparatus, bearing in mind that they were not attached to a state. This strength was a double-edged sword, as they became involved in bloody clashes with host countries and authorities on multiple occasions over the years—these clashes arose from the perception that, as in Lebanon and Jordan, the PLO sought to create a state within the state. These security bodies included several intelligence agencies (although they consciously avoided the word “intelligence” as this was associated with Arab adversaries and Israel). These included the Unified Security Apparatus, Central Security Apparatus, Revolutionary Surveillance Directorate, Security and Information Apparatus, Special Apparatus, and Secret Apparatus. They were headed by Abu Iyad (Salah Khalaf), Abu al-Hawl (Hayil ‘Abd-al-Hamid), and ‘Atif Bsaysu, three prominent PLO leaders and top Fatah intelligence officers. Abu Iyad and Abu al-Hawl were assassinated in Tunisia (1991), and Bsaysu in Paris (1992). After their assassination, key intelligence expertise and data (in particular, that relating to several Western and Arab intelligence agencies) was lost.14 After the famous handshake between Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chairman Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn in Washington, D.C., on September 13, 1993, a new era in PalestinianIsraeli relations had begun. The accords signaled an arrangement in which the Palestinian revolution “returned back home from exile” and began a transformation process that orientated toward a statelike bureaucracy and civil administration. Security arrangements were a preeminent priority within the accords, presupposing a sustained engagement with the transformation of revolutionary and intelligence forces into state bodies. This process undoubtedly presupposed a range of tensions and contradictions, but Arafat was confident that he had the solution; he therefore proposed to create three key intelligence bodies—two that would be led by the “external” PLO leadership who had recently returned to the occupied Palestinian territories (the returnees), and a third body would then be led by the “internal” PLO leadership, mainly local Fatah leaders who had spent years in Israeli jails. The first two were known as the United Security Agency and the Central Intelligence and were respectively headed by Amin al-Hindi and Hakam Bal‘awi. Soon after, Arafat decided to merge these two bodies into a single intelligence agency known as the General Intelligence Service, which was headed by al-Hindi; it remains the main conventional Palestinian

266 Alaa Tartir Authority intelligence body. It began with 200–300 agents in the Gaza Strip in 1994, before extending to the West Bank in 1995 and, under the leadership of Tawfiq al-Tirawi, increasing its total number of agents to around 800 (mainly returnees from Tunis). By 1997, it was estimated that its number of agents had increased to 3,500 (2,000 in the West Bank and 1,500 in Gaza). Estimates from 2018 suggest that the service currently has 3,700 agents in the West Bank and 2,200 in the Gaza Strip. Although they are on the official payroll of the General Intelligence Service, other agents (manadeeb) also work on an ad hoc basis and are paid accordingly (e.g., for the delivery of specific intelligence reports or tasks), and this makes it impossible to estimate their number. The service’s intelligence personnel, who number almost 6,000, account for around 10 percent of the total personnel who work in the Palestinian security sector.15 The “local” intelligence body that is run by the Fatah leadership from inside the occupied Palestinian territories is known as the Preventive Security Agency; it prides itself upon being the “Palestinian FBI.” In initially operating under the leadership of Mohammad Dahlan (in the Gaza Strip) and Jibril Rjoub (in the West Bank), two Fatah leaders who spent years in Israeli jails, it drew upon its local roots and the direct support of the US CIA to establish strong ties within the occupied Palestinian territories. Its links with the CIA and its activities (which led to it becoming known as the “Death Squad”) meant that it quickly gained notoriety among Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories. In October 1994, it was estimated that it employed 685 personnel; one year later, this figure increased to around 2,500 before then rising to 5,000 by mid-1997. Estimates from 2018 indicate that it employs at least 3,500 agents in the West Bank and 2,500 in the Gaza Strip. It accounts for around 10 percent of personnel employed in the Palestinian security sector, and it remains, despite its failure to stop Hamas from seizing control of Gaza in 2007, one of the strongest Palestinian Authority security actors.16 However, Yasser Arafat sought to have more intelligence bodies spying on each other, and he therefore appointed Musa Arafat, one of his cousins, to lead another intelligence agency known as the Military Intelligence. By 1997, Musa Arafat had an estimated 1,000 men (600 in the West Bank and 400 in Gaza) under his command. Musa Arafat led this body until 2005, when he was assassinated by other Palestinian armed groups due to grave corruption charges. In 2018, the Military Intelligence agency is estimated to have employed around 3,000 agents (1,800 in the West Bank and 1,200 in the Gaza Strip), account-

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ing for around 5 percent of the overall personnel employed in the Palestinian security sector.17 This three-dimensional intelligence structure continues to operate and does so with increased efficacy, having become more entrenched in Palestinian society and the political system. These intelligence agencies now account for around a quarter of the Palestinian security sector. In reality, this figure is probably even higher: once informal agents, other auxiliary bodies, and other intelligence units within separate Palestinian Authority security bodies are added, the figure is probably closer to a third. The centrality of the intelligence agencies, which have assumed a heightened significance amid continued political division, continues to be further reinforced by external benefactors, most notably the international donor community and Israel. In terms of functions and operations, there is a deliberate and considerable overlap between these three intelligence agencies, and various local and international security sector reform interventions have not proven to be successful in merging these bodies or streamlining their work. These agencies continue to be tasked with countering Palestinian “terrorism,” ensuring Israel’s stability, coordinating security matters with Israel, surveillance of political opposition, dealing with Israeli collaborators, protecting the Palestinian Authority leadership, countering coup attempts (including those internal to Fatah), and continuing to monitor Hamas and its armed wing in the West Bank, a concern that has become increasingly important after the 2007 intra-Palestinian divide. The functions and operations of these intelligence agencies therefore remain largely focused on internal matters, although some General Intelligence Service operations are exceptions in this respect. The General Intelligence Service, which reports directly to the Palestinian Authority president, is the main body responsible for Palestinian Authority external intelligence operations, which includes counterespionage and contact with foreign intelligence agencies. Although it is mandated to conduct external operations, it is also engaged in domestic intelligence gathering and “countersubversion” operations inside the Palestinian Authority—this includes monitoring of internal Palestinian opposition, identifying collaborators, and conducting general counterintelligence activities. It is currently led by Majid Faraj, the Fatah leader who began his security career in the Palestinian Authority’s Preventive Security in the 1990s, before becoming an adviser to the Palestinian Authority’s interior minister and then, later, taking up the role of commander of Military Intelligence. Faraj has held his current position as General Intelligence chief since 2009 and is now considered to be one

268 Alaa Tartir of the closest allies of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president and PLO chairman. Faraj is a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council and was recently offered a seat on Fatah’s Central Committee. Faraj has been a key part of the core Palestinian peace negotiation team over the past few years and has been a key interlocutor with the Trump administration, Hamas, and various Arab capitals. In serving in each of these roles, he has been identified by a number of observers as a potential successor to Abbas.18 The Preventive Security Agency is the main internal intelligence agency established to counter opposition to the Oslo Accords. It officially operates under the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Interior but in practice also reports directly to the Palestinian Authority president. It is one of the most powerful and well-equipped security forces, and it has its own prisons and detention centers. It has often been accused of using torture and other extrajudicial interrogation methods on detainees, and has been subject to criticism by international and local human rights organizations. After initially being created as a counterpart to the Shin Bet (the Israeli internal intelligence agency), it received direct financial and nonfinancial support from the CIA over the years, and enjoyed a certain degree of autonomy until its drastic 2006–2007 failure when the “Hamas hunters” were defeated by their adversaries, who then seized control of the Strip. It is currently led by Ziad Hab al-Reeh, the Fatah leader and member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council who has occupied his current position since 2007, which makes him one of the longest-serving Palestinian Authority security force chiefs. This agency was previously led by Mohammad Dahlan and Jibril Rjoub; the former was sacked from Fatah and later emerged as an enemy of Mahmoud Abbas; Rjoub, meanwhile, is no longer involved in the Palestinian Authority’s security establishment. He is nonetheless still involved in the political leadership of Fatah and the PLO, and is also the chief of the Palestinian Football Association and the Palestine Olympic Committee.19 The Military Intelligence is the Palestinian Authority’s smallest intelligence body and reports to the Palestinian Authority president. Its mandate establishes that it is responsible for collecting intelligence on the external military environment, but in practice it also operates as an internal security organization that represses opposition within Fatah and other security forces. It therefore polices other security agencies and has the authority to arrest other members of the security forces, although not ordinary citizens; in addition, it can also investigate ties to terrorism, serious crimes, collaboration (with Israel), and other violations. It is currently headed by Zakaria Musleh, the Fatah leader who previously

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served as a senior commander in Preventive Security and continues to serve on the Fatah Revolutionary Council.20 As Figure 15.1 illustrates, there are a number of other intelligence bodies. These include the Palestinian Authority’s Military Liaison and District Coordination Office, which has prime responsibility for security coordination with Israel and Hamas intelligence agencies in the Gaza Strip, such as the Internal Security Force, which is made up of members of the al-Majd internal security force within the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and is responsible for espionage and informants. It subdivides into the Internal Security Agency and Hamas’s General Intelligence and has been actively engaged in suppressing political dissidence and opposition. Legal Framework Until 2003, Arafat refused to use the word “reform” when addressing himself to the Palestinian Authority security forces and instead used the word “development.” In employing a peculiar metaphor to clarify the nature of his relationship with the security forces, he informed observers that “no one can intervene between me and my children.”21 This personalized style of governance was intertwined with corruption and nepotism, and this fostered overlapping jurisdictions and rivalries while frustrating the development and implementation of a legal framework to be fundamentally developed or implemented. Although the Palestine Legislative Council was active during Arafat’s presidency, it had little influence over the activities of the Palestinian security and intelligence agencies; conversely, it was instead widely understood that Arafat’s wishes and orders were synonymous with the rule. In partial mitigation, Article 84 of the amended Palestinian Basic Law, which is equivalent to a constitution, clearly states, “The Security Forces and the Police are regular forces. They are the armed forces in the country. Their functions are limited to defending the country, serving the people, protecting society and maintaining public order, security and public morals. They shall perform their duties within the limits prescribed by law, with complete respect for rights and freedoms.”22 However, this mitigation is partial precisely because this article is the only one that is addressed to the Palestinian Authority security forces. Following the escalation of the Second Intifada, pressure from the donor community, in addition to the death of Arafat and the dominance of non–Palestinian Authority armed groups, resulted in the emergence of a reform agenda that prioritized security sector reform. The 2005

Figure 15.1 Palestinian Authority Security Forces

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Palestinian Authority President/ PLO Chairman Prime Minister

Minister of Interior

General Intelligence

National Security

Military Intelligence

National Security Forces

Auxiliary Security Institutions

Presidential Guards

District Coordination Office/ Military Liaison

General Intelligence Service

Internal Security

Civil Police

Preventive Security Organization

Auxiliary Security Institutions

Civil Defense

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Law of Service in the Palestine Security Forces (no. 8) was particularly important in this regard, as it divided the Palestinian security sector into three branches of security: internal, national, and general intelligence. It also regulated the rights and obligations of security personnel and provided institutional mechanisms for promotion and disciplinary measures. This law is one of the most comprehensive Palestinian Authority laws, which extends 222 Articles over seventy-seven pages, and is widely considered to be a key document that frames the Palestinian Authority’s new security doctrine during the (post-Arafat) statebuilding and security reform processes. Although it aroused a number of criticisms, its comprehensiveness also attracted praise. It was followed by the 2005 Law of General Intelligence (no. 17) and the 2007 Presidential Decree Law (no. 11) relating to preventive security that was adopted after the emergence of the Fatah-Hamas divide. Although the general intelligence law is relatively detailed, its preventive security counterpart is noticeably brief. The Military Intelligence continues to operate in the absence of any legal framework, and in this respect resembles the National Security Forces and Presidential Guard, although draft laws are currently in existence. The Police Law was adopted by Presidential Decree 23 only in December 2017 after Presidential Decree 9 (concerning the early retirement of Palestinian Authority security personnel) was published. This legal framework establishes that the responsibilities of the General Intelligence Service, as defined in Article 9 of the 2005 General Intelligence Law (no. 17), include preventing “any acts that may place the security and safety of Palestine in danger”; “combating external threats to Palestinian national security such as espionage and sabotage”; and “cooperation with similar agencies of friendly states.” The 2007 Presidential Decree Law (no. 11) also establishes that the Preventive Security Agency is responsible for upholding internal security, combating internal threats against the Palestinian Authority, and countering crimes against the Palestinian Authority, its institutions, and personnel. The main issue with Palestinian legal frameworks, though, is that they have been regularly and systematically overthrown and co-opted by politics and political institutions and factional politics. Rule of law effectively means rule of the political domain and, more precisely, the rule of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah leadership. In the absence of institutional checks and balances and in the context of a continuing state of emergency (eleven years and counting), these legalistic mechanisms are little more than words on paper and an insubstantial nod toward the donor-driven reform agenda. In time of crisis, legal frameworks are

272 Alaa Tartir sidelined in favor of the iron fist, a tendency that has been further reinforced by the absence of functioning accountability mechanisms. At best, it might be said that the legal framework that governs the operations of the Palestinian security and intelligence agencies remains a work in progress. International Cooperation Cooperation between the Palestinian intelligence agencies is evidenced at the local, regional, and international levels, although in each respect it remains limited. Significantly, cooperation is primarily undertaken with the Israeli authorities and intelligence services. This cooperation takes different forms and ranges from sharing intelligence information to returning lost settlers who enter Palestinian Authority–controlled territories by mistake. It includes drug trafficking, suspicious real estate purchases, Palestinian collaboration with Israel, and antiterrorism initiatives that seek to impede the activities of Hamas and other factions of the political opposition. This cooperation is part of the Oslo Accords security framework and is institutionalized, being reproduced on a daily basis through clearly defined channels regardless of the severity of conflict or the degree of stability. Mahmoud Abbas observed in 2014 that “security coordination [with Israel] is sacred, sacred. And we’ll continue it whether we disagree or agree over policy.”23 The Palestinian Authority intelligence agencies continued to meet with Israeli counterparts even at times when the peace process had stalled, even earning praise from US president Donald Trump, who applauded the Palestinian Authority’s continued security cooperation with Israel and observed that both parties “get along unbelievably well” and “work together beautifully.”24 In addition to the well-established cooperation with Israel, Palestinian security agencies maintain strong links with the CIA that are sustained irrespective of the political relationship between the US and Palestinian leaderships. Palestinian intelligence agencies also take every opportunity to express their support for counterterrorism efforts and position themselves at the forefront of the war on terror. Intelligence personnel have been in the public relations of the statebuilding project through Palestinian Authority tours, traveling to countries as diverse as China, Germany, Jordan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. In these locations, they have been presented as part of the international coalition against Da’esh. In the aftermath of any major international or

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regional meeting in which Palestinian intelligence officials are engaged, key media outlets will chase Palestinian officials for a statement, offering a clear opportunity for them to reiterate their commitment to regional stability grounded within continued security cooperation with Israel. These commitments, however, engender considerably less enthusiasm among Palestinian inhabitants of the occupied Palestinian territories and serve to further underline the gap between the general population and the political and security leadership. There are also strong ties between Palestinian intelligence agencies and their Arab counterparts, with relations with Egypt and Jordan being particularly strong. Egyptian intelligence has played an important role in mediating intra-Palestinian reconciliation talks between Fatah and Hamas. The protracted failure of these talks, over a period of more than a decade, continues to further reinforce the division between the Palestinian leadership and people and to negatively impact upon the legitimacy of the intelligence institutions. International cooperation was further enhanced when Palestine became an observer nonmember state of the UN in 2012 and ratified nearly fifty international agreements and treaties; in addition, it also joined multiple international organizations, including Interpol. As the political and security leadership seek to institute the State of Palestine at the global level, they have been forced to accept a range of commitments and obligations. In addition, Palestinian intelligence agencies have received international recognition for their role in some regional operations, most notably when the General Intelligence Service participated in a 2015 operation in Syria titled Returning the Favor, which was justified as a thank you to Sweden for recognizing the State of Palestine. In this operation, which was led by the head of the General Intelligence Service and supervised by the Palestinian Authority president, two Swedish hostages who had been held for years by a radical armed group were freed and returned safely to Sweden, without any payments being made in return. The Palestinian media celebrated the exploits of the intelligence officers, to the point where critics alleged that what was actually being presented was an exaggerated public relations campaign. Although the operations of Palestinian intelligence agencies are largely internally focused, a more externalized focus has emerged over the past decade, and this shift has occurred in the wider context of the rapidly changing Palestinian Authority–led statebuilding project. However, now that this project has ground to a halt, it is conceivable that the focus will again shift inward, a prospect that is further enhanced by the

274 Alaa Tartir maturing of Palestinian authoritarianism. Past experience—not least the continuation of security cooperation in the absence of other forms of cooperation—suggests that this development would not occasion surprise or be unexpected. Accountability and Oversight In addition to the legal inadequacies that have already been acknowledged, there are also a number of deficiencies or inadequacies within the Palestinian system of governance; these include a lack of effective mechanisms of civilian, legislative, and judicial oversight, in addition to the absence of effective accountability mechanisms and institutions that provide effective checks and balances. Each element is part of a more general Palestinian “democratic deficit” that contributes to a denial of Palestinian democracy. Security forces, and in particular their intelligence branches, are crucial instruments that deny Palestinian democratic transformation, as they function within a political system and context that is characterized by the absence of transparency, accountability, and oversight. The freezing of the PLC in the aftermath of the West Bank–Gaza Strip divide has resulted in a situation in which laws cannot be debated or approved by the parliament or its specialized bodies. It has also resulted in a situation in which the Palestinian Authority president has consolidated all powers and begun issuing laws in the form of presidential decrees. These decrees are legally problematic and procedurally flawed because they are not subject to democratic oversight and are far from inclusive, whether in procedure or outcome. Beyond this legislative vacuum, an equally dangerous vacuum in judicial authority has also emerged. The objectivity and independence of the judicial system is questionable as it continues to be co-opted by the political leadership and is subject to the power of the security forces. One example was provided in 2016 when it was reported that one of the highest-ranking officials within the judicial authority had been forced by a senior security chief to sign an undated resignation letter prior to his appointment; it was then triggered and activated when the two had a public disagreement—it was no surprise that the intelligence chief prevailed. Even when regulations outline clear oversight mechanisms, this does not mean that they will translate to reality. The role of the Ministry of Interior in relation to the Palestinian Authority security forces is a case in point. Although the Ministry of Interior is the responsible min-

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istry and should provide oversight of the security forces, it is however the case that the ministry is largely irrelevant when concerns arise in relation to security force accountability, governance, and organization (chain of command). To complicate matters further, the Palestinian security forces are sometimes more accountable to external donors and agencies than to Palestinians. Accountability in the Palestinian context has a very precise meaning, implying the imposition of conditionality on the Palestinian Authority and the operation of its security forces. However, it is the inability of Palestine to hold its security forces to account that is of most concern. It is immediately apparent that both local and international “security providers” have consistently failed to acknowledge the specific security needs of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories; in addition, they have also failed to acknowledge and engage the representations of Palestinian civil society on this issue. Far from providing a basis for reform, basic human rights principles have been conspicuous by their absence. Resources and efforts were instead largely focused on solidifying the control of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces with the aim of ensuring their legitimate use of violence (mainly as opposed to armed resistance groups), and this in turn created a condition of “othering” (us the people, and them the security forces). Accordingly, the adopted security sector reform paradigm was an anti-inclusivity paradigm—and this was true of the Palestinian political system itself—with no space for the people in its core structure. People-driven local ownership principles and people-driven accountability mechanisms are therefore either weak or entirely absent. Conclusion During one of my fieldwork trips to the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, one respondent told me that, after 2007, public gatherings are only allowed for weddings, funerals, or prison gatherings.25 Even if account is taken for some level of exaggeration, this quite clearly illustrates the authoritarian transformations that have taken place in Palestine over the years as a result of the growing dominance of the security forces and their intelligence branches. This has created a culture of Mukhabarat (secret police)–driven fear and a culture of the mandoub intelligence agent wherein intelligence has become entrenched in almost every aspect of life, including the ability to be employed, open a bank account, engage in political activism at the universities, post a Facebook status, or pray and drink at a bar freely.

276 Alaa Tartir This dominance of the security and intelligence bodies goes well beyond security and extends to the political domain. Key intelligence chiefs control positions at the top political level (including the potential next president and chief peace negotiators) and at national governorate levels—most, if not all, city governors served in one of the intelligence bodies. This dominance has in turn superimposed another level of policing on the Palestinian people and civil society. The security and intelligence forces have come to perceive the political opposition as enemies and this has, in the aftermath of 2007, proven to be antithetical to the spirit and fundamental principles of democracy. As more securitized spaces have emerged, the “securitization of everything” has become the mantra of the Palestinian Authority and its security and intelligence forces. This remains a key part of the Palestinian Authority’s security doctrine, an ongoing donor priority that is upheld by foreign aid conditionality; in addition, it is also a source of tension between the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories, and an incubator of popular resistance, as the populations of the territories seek to resist the multiple levels of repression and authoritarianism they encounter on a daily basis.

Notes 1. E. Said, Peace and Its Discontents: Essays on Palestine in the Middle East Peace Process (London: Vintage, 1995). 2. B. Lia, A Police Force Without a State: A History of the Palestinian Security Forces in the West Bank and Gaza (London: Ithaca, 2006), 307. 3. Y. Sayigh, Policing the People, Building the State: Authoritarian Transformation in the West Bank and Gaza (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2011), 26, https://carnegieendowment.org/files/gaza_west_bank_security.pdf. 4. A. Tartir, “The Limits of Securitized Peace: The EU’s Sponsorship of Palestinian Authoritarianism,” Middle East Critique, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2018 .1516337; Human Rights Watch, “Two Authorities, One Way, Zero Dissent: Arbitrary Arrest and Torture Under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas,” 2018, https://www.hrw .org/report/2018/10/23/two-authorities-one-way-zero-dissent/arbitrary-arrest-and-torture -under; A. Tartir and T. Seidel, Palestine and Rule of Power: Local Dissent vs. International Governance (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). 5. Author interview with a political activist in the West Bank, Palestine, autumn 2018. 6. This subsection is based on A. Tartir and B. Challand, “Palestine,” in E. Lust, ed., The Middle East, 15th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2019). 7. A. Knudsen and A. Tartir, “Country Evaluation Brief: Palestine,” 2017, https:// norad.no/om-bistand/publikasjon/2017/country-evaluation-brief-palestine. 8. A. Tartir and J. Wildeman, “Mapping of Donor Funding to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, 2012–2014/15,” 2017, https://alaatartir.com/2017/11/10/mapping-of -donor-funding-to-the-occupied-palestinian-territories-2012-2014-15.

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9. This subsection is based on A. Tartir, “The Evolution and Reform of Palestinian Security Forces, 1993–2013,” Stability: International Journal of Security & Development 4, no. 1 (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/sta.gi. 10. R. Friedrich and A. Luethold, “And They Came In and Took Possession of Reforms: Ownership and Palestinian SSR,” in T. Donais, ed., Local Ownership and Security Sector Reform (Switzerland: Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces, 2008), 191. 11. A. Tartir, “Criminalizing Resistance: The Cases of Balata and Jenin Refugee Camps in the Occupied West Bank,” Journal of Palestine Studies 46, no. 2 (2017), 7–22. 12. Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), Securing Gaza (Switzerland, 2016), unpublished report. 13. Tartir, “Criminalizing Resistance.” 14. Y. Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); B. Lia, A Police Force Without a State: A History of the Palestinian Security Forces in the West Bank and Gaza (London: Ithaca, 2006); G. Usher, “The Politics of Internal Security: The PA’s New Intelligence Services,” Journal of Palestine Studies 25, no. 2 (1996), http://www.jstor .org/stable/2538181. 15. Lia, A Police Force Without a State; DCAF, Securing Gaza; J. Harb, Current Structure of the PA Security Sector and Its Ability to Provide Security to Areas B and C: Reallocation of Resources (Ramallah: Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 2017), http://www.pcpsr.org/sites/default/files/Executive%20summary%20of %20Reallocation%20of%20Resources%20E.pdf. 16. Lia, A Police Force Without a State; DCAF, Securing Gaza; Harb, Current Structure; International Crisis Group (ICG), “Squaring the Circle: Palestinian Security Reform Under Occupation,” 2010, https://www.crisisgroup.org/middle-east-north-africa/eastern -mediterranean/israelpalestine/squaring-circle-palestinian-security-reform-under-occupation. 17. Lia, A Police Force Without a State; DCAF, Securing Gaza; Harb, Current Structure; ICG, Squaring the Circle. 18. N. Zilber and G. al-Omari, “State with No Army, Army with No State: Evolution of the Palestinian Authority Security Forces, 1994–2018,” 2018, https://www.washingtoninstitute .org/uploads/Documents/pubs/PolicyFocus154-ZilberOmari.pdf. 19. Zilber and al-Omari, “State with No Army.” 20. Ibid.; DCAF, Securing Gaza. 21. Tartir, “The Evolution and Reform,” 5. 22. The 2003 amended Palestinian Basic Law is available at http://www.elections.ps /Portals/0/pdf/The_Amended_Basic_Law_2003_EN.pdf. 23. Ali Abunimah, “Mahmoud Abbas: Collaboration with Israeli Army, Secret Police Is ‘Sacred,’” Electronic Intifada, May 30, 2014, https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali -abunimah/mahmoud-abbas-collaboration-israeli-army-secret-police-sacred. 24. “Trump and Abbas’ Remarks After First Meeting in White House,” Haaretz, May 3, 2017, https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/read-trump-and-abbas-full-remarks-1.5467988. 25. Author interview, West Bank, Palestine, autumn 2012.

16 Russia Andreï Kozovoï

The Russian Federation is called an “emerging economy.” It is a vast territory with considerable potential but beset by major issues preventing further development. The largest country on Earth (over 17 million square kilometers), it is only the ninth most populated (144 million). The wealth of natural resources is difficult to overstate, but this asset has also made the Russian economy largely dependent on its exports; Russia thus belongs to the category of “rentier states” akin to the oil countries from the Arabian Peninsula. Despite its billions of dollars of export revenue from oil and gas, iron and steel, gems and precious metals, wood and cereals, aluminum and copper, as well as conventional arms, Russia’s nominal gross domestic product (GDP) represents only 1.9 percent of the world economy—compared to the 24.4 percent for the United States. More important, Russia is a democracy only in name. Its president, Vladimir Putin, has been the top executive since 1999 (as prime minister; since 2000 as president), with the intermission of 2008–2012, when he switched places with his friend and perennial Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev; opposition is either controlled or stifled; “free” elections are marred by widespread fraud; media are heavily restricted; human rights violations abound; and corruption is high among the political, economic, and judiciary elites. Finally, Russia’s foreign goals consist primarily of weakening its border states, which gravitate toward the West (such as a war against Georgia in 2008 or involvement in the conflict in Ukraine since 2014); and sustaining authoritarian allies (like involvement in the civil war in Syria since 2015). 279

280 Andreï Kozovoï The majority of these problems are inherited. From the twelfth century, Muscovy (first a principality, then a tsardom) was built as a heavily centralized, authoritarian state, controlling the land and its inhabitants, and expanding at a very fast pace. In the eighteenth century, Russia became an empire, with a new capital, St. Petersburg; its expansion continued, with a partial incorporation of lands that nowadays form Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and Finland. Economic modernization in the second half of the nineteenth century did not impact the political system. Until March 1917, the Russian regime remained an autocracy, only slightly moderated by the 1905 revolution, when it became a constitutional monarchy. Endemic social conflict, especially in the countryside, fueled by the consequences of the Russian involvement in World War I, prevented the democratic regime from taking root; in October 1917, a small group of political extremists called the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, managed to stage a coup. Russia became Soviet Russia, then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), a federation that called itself a “socialist state” under the dictatorial rule of its Communist Party. In the first part of the twentieth century, Joseph Stalin would modernize the country at the expense of millions of lives; Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945) took the lives of an additional 27 million people, while reinforcing the legitimacy and prestige of the regime. Retaining its totalitarian nature under Stalin’s successors, the USSR reached its zenith in the 1970s under Leonid Brezhnev (1964–1982), but the Soviet economy was weakened by constant shortages, endemic corruption, and dependence upon exports of mineral fuels—traits that are still apparent in today’s Russia. After almost seventy years of existence, and one last attempt to reform the communist regime under Mikhail Gorbachev (1985–1991), the USSR disintegrated into fifteen independent states in 1991—one of them the Russian Federation. Under Boris Yeltsin’s presidency (1991–1999), a “new Russia” would confirm its transition to a market economy and liberal democracy. But several factors, including considerable economic difficulties, rampant corruption, and the emergence of powerful oligarchs—wealthy businessmen controlling large portions of national wealth and influencing state policy—as well as separatism and terrorism arising from the North Caucasus, prevented Yeltsin from completing his titanic task. And so, in 1999, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was designated as successor by an ailing and increasingly unpopular Yeltsin. Elected in 2000, Putin ostensibly succeeded in stabilizing the country, and “recovering the Russian might,” at the cost of derailing democracy, worsening relations

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with his neighbors, and launching a new cold war with the West. Putin’s most trusted allies in deploying the domestic and foreign strategy are his intelligence services. Institutional Infrastructure The media and intelligence specialists have mostly considered three Russian state intelligence organizations: the Federal Security Service, the successor of the KGB, revamped in 1995 (200,000 personnel); the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), formed in 1991 (20,000 personnel); and the Main Directorate (GU) of the armed forces of the Russian Federation, formerly known as the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the Russian Federation’s armed forces (15,000 personnel). The GRU lost its “R” in 2010 but retained its original name in the media. On November 2, 2018, during the celebration of the centenary of this institution, President Putin “suggested” it be given back its name. For the sake of clarity, “GRU” will be used throughout this chapter. Other intelligence structures that do not make front page news are the Ministry of Interior (MVD), which also deals with organized crime and counterterrorism (900,000 personnel); Rosgvardiia (Federal Service of the National Guard of the Russian Federation), an independent military agency formed in 2016 to respond to terrorist threats and any disorder in the country (340,000 personnel); and the Federal Protective Service (FSO), formed in 1996 to protect state officials (50,000 personnel). The world of Russian intelligence is never static, and since the fall of the Soviet Union it has been frequently reorganized. Since the first Putin presidency, there has been clear indication of a consolidation of the agencies. Thus the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information (FAPSI), founded in 1991, specialized in communications, including the internet. In 2003, it was replaced by Spetssviaz (special communications service of Russia), which was incorporated in a special department of the Federal Security Service (FSB), then moved to the FSO in 2004. Similarly, the Federal Border Guard Service (FPS) of the Russian Federation existed as an independent structure between 1994 and 2003, before being incorporated into the FSB. Both the FSB and SVR respond directly to the president of the Russian Federation, while the GRU answers to the Ministry of Defense. Their chairmen are de facto members of the Security Council of Russia, a consultative body required to meet at least once a month to discuss

282 Andreï Kozovoï matters pertaining to national security. The FSB and SVR chairmen belong to the same “clan” of siloviki (literally “men of strength,” part of the elite belonging to coercive agencies—i.e., intelligence, defense, and justice services), and they are all part of the same generation: Vladimir Putin (born 1952), a former KGB colonel, who directed the FSB for a short period of time (1998–1999); Nikolai Patrushev (born 1951), the current secretary of the Security Council, also directed the FSB (1998– 2008); the actual SVR chairman is Sergei Naryshkin (born 1954), who knows Putin from the KGB school; former GRU head Igor Korobov (1956–2018; in November 2018, former head Korobov’s second, admiral Igor Kostuykov, born 1961, became the GRU’s acting director), even though Putin’s man in military intelligence is Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu (born 1955). Arguably, in their form and organization, the intelligence institutions are partially based on foreign models—the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) inspired the FSB and MVD, the SVR mimics the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the FAPSI is the Russian version of the US National Security Agency (NSA), and the FSO resembles the US Secret Service. With time, the FSB has become the largest and most influential, even tentacular, institution. But unlike other intelligence institutions around the world, Russian intelligence cannot be understood only through organizational charts (see Figure 16.1) or foreign models; what matters the most is the domestic roots, an ensemble of values inherited from the Soviet and tsarist past. History of Intelligence Services The history of Russian intelligence can be seen as a series of short periods of “Golden Ages” interspersed with long intervals of inertia or decline; there is also an important element of continuity despite numerous and often brutal changes in political regimes. As early as the tenth century, princes of Kievan Rus’ occasionally used agents to gather information about their main commercial partner/adversary, the Byzantine Empire. The institutionalization of intelligence happened much later, at the end of the fifteenth century, during the reign of Ivan III (1462–1505). As was the case in other parts of Europe, no clear delineation existed between diplomatic and intelligence functions. But in Russia, frequent invasions, chronic political instability, and endemic violence contributed to a sense of insecurity. Protecting the country from external threats became as important, if not more so, than looking for spies and traitors from within.

Figure 16.1 Russia’s Intelligence Community President Vladimir Putin Security Council Nikolai Patrushev Federal Security Service (FSB) Aleksandr Bortnikov Border Service (PS) Vladimir Kulishov

National Counterterrorism Committee (NAK) Igor Sirotkin

Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Sergei Naryshkin Special Objective Center (TsSN) Aleksandr Tikhonov

Special Forces Unit Barrier (Zaslon)

Presidential Administration Anton Vaino Federal Protective Service (FSO) Dmitry Kochnev Special Communications Service (Spetssviaz) Vladimir Belanovskii

Special Forces Units Alpha, Vympel

Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) Igor Kostvukov Special Forces Units OSNAZ (radio), Fourteenth Brigade (Primorsk), former base of Ruslan Boshirov (Skripal affair)

Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) Vladimir Kolokoltsev Investigation Department (SD) Aleksandr Romanov

National Guard (Rosgvardiya) Viktor Zolotov Special Forces Units OMON

Special Forces Unit Vitiaz

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Note: Simplified structure of the Russian intelligence community as of December 2018.

Ministry of Defense Sergey Shoygu

284 Andreï Kozovoï This tendency reached its apex during the reign of Russia’s first tsar, Ivan IV (1574–1584). Dubbed “Ivan the Terrible,” the tsar corresponded with several foreign leaders, led military campaigns, and developed commercial relations, in particular with Britain. In 1550, he signed an ukaz (decree) on the creation of “the guard of thousand best friends,” perhaps the first intelligence institution in Russia, an elite security service for the protection of the tsar. In 1565, he replaced this body with the infamous Oprichnina, a force of 6,000 cavalrymen dressed in black who were responsible for terrible atrocities, sparing no one. Until 1572, even important officials, including diplomats, could be tortured and murdered. Fear of the plots of the boyars (aristocrats), perhaps even more than the international context of the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), was the driving force behind the gradual emancipation of intelligence from diplomacy in the seventeenth century. In 1653, the second tsar of the Romanov dynasty, Alexei (1645–1676), created the very first intelligence institution, the Department of Secret Affairs, perhaps influenced by French intelligence: was it coincidence that boyar Afanasy Ordin-Nashchekin, one of the most prominent statesmen of the era, was nicknamed “the Russian Richelieu”? Under Alexei, “double representation” became commonplace in Russian embassies: alongside the ambassador was a secret diplomat, called a rezident (a title that has survived until today), specializing in intelligence affairs, who reported only to the highest authorities. This system was improved and expanded during the eighteenth century, especially under Peter I (1682–1725) and Catherine II (1762– 1796), whose overhauling reforms were designed to catch up with the West. But on the whole, there was no revolution in the Russian intelligence services, as there were no new threats from without and domestically. This changed during the nineteenth century, during the “Patriotic War” against Napoleon in 1812, but particularly after the defeat in the Crimean war in 1856. Confronted with the need to modernize the army, military intelligence finally obtained its proper institution inside the Ministry of War. But it was the civilian intelligence that advanced the most. In 1826, Nicholas I (1825–1855) created the Third Section of the Private Chancellery of the Emperor, responding to the threat of a revolution emanating from the Russian nobility (the dekabristy revolt in 1825). The Third Section inspired in turn the creation of the Okhrana (meaning “to protect” in Russian). These were special sections inside the Department of Police dedicated to responding to major threats from various left-wing

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terrorist groups, now armed with a weapon of mass destruction: dynamite. Tsar Alexander II (1855–1881) avoided the first attempt on his life in 1866. In 1880, an explosion hit the Winter Palace, and the tsar was mortally wounded the next year by the People’s Will organization, prompting his son, Alexander III (1881–1894), to establish the Okhrana. Since anarchist terrorism was a global threat, Okhrana networks were created not only in Russia but also in Europe, under the name of agentury, another term that passed the test of time. This struggle against a common foe had another particular goal—propaganda: Okhrana agents sought to improve tsarist Russia’s image and reputation among the masses. Unofficially though, these agencies were also doing espionage work, in particular stealing ciphers from foreign embassies. The Okhrana years (1881–1905) can be considered a Golden Age of tsarist intelligence, with the Okhrana being one of the branches of the omnipotent Ministry of Interior. Sergei Witte, first prime minister of Nicholas II, would later write in his memoirs that “the Minister of the Interior is the Minister of an Empire which is a police state by excellence,” 1 and it is not surprising that the Okhrana had a huge impact on the Bolsheviks when the latter created their own state police, the Cheka (Extraordinary Commission), on December 20, 1917. Even today, Russian agents proudly call themselves “chekisty” to remember the “glorious days” of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the legendary first director of the Cheka, whose statue adorned Lubyanka Square, also featuring the infamous KGB building (home of an insurance company under Nicholas II), until 1991. Before 1920, the delineation between civilian and military intelligence was not clear-cut. After the Bolshevik victory in the civil war, the Cheka and its interwar successors (the GPU and the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs [NKVD]) were granted extensive powers to fight enemies of the regime (mainly officers of the White Russian Army) abroad, including by infiltrating their organizations with agentsprovocateurs, harking back to the Okhrana’s methods. Lenin, inspired by the Okhrana, with which he was intimately familiar, also introduced a novel special cabinet within the Cheka known as “Laboratory X,” or more crudely the “Poison Laboratory.” Grigori Mairanovsky, who directed it from 1939 to 1951, pioneered the new ways of killing quickly without leaving traces, gaining himself the nickname “Stalin’s Mengele.” The Stalin years were a dramatic period for spies. During the party purges in the second half of the 1930s, intelligence lost hundreds of men, including NKVD chief Genrikh Iagoda and his successor, Nikolai

286 Andreï Kozovoï Yezhov. Talented agents abroad were executed by their own peers on false accusations of having betrayed their cause, or simply owing to their access to sensitive information. Agents informing Stalin of Hitler’s imminent attack were suspected of provocation and dealt with accordingly. “To guess the chief’s desire, to please the chief, to survive” was the motto of the time. Under the direction of Lavrentiy Beria, however, Soviet intelligence, both military and civilian, was restaffed and covered itself in glory, to Stalin’s great satisfaction, be it through the assassination of Trotsky in Mexico by Stalin’s agent Ramon Mercader; anti-German diversions during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945; or the theft of secrets of the atomic bomb from reluctant British and American allies. The arms race was at the core of Soviet intelligence activities during the Cold War. At the time, Soviet intelligence’s main function, just like that of its Western counterparts, was to give an early warning of the enemy’s first strike. At the end of the 1940s, the Soviet Union switched the status of the United States from “ally” to “main enemy”: the expression, coined by Stalin himself, would heavily feature in intelligence reports of the Cold War. Despite short periods of “peaceful coexistence” or “détentes,” the Soviet military would stick to the idea that a nuclear war could be won, and Soviet intelligence acted accordingly, until the end of the 1980s. In 1954, Premier Nikita Khrushchev created a new civilian intelligence agency, the KGB (Committee for State Security). Preparing his de-Stalinization campaign, the new party boss wanted to rein in the secret police by recruiting a new generation of officers, untainted by the crimes of the Stalin era but also lowering the status of the secret police by cutting salaries, pensions, and benefits. When Brezhnev became the new party chief in 1964, this situation changed. Between 1967 and 1982, Yuri Andropov’s KGB would become the best-funded Soviet institution, capable of silencing (almost completely) the regime’s opponents, while carrying out military, political, economic, and psychological warfare on all continents. It was Andropov who set the stage for the final act of the Cold War—the “spy decade” of the 1980s. Soviet intelligence participated in military operations in border countries (Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Afghanistan in 1979) and supported Marxist guerrillas in Africa and Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s. It damaged the reputation of Western states by implementing what was known in the KGB as “active measures” of subversion, propaganda, and disinformation. The KGB blackmailed foreign officials with kompromat (compromising material) often of a sexual

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nature; wrote racist mail to various organizations; hired people to desecrate Jewish cemeteries to prove that the United States was as bad as Soviet propaganda portrayed it to be; and frequently planted false information in the foreign press prior to citing it in the Soviet media. In 1985, the KGB began spreading the myth that AIDS was created by the United States as a form of biological warfare. Soviet intelligence had moles in top-secret US agencies, sometimes for many years: among others, John Walker in the US Navy, Aldrich Ames at the CIA, Ronald Pelton at the NSA, and Robert Hanssen at the FBI, who would cause irreparable damage to US national security. But despite undeniable successes, this Golden Age of Soviet intelligence was clearly a thing of the past, and Soviet agencies were losing their advantage over their Western counterparts. Communism was no longer a beam of hope for youth as in the 1930s; foreign assets became a rare species and were mostly motivated by greed. For similar reasons, the number of defectors from the KGB ranks soared. Public opinion in the West became more wary of Soviet intelligence activities—especially after a number of “wet jobs” (assassinations) became public knowledge. The most infamous case took place in London in 1978, when Bulgarian dissident Georgy Markov was poisoned with a KGBmade umbrella. The overall decline in the Soviet Union negatively affected the work of Soviet technological intelligence (TECHINT), which included signals intelligence (SIGINT), responsible for interception and analysis of radio-electronic transmissions, as opposed to human intelligence (HUMINT). The KGB was unable to replicate modern spy gadgets stolen from its Western equals. And so its capacities for intelligence gathering were overrated. When the end of the Cold War was officially proclaimed during a summit in Malta in 1989, Russian intelligence entered a new phase of dormancy and self-doubt. The Soviet Union was crumbling; the United States was no longer an enemy; former East European communist countries were sending Soviet agents back home; and the country was sliding into chaos as the arm-wrestling between Gorbachev and Yeltsin intensified. Republican KGB organizations (each Soviet republic, except Russia, had its own KGB, and the whole system was governed by the KGB of the USSR) were cutting ties with the center and pledging allegiance to new leaders. The Center (KGB of the USSR) was itself torn between liberal and conservative forces. In May 1991 the KGB was stripped of its functions before officially disappearing on December 3, with its leaders discredited after their involvement in the failed communist coup in August. The KGB’s

288 Andreï Kozovoï First Directorate (foreign intelligence) became the SVR; the Second Chief Directorate (domestic counterintelligence) became the Ministry of Security, then the Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK), then the FSB in 1995. The GRU retained its former name because it was not compromised in the August coup and its name was not synonymous with repression. During the 1990s, the agency continued to procure technical and economic intelligence to help Russia bridge the widening gap with the West. Even if intelligence budgets were curtailed and thousands of former agents had to find new jobs, the secret institution inherited Soviet equipment and facilities. The FSB retained the Lubyanka building, the SVR got to keep the Yasenevo complex on the outskirts of Moscow, and the GRU continued its operations from the “Aquarium” (another nickname is steklyashka, meaning “piece of glass”) building at the Khodynka airfield, also near Moscow (until 2006). Among the men forced to adapt to democratic rule was Vladimir Putin, a KGB officer from Leningrad (St. Petersburg) stationed in East Germany, where he supposedly carried out technological and industrial espionage in Western firms. After a successful career in his hometown as first deputy to the mayor, he became a member of Yeltsin’s “family,” and eventually his favorite. Putin’s Russia has been called many names—from “mafia state” to “kleptocracy.” It is also an “intelligence state,” as Russian security agencies have formed a symbiosis with the Kremlin. Ever since Putin’s election, intelligence services, and particularly the FSB, have cultivated the memory of chekisty, depicted in the mass media as genuine patriots who always were on the side of the people. It is safe to say that intelligence budgets skyrocketed, and agents multiplied, as the FSB, SVR, and GRU tackled new and ambitious tasks like fighting Islamic terrorists not only at home but also abroad (Syria); intervening in Russia’s “backyard” (Georgia, Ukraine) to counter expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); performing cyber espionage and staging cyber attacks in the former Soviet republics (Lithuania) as well as Western countries in order to steal sensitive information and cause psychological and even physical damage (meddling in elections, hacking financial institutions, infiltrating electrical grids, etc.); and carrying out “wet jobs” against “traitors.” Thus, in 2006, Aleksandr Litvinenko, an FSB agent turned whistleblower, was poisoned by polonium-210 (a radioactive isotope) in London, and in March 2018 Sergei Skripal, a former GRU officer, was poisoned by the nerve agent “Novichok.”

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Notable Experiences Counterintelligence operation The Trust was a major success in deception in the 1920s. In order to track down White Army sleeper agents in Russia, the State Political Directorate (GPU) (successor of the Cheka) persuaded exiled White Army officers that a bogus “Monarchist union of Central Russia,” located in the Soviet Union, needed their help. Using numerous agents-provocateurs, foreign intelligence chief Artur Artuzov managed to lure and assassinate two of the Bolsheviks’ archenemies: British “Ace of Spies” Sidney Reilley and Boris Savinkov, a former terrorist who became minister of war after the February revolution and later led anti-Bolshevik resistance in France. “The Trust” seriously compromised the White Russian movement, contributed to the prestige of Soviet intelligence, and reinforced Bolshevik control over Russia after the civil war. On the other hand, Soviet intelligence was not able to profit from this experience, as the majority of the GPU agents implicated in The Trust where executed during the Great Purge, including Artuzov himself. Nodded through by Stalin in the fall of 1942, the operation Enormoz was perhaps the most spectacular success of Soviet HUMINT. It mobilized hundreds of agents across the world to steal the secrets of the atomic bomb. The most valuable agents had actually been recruited in the 1930s, the so-called Cambridge Five: Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross. During World War II, spies were able to infiltrate the Los Alamos laboratory (New Mexico), the heart of the Manhattan Project, with at least three agents who worked independently: physicists Klaus Fuchs and Theodore Hall, and machinist David Greenglass (the involvement of laboratory chief J. Robert Oppenheimer with Soviet secret services is disputed). Enormoz allowed the Soviets to construct an A-bomb only four years after the Americans detonated theirs in 1945, which was some achievement considering the devastation the Soviet Union had suffered during the war. This was to become the first phase of a costly arms race that eventually contributed to the bankruptcy and fall of the Soviet Union. The recruitment of John A. Walker (1934–2014), a naval officer who spied for the KGB for seventeen years (1967–1985), was one of the most, if not the most, successful KGB HUMINT operations of the late Cold War. The Soviets, in accordance with Okhrana precepts, have always considered informers and moles as the most important intelligence tools. In the case of Walker, however, the KGB didn’t have to lift

290 Andreï Kozovoï a finger. Walker was a “walk-in,” an asset who volunteered his services for money. His first handler was Oleg Kalugin, a promising KGB officer who would become chief of foreign counterintelligence before defecting to the United States in the 1990s after being suspected of treason. In 1958, Kalugin had been only a KGB rookie on his first trip to the United States when he managed to recruit a missile engineer of Russian origin. In the 1960s, he was working in Washington, D.C., posing as press attaché to the Soviet foreign ministry. To keep Walker undetected for years, the KGB employed the tactic developed for another mole, Robert Lipka at the NSA, namely, “dead drops”—documents and money left at a remote, prearranged location. Walker could have worked even longer had he not been reported to the FBI by his wife. The information provided by Walker allowed the Soviets to decipher over a million encrypted messages—they knew the deployment of ships and troops at any given time, which was a clear asset in the context of the Vietnam War, and thus made significant progress in naval warfare. Walker’s information indeed compensated for the shortcomings of Soviet TECHINT. The recent Skripal affair has been the most talked about intelligence operation since the fall of the Soviet Union, and probably the biggest blunder in contemporary intelligence history. It also marked the lowest point in US-Russian relations to date and a turning point in what some specialists call “Cold War 2.0.” Sergei Skripal (born 1951) was a former GRU double-agent exiled in Salisbury, Great Britain. On March 4, 2018, he and his daughter were discovered poisoned by a neurological agent later identified as belonging to the “Novichok” family, developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. On September 5, 2018, British authorities released the pictures and the names of two Russians, “Ruslan Boshirov” and “Aleksandr Petrov,” who allegedly attempted to assassinate the Skripals. The investigation website Bellingcat later identified “Boshirov” as a GRU colonel named Anatoliy Chepiga, a former soldier of the second Chechen war rewarded by Putin in December 2014 with the title Hero of the Russian Federation, and “Petrov” as Aleksandr Mishkin, a trained military doctor in the employ of GRU.2 In October 2018, Russian investigation site Fontanka discovered a third man, “Sergei Fedotov,” later identified as Denis Sergeev, also an officer from the GRU suspected of poisoning Bulgarian arms trader and manufacturer Emilian Gebrev in 2015. Chemists who have participated in the creation of Novichok, Vil Mirzayanov, currently living in the United States, and Vladimir Uglev, from Russia, have also stated the GRU indeed used the neurotoxic agent Novichok to poison the Skripals.

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Russian authorities started by launching a massive international disinformation campaign, creating at least two dozen different versions of the poisoning, none of them involving Russian intelligence. When Putin could no longer deny the presence of “Boshirov” and “Petrov” in Salisbury, he asked them to defend themselves, which they did, by appearing in front of the cameras of the main Kremlin propaganda channel, RT, actually worsening the already dire impression of the Russian response. In February 2019, Vladimir Uglev was targeted by a smear campaign claiming he was a pedophile—a clear indication that retribution for his revelations on Novichok was on its way. Legislation After the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a clear correlation between the evolution of the legislation on intelligence, and related to not only the perception of new threats Russia had to face but also the Russian political context overall, which had considerably degraded from the Yeltsin “uncertain democracy” to “uncertain authoritarianism” under Putin. The first legislative period (1992–1995) reflects a chaotic reorganization of the intelligence agencies. The greatest difficulties arose with the creation of an institution of domestic counterintelligence. The Russian president at the time, Yeltsin, wanted to rein in intelligence as a preemptive measure against a possible coup; he wanted it to be a diligent instrument in the hands of the executive power, respectful of the rule of law. He also wanted to revamp Russian intelligence for the post–Cold War world. These principles were reflected in the law of July 8, 1992, on the federal organs of state security, which in particular introduced the notion of “human rights” to Russia, which could be hardly implemented as crime and corruption soared, Chechen terrorism spread from the Caucasus, and foreign intelligence was again making Russia its playground. The FSK’s deficiencies became prominent, and until the adoption of a new constitution on December 12, 1993 (replacing Brezhnev’s constitution of 1977, modified during Gorbachev’s tenure), Russian legislation was a motley collection of old and new. Yeltsin understood he had to go back to the drawing board. On April 3, 1995, the president passed into law the bill creating the FSB. The new structure was more powerful than the FSK, officially bridled by the constitution: Articles 23 and 25 protected Russians from encroachments on their privacy rights without a warrant; Article 48, part 2, introduced the right to a lawyer.

292 Andreï Kozovoï The second legislative period (1995–2006) signaled the transition from democracy to authoritarianism. Legislation was hardened and human rights were encroached upon in the name of the struggle against terrorism from the Caucasus (namely, bombings in Russian cities, including Moscow, in 1999, 2004, and 2006), and in the context of tensions with the West mostly due to NATO’s eastward expansion. In 1995, Russia implemented its first version of the System of Operational-Investigatory Measures (SORM), which required telecommunications operators to install hardware provided by the FSB, allowing the agency to monitor content. Three years later, SORM-2 began to intercept internet traffic. The third legislative period (since 2006) has seen a considerable strengthening of state security, as well as the expansion of the intelligence agencies’ capacities abroad. Again, the pretext was the risk of terrorist bombings (which have been occurring every year since 2010), as well as the new cold war with the West. On June 8, 2006, the Duma authorized the FSB to carry out assassinations overseas. In November 2012, modifications of the criminal code widened the definition of “state secrets,” “treason,” and “espionage.” In 2015, new SORM-3 added classified regulations that apply to all internet providers in Russia (violating the European Convention on Human Rights). In 2016 the socalled Yarovaya Package (also known as the Yarovaya Act or more informally as the Big Brother Law) was passed at the initiative of Irina Yarovaya, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma. It introduced new articles reinforcing the powers of the executive against terrorism and “extremism”: as of April 12, 2018, telecommunications providers must store all their traffic for thirty days at least. Functions and Operations In theory, Russian agencies have distinctive functions. The FSB, now Putin’s most trusted service, specializes in domestic information and threats, whereas the SVR and GRU are gathering foreign information and specialize in threats from abroad. As far as foreign intelligence goes, the SVR focuses on developing long-term networks of “illegals.” In June 2010, the FBI arrested a network of Russian sleeper agents, who were later exchanged, in the good tradition of the Cold War, for four Russian nationals convicted and imprisoned on espionage charges. The GRU focuses on military operations, including battlefield reconnaissance and clandestine operations, using its Spetsnaz or Osnaz units (both names translate as “special operations troops,” but the first

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is mostly infantry, whereas the second is working on SIGINT). After several blunders during the 2008 war against Georgia, it now appears resurgent. The annexation of Crimea, part of an independent Ukraine since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, is considered a great success for the GRU. In practice, the agencies’ functions tend to overlap. The FSB’s area of activity now includes domestic security and also foreign collection, cyber operations, and criminal cultivation, as well as active measures such as information operations and even assassinations. In July 2018, the FBI arrested a gun rights advocate, twenty-nine-year-old Maria Butina, accusing her of courting American politicos on FSB orders (later she would be also accused of luring American money to Russia). The GRU has also turned to political intelligence and operations, and handles deep-cover agents abroad. In 2014, a GRU officer was expelled from France for actively seeking material on the personal life of thenpresident François Hollande, to use to compromise him. A common practice for Russian intelligence is to engage with the criminal underworld. Criminal proxies offer global reach, plausible deniability during active measures, as well as expertise and resources outside of official channels. The GRU, for example, has cultivated proxies including arms dealers, mafia bosses, militias, and mercenaries in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, and other parts of the world. The confluence of interests among the Russian agencies forces them to compete, which can be advantageous as they pursue more aggressive, innovative tactics and achieve results in order to remain relevant and receive funding. At the same time, multiple streams of information delivered to the highest authority create a certain redundancy that can be counterproductive, not to mention unpropitious, as the race for quick results might hamper the analytical process. Russian cyber warfare has been making the headlines for quite some time. One of the earliest cyber attacks on the United States, attributed to Russia, was a two-year operation that started in November 1996 and was later dubbed Moonlight Maze. In January 2014, hackers controlled by the FSB breached into Yahoo servers, gaining access to 500 million email accounts;3 and the NotPetya malware attack in June 2017, most likely created within the GRU, which affected 2,000 businesses in Ukraine—its primary target—also impacted over a million computers globally. The biggest success of Russian cyber warfare was the Kremlin’s reported meddling in the US presidential election of 2016 to bolster the candidacy of Donald J. Trump and damage the reputation of his adversary Hillary Clinton. The Soviet Union had previously interfered in various

294 Andreï Kozovoï elections around the world during the Cold War to prop up the communist parties, for example, in Italy in 1948; it also set up active measures to prevent Ronald Reagan, deemed the ultimate Cold Warrior, from being elected in 1976. The modern-day Russian Federation has interfered with elections in former Soviet republics, such as Ukraine in 2014. But in its scale and scope, the 2016 cyber operation might still be without precedent. Reportedly, the FSB and GRU both hacked the servers of the Democratic National Committee and the mail of the chairman of the Clinton campaign, John D. Podesta, in the spring of 2016. Evidence also suggests that the GRU “weaponized” the stolen emails by creating an online persona called “Guccifer 2.0” and a website, DCLeaks.com, as part of the Kremlin’s political influence operation. In Operation Trump, the Soviet Internet Research Agency, the St. Petersburg–based “troll farm” (a Kremlin-sponsored team of paid commentators, also known as web brigades, Russian bots, and the like) as well as FSB-controlled hacker groups Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear were involved; they manipulated public opinion through comments and advertisements on various social networks and forums, including Twitter and Facebook. Oversight As one might expect, Putin’s control of intelligence and security agencies remains almost unchallenged. This situation is not entirely new, as the laws of 1995 and 1996 had already provided unequivocally that it is the president who determines the agencies’ objectives and controls and coordinates their activities, appoints their chief officers, and makes decisions on all questions pertaining to intelligence. In other words, if Putin is not getting what he needs in terms of intelligence collection or implementation, he can simply replace a chief or switch to another organization. Limited oversight can be exerted through closed sessions of the parliament, in particular when it comes to validating the intelligence agencies’ respective budgets. But this parliamentary oversight is pure formality. The State Duma Security and Anticorruption Committee and the Defense and Security Committee of the Federation Council (the higher chamber) are docile instruments in the hands of the executive power. The Duma committee is dominated by conservative deputies from the Kremlin party United Russia, beginning with its previously mentioned head, Irina Yarovaya. The Federation Council is also staffed with “trusted personnel.” Its head, Viktor Bondarev, commander-in-chief of the Russian

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air force and a former pilot who has seen action in Afghanistan, is an active proponent of automated weaponry (robotic warfare). Contrary to the GRU, the FSB and SVR are forced by law to give access to information to “civil society,” provided this information does not give away any state secrets. But this access is biased, as those who work on the history of Russian/Soviet intelligence know very well. One can communicate with the SVR press bureau (or public relations bureau) without difficulty, but the response would depend on the researcher’s willingness to accept the official historiography. In 2009, while preparing my History of Russian Secret Services from the Tsars to Putin,4 I interviewed the press bureau chief and one of his assistants. Despite being prepared in advance, I found the conversation inefficacious: my respondents did not see the point of writing “yet another history of Russian intelligence”; they claimed that “[contrary to the CIA] Russian intelligence has never killed anyone,” and that the SVR archivists should be able to address my queries, provided they were “formulated with precision.” Obviously, only those who portray chekisty in a flattering light, such as former journalist Aleksandr Bondarenko, can access previously unpublished documentation, albeit in a very selective fashion. Since the end of the 1990s, the SVR and FSB have been cultivating a positive image of their organizations, reaching a peak in 2017—the centenary anniversary of the Cheka. Publications, exhibitions, feature films, and film documentaries created a “propaganda wave” unprecedented since Andropov’s years as KGB chief. The same year, the SVR even launched a “fruitful” collaboration program with Moscow State University, offering a series of lectures on the history of foreign intelligence titled “The History of Intelligence—The History of Our Country” (see Julie Fedor’s book for more perspective on this fascinating topic).5 In October 2018, posters of chekisty who distinguished themselves during World War II (some of them from SMERSH, an acronym for “death to spies,” a special branch organized inside the military and civil secret service during World War II) were displayed at various locations in the city of Vladimir, a “memorial” operation financed by the local FSB museum. Last but not least, “informal oversight” has been exerted by nongovernmental organizations, such as Memorial or the lesser known For the Human Rights. These human rights organizations have pleaded to no avail with high-level executives to block the seemingly unlimited expansion of FSB prerogatives. The only outcome has been that since 2014, these organizations have been designated as “foreign agents” by the Ministry of Justice, an infamous label that deprives them of the necessary legitimacy when it comes to communicating with authorities.

296 Andreï Kozovoï International Cooperation Russian intelligence agencies are legally allowed to cooperate with their peers overseas, to exchange information, technology, or anything deemed necessary for the pursuit of common goals. Cooperation with foreign institutions has officially intensified, at least for the FSB. In 2015, the agency collaborated with 142 agencies from 86 states, and in 2018 these numbers reached 204 and 104 respectively. The main areas of cooperation include the fight against international terrorism, drug trafficking, international criminal organizations, and illegal migration. Russia’s international intelligence cooperation can be distinguished between “certain” (authoritarian) and “uncertain” (democratic) partners. Syria and the United States are two cases in point. The former, the last Russian ally in the Middle East, is a remnant of the network of alliances with Arab countries from the Soviet era: the port of Tartus is now the only Russian Mediterranean naval base. Despite the dissolution of the Soviet Union, cooperation between Russian and Syrian agencies has never been severed and was maintained unofficially until the visit to Damascus of then–SVR chief Mikhail Fradkov in 2012. The Russian military has been active in the region since Syria’s descent into civil war: besides thousands of contractors fighting for the regime, the GRU Osnaz unit operates at least two intelligence centers jointly with its Syrian colleagues to monitor Syrian rebels and Israel Defense Forces and, globally, the entire Middle East. When it comes to the United States, a Soviet-US intelligence liaison was established in the 1980s (the “Gavrilov channel”), preceding the historic visit to Moscow of CIA director Robert Gates in 1992. Common interests in combating terrorism and the proliferation of narcotics and crime, thwarting the North Korean nuclear program, and even ensuring the safety of President Yeltsin resulted in fruitful exchanges. The arrests of Soviet intelligence moles Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen were a serious blow, but there was no all-out “spy war” as the common aims prevailed. Furthermore, Russian-US counterterrorism collaboration reached its peak after the Boston bombings in April 2013 perpetrated by two Chechen brothers. But in other areas, particularly in cyber activities, collaboration has been damaged beyond repair since the Russian hacking of the servers of the Democratic National Committee. US intelligence launched an all-out war against Russian meddling, culminating in July 2018 with the indictment of twelve Russian agents. The FSB desperately tried to purge its ranks of moles, including its main unit, the Information Security Center. It is very likely that the

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Skripal operation was intended as a punishment for leaking key information on cyber attacks to former UK Military Intelligence 6 (MI6) officer Christopher Steele, who then informed the FBI. Conclusion Russian intelligence culture is a fusion of centralization and institutional rivalry, surveillance and repression, propaganda and subversion, disinformation and forgery, intimidations and assassinations. Despite the post-Soviet demonization of the KGB, the new, rebranded FSB has gradually strengthened since its foundation in 1995, becoming “a state within a state,” encroaching upon the SVR’s and GRU’s territory. No wonder rumors of a new Ministry of Interior made up of all the intelligence agencies have surfaced regularly, although they were dispelled in June 2018 when Putin announced his new administration. A consummate politician, he divides to rule, all the while adhering to the idea of saving appearances. In practice, he remains the ultimate operator; oversight is thus nonexistent. Just like during the Soviet times, when analytics were hampered by having to conform to prevailing party orthodoxy, Russian intelligence wants first and foremost to please the leader, whose view of the West does not seem to have changed very much since his KGB days. This could explain a high level of recklessness, even sloppiness, in the recent Skripal affair—which can indeed be traced to the Kremlin. The GRU’s attempt to poison the Skripals can be considered as one of the biggest blunders in the history of Russian intelligence operations, an international humiliation for the Russian intelligence agencies that could be ascribed to Putin himself; hence his “suggestion” to give the GU its former name, GRU, in November 2018. If the Skripal affair is a clear indication that Russian intelligence is much more incompetent than we imagine, its “recklessness” could also have been part of a plan. It could be that Putin wanted everyone to fear his agents as being capable of striking under the very noses of his Western “partners.” The detection in August 2018 of a Russian female employee at the US embassy in Moscow who had been spying for the FSB for over a decade seems to prove Putin’s point. He may not care whether his reputation or that of Russia has suffered in the West, as long as he is hailed as a savior in the eyes of his electorate (and only a tiny minority believe that the GRU indeed tried to poison the Skripals, as one poll showed in October 2018), as long as the United States and Europe are divided, and terrorism

298 Andreï Kozovoï remains a common threat. If any one of these conditions alter, then he may be in serious trouble—and his intelligence agencies might not be in a position to help. Notes 1. Quoted in Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution (New York: Vintage, 1990), 73–74. 2. On Aleksandr Mishkin, see Bellingcat Investigation Team, “Second Skripal Poisoning Suspect Identified As Dr. Alexander Mishkin,” October 8, 2018, https:// www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2018/10/08/second-skripal-poisoning -suspect-identified-as-dr-alexander-mishkin. 3. W. Turton, “State-Sponsored Hackers Stole Personal Information from 500 Million Yahoo Users,” September 22, 2016, https://gizmodo.com/state-sponsored -hackers-stole-personal-information-from-1786958663. 4. Andreï Kozovoï, Les services secrets russes des tsars à Poutine (Paris: Tallandier, 2020). 5. Julie Fedor, Russia and the Cult of State Security: The Chekist Tradition, from Lenin to Putin (London: Routledge, 2017).

17 Saudi Arabia Christopher M. Davidson

As the world’s largest exporter of petroleum, and with the highest gross domestic product in the Arab world, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has long played a key role in the international economy.1 Moreover, as a historical ally of the United States, while also understood to be one of the primary spiritual, political, and financial backers of ultraconservative Sunni Islam, Saudi Arabia has played a central role in numerous regional and international conflicts stretching back to the Cold War era. Much has been written on the various kings, princes, and high-profile ministers believed to be behind the kingdom’s foreign policies and interventions, and much has also been written about its expensively equipped conventional armed forces and other such “hard power” capabilities.2 Less, however, has been written about Saudi Arabia’s intelligence service, despite its very significant “behind the scenes” involvement in many of these conflicts and, it would seem, its gradually increasing responsibility for countering and mitigating threats to the kingdom’s own security and stability. Examining the political context and, in general terms, identifying the earliest threats faced by Saudi Arabia help describe the conditions in which its intelligence service was born and, more substantially, its evolution into the twenty-first century, including the developments that have shaped many of its current structures and functions, and the factors that have underpinned its much proclaimed relationship with allied intelligence services such as the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Britain’s Military Intelligence 6 (MI6). Although the present research environment in Saudi Arabia—which has seen a marked 299

300 Christopher M. Davidson increase in the repression of academics and journalists—unfortunately precludes the gathering of important interview data from retired Saudi intelligence officials and others familiar with the service’s historical operations, there are nonetheless now a number of detailed primary and secondary sources that can be drawn upon, including archived official reports, published diplomatic correspondence, and records of various in-depth international investigations. Though such sources inevitably downplay indigenous Saudi narratives and perspectives, an objective, critical examination of their content does allow at least something of an understanding of one of the Middle East’s most influential intelligence organizations. Historical Overview In 1744 a historic pact was made in the interior of the Arabian Peninsula between a powerful tribe from the province of Najd—led by Muhammad bin Saud—and the followers of the influential preacher Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahhab. Preaching a more purified brand of Islam—a doctrine of pure monotheism and a return to the fundamental tenets of Islam as laid down by the Quran—the Wahhabis were Unitarians, emphasizing the centrality of God’s unqualified oneness in Sunni Islam.3 Seeking to renew the Prophet’s golden era of Islam, all who stood in their way were to be swept aside, including Islamic rulers leading “impure” lives, and especially those who collaborated with foreign, non-Islamic powers such as Britain. Ultimately led by the al-Saud dynasty following al-Wahhab’s death, they had become a “religiomilitary confederacy under which the desert people, stirred by a great idea, embarked on a common action”4 and sought constant expansion in the manner of the original Islamic concept of dar al-harb, or “territory of war”—referring to the conquering of non-Islamic lands.5 Although defeated by an Ottoman-backed Egyptian force in the early nineteenth century,6 the Saudi-Wahhabi alliance soon returned to power, controlling even more of central Arabia by the end of the century.7 In the early twentieth century, having fought off challenges from the al-Rashid family from the northern province of Hail, the al-Saud’s most celebrated leader—Abdul-Aziz bin Saud, or simply Ibn Saud— consolidated Saudi-Wahhabi control over Riyadh and the rest of the Najd province. Soon after, Ibn Saud extended his influence to the eastern province of al-Hasa and eventually the western province of Hejaz, which had formerly been ruled by the British-backed emir of Mecca,

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Sharif Hussein—to whom London had earlier promised an independent Arabian kingdom in return for his support for British operations against the Ottomans in World War I.8 By 1932, with continuing support from the religious Wahhabi establishment, Ibn Saud was in de facto control of most of the Arabian Peninsula and named his new kingdom after his own family and ancestors. By the time of his death in 1953, Saudi Arabia had already become an internationally recognized state,9 with rulership having been handed on to his eldest sons, albeit with some turbulence. The first to take over was Saud bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud, who then abdicated in 1964 in favor of his more dynamic younger brother, Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud (who ruled until his 1975 assassination at the hands of a younger relative).10 In this context, the kingdom was very much a traditional, hereditary monarchy, but to a great extent also an ultraconservative theocracy—features that clearly provided its rulers with considerable domestic legitimacy, but which, in the 1950s and 1960s at least, also automatically placed Saudi Arabia in the “enemy camp” in the eyes of the many new revolutionary, secular “Arab nationalist” republics of Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and others. Moreover, although the al-Saud family had by this stage signed numerous agreements with Britain and the United States, it was by no means under the same sort of protective umbrella as the smaller Gulf monarchies, some of which—such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, and Qatar—remained under direct British control until 1971, and, in the case of Kuwait, with Britain having even redeployed troops just weeks after its independence in 1961 following a supposed Iraqi invasion threat.11 Needing to counter the forces of Arab nationalism and prevent both its ideological spread and military expansion, Saudi Arabia had understandably been quick to establish an intelligence service with significant regionwide capabilities. Founded in 1955 as an offshoot of a preexisting secret police force, the General Investigation Directorate, the new General Intelligence Department was conceived as the kingdom’s external intelligence arm. Formalized two years later by Saud bin Abdul-Aziz’s royal decree of 1957, the General Intelligence Department went on to establish two bases on each of Saudi Arabia’s coastlines (one in Jeddah and one in Dhahran). Appointed by Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz in 1965, the Cambridge-educated Kamal Adham became its first official directorgeneral.12 Already a wealthy businessman (at one point thought to be one of the richest men in the kingdom), he was apparently chosen because of his strong connections to the royal family and his fluency in several foreign languages including Turkish, English, and French.13

302 Christopher M. Davidson Notwithstanding Adham, the General Intelligence Department lacked a sizable indigenous cadre of educated men from which to draw. However, the kingdom’s increasing oil wealth—which had already begun to allow it to invest in physical infrastructure and forge a subsidy-based “social contract” with its population14—soon provided it with the opportunity to “buy in” foreign advisers and intelligence specialists. Certainly, following in the footsteps of Ibn Saud’s trusted long-standing British adviser, St. John Philby (who had helped to negotiate oil concessions and even broker international alliances on the king’s behalf), by the 1960s the General Intelligence Department had hired numerous British and US former intelligence officers.15 From Egypt to Yemen Making matters somewhat easier for Kamal Adham and the heavily expatriate-influenced General Intelligence Department, its initial work mostly dovetailed with the interests of the Western powers, with Britain, France, and to some extent the United States also viewing Arab nationalism as a fundamental threat to their interests. On the one hand, the republics’ economic nationalization programs, including Egypt’s nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956, had led to fears that Western companies would eventually lose all access to valuable resources and monopolies in the region, while on the other hand there was a strong concern that these supposedly “nonaligned” revolutionary states would eventually gravitate toward the Soviet Union and its allies. In Egypt, for example, it appears that Saudi agents had tried to follow up on Britain’s numerous and well-documented attempts to assassinate President Gamal Abdul Nasser, with bribes known to have been paid to Bedouin tribesmen in Jordan to kill Nasser when he entered the country, and with evidence that a Syrian expatriate member of the Saudi royal court had received substantial payments so that he could organize the shooting down of Nasser’s aircraft as it landed in Damascus.16 Following Nasser’s natural death and Anwar Sadat’s succession in 1970 came a fresh opportunity to pull Egypt back into line, especially after Sadat began to remove Nasser-era officials from office, criticized their “inane socialist slogans,” and even seemed willing to reverse Nasser’s commitment to secularism by instead embracing more conservative Islam, including the Muslim Brotherhood.17 Sadat had soon also allowed the prestigious al-Azhar University to enter into relations with Saudi Arabia—a move since described as its “capture by the right once

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again, ending the role it had been developing as a more balanced, and non-fundamentalist, Islamic center”—and he had then undertaken a full government restructuring, with the creation of the post of deputy prime minister for religious affairs and the establishment of a new Supreme Committee for Introducing Legislation According to the Sharia.18 In this context, Adham and the General Intelligence Department had managed to broker a deal in which Sadat would begin to receive Saudi economic aid in exchange for Cairo expelling all Soviet personnel from Egypt. Moreover, it is likely that Adham had been promising to help Sadat get US support to facilitate the return to Egypt of land held by Israel.19 After all, as former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger noted, because the United States had no embassy in Cairo during this period, Saudi Arabia was relied upon as the intermediary.20 Meanwhile in northern Yemen—on Saudi Arabia’s southern flanks and thus arguably just as strategically significant to the kingdom’s interests as the political situation in Egypt—an Arab nationalist–inspired coup in the early 1960s had seen a religiously conservative, autocratic, and British-backed potentate led by Imam Muhammad al-Badr Hamidaddin being swiftly replaced with a new regime that at one point was willing to host over 70,000 Egyptian troops.21 Beyond heavily Britishassisted Saudi air strikes into northern Yemen, the Saudi response also involved a number of secret operations, including the financing of Yemeni village elders close to the border and the sponsoring of a number of “tribal irregular” Yemeni militias, the latter quickly managing to gain control over about half of northern Yemen’s rugged highlands on behalf of the General Intelligence Department.22 As with the air strikes, the Saudi covert militia strategy similarly seemed to benefit from British support, with British historian Stephen Dorril having demonstrated how MI6 provided logistical assistance to the “irregulars,” and how funds earmarked for Britain’s overseas aid program were in fact being secretly redirected to cofinance the Saudi campaign. 23 Israel too is understood to have helped—understandably viewing the creation of another Arab nationalist state as a much greater threat to its interests than the survival of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies. According to a former senior member of the US National Security Council (NSC), Mossad had offered to provide instructors and trainers for the militias, while Israel’s defense attaché in London reportedly even promised to supply Yemeni Jews who had earlier emigrated to Israel and could “pass themselves off as Arabs.” Understood to have been an opportunity that “the Saudis eagerly grasped,” Israel also began to furnish Riyadh with Soviet-made weapons

304 Christopher M. Davidson it had earlier seized from conflicts of its own, and, according to the former senior NSC official, it had used its air force to patrol the Red Sea so as to signal to Egypt to keep its distance from Saudi Arabia.24 Less is known about any direct US support for the Saudi campaign, although US special forces may have had some minor role, with a former US ambassador having claimed that during this period “[President] Kennedy was screwing around with all sorts of covert operations and the Green Berets in Arabia.”25 Although the conflict came to an inconclusive end in 1970 after a Saudi-Egyptian peace agreement was reached (with Saudi Arabia, Britain, and other actors reluctantly recognizing that the Arab nationalists were actually less of a threat to their interests than the increasingly powerful Marxist National Liberation Front in southern Yemen), the General Intelligence Department nonetheless appears to have continued with at least some of its work in northern Yemen. Most notable, having come to power in 1974 as part of a “corrective coup” within the northern republic’s military, and seeking to stamp out bribery, decadence, and remaining aristocratic privileges, President Ibrahim al-Hamdi was assassinated in 1977. Most observers believed this had been done by Saudi agents,26 with a Yemeni minister claiming that the murder was precipitated because of al-Hamdi “trying to stop corruption, trying to curb tribalism, and trying to establish a state.”27 Cold War Jihad Beyond Saudi Arabia’s position on Arab nationalism and its support for conservative Islam in Egypt, by the mid-1970s the kingdom was also beginning to demonstrate a willingness to promote more militant Islamism in the region. In 1975, for example, a rare “general principles” statement issued by Riyadh set out to formalize its “defense system.” Drawing heavily on both Wahhabism and the rhetoric of leading Muslim Brotherhood scholars, many of whom had been teaching in Saudi universities, it stated that “the doctrine of jihad is something that will remain in existence until the Day of Judgement. . . . [T]he kingdom’s defense system is guided by the sharia rules of conduct for war that are contained in the Holy Book, the Sunnah of the Prophet, and the guidelines of the Four Great Caliphs.”28 Despite the prospect of significant future blowback for the Western powers—a danger noted by several Western officials at the time29—such references to jihad were seen as another potential area for Cold War cooperation, especially given the

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Soviet Union’s sizable Muslim minority, and the Muslim-majority populations of its Central Asian satellite republics.30 Within a few years such cooperation had begun to bear fruit, with an Islamist uprising in 1979 against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and a subsequent Soviet intervention having not only opened the door for a US-planned and Saudi endorsed jihad against a problematic Sovietaligned socialist regime but also created conditions in which a powerful and conservative Islamic fighting force could be placed right on the Soviet Union’s southern border. Over the course of the 1980s, an estimated hundred thousand foreign jihadists arrived to join the insurgency, mostly via next-door Pakistan, with most gaining important war zone experience and invaluable training in how to operate advanced weaponry and other sophisticated military equipment.31 As Columbia University’s Mahmood Mamdani has since described: “This [was] the context in which an American-Saudi-Pakistani alliance was forged, and religious madrasas turned into political schools for training cadres. The Islamic world had not seen an armed jihad for centuries. But now the CIA was determined to create one.” Adding to this, Mamdani also explained that the prospect of uniting Muslims from across the world behind a new “holy war against the Soviet Union” had become an “important prong of the Reagan administration’s Cold War stance.”32 Despite vast funding already assigned to the CIA side of the operation, known as Cyclone, the United States made sure that Saudi Arabia helped the growth of the jihadists’ nascent global financial networks. Having taken over from his uncle Kamal Adham as director general as the war began, Turki bin Faisal al-Saud agreed that the General Intelligence Department would match all US funding for Afghanistan, dollar for dollar, with the Saudi grand mufti Abdul-Aziz bin Baz having issued a fatwa calling for a wealth tax to support the fighters in Afghanistan.33 Moreover, as numerous sources have claimed, whenever Saudi payments were late, Cyclone’s frontman, Congressman Charlie Wilson, would fly to Riyadh to place pressure on the government.34 Given the scale of Cyclone and the requirement of the United States that funding channels remain as discreet as possible, most of the Saudi financial support ended up being routed through a circuitous network of overseas banks, front companies, and ostensibly nongovernmental organizations. The United Arab Emirates (UAE)–based Bank of Credit and Commerce International, which was partly owned by the Abu Dhabi ruling family and run by expatriate Pakistani bankers, was one such conduit, with both CIA and Saudi funds destined for Afghanistan being placed there along with an estimated

306 Christopher M. Davidson US$245 million of “unrecorded deposits” from the Saudi-owned Faisal Islamic Bank of Egypt.35 Reflecting the more extensive and complex duties of Turki bin Faisal’s General Intelligence Department during this period, the organization was expanded by royal decree in 1982 to include several new departments concentrating on training, planning, finance, research, and communications.36 As the war progressed and further funding was sought, there is evidence that the General Intelligence Department also began to co-opt some of the international Islamic organizations originally established by Turki bin Faisal’s father, Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz. Most important was the Mecca-based Muslim World League, which at the time was serving as a sort of umbrella for several Saudi-sponsored charities, including the International Islamic Relief Organization. Although repeatedly presented to the Western media as nongovernmental organizations, the League and its subsidiaries were closely tied to Saudi government officials and royal family members, with the proceedings of a later Canadian court case eventually confirming it to be a fully Saudi government–funded organization, and with a retrospective European Parliament report stating that it had been used extensively by Saudi intelligence during the war as a vehicle to transfer money to the jihadists.37 Iran and Islamic Fundamentalism In parallel to its “jihad-exporting” focus in Afghanistan, the General Intelligence Department was also increasingly preoccupied with events in Iran, where another US-backed, oil-rich monarchy had succumbed to revolution and then swiftly transformed into an Islamic theocracy. From Saudi Arabia’s perspective, even though Iran was predominantly Shiite rather than Sunni, the concern was not only that the United States had failed to shore up Muhammad Reza Shah but also that the new Iranian regime—which had effectively dispensed with the need for kings and princes, yet also claimed Islamic legitimacy—would effectively offer an alternative blueprint for Islamic governance in the region and, by extension, perhaps catalyze Islamic revolutionary activity in Saudi Arabia itself. Heightening such fears, the November 1979 attack and seizure of the Grand Mosque in Mecca had seen an indigenous Wahhabi sect take hostages and proclaim one of its members, Juhayman al-Utaybi, as the Mahdi, or “messianic redeemer,” of Islam.38 Exposing the weakness of Saudi Arabia’s conventional military forces, the situation had only been resolved with the assistance of French commandos.39

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In order to prepare itself for future such activity, by the end of the 1980s the General Intelligence Department had built up an extensive database on clerics and other conservatives who might conceivably turn their attention to internal opposition. 40 When such opposition did appear to emerge, especially under the banner of the Sahwa, or “Awakening,” movement—which had begun to use a religious platform to criticize the Saudi government’s allowing of US bases on Saudi territory in the wake of the 1990 Kuwait crisis—Turki bin Faisal al-Saud and his counterparts in the kingdom’s domestic security services seemed to enjoy the upper hand.41 More dramatically, when a local al-Qaeda franchise—al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula—began to attack targets up and down the kingdom in 2003, the combined efforts of the General Intelligence Department and the security services had quickly managed to identify and defuse the threat, mostly due to their prior penetration of the perpetrators’ international networks.42 By this stage reconfigured as the General Intelligence Presidency, and with Turki bin Faisal having been succeeded by a succession of even more senior princes, the Saudi intelligence service was clearly no longer seen as just a foreign policy vehicle but also as a vital pillar of the kingdom’s own stability.43 Post-2003, the General Intelligence Presidency’s attention was more firmly than ever focused on Iran, with many in Riyadh expecting Tehran to exploit the removal of Saddam Hussein by seeking to expand its influence in Iraq, and then in Lebanon and those other parts of the Arab world with significant Shiite populations, including of course Saudi Arabia’s eastern province and the next-door kingdom of Bahrain. Certainly, within just a few more years, Riyadh and the General Intelligence Presidency had deemed the Iran threat to have transformed from being existential to being veritable. According to a US diplomatic cable, in 2008 King Fahd bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud had “repeatedly exhorted the US to cut off the head of the snake” in reference to Iran, its perceived military capabilities, and its purported nuclear weapon– building program. 44 Meanwhile, the retired Turki bin Faisal went on the record stating that Saudi Arabia should “consider acquiring nuclear weapons to counter Iran,”45 and in another US diplomatic cable, the minister for foreign affairs, his brother Saud bin Faisal al-Saud, suggested a US or North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)–backed offensive in southern Lebanon to end the Iranian-backed Hezbollah’s grip on power. Warning US officials that a Hezbollah victory in Lebanese elections would likely lead to an “Iranian takeover” of the state, and eventually other states, Saud bin Faisal claimed that the

308 Christopher M. Davidson situation in Beirut was “entirely military . . . and the solution must be military as well.” He also argued that of all the regional fronts on which Iran was advancing, Lebanon would be the “easiest battle to win” for the “anti-Iranian allies.”46 Saudi Arabia Counterattacks Although the first wave of 2011’s Arab Spring uprisings had greatly unsettled Saudi Arabia and brought back painful memories of the Iranian revolution, with key US allies in Egypt and Tunisia having been toppled by popular social movements, the subsequent uprising against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad—seen as Iran’s strongest Arab ally— presented the kingdom with a significant opportunity to push back at Iran’s perceived regional network. As with the Afghan jihad of the 1980s, the Saudi intelligence service was very much on the same page as the Western powers, with the CIA having launched Operation Timber Sycamore to train and equip Syrian rebels, and with Britain having also provided support to numerous opposition groups.47 However, this time it appears that the General Intelligence Presidency—far more powerful and better-resourced than the earlier General Intelligence Department—may have been operating much more independently. By this stage it was under the control of the influential former Saudi ambassador to the United States, Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud—an appointment that many interpreted as a signal of Saudi Arabia’s “greater regional ambitions.”48 Little solid data is currently available on the extent of Saudi weapons flowing into Syria following the uprising; however, the wellregarded Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has stated that thirty-seven military cargo flights originating from Saudi Arabia arrived in Syria in late 2012 and early 2013.49 Jordanian officials have also claimed to have seized several shipments of arms destined for Syria that had come from Riyadh, indicating that a Saudi-rebel land route had also been established.50 According to a Wall Street Journal investigation, the bulk of Syria-destined Saudi weapons seemed to have been procured from third-party countries. Their correspondents explained that “in September and October [2012], the Saudis approached Croatia to procure more Soviet-era weapons. The Saudis got started distributing these in December and soon saw momentum shift toward the rebels in some areas.” Despite common objectives, not all in the United States were happy with the Saudi role, with some

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officials cautioning that “this has the potential to go badly wrong . . . [because of] the risk that weapons will end up in the hands of violent anti-Western Islamists.” It was also claimed that “not everyone in the Obama administration is comfortable with the new US partnership with the Saudis on Syria.”51 Among these Islamist militias was the Yarmouk Brigade, which ended up becoming part of the Saudi-sponsored Southern Front, based out of Jordan and eligible to receive advanced weaponry such as antiaircraft missiles. Worryingly for US officials, it had frequently been spotted fighting alongside al-Qaeda’s de facto franchise in Syria— Jabhat al-Nusra.52 Moreover, the Yarmouk Brigade was understood to have repeatedly detained UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights, and in late 2014 a Lebanese newspaper accused it of having already secretly pledged allegiance to the internationally condemned Islamic State.53 Other such Saudi-backed militias included those belonging to the Jaysh al-Islam, or Army of Islam—an umbrella for dozens of rebel groups created in late 2013.54 Morphing into the Levant Front by the end of 2014, and then the Army of Conquest, it not only included the al-Qaeda-aligned Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya but by 2015 also was understood to have more openly adopted an extremist stance and to have suffered major defections to the Islamic State.55 Direct ties between the General Intelligence Presidency and the Islamic State during this period are as yet unproven; however, several senior Western figures have alleged that there was a connection. In summer 2014, former MI6 director Richard Dearlove told an audience that he had no doubt that wealthy Saudis had “played a central role in the Islamic State’s surge into Sunni areas of Iraq and Syria.” Going further, he pointed to a Riyadh-led sectarian plot by noting that several years earlier Bandar bin Sultan had warned him that “the time is not far off in the Middle East, Richard, when it will literally be God help the Shia.” 56 Soon after Dearlove, US vice president Joe Biden waded in, telling a gathering at Harvard University that “the biggest problem the US faces in dealing with Syria and the rise of the Islamic State is America’s allies in the region.” He went on to answer a student question by explaining that Saudi Arabia and the UAE had been funneling weapons and other aid to Syrian rebels that had ended up in the hands of extremist groups. 57 Perhaps most damning, in an email sent by former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton to one of her key advisers in 2014, she had made it quite clear that she thought Saudi Arabia (and Qatar) had been providing clandestine support to the Islamic State.58

310 Christopher M. Davidson Conclusion With the long-established and historically mutually beneficial ties between the Saudi intelligence service and its Western counterparts beginning to fray during the Syrian conflict, it seems likely that future collaborations, if any, will be much looser and more circumspect. From Riyadh’s perspective, any restrictions on how it goes about countering Iranian influence will be unwelcome, while from the Western powers’ perspective, any further Saudi sponsorship of extremist groups that can potentially launch terrorist “blowback” against Western interests, including Western societies, will not be tolerated. Exacerbating the situation further has been the recent Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act in the United States, which has allowed the families of the victims of the 9/11 New York World Trade Center attacks to press ahead with their efforts to sue the state of Saudi Arabia in US courts. As the case progresses, more evidence may come to light that directly links alQaeda-sympathizing Saudi officials to the hijackers, including members of the old General Intelligence Department, members of the Saudi armed forces, and perhaps even members of the royal family.59 Meanwhile, any explicit US and British criticism of the kingdom’s military campaign in Yemen—which Riyadh portrays as part of a vital effort to unseat the Iran-linked Houthi rebels—will also undermine trust, as will any US or other Western sanctions imposed against Saudi Arabia in the wake of the gruesome October 2018 assassination of prominent Saudi dissident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.60 In parallel to preparing for its more autonomous, and perhaps even post-Western, future, the General Intelligence Presidency and the Saudi domestic security services will also be investing much greater resources in countering cyber threats. Already there have been a number of very severe and degrading hacking attacks against Saudi infrastructure, including its national oil company, Aramco. As the BBC puts it, these have been part of an escalating “virtual war” between Saudi Arabia and Iran.61 Also of concern is the ability of Saudi oppositionists or foreign agents to mobilize against the regime using social media. With severely restricted traditional media, but one of the highest internet and social media penetration rates in the world, platforms such as Twitter have already been described as the de facto “parliament” of Saudi Arabia, as they have allowed for hitherto impossible, and often very critical, discussions to take place on a nationwide scale.62 Following a 2015 hack on an Italian cyber security firm, the company’s records revealed that its military-grade software, including “lawful interception” and “offensive

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technology” products, had already been marketed and sold to Saudi Arabia, as well as to numerous other Middle East states.63 Perhaps unsurprising, the leaks also detailed how at one point Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud, on behalf of the General Intelligence Presidency, had even considered buying the Italian company outright for US$42 million.64 As events unfold and the kingdom inevitably invests even more heavily in its cyber capabilities, it is likely that its well-resourced intelligence service will emerge as one of the most technologically sophisticated intelligence organizations outside North America and Western Europe. Notes 1. In 2017 Saudi Arabia exported US$160 billion worth of petroleum exports and had a gross domestic product of US$683 billion. OPEC, Annual Statistical Bulletin 2018 (Vienna, 2018). 2. Notable texts on Saudi Arabia’s evolving hard-power capabilities include A. Cordesman, Saudi Arabia: Guarding the Desert Kingdom (Boulder: Westview, 1997); and A. Cordesman, The Gulf and the Search for Strategic Stability: Saudi Arabia, the Military Balance in the Gulf, and Trends in the Arab-Israeli Military Balance (Boulder: Westview, 1984). 3. M. Peck, The United Arab Emirates: A Venture in Unity (Boulder: Westview, 1986), 29–30. 4. D. Hawley, The Trucial States (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1970), 96–97. 5. C. Belgrave, The Pirate Coast (London: G. Bell, 1966), 25. 6. The defeat took place in 1818. 7. For a full discussion of the Saudi-Wahhabi alliance, see D. Commins, The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia (London: Tauris, 2009). 8. J. Teitelbaum, The Rise and Fall of the Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia (London: Hurst, 2001), 243. 9. The United Nations recognized Saudi Arabia as a member state in 1945. 10. Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud was assassinated by a nephew, Faisal bin Musaid al-Saud. Faisal bin Musaid was declared insane by medical doctors but was nonetheless beheaded later that year. “Saudi’s King Faisal Assassinated,” BBC News, March 25, 1975. 11. For a discussion on the arrangements between Britain and the smaller Gulf states, including the supposed Iraqi invasion threat, see C. Davidson, After the Sheikhs: The Coming Collapse of the Gulf Monarchies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 17–39; C. Davidson, Shadow Wars: The Secret Struggle for the Middle East (London: Oneworld, 2016), 31–36. 12. Saudi Arabia Royal Decree 11 of 1957; “After Plea Bargain by Sheik, Question Is What He Knows,” New York Times, July 30, 1992; “The Man Behind the Scenes,” Gulf News, February 12, 2010. 13. “The Man Behind the Scenes”; “Kamal Adham Group,” Zawya, August 27, 2007. 14. For a discussion on the emergence of Saudi and other Gulf monarchy social contracts, see Davidson, After the Sheikhs, 5–11. 15. “Bahrain Adviser Quits, Briton Had Become Target of Nationalist Elements,” New York Times, August 15, 1956; B. Page, D. Leitch, and P. Knightly, The Philby Conspiracy (London: Doubleday, 1968). St. John Philby was the father of Kim Philby, the MI6 agent who defected to the Soviet Union in 1963; M. Curtis, Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam (London: Serpent’s Tail, 2012), 317.

312 Christopher M. Davidson 16. J. P. Filiu, From Deep State to Islamic State: The Arab Counter-Revolution and Its Jihadi Legacy (London: Hurst, 2015), 50; R. Dreyfuss, Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (New York: Metropolitan, 2006), 104, 124; Curtis, Secret Affairs, 61, 69–70; Public Records Office, Foreign Office 371/108318, October 27, 1954. 17. Dreyfuss, Devil’s Game, 151–152; Filiu, From Deep State to Islamic State, 34, 54. 18. Dreyfuss, Devil’s Game, 154. 19. Ibid., 148, 151. 20. H. Kissinger, The White House Years (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979), 1290–1295. 21. J. P. Filiu, The Arab Revolution: Ten Lessons from the Democratic Uprising (London: Hurst, 2011), 73–74; Filiu, From Deep State to Islamic State, 72–73. 22. D. Hart-Davis, The War That Never Was (London: Century, 2011), 175–177; S. Dorril, MI6: Fifty Years of Special Operations (London: Fourth Estate, 2001), 675–695. 23. Hart-Davis, The War That Never Was, 175–177; Dorril, MI6, 675–695. 24. Dreyfuss, Devil’s Game, 141, quoting Howard Teicher. 25. Ibid., 142, quoting Charles Freeman. 26. F. Halliday, Mercenaries: Counter-Insurgency in the Gulf (London: Spokesman, 1977), 28; Filiu, From Deep State to Islamic State, 75, 78; D. Hiro, Inside the Middle East (London: McGraw-Hill, 1982), 37. 27. S. Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective (London: Palgrave, 2008), 44. 28. Curtis, Secret Affairs, 121, citing a report prepared by Harold Walker, Britain’s ambassador to Jeddah. See Public Records Office, Foreign Office 8/2590, February 8, 1975. 29. W. C. Matthews, “The Kennedy Administration, Counterinsurgency, and Iraq’s First Baathist Regime,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 43, no. 4 (2011), 640; Curtis, Secret Affairs, 87, 112, citing Public Records Office, Foreign Office 93/42, September 27, 1973; Public Records Office, Foreign Office 371/174671, April 16, 1964. 30. Dreyfuss, Devil’s Game, 123–124; R. Pipes, “Team B: The Reality Behind the Myth,” Commentary Magazine 82, no. 4 (1986), 25–40. For background also see R. Pipes, “Muslims of Soviet Central Asia: Trends and Prospects,” pt. 2, Middle East Journal (Summer 1955), 307–308; A. Bennigsen, Islam in the Soviet Union (London: Pall Mall, 1967). A sequel, coauthored by his daughter, was published in 1983: A. Bennigsen and M. Broxup, The Islamic Threat to the Soviet State (London: Palgrave, 1983), 70–75. Also see N. J. Citino, From Arab Nationalism to OPEC: Eisenhower, King Saudi, and the Making of US-Saudi Relations (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 94–98. 31. Dreyfuss, Devil’s Game, 278. 32. “Saudi Arabia’s Get-Out-of-Terror-Free Card,” Socialist Worker, February 24, 2015. 33. Congressional Research Service, “Saudi Arabia: Background and US Relations,” January 2010, 27. 34. G. Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times (New York: Grove, 2007), 519; “Anatomy of a Victory: CIA’s Covert Afghan War,” Washington Post, July 19, 1992; “Prince Turki’s Resumé,” New York Times, August 2, 2005; Curtis, Secret Affairs, 138. 35. C. Davidson, Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 246–249; Dreyfuss, Devil’s Game, 167. 36. Saudi Arabia Royal Decree 5 of 1982; author interviews with a former US security contractor, August 2018. 37. D. E. Kaplan et al., “The Saudi Connection,” US News & World Report, December 15, 2003; European Parliament, Directorate-General for External Policies, “The Involvement of Salafism/Wahhabism in the Support and Supply of Arms to Rebel Groups Around the World,” June 2013, 5. The Canadian head of the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) testified in a 1999 court case that “the Muslim World League,

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which is the mother of IIRO, is a fully government-funded organization. . . . [I]n other words, I work for the government of Saudi Arabia.” 38. The definitive account of the Grand Mosque seizure is T. Hegghammer and S. Lacroix, The Meccan Rebellion: The Story of Juhayman al-Utaybi Revisited (Beirut: Amal, 2011). 39. Stratfor, “How the 1979 Siege of Mecca Haunts the House of Saud,” July 2, 2017. 40. Author interviews with a former US security contractor, August 2018. 41. L. Nolan, “Managing Reform? Saudi Arabia and the King’s Dilemma” (Doha: Brookings Doha Center Policy Briefing, May 2011); author interviews with former US security contractors, May 2018. 42. Author interviews with former US security contractors, May 2018. 43. Turki bin Faisal al-Saud was succeeded by Nawaf bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud and then Muqrin bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud. A. Cordesman, Saudi Arabia: National Security in a Troubled Region (Santa Barbara: California University Press, 2009); “Prince Moqrin head of Saudi intelligence,” UPI News, October 22, 2005. 44. “‘Cut Off Head of Snake’ Saudis Told U.S. on Iran,” Reuters, November 29, 2010. 45. “Saudi Prince Turki Urges Nuclear Option After Iran,” Reuters, December 7, 2011. 46. “WikiLeaks Cables: Saudis Proposed Arab Force to Invade Lebanon,” The Guardian, December 7, 2010. 47. “C.I.A. Arms for Syrian Rebels Supplied Black Market, Officials Say,” New York Times, June 26, 2016; “Britain to Axe Funding for Scheme Supporting Syrian Opposition,” The Guardian, August 20, 2018. 48. “Saudi Appointment Suggests Bigger Regional Ambitions,” Wall Street Journal, July 20, 2012. 49. “An Arms Pipeline to the Syrian Rebels,” New York Times, March 24, 2013. 50. A. B. Atwan, Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate (London: Saqi, 2015), 102. 51. “A Veteran Saudi Power Player Works to Build Support to Topple Assad,” Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2013. 52. P. Cockburn, The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution (London: Verso, 2015), 53. 53. Atwan, Islamic State, 109; “UN Peacekeepers Kidnapped in Golan Released,” Al-Jazeera, May 12, 2013; “The First Battle Between al-Nusra and Daash in Daraa,” AsSafir (translated), December 15, 2014. 54. “Syria Crisis: Saudi Arabia to Spend Millions to Train New Rebel Force,” The Guardian, November 7, 2013. 55. M. Weiss and H. Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (New York: Regan, 2015), 107; “Turkey and Saudi Arabia Alarm the West by Backing Islamist Extremists the Americans Had Bombed in Syria,” The Independent, May 12, 2015; “Syria’s Saudi Jihadist Problem,” Daily Beast, December 16, 2013; “Six Islamist Factions Unite in Largest Syria Rebel Merger,” Reuters, November 22, 2013. 56. “Iraq Crisis: How Saudi Arabia Helped ISIS Take Over the North of the Country,” The Independent, July 13, 2014. 57. “Saudis Are Next on Biden’s Mideast Apology List After Harvard Remarks,” New York Times, October 6, 2014; Cockburn, The Rise of Islamic State, xix–xx. 58. “Hillary Clinton Emails Leak: WikiLeaks Documents Claim Democratic Nominee ‘Thinks Saudi Arabia and Qatar Fund Isis,’” The Independent, October 11, 2016. 59. Davidson, Shadow Wars, 151–158, 521–528. 60. “US Stops Refuelling of Saudi-Led Coalition Aircraft in Yemen War,” Reuters, November 10, 2018; “British Foreign Minister Sees ‘Rapid Progress’ on Khashoggi Inquiry and Prospect for Yemen Talks,” Reuters, November 12, 2018. 61. “Iranian and Saudi Hackers Wage Virtual War,” BBC News, June 3, 2016. See also “A Cyberattack in Saudi Arabia Had a Deadly Goal, Experts Fear Another Try,” New York Times, March 15, 2018.

314 Christopher M. Davidson 62. “Twitter Gives Saudi Arabia a Revolution of its Own,” New York Times, October 20, 2012. 63. “Hacking Team Hacked: Firm Sold Spying Tools to Repressive Regimes, Documents Claim,” The Guardian, July 6, 2015; Reporters Without Borders, “The Enemies of the Internet Special Edition—Surveillance,” January 3, 2012. 64. “Saudi Arabia: They Liked Hacking Team So Much They Tried to Buy the Company,” The Register, September 28, 2015.

18 South Korea Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus

Intelligence culture in the Republic of Korea (ROK), or South Korea, has been shaped for decades by the threat posed by North Korea and a high degree of politicization resulting in frequent interference in domestic politics. Much of the centralized power wielded by the National Intelligence Service (NIS), South Korea’s principal foreign and domestic intelligence agency, derives from the immense authority to investigate infractions of the country’s National Security Act (NSA), which penalizes pro–North Korean activities and so-called antistate crimes.1 This testifies to the extent to which the agency is still inextricably steeped in the history of division and the technical state of war on the Korean Peninsula. In the recent past, the South Korean intelligence community has been embroiled in a series of high-profile scandals involving bribery, unlawful wiretapping of civilians, unwarranted prosecution of individuals, and meddling in the 2012 presidential election. The staggering frequency with which such scandals occur is commonly perceived as a result of the persisting misuse of the intelligence agencies for political purposes by or on behalf of those in power. Such practices are reminiscent of the country’s authoritarian past and the tactics of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), which served as one of the main pillars of former president Park Chung-hee’s authoritarian regime from 1961 to 1979.2 Country Overview South Korea occupies the southern half of the Korean Peninsula, bordering the Yellow Sea to the west, the Korea Strait to the south, and the Sea 315

316 Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus of Japan (East Sea) to the east. Resembling the frontline at the time of the Armistice Agreement of 1953, the military demarcation line runs along the center of the 250-kilometer-long and four-kilometer-wide demilitarized zone (DMZ), constituting South Korea’s northern border to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), or North Korea. The mountainous country is home to more than 51 million people, mainly concentrated in the coastal lowland areas and the big cities. With a gross domestic product (GDP) surpassing US$2 trillion in 2017, South Korea is one of East Asia’s economic powerhouses, the fourth largest economy in Asia and the eleventh largest in the world according to World Bank data.3 The ROK is also a member of the Group of 20 (G20), ranking 45th on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index in 2018 out of 180 countries surveyed.4 Mired in poverty after the Korean War, South Korea heavily depended on foreign aid due to the very low gross national income (GNI) per capita of merely US$120 in 1962. Nevertheless, the country has since developed into a thriving democracy exhibiting stable economic growth rates above the average for the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which it joined in 1996. After liberation from Japanese colonial rule (1910–1945), the Korean Peninsula was divided along the Thirty-Eighth Parallel north into two occupation zones. While the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) administered the southern half, Soviet Civil Administration (SCA) took control in the north. In 1948, this led to the founding of the First Republic of Korea in the south, under President Rhee Syngman, followed by the establishment of the communistaligned Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the north, under the leadership of Kim Il-sung.5 On June 25, 1950, North Korean troops commenced hostilities by crossing the Thirty-Eighth Parallel into the south following a series of incidents and skirmishes along the border during the preceding years. The ensuing Korean War saw the direct military involvement of UN forces led by the United States on the side of the capitalist south, as well as China and the Soviet Union on behalf of the communist north. As one of the major armed conflicts of the Cold War, the Korean War claimed an estimated 4 million lives before the Armistice Agreement of July 27, 1953, created an enduring stalemate along the heavily fortified DMZ.6 As a result, the Korean Peninsula still is one of the most militarized areas in the world today. The unresolved nature of the conflict and the continuing state of war between the two Korean states have remained the most determinate factors regarding South Korean security and intelligence concerns to the present day.

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Wartime devastation of infrastructure and national division left South Korea impoverished with a shattered economy. This rueful situation was exacerbated by the fact that the bulk of heavy industry, mining, and energy production were located in North Korea.7 While South Korea is a robust democracy today, post-liberation regimes up until the late 1980s based their proclivity for authoritarianism on the premise of containment of communist North Korea coupled with economic development. After a brief democratic interlude following the end of Rhee Syngman’s authoritarian regime, a military coalition led by MajorGeneral Park Chung-hee and Colonel Kim Jong-pil orchestrated a coup d’état on May 16, 1961, and usurped political control. The putsch ushered in a period of authoritarian rule that lasted almost three decades, relying on the military and the intelligence services for maintenance of power.8 Park Chung-hee, who was elected president three times after 1963 before securing lifelong rule in 1972 in the Yushin constitution, is credited with boosting the economy by enforcing a series of five-year economic plans and laying the foundation for the country’s rapid economic expansion, often referred to as the “Miracle on the Han.” The South Korean economy continued to undergo phenomenal economic growth even when the assassination of Park Chung-hee at the hands of KCIA chief Kim Jae-gyu led to a brief period of domestic instability in late 1979. Park’s sudden passing resulted once more in a military coup, led by Chun Doo-hwan. In his capacity as chief of the Defense Security Command (DSC), Chun directed the investigation into the killing of Park. After assuming the presidency, Chun extended martial law and ordered the bloody suppression of the Gwangju democratization movement in May 1980, during which students protested a second coup staged by Chun on May 17, 1980. Facing nationwide demonstrations in June 1987, the Chun government finally acceded to the key demands of this democracy movement, such as democratic elections. The protests had been galvanized by reports of the death of a student who had been tortured by the security services. Half a year before Seoul hosted the 1988 Summer Olympics, the government surrendered its authoritarian power, ensuring peaceful transition from authoritarianism to the democratic system of the Sixth Republic. Although Roh Tae-woo, Chun’s handpicked successor, was forced to make immense concessions, he subsequently won the presidential elections because the civilian opposition split its vote between Kim Youngsam and Kim Dae-jung. During the gradual democratization process over the course of the 1990s, South Korea had to cope with traumatic economic and social setbacks. A severe recession that hit the country during

318 Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus the 1997 Asian financial crisis (known as the IMF [International Monetary Fund] crisis in South Korea) profoundly disrupted the lives of millions of South Koreans. Despite another economic recession in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, the national economy has since recuperated, quickly returning to stable growth rates by 2010. The early 2000s witnessed rapprochement and reconciliation toward the DPRK when Presidents Kim Dae-jung (1998–2003) and Roh Moohyun (2003–2008) implemented the so-called Sunshine Policy. While the policy undoubtedly yielded positive diplomatic and economic outcomes for crisis-ridden South Korea, the North Korean regime nevertheless continued its habit of armed provocations along the land and sea border, including several missile launches and a first nuclear test in 2006. Roh’s conservative successor, Lee Myun-bak (2008–2013), took a less accommodating stance toward North Korea, demanding that it abandon its nuclear weapons program. Following a series of further tests, the nuclear crisis lingered after 2009 before reaching its peak in 2017. In 2013, Park Geun-hye, the daughter of Park Chung-hee, became the first female president of South Korea. However, soon thereafter accusations surfaced that the NIS had attempted to manipulate public opinion in favor of Park, the conservative candidate, sparking investigations and leading to the imprisonment of former NIS director Won Sei-hoon.9 Park was the first president to be impeached and ousted from office, following large-scale public outrage in late 2016 over a huge scandal involving bribery and abuse of power. Subsequently, Park was sentenced to thirtytwo years prison for bribery, abusing state funds, and violating election laws. Moon Jae-in became president in May 2017, initiating a reconciliatory policy toward North Korea. Against this backdrop, the Moon administration also proposed plans to overhaul the main intelligence bodies of South Korea—the NIS, the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office, and the National Police Agency—aiming to enhance legislative oversight and to ensure checks and balances between the three agencies.10 The South Korean Intelligence Community The South Korean intelligence apparatus comprises a variety of organizations tasked with the collection of domestic, foreign, and military intelligence. The NIS was established in its current shape in 1999 during the presidency of Kim Dae-jung (1998–2003). As the direct descendant of the KCIA, the NIS inherited enormous powers from its predecessors, the KCIA and the Agency for National Security Planning (ANSP). The

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NIS is responsible for the collection, coordination, and distribution of foreign intelligence and domestic security intelligence as well as the investigation of crimes affecting national security. This includes crimes that violate the Military Secret Protection Law and the NSA, which criminalizes activities directed against the security of the state, including the founding of and membership in anti-government organizations, essentially making communism illegal.11 Because the NIS is also tasked with the planning and coordination of intelligence and public security service, its director may request the head of a related state agency or public organization for cooperation and support in order to fulfill the prescribed duties.12 Another major intelligence organization is the Defense Security Support Command (DSSC), the military’s intelligence unit, until April 2019 led by Lieutenant-General Nam Young-sin. As of July 2019, the position of commander of the DSSC is vacant. The unit began operations in September 2018, replacing its disbanded predecessor, the Defense Security Command. Moon ordered the demobilization of the DSC in August 2018 after controversial documents emerged containing a “contingency plan” to effectively implement nationwide martial law.13 Echoing a not-toodistant authoritarian past, the plan detailed measures to deploy troops including special forces units to quell feared public protests should the Constitutional Court overturn parliament’s decision to impeach former president Park Geun-hye in March 2017.14 The DSSC is charged with conducting military-related security affairs; anti-counterfeiting operations; collection, preparation, and processing of military-related information; as well as investigation of military crimes.15 As part of the relaunching process, the new DSSC’s strength was reduced by 30 percent, from 4,200 to approximately 2,900 personnel.16 An additional South Korean military intelligence unit is the Korean Defense Intelligence Agency (KDIA), which mimics the US organization of the same name. The Defense Intelligence Command (DIC) is responsible for the collection of human intelligence (HUMINT), imagery intelligence (IMINT), and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT). Like 777 Command, the military’s signals intelligence (SIGINT) unit, the DIC, operates under the supervision of the KDIA, which in turn is subordinate to the Ministry of National Defense.17 The director of the KDIA, who holds the rank of general, reports directly to the minister of defense and possesses a broad mandate to conduct intelligence operations in order to provide a wide array of military and strategic intelligence to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.18 To facilitate communication between the KDIA and the Directorate for

320 Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus Intelligence (also known as J-2) of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and to pool gathered intelligence, both organizations jointly operate the Intelligence Fusion Center.19 Initially created under the KDIA in 2010, the South Korean Military Cyber Command now operates under the direct supervision of the Ministry of National Defense. The command was established in response to a massive cyber attack in 2009 and is subdivided into four units tasked with research and development, cyber warfare, psychological warfare, and education and training.20 On the civilian side, the Intelligence and Analysis Bureau (IAB) of the Unification Ministry provides analyses on North Korean open-source materials to assess trends regarding politics, the economy, the military, culture, and society. The IAB furthermore utilizes interviews with North Korean defectors and classified material to glean intelligence and produce reports.21 Furthermore, the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office has established specialized departments dedicated to the collection, processing, and analysis of intelligence.22 While the two divisions of the Office of Criminal Intelligence Planning focus on criminal activities, the three divisions of the Public Security Department manage and analyze intelligence on, and assess threats to, public security.23 The Public Security Department’s first division deals with cases that involve communist activities, immigration, terrorism, and inter-Korean exchanges, while the second division handles cases related to elections, political parties, and funds.24 The third division investigates cases involving labor issues, religious and social groups, and educational institutions.

Historical Evolution of South Korean Intelligence Bodies Origins, 1948–1961

Following liberation from Japanese colonial rule in August 1945, intelligence operations were initially systematized under the auspices of USAMGIK. The outbreak of the Korean War necessitated the establishment of intelligence organizations that specialized in combating North Korea. This resulted in a significant expansion of military intelligence and infiltration units during the war. The three sections of the ROK Army Headquarters Intelligence Bureau (AHIB) were responsible for the collection and analysis of military intelligence, counterintelligence and security, and wartime special operations. During the war the AHIB was reorganized by separating the counterintelligence and security section, resulting in the establishment of the Counter-Intelligence Corps

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(CIC) and the Headquarters Intelligence Detachment (HID). The CIC was tasked with the protection of military facilities, capturing spies, and other counterintelligence measures. Its head, Kim Chang-ryong, reported directly to then-president Rhee Syngman. Moreover, Rhee used the agency to eliminate his existing and potential political opponents during the 1950s.25 In 1977, the DSC (since September 2018 the Defense Security Support Command) was activated after the CIC was merged with its air force and navy counterparts, while the Defense Intelligence Command evolved from the former HID.26 The legacy of national division and war that forced South Korea to concentrate on counter-espionage, intelligence collection and analysis, and internal security functions bore important implications for the future development and design of the South Korean intelligence community.27 Korean Central Intelligence Agency, 1961–1980

The context of the Cold War on the Korean Peninsula and the persistent threat posed by North Korea provided the main justification for the traditionally powerful role of Korean intelligence agencies in domestic politics. In the aftermath of the overthrow of the democratically elected but internally fragmented government of Jang Myeon in May 1961, the KCIA was inaugurated as South Korea’s first centralized intelligence agency, an act that wielded long-term effects upon the ROK intelligence community. Both Park Chung-hee and Kim Jong-pil had a background in military intelligence after serving in the AHIB during the Korean War. Systematizing approaches to collecting and analyzing overseas intelligence, the KCIA was organized into four bureaus—general affairs, foreign intelligence, investigations, and educational development—and three offices—telecommunications, inspections, and a secretariat.28 The KCIA was tasked with preventing communist infiltration, but also with supporting the broader development of South Korea’s economy and society, as part of the ideological and strategic competition with the communist government in North Korea.29 A law devised by Kim Jong-pil placed all domestic and international intelligence activities—including those of the military—under the legal jurisdiction of the KCIA, whose arsenal also comprised criminal investigative powers. The agency moreover had the right to coordinate and supervise intelligence activities and criminal investigations of other state ministries on issues pertaining to national security.30 The KCIA was formed with US assistance and trained its agents according to US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) manuals. Yet in terms of its organizational structure and

322 Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus wide-ranging functions, the KCIA more closely resembled the Soviet KGB.31 Writing in the Washington Post on October 30, 1979, shortly after Park’s assassination at the hands of KCIA director Kim Jae-gyu, American journalist Charles Babcock characterized the KCIA as “the most powerful agency in South Korea since it was founded after Park took power in 1961. Combining the powers of the CIA abroad and the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] and a secret police at home, its agents have long controlled every aspect of Korean life.”32 Upon its inauguration, the KCIA reported solely to the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction, the highest decisionmaking body, through which the military junta ruled the country between 1961 and 1963. From its inception, the KCIA formed the centerpiece of Park’s political power apparatus throughout the eighteen years of his authoritarian regime. The KCIA’s authority to investigate infractions of the NSA made it a useful tool not only to identify real internal threats but also to frame dissidents and political opponents as sympathizers and agents of North Korea. An amended law stipulated the KCIA director’s right to refuse requests for reports, testimony, or questioning by the National Assembly as well as by the newly installed Board of Audit and Inspection on matters pertaining to “national secrets.” After he was elected president, Park made it his prerogative to appoint the agency’s director. Licensed to recruit staff from government ministries, armed forces, and law enforcement agencies, the KCIA also functioned as an indispensable tool to formulate policies from Park’s perspective.33 However, the ever-suspicious Park also relied on the Army Security Command (now the DSSC) and the Presidential Security Service to keep the KCIA in check. Commenting in the Washington Post on the assassination of Park and Cha Ji-cheol, chief of the Presidential Security Service, Babcock inferred, “The assassination of South Korean President Park Chung Hee was the product—at least in part—of deep rivalries in the country’s security apparatus that Park himself fostered.”34 The KCIA’s reach also extended beyond South Korea’s national borders. Notorious cases of kidnappings of South Korean nationals and opposition members who were accused of conspiracy with North Korea and violations of the NSA became the KCIA’s trademark craft during the 1960s and 1970s. This often entailed negative diplomatic consequences, as was the case when in June 1967 the KCIA abducted seventeen South Korean nationals from West Germany via the embassy in Bonn, accusing them of being involved in a suspected pro–North Korean spy ring in East Berlin. Another seven South Korean citizens were abducted from France around the same time. The well-prepared nature of the abduction, which

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relied on thorough observation coupled with the relative inertia of West Germany’s federal prosecutor-general, led to speculation surrounding the involvement of West German intelligence agencies and police and the allied forces stationed in Germany.35 Both the federal government of West Germany and South Korean authorities dismissed these allegations as fabrications of East Germany’s propaganda machine.36 At least ten members of the group, which included students, doctors, and the wellknown West Berlin–based composer Yun I-sang, stood trial for treason in Seoul, leading to two death sentences. In the end, West German diplomatic démarches and the promise of economic aid ensured an amnesty for all detainees, and the last remaining prisoners were freed on Christmas Day 1970.37 Against the backdrop of the simmering low-intensity conflict in the DMZ and the frequent incursions by North Korean special operations, between 1966 and 1969, while the United States was distracted in Vietnam, the South Korean leadership could not afford to alienate Europe or the United States.38 Better known than the West German abduction case is the kidnapping of former opposition candidate Kim Dae-jung on August 8, 1973, from the Grand Palace Hotel in Tokyo, where he had been seeking political asylum in the wake of the Yushin declaration. Allegedly, the subsequent attempt to murder Kim by drowning him while crossing the Sea of Japan was only narrowly foiled by an intervening US plane.39 In 2007, a fact-finding commission of the NIS admitted the involvement of the KCIA in the kidnapping, which had the tacit approval of Park Chung-hee.40 Kim’s abduction, coupled with the revelations on the “Koreagate” scandal, in which the KCIA had surreptitiously funneled bribes through a South Korean businessman to members of the US Congress, caused profoundly negative ramifications for South Korea’s relationship with its two most important allies.41 Yet, at times, KCIA directors would play a crucial role in foreign policy as Park’s envoys to negotiate treaties such as the normalization treaty with Japan in 1965 and high-level talks with North Korea that produced the July 4 joint declaration for peaceful reunification. After KCIA director Kim Jae-gyu assassinated Park Chung-hee in 1979, the agency was purged, temporarily forfeiting its influence. Agency for National Security Planning, 1981–1998

In his capacity as commander of the DSC, Chun Doo-hwan oversaw the investigation into the killing of Park. Unsurprisingly, the DSC was instrumental in Chun’s ascent to power, resulting in an expansion of its

324 Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus influence on domestic politics outside military affairs.42 Consequently the DSC became the most influential domestic intelligence agency in South Korea during the early 1980s through the establishment of the Office of Information and the gathering of intelligence on civilians.43 In the wake of a second coup d’état, Chun appointed himself director of the KCIA in order to augment his power beyond the military and assume the presidency. The KCIA was restructured and redesignated as the principal foreign and domestic intelligence organization under the new name Agency for National Security Planning. After the relaunch in 1981, the agency retained its position as a cabinet-level agency alongside its mandate to collect intelligence on the domestic stage, including the right to investigate insurrection, aiding and abetting the enemy, disclosure of military secrets, and other antistate crimes provided for in the NSA or the Act Concerning Protection of Military Secrets.44 The head of the ANSP directly reported to the president and was supported by three deputy directors, who oversaw domestic, foreign, and North Korean intelligence. The ANSP, colloquially known as the Angibu in South Korea, continued the KCIA’s legacy by constantly monitoring pro-democratic forces and arresting and questioning citizens without due process.45 Moreover, agents of the ANSP and the DSC were stationed in the National Assembly in order to garner intelligence on politicians.46 When the process of democratization commenced in the latter half of the 1980s, President Roh Tae-woo undertook an attempt to curtail the Angibu’s massive powers. In 1988 the agents were withdrawn from the National Assembly building, the Supreme Court, and the Seoul Criminal Court. Furthermore, the ANSP’s Information Coordination Committee was disbanded for unduly influencing other investigative authorities.47 Apart from the regular interference in domestic politics in the name of national security, the ANSP performed its duty to obtain and analyze foreign intelligence and to conduct counterintelligence activities in a highly effective manner. Alongside the National Unification Board, it served as the primary source of government analysis and policy direction for South Korea’s reunification strategy and contacts with North Korea.48 Roh’s successor, Kim Young-sam, continued the efforts to depoliticize the Angibu. A revision of the ANSP act stripped the agency of its rights to investigate the crimes of “praising or sympathizing with antistate groups” and of “failure to inform the authorities of antistate group activities.” The revision also prohibited the agency from meddling in domestic politics. A standing oversight panel, the Intelligence Committee of the National Assembly, was inaugurated in 1994 in order to enforce

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political neutrality and monitor the agency’s budget, for the first time in the history of South Korean centralized intelligence agencies. In 1995, the Angibu moved to a new headquarters complex and underwent a modernization process that entailed the establishment of a fourth department, for planning and management within the agency.49 Despite such amendments, illegal wiretapping and surveillance of civilians, politicians, and officials, as well as utilization of the Angibu by politicians to wrest forced donations from the corporate sector, continued. Unlike during the authoritarian period, this led to indictments and convictions. National Intelligence Service, 1999–Present

Efforts for more comprehensive reforms were undertaken by the liberal administrations of Kim Dae-jung and his successor, Roh Moo-hyun. The most conspicuous adjustments were made by Kim, who relaunched the Angibu under its new name, National Intelligence Service, in early 1999 (see Figure 18.1), in the process demoting the NIS director from

Figure 18.1 South Korea’s Intelligence and Law Enforcement Agencies

President National Intelligence Agency (foreign and domestic intelligence; investigation of communist activities)

Ministry of Justice

Ministry of Interior and Safety

Jeju Special Self-Governing Province

Prosecutor’s Office (monopoly on investigation and indictment)

National Police Agency (public order, security, intelligence, and investigation)

Autonomous Police (regional-level order, security, intelligence, and partial investigation)

326 Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus the level of deputy prime minister to minister. Yet this step was not accompanied by far-reaching legal or institutional changes.50 Under Kim, the NIS concentrated on ameliorating relations with North Korea in the wake of reconciliation and cooperation northward (known as Sunshine Policy) during the early 2000s, when the NIS masterminded preparations for the inter-Korean summit held in June 2000. However, an investigation conducted by a special prosecutor team in 2002 found that the Hyundai Group had funneled US$450 million to North Korea using an NIS bank account in order to facilitate the summit meeting. These findings eventually led to a suspended year-and-a-half prison sentence for former NIS director Lim Dong-won in 2003.51 Roh Moo-hyun resumed concerted efforts to depoliticize the NIS by handing the role of systematizing and processing NIS security intelligence to the Presidential Secretariat and certain domestic intelligence and surveillance activities to the National Police Agency (see Figure 18.2). To facilitate the implementation of the prospective reforms, Roh broke with the tradition to appoint a candidate with a military background and chose a former judge and human rights lawyer as director of the NIS. Furthermore, the National Intelligence Truth Commission was installed in November 2004 and tasked with investigating past transgressions of the NIS’s predecessors, including unsolved deaths of dissidents and fabricated accusations of espionage for North Korea. Roh proposed more changes such as the elimination of the anticommunist bureau of the agency and the abolition of the NSA but could not prevail over stiff opposition to the proposal from conservative legislators in the National Assembly.52 Regaining political power in 2008, two consecutive conservative administrations under Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye took a more complaisant approach toward the NIS. Facing increased efforts by North Korea to nuclearize, both governments stressed the need for reinforced counterintelligence measures against the northern neighbor and internal pro–North Korea elements. On the domestic stage, frequent and multifaceted scandals surrounding the NIS repeatedly roiled the South Korean public between 2000 and 2016, resulting in a significant erosion of public trust in the intelligence apparatus. Won Sei-hoon, who served as the tenth director of the NIS, from 2009 to 2013, was indicted in June 2013 for meddling in the 2012 presidential elections in violation of the law. The campaign was financed with money stemming from the NIS’s special activities budget.53 In August 2017, the appeals court in Seoul found Won guilty on charges of instigating a clandestine internet smear campaign against opposition candidate Moon Jae-in and sentenced him

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Figure 18.2 Proposed Reforms to South Korea’s Intelligence and Law Enforcement Agencies, 2018 President

Investigation Office for Corruption of High-Ranking Officials (independent agency)

Ministry of Justice

Prosecutor’s Office (reduced investigative role; retains responsibility for indictment)

General Police (state-level public order, security, and intelligence)

Foreign Security Intelligence Service (including intelligence on North Korea)

Ministry of Interior and Safety

Governors (provinces and cities)

National Police Agency

Autonomous Police (regional-level order, security, intelligence, and partial investigation)

Investigation Police (primary investigations)

Security Investigation Office (tentative—investigation of communist activities)

to four years in prison.54 The reputation of the NIS was further tarnished when in the aftermath of the 2016 Park bribery scandal, three former NIS directors—Lee Byung-kee, Nam Jae-Joon, and Lee Byung-ho— received sentences of between three and three and a half years in prison in June 2018 for bribing ousted president Park Geun-hye with millions of dollars from the intelligence agency’s funds as well as, in Nam’s case, obstructing justice. In total, seven out of its ten directors were either investigated or jailed for crimes connected to greed and attempts to please the incumbent president. The South Korean public has grown increasingly intolerant of the NIS’s and other intelligence agencies’

328 Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus activities, such as the DSC’s frequent interfering in domestic affairs or the continued wiretapping of South Korean citizens. Structure, Functions, and Operations of the National Intelligence Service The National Intelligence Service Act stipulates the structure and functions of the service. The NIS director determines the internal organization of the agency and the number of personnel, with the approval of the president. Detailed information on internal structure, budget, and number of personnel is confidential and not disclosed to the public. Below the director are three deputy directors, each with responsibility for a department. Moon’s appointment of Suh Hoon (Seo Hun) as NIS director in 2017 was accompanied by changes to the organizational structure, including the notable abolition of the position of deputy director of domestic intelligence operations. In 2017 the existing three departments were reshuffled. In addition to the bureaus for overseas operations and counter-espionage, the department for North Korean affairs mirrors the prioritization of North Korea–related matters in the NIS’s structure.55 These changes were linked explicitly to the need to prevent the future involvement of the NIS in domestic politics following the scandals of the Park administration. In a reaction to these cases, amendments to the National Intelligence Service Act were made in 2014 to prohibit NIS leadership and personnel from joining political parties or organizations, and from participating in political activities.56 Before the restructuring, the first deputy director was responsible for the NIS’s work on North Korea and overseas investigations; the second, labeled deputy director of domestic intelligence operations, handled anticommunist and antiterrorist activities, counter-espionage, and public security intelligence; and the third bureau was responsible for signals intelligence, cyber intelligence, and telecommunications.57 The surreptitious character of intelligence activities makes it difficult to fully assess the extent and success of NIS operations. However, the periodic leaks and the ensuing scandals of recent years that illuminate frequent political malfeasance by the South Korean intelligence community offer a glimpse into covert and clandestine operations on the international and the domestic stages. For example, in 2012 the NIS initiated an orchestrated online campaign to manufacture public opinion in support for Park Geun-hye by posting political advertisements in newspapers and social media with the help of the military’s Cyber Command.58

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The NIS runs an interrogation center for North Korean defectors to ensure the detection of disguised North Korean spies. In 2014, the facility changed its name from Joint Interrogation Center to Defector Protection Center following a highly publicized scandal.59 During the trial against alleged North Korean spy Yoo Woo-sung (Yu U-seong), it was revealed that the agency had forged documents and fabricated evidence in an apparent attempt to salvage its tarnished reputation after the 2012 elections scandal. Moreover, the NIS is wont to prematurely disclose classified information to the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee if the agency considers such a step conducive to its agenda. On December 3, 2013, roughly a week before the North Korean Central News Agency reported the fact on December 9, the NIS told the National Assembly that Jang Seong-taek, Kim Jong-il’s brother-in-law and former number two, had been purged and two of his closest allies had been executed. The immediate leaking of this information, which contained sensitive intelligence obtainable only via HUMINT assets or possibly SIGINT sources, to the South Korean media by an opposition party lawmaker put at risk highly valuable sources and methods, and also might have prompted an internal investigation in North Korea and the subsequent execution of Jang Seong-taek on December 12, 2013.60 At times, South Korean presidents enlist the NIS’s high-ranking representatives for diplomatic missions. Drawing on experience from 2000 and 2007, NIS director Suh and National Security Office chief Chung Eui-yong headed a special delegation to Pyongyang that was instrumental in arranging the historic meeting between Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un in 2018.61 Subsequently, Suh also traveled to Tokyo to brief Japanese prime minister Abe Shinzo on the outcome of the South Korean delegation’s visit to North Korea.62 The NIS maintains specialized centers to counter threats emerging from modern technologies, globalized terrorism, and transnational organized crime. The National Cyber Security Center was established in February 2004 after the SQL Slammer computer worm had paralyzed the entire South Korean internet. The National Industrial Security Center conducts counterintelligence to prevent foreign industrial and economic espionage and monitors the illegal export of strategic material and defense technologies. The International Crime Information Center deals with transnational organized crime, while the Terrorism Information Integration Center handles the threat posed by domestic and international terrorism. 63 The latter coordinates intelligence cooperation with foreign services as well as with domestic agencies that conduct counterterrorism operations, including the National Police Agency, Special Forces, and Supreme Prosecutor’s Office.

330 Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus Legislation and Oversight Despite several attempts to reform the NIS and numerous revisions made to the National Intelligence Service Act since the transition to democracy three decades ago, there is still very little legal oversight and horizontal accountability over the agency as of January 2019. The NIS is headed by a director who is appointed by and directly reports to the president, while the National Assembly possesses very little legal oversight.64 The director’s status is equivalent to a ministerial position whose agency operates under direction and supervision of the South Korean president. Being a presidential appointee, the director usually enjoys a very close relationship with the president, which in the past sometimes has led to the selection of poorly qualified candidates.65 As of early 2019, the incumbent director, Suh Hoon, is a lifelong intelligence professional with considerable experience in the field. Since 1994, the Intelligence Committee of the National Assembly functions as a standing oversight panel. The committee constitutes the sole legislative oversight mechanism over the NIS, and with currently only eleven active members, it is the smallest standing committee of the parliament.66 Moreover, the National Assembly lacks the authority to reject the appointee chosen by the president for the position of NIS director. Even if summoned by the National Assembly, the director may refuse to appear before it. The NIS director furthermore has the right to withhold information, documents, or materials from the committee with regard to state secrets “that would have a serious influence on national security.”67 Unlike the parliaments of most other liberal democracies, the South Korean parliament does not possess effective means to ensure legal oversight of the budget of the NIS, which is approved by the president. Article 6 of the National Intelligence Service Act stipulates that information on the NIS’s budget is classified. Detailed information regarding its organization and its number of employees are likewise confidential. The NIS holds a quasi-monopoly on gathering and assessing all foreign and domestic intelligence and is furthermore responsible for the protection of state secrets, which makes it very powerful opposite other institutions. The NIS director participates in National Security Council meetings, to which he presents intelligence findings, enabling him to set the agenda and control the flow of information and intelligence. The NIS is granted judicial police power under certain circumstances under which the director may nominate NIS personnel to perform duties of the judicial police officer and the military judicial officer to help investigate crimes concerning national security.68 These crimes largely relate to the

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NSA, which defines the opaque term “anti-government organization” as “a domestic or foreign organization or group which uses fraudulently the title of the government or aims at a rebellion against the State.”69 The law thereby effectively outlaws the DPRK and regulates how South Korean citizens interact with North Korea. The arbitrary use of the vaguely worded Article 7 of the NSA by several governments to silence critics in the name of national security has raised the concern of Amnesty International as recently as 2012.70 Nongovernmental organizations, human rights lawyers, and other actors of the so-called third dimension of accountability mechanisms press for more institutionalized control over South Korea’s intelligence community, yet their influence remains indirect and limited.71 Prospected Reform In January 2018, the South Korean administration announced plans to disentangle overlapping responsibilities of South Korea’s main intelligence bodies including the NIS, the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office, and the National Police Agency in order to ensure checks and balances between them. Key elements of the reform proposal regarding the NIS comprise a reduction of the agency’s rights to investigate “antistate crimes” and domestic espionage cases, the strengthening of control mechanisms of the National Assembly, and renaming the NIS as the Foreign Security and Intelligence Service.72 The plan also includes the removal of the phrase “domestic security intelligence” from Article 3 of the National Intelligence Service Act, effectively eliminating the ability of the NIS to investigate pro–North Korea and antistate activities. The responsibility for investigating espionage cases would be transferred from the NIS to the National Police Agency, with the NIS instead focusing its efforts on gathering and assessing intelligence on North Korea and foreign countries. This also includes counterintelligence activities to safeguard the defense industry and economic security, and the prevention of cyber attacks on public organizations.73 The introduction of a fixed six-year term for the NIS director has also been proposed in order to ensure political neutrality and independence from the president.74 Furthermore, the plan provides for the scaling down of the exclusive investigative authority of the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office and the transfer of most of these functions to the police. The reforms are geared toward enhancing the expertise of the intelligence agency and guaranteeing the political neutrality of the NIS and the Special Prosecutor’s Office.

332 Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus International Cooperation In the face of asymmetric threats posed by North Korea and the changing geopolitical environment in Northeast Asia, well-functioning and effective intelligence capabilities are of the highest significance not only for South Korea itself but also its allies in the region and the international community. South Korea is integrated into the US alliance system in East Asia via a mutual defense treaty with the United States, which has had about 28,000 US military personnel stationed in the country since the end of the Korean War.75 Efforts are being made to expand this cooperation to include Japan, a major US ally in the region. In 2014, the ROK signed a trilateral information-sharing arrangement on nuclear and missile threats posed by North Korea, creating a framework by which the United States, South Korea, and Japan voluntarily share classified intelligence with one another.76 After prolonged deliberations, the South Korean National Assembly also ratified a general agreement on security of military information with Japan in November 2016.77 However, domestic politics often become an obstacle in the cooperation with South Korea’s allies.78 The recurring intelligence leaks through the National Assembly can negatively affect US perceptions and the willingness of the United States to cooperate on intelligence matters and to share sensitive or classified information.79 Moreover, the protracted spat including military confrontation between Japan and South Korea during 2019 testifies to the trust deficit resulting partly from unresolved historical issues and partly from domestic politics such as the Japan-critical stance of President Moon. Moreover, amid the escalating trade conflict with Japan, the Moon administration announced in August 2019 not to extend intelligence sharing with Japan within the framework of the agreement on the security of military information, further impeding strategic communication between Seoul and Tokyo. Conclusion For decades the South Korean intelligence community, including the KCIA, ANSP, and DSC, were utilized for the retention of power during the authoritarian regimes of Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan. This caused a high susceptibility to politicization, which is still prevalent in South Korea’s intelligence culture today and has proved itself extraordinarily difficult to rein in during the democratization since the late 1980s. While in comparison with its predecessors the contemporary NIS has

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relinquished several of its former vast and unbridled powers, the agency remains largely unchecked by the parliament. This becomes particularly evident in comparison to its democratic counterparts, such as some European countries where the precept of the separation of the police and intelligence agencies is mandatory due to negative experiences of the past. The NIS’s inordinate authority pertaining to foreign intelligence and domestic investigation results from the special national security and counterintelligence requirements with regard to the deterrence of North Korea. Despite frequent criticism, NIS directors play a major role in the drafting and conduct of foreign policy. The refocusing of the service’s attention on foreign intelligence collection, as suggested in the current reform proposals, is a promising remedial measure to restrain the intractable politicization of the South Korean intelligence community. Notes 1. Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus, “Revision Time: South Korean President Pushes Intelligence Reform Bill,” Jane’s Intelligence Review 30, no. 12 (December 2018), 38. 2. International Crisis Group, “Risk of Intelligence Pathologies in South Korea,” Asia Report no. 259, August 5, 2014. See also Hyesoo Seo, “Intelligence Politicization in the Republic of Korea: Implications for Reform,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 31, no. 3 (2018): 451–478. 3. “Korea, Rep.” https://data.worldbank.org/country/korea-rep. 4. Transparency International, “Corruption Perception Index 2018,” https://www .transparency.org/cpi2018. 5. This chapter follows the Korean convention, in which family names precede personal names. Unless alternative transliteration has already been established in the literature or media, the revised romanization system is used throughout this chapter. 6. Bruce Cummings, The Korean War: A History (New York: Random, 2010), 35. 7. Michael E. Robinson, Korea’s Twentieth Century Odyssey (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007), 120. 8. For a more detailed account of the events, see Han Yong-sup, “The May Sixteenth Military Coup,” in Kim Byung-kook and Ezra Vogel, eds., The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 35–57. 9. Choe Sang-hun, “Prosecutors Raid South Korean Spy Agency in Presidential Election Inquiry,” New York Times, April 30, 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05 /01/world/asia/prosecutors-raid-south-korean-spy-agency.html. 10. Neuhaus, “Revision Time,” 38–41. 11. National Intelligence Service Act, art. 3. 12. Ibid., arts. 3.5, 15. 13. Kim Bo-hyeop, “Another DSC Document Emerges Containing More Specific Martial Law Plans,” Hankyoreh, July 21, 2018, http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english _edition/e_national/854261.html. 14. Neuhaus, “Revision Time,” 39. 15. Military Court Act, arts. 44, 43.3. 16. Lee Min-hyung, “New Military Intelligence Unit Launched,” Korea Times, September 2, 2018, http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2018/11/205_254896.html.

334 Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus 17. Defense Intelligence Agency Act, art. 3. 18. Ibid., arts. 1.2 (duties), 2 (director). 19. International Crisis Group, “Risk of Intelligence Pathologies,” 12. 20. Kyoung Jae-park, Sung Mi-park, and Joshua I. James, “A Case Study of the 2016 Korean Cyber Command Compromise,” in Mark Scanlon and Nhien-An Le-Khac, eds., Proceedings of the 16th European Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security ECCWS 2017 (Reading, Berkshire: Academic Conferences and Publishing, 2017), 316. 21. International Crisis Group, “Risk of Intelligence Pathologies,” 14. 22. Hannes Mosler, “Democratic Quality and the Rule of Law in South Korea: The Role of Public Prosecution,” in Hannes Mosler, Lee Eun-jeung, and Kim Hak-jae, eds., The Quality of Democracy in Korea: Three Decades After Democratization (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 73–120. The Investigative Intelligence Office, which is subdivided into Investigative Intelligence Divisions I and II, assists the deputy prosecutor-general in the collection of criminal intelligence; Supreme Prosecutor’s Office, “Departments,” http://www.spo.go.kr/site/eng/01/10102000000002018120605 .jsp. 23. International Crisis Group, “Risk of Intelligence Pathologies,” 15. 24. Ibid., 15–16. 25. Ibid. 26. Seo, “Intelligence Politicization in the Republic of Korea,” 453. 27. International Crisis Group, “Risk of Intelligence Pathologies,” 7. 28. Kim Dang, Sikeurit Pail Gukjeongwon: Silpaehan Gongjagui Yeoksa, Geurigo Hyeoksin (Secret File NIS: History of Failed Actions and Innovation) (Seoul: Medici Media, 2016), 135–136. 29. Neuhaus, “Revision Time,” 40. 30. Kim Byung-kook, “The Labyrinth of Solitude: Park and the Exercise of Presidential Power,” in Byung-kook and Vogel, The Park Chung Hee Era, 143–144. 31. Kim, Sikeurit Pail Gukjeongwon, 132. 32. Charles R. Babcock, “S. Korea’s Park: Victim of System That He Created,” Washington Post, October 30, 1979, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics /1979/10/30/s-koreas-park-victim-of-system-that-he-created/dea061e7-1183-43d2 -b544-b0621443e1ee/?utm_term=.437c66457f76. 33. Kim, “The Labyrinth of Solitude,” 144. 34. Babcock, “S. Korea’s Park.” 35. “Auch ein Deutscher Geheimdienst wird Verdächtigt” (A German Secret Service Is Also Suspected), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, July 18, 1967, 3. This unverified rumor, likely spread by East Berlin, occupied the West German press for a while; “Bundesanwaltschaft: Ausreise der Entführten Südkoreaner ‘Legal’” (Federal Prosecutor’s Office: Departure of Kidnapped South Koreans “Legal”), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, January 11, 1968, 5. 36. Der Bundesminister des Auswärtigen Amts (The Federal Minister of the Federal Foreign Office), “Kleine Anfrage der Fraktion der SPD—Entführung von Südkoreanischen Staatsbürgern aus der Bundesrepublik Deutschland” (Small Question from the SPD Faction—Kidnapping of South Korean Citizens from the Federal Republic of Germany), Drucksache des Deutschen Bundestages V/2748, March 21, 1968, 6. 37. “Entführte Koreaner Freigelassen” (Kidnapped Koreans Released), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 28, 1970, 4. 38. In the so-called Blue House Raid, North Korean special forces of Unit 124 tried to infiltrate the South Korean president’s residence in Seoul on January 21, 1968. The North Korean seizure of the USS Pueblo occurred two days later. Following the incident, the KCIA set up a black operations unit of the South Korean air force (known as Unit 684) on the island of Silmido to prepare for retaliation and the assassination of Kim Ilsung. After the death of seven members during training and an improvement in the relations to the north, the mission was canceled.

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39. Mary Jordan, “Now Kim Governs After Being Jailed by the Dictators He Fought,” Washington Post, December 19, 1997, A51. 40. “Park Chung-hee Is Responsible for Kim Dae-jung Kidnapping,” Hankyoreh, October 25, 2007. 41. Kim, “The Labyrinth of Solitude,” 146. 42. International Crisis Group, “Risk of Intelligence Pathologies,” 9. 43. Andrea Matles Savada, William Shaw, and Library of Congress, Federal Research Division, South Korea: A Country Study (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, Federal Research Division, 1992), 316–317. 44. Both laws were combined during the 1980s. 45. Seo, “Intelligence Politicization in the Republic of Korea,” 455. 46. Savada, Shaw, and Library of Congress, South Korea, 313. 47. Jens Rosenke, “The Long March to Gaining Control of the NIS: A Short Case Study of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service,” in S. Blancke, ed., East Asian Intelligence and Organised Crime: China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia (Berlin: Verlag, 2015), 205. 48. Savada, Shaw, and Library of Congress, South Korea, 314. 49. Seo, “Intelligence Politicization in the Republic of Korea,” 455–456. 50. International Crisis Group, “Risk of Intelligence Pathologies,” 9. 51. Seo, “Intelligence Politicization in the Republic of Korea,” 458. 52. Neuhaus, “Revision Time,” 38. 53. Um Ji-won, “Investigation Reveals That Cyber Command Managed a Private News Outlet with NIS Support,” Hankyoreh, September 28, 2017, http://english.hani.co .kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/812955.html. 54. Choe Sang-hun, “Former South Korean Spy Chief Sentenced for Trying to Sway Election,” New York Times, August 30, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30 /world/asia/south-korea-spy-chief-sentenced.html. 55. Neuhaus, “Revision Time.” 56. National Intelligence Service Act, art. 9. 57. Neuhaus, “Revision Time,” 39. 58. Ser Myo-ja, “Ex-Defense Head Approved Smear Campaign,” Korea JoongAng Daily, December 1, 2017, http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx ?aid=3041460. 59. Lee Chidong, “S. Korea Reforming NK Defector Interrogation System,” Yonhap News, July 28, 2014, https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20140728007800315. 60. An in-depth analysis of both incidents can be found in International Crisis Group, “Risk of Intelligence Pathologies,” 29–30. 61. Kim Rahn, “Chung and Suh, Moon’s Picks for Denuclearization Talks,” Korea Times, March 3, 2018, https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2018/03/356_245077.html. 62. “Abe and South Korea Spy Chief Suh Hoon Agree Tokyo-Pyongyang Talks Would Be Beneficial,” Japan Times, September 10, 2018, https://www.japantimes.co.jp /news/2018/09/10/national/politics-diplomacy/abe-south-korea-spy-chief-suh-hoon -agree-tokyo-pyongyang-talks-beneficial/#.XGbck1xKhPY. 63. Neuhaus, “Revision Time,” 40. 64. National Intelligence Service Act, art. 2. 65. International Crisis Group, “Risk of Intelligence Pathologies,” 10. 66. According to the homepage, there were only eleven active members as of January 2019. National Assembly of the Republic of Korea Intelligence Committee, “Wiwon Myeongdan” (List of Committee Members), http://intelligence.assembly.go.kr/intelligent /guide/info0201.do. 67. National Intelligence Service Act, art. 13.1. 68. National Intelligence Service Act, art. 16; crimes that may be investigated are defined in art. 3.3. 69. National Security Act, art. 2.

336 Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus 70. Amnesty International, The National Security Law: Curtailing Freedom of Expression and Association in the Name of Security in the Republic of Korea (London, 2012), 4. 71. Rosenke, “The Long March to Gaining Control of the NIS,” 214. 72. Cho Kuk, “Mun Jaein Jeongbu Gwollyeokgigwan Gaehyeogan Balpyomun” (Statement About the Reform Plans of the Moon Jae-in Administration for Law Enforcement Authorities), press conference at the Office of the President, January 14, 2018, Blue House Official Homepage, https://www1.president.go.kr/articles/2417. 73. Neuhaus, “Revision Time,” 41. 74. Ibid. 75. The text of the treaty can be accessed via http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century /kor001.asp. 76. US Department of Defense, “Signing of Trilateral Information Sharing Arrangement Concerning the Nuclear and Missile Threats Posed by North Korea,” press release, December 28, 2014, https://dod.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View /Article/605331/signing-of-trilateral-information-sharing-arrangement-concerning-the -nuclear-an. 77. “South Korea, Japan Extend Military Intelligence Pact,” Nikkei Asia Review, August 26, 2017, https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/South-Korea-Japan-extend-military -intelligence-pact2. 78. International Crisis Group, “Risk of Intelligence Pathologies,” 32. 79. Ibid.

19 Sri Lanka V. K. Shashikumar

The Easter Sunday bombings in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on April 21, 2019, by local sympathizers of the Islamic State killed more than 250 people at churches and hotels.1 The Islamic State’s official media agency issued a statement claiming responsibility several days later. Weeks before the bombing, India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), had tipped off the government of Sri Lanka that Zahran Hashim, a violent Sunni extremist leading the National Thowheed Jamaath, was planning a terror attack. President Maithripala Sirisena admitted that the national police chief, Pujith Jayasundara, and defense secretary, Hemasiri Fernando, were aware of the intelligence warning but did not inform him: “They did not say a word about this warning letter. It was a serious lapse on their part and shirk of responsibility.”2 Jolted by Intelligence Failure In the aftermath of the bombings, President Sirisena announced a swift reorganization, re-architecting, and rebuilding of a modern intelligence agency to effectively counter threats to the pear-shaped island nation comprising Sinhala Buddhists (75 percent), Tamil Hindus (18 percent), and Muslims and other minorities (7 percent). On the flip side, President Sirisena’s pledge to revamp the security and intelligence services revealed that gains made in institutionalizing the intelligence apparatus in Sri Lanka over four decades had either withered away or fallen into 337

338 V. K. Shashikumar disrepair after the end of war operations against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009. Building Intelligence Capability to Fight a Guerrilla Like a Guerrilla

The LTTE and its top leadership were annihilated in a bloody war in 2009 by the 250,000-strong Sri Lankan Army (SLA). The Sri Lankan government under President Mahinda Rajapaksa synergized military operations with effective military intelligence to defeat the LTTE. India’s military intelligence capabilities, combined with the assetsdeployment of its external-focused intelligence agency, the RAW, also contributed to wiping out the LTTE from Sri Lanka. This ended a decades-long conflict. Chauvinistic Sinhalese nationalism that prioritized Sinhalese, the language of the majority-Buddhist population, as the primary and only official language of Sri Lanka, sowed the seeds for the rise of an aggressive Tamil subnational ethnic movement. This led to clashes between Tamils and Sinhalese. Gradually the simmering discontent took the shape of an armed insurrection against the Sri Lankan state. The Tamil anger against the perceived (and sometimes real) experiences of enduring second-class citizenship, combined with political alienation and discrimination, led to the demand for secession from Sri Lanka and creation of Eelam, an independent homeland for the Tamils in northern and northeastern Sri Lanka. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, among several Tamil groups demanding a separate homeland, the LTTE, led by Vellupillai Prabhakaran, took the pole position in converting the resistance movement into a full-fledged armed guerrilla war against Sri Lanka. The LTTE governed a de facto quasi-government in the territories it held in northern and northeastern Sri Lanka for over two decades. The SLA battled the LTTE over four distinct phases. After cessation of hostilities in the first phase, from 1983 to 1987, the government of Sri Lanka announced a major reorganization of the army, creating several high-level posts. The commander of the army was upgraded from major-general to lieutenant-general rank. The end of the second Eelam war, from 1990 to 1995, led to another round of reorganization, with the concept of area command replaced by operational commands. This in turn facilitated the creation of field intelligence units within each operational command. The third Eelam war, from 1995 to 2002, led to a significant gain for the SLA—control of

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the city of Jaffna was regained. However, it lost important holding positions in the Jaffna Peninsula. The most severe debacle was the loss of control over Elephant Pass, connecting the Vanni region of northern Sri Lanka to Jaffna. In April 2000 the LTTE overran the SLA garrison, forcing SLA units to retreat north toward Jaffna. In Killinochi an entire brigade of the SLA was wiped out by the LTTE. The SLA was able to regain control of Palaly airfield and Kankesanthurai port. In February 2002 the SLA and LTTE signed a ceasefire pact. This gave the LTTE de facto control over a territory in northern Sr Lanka called the Vanni region.This region was a landmass between Elephant Pass and the ceasefire line along Omanthai in Vavuniya. In this region, in the town of Kilinochchi, the LTTE set up its de facto government, which lasted from 2002 to 2009. The third Eelam war exposed the severe inadequacy of the SLA’s intelligence operations. In 1998 the SLA undertook a third round of reorganization, creating two posts—commander of security forces headquarters in Jaffna and Vanni, respectively, each headed by an officer of the major-general rank. Later the defense staff chief was introduced for synergizing the conduct of operations of the SLA and Sri Lankan navy and air force. The defense staff chief was accountable to the Security Council, headed by the president of Sri Lanka. These changes did not address the issue of effective and actionable intelligence gathering. The SLA could not withstand several audacious and well-planned strikes by smaller fighting units of the LTTE. The LTTE was able to inflict high casualties in short-duration operations and it appeared as if the SLA could not match the tactical abilities of the LTTE. The reasons for the SLA’s failures converged on just one big gap: poor intelligence. The Fourth Eelam War, 2006–2009: The Rajapaksa Model In the 2005 presidential election campaign, Mahinda Rajapaksa promised to end the conflict in Sri Lanka. He knew he was setting up a daring political and military challenge, which, if he did not fulfill, could end his political career. At that time the rivalry between President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had its impact on the armed forces, especially at senior levels, which in turn severely depleted intelligence gathering at the level of operational commands. Contending centers of power had engendered divided loyalties among senior officers and this led to a lack of a unified

340 V. K. Shashikumar approach in dealing with security matters. This had adverse fallouts. There were many instances when specific inputs regarding LTTE activities on the ground and at sea, provided by Indian intelligence agencies, went unheeded. Each intelligence agency operated in isolation. The coast guard, launched by the Sri Lankan Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources in January 2001, was tasked to preserve and protect Sri Lanka’s exclusive economic zone. Even though it would pick up coastal intelligence in the normal course of its activities, for instance, sighting and tracking movement of LTTE naval troops in the coastal waters, the coast guard did not have the operational mechanism, capacity, or ability to share intelligence with the Sri Lankan navy. The Sri Lankan Department of Police, headed by an officer of the rank of inspector-general, had its own internal security division, which was structured like the Intelligence Bureau of India. But unlike other police forces, the Sri Lankan police were involved in combat duties against the LTTE alongside the SLA. There was no intelligence-sharing bridge between the police and army headquarters. The Special Task Force, an elite paramilitary organization with the mandate of presidential security and protection of very important persons, also had its own intelligence-gathering and antisubversion operational capability. This unit was trained by former British Special Air Services personnel and is a Sinhala-only unit. During the third and fourth Eelam wars, the Special Task Force conducted counterinsurgency operations against the LTTE. The government of Sri Lanka’s approach to intelligence was ad hoc, forcing various agencies to work in isolation and forcing needbased collaboration only when required. The absence of an integrated approach, feeble coordination, and multiple power centers and reporting lines were fatal. The LTTE unfailingly breached the government’s security dragnet, easily penetrating heavily guarded government areas to carry out audacious attacks and assassinations of high-value political targets. With Rajapaksa’s ascendancy to the presidency in Sri Lanka, he immediately took a series of steps to revitalize and inspire the Sri Lankan Armed Forces (SLAF). His brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a former SLA officer, was appointed as the defense secretary. The Rajapaksa brothers picked General Sarath Fonseka as the commander of the army. To ensure that the president, defense secretary, and the army chief were focused on the task of military triumph over the LTTE, Basil Rajapaksa (the president’s third brother) was given the responsibility to handle the

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political affairs of the government and also conduct neighborhood diplomacy in South Asia. From November 17, 2005, to April 20, 2009, President Rajapaksa led a determined and sustained effort to provide an aggressive political leadership and ensure complete, seamless integration of intelligence to outmaneuver the LTTE. During this period President Rajapaksa created a “wartime government” with just one objective—to militarily vanquish the LTTE. He was able to coordinate and synergize all the agencies to fulfill this aim (see Figure 19.1). The Sri Lankan Army’s Military Intelligence Corps (MIC), set up in 1990 and now a full regiment headquartered at Karandeniya, was revamped and its full strength of battalions was deployed at the frontlines. It was also provided with electronic equipment to eavesdrop on LTTE communications. The MIC infiltrated into LTTE-held areas to

Figure 19.1 Sri Lanka’s Intelligence Community President

Defense Secretary

Commander of the Army

Directorate of Military Intelligence Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol/Deep Penetration Unit

State Intelligence Services

Military Intelligence Corps

2 Military Intelligence Corps Battalions

National Security Counci

Inspector-General of Police

Special Task Force President's Security Division

342 V. K. Shashikumar provide real-time intelligence. Its Tamil-speaking assets are among the several unsung heroes of the SLAF. Intelligence gathering, analysis, and dissemination were done on a real-time basis at the field-formation levels even as the raw and processed information was transmitted to Colombo for further assessment and feedback. The communication of combat intelligence was fast, seamless, and accumulative—one layer building upon another. This was possible because of the deep bond of trust and friendship that Gotabaya and General Fonseka shared, which created an unity-ofpurpose ecosystem for political and military leadership to leave no stone unturned to ensure full and wholesome battlefield synergy from the frontlines to the triumvirate leadership fountainhead of MahindaGotabaya-Fonseka. After President Rajapaksa was elected in 2005, Gotabaya met Fonseka and asked him if he could defeat the LTTE. The battle-hardened veteran said that he could, but that he would need to pick his own team. Gotabaya and Mahinda agreed. “We will let the military do its job, while we hold the fort, politically,” they told Fonseka. This deft political arrangement worked because both Gotabaya and Fonseka were recruited and commissioned into the army at the same time. The team Fonseka handpicked by August 2006 were all adept at planning tactical combat based on field intelligence—Major-General Jagath Dias, Brigadier Shavendra Silva, Major-General Nandana Udawatta, Major-General Kamal Gunarathne, and Brigadier Prasanna Silva. Their task was to recapture 15,000 square kilometers of area controlled by the LTTE. One of the first strategic moves of General Fonseka was to activate the long-range reconnaissance patrol units and deeppenetration units under the Directorate of Military Intelligence to understand the deployments across the ceasefire line and the preparation of LTTE formations in rebel-held territories. The Military Intelligence Corps units were also pressed into action. One of the big early successes of these military intelligence operations was the defection of LTTE’s eastern chief, Karuna. This was a massive setback for the LTTE, because this maneuver helped the SLAF take over Batticoloa, the Tamil Tigers’ eastern stronghold, on July 11, 2007. The gaining of control over eastern territories by the SLAF led to two distinct, inspirational moments. First, at the top leadership levels, a deep conviction and belief set in that the LTTE could be defeated if the intelligence operations succeeded. Second, General Fonseka and the battlefield commanders were convinced that infantry movements and artillery bombardment could be staged across several axes based on

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strategic intelligence to target the LTTE leadership rather than be guided by merely focusing on gaining territorial control. By the time of the LTTE’s defeat in the east, Major-General Jagath Dias had started military operations north of Vavuniya. Eighteen months later, in January 2009, his division marched into Kilinochchi, the headquarters of the LTTE. Parallel to this, a task force under Brigadier Shavendra Silva achieved stunning success moving from the Silavathura area in Mannar on the western coast, capturing Poonaryne and Paranthan. These troops then swiftly recaptured Elephant Pass, linked up with Dias’s division, and moved further on to Sundarapuram, Pudukudiyiruppu, and finally to the eastern coast of the country (see Figure 19.2). Meanwhile, a division of the army commanded by Major-General Nandana Udawatta opened a new front in the Welioya area in January 2008 and within a year marched into the LTTE’s administrative hub, Mullativu. Finally, Sri Lankan troops from multiple divisions bottled up the LTTE along a small patch of eastern coastal land in Mullaitivu and killed the top leadership, including Prabhakaran. Figure 19.2 Sri Lankan Army Operations

Notes: The “XX” symbol refers to Sri Lankan army formations (divisions) and their bases. The arrows show the direction of the movement.

344 V. K. Shashikumar General Fonseka’s strategic approach to simultaneous offensive operations across multiple axes did not allow the LTTE to regroup or rest. All battlefield commanders made it a point to optimize synergy by involving the other commanders and chain of command in the operational planning process. This seamless integration of air power, deep penetration, special infantry operations, and accurate actionable intelligence gave the SLAF lethal power to destroy the LTTE and wipe out its entire senior leadership. Actionable Intelligence on the High Seas India played a crucial part in Sri Lankan military operations by providing intelligence and other kinds of tactical support. “The moral support, whatever support India gave us, is what they should have given to us. It is their duty to help us in this stage,” was President Rajapaksa’s rather candid admission of the Indian involvement. “I can’t demand, I shouldn’t demand anything from a neighbouring country. I request.” 3 The first significant request from Colombo was naval intelligence and intelligence on the movement of LTTE-owned merchant navy vessels. The 15,000 square kilometers controlled by the LTTE in northern Sri Lanka (the Vanni region) was cut off from all land access. The ColomboJaffna road ran through it. But in the southern end was the Vavuniya frontline at Omanthai and beyond the Elephant Pass was the northern frontline. The only way for the LTTE to obtain its supplies, weapons, and other essentials was through the sea route. It had eight “warehouse” ships, vessels that transported artillery, mortar shells, artillery shells, torpedoes, aircraft, missiles, underwater vehicles, diving equipment, radar, electro-optical devices, and night vision equipment. These ships would travel close to the Sri Lankan coast but beyond the reach of Sri Lankan’s coastal navy. War material from these warehouse ships would be transported into smaller boats protected by LTTE naval units, which would then make their way to the LTTE’s naval bases. This is how the LTTE sustained itself for decades and continually upgraded its conventional military capability through funding provided by the Tamil diaspora. India played a crucial role in choking this well-established supply line of the LTTE. This enabled the Sri Lankan armed forces on the ground to make rapid advances. The Sri Lankan navy, led by Vice Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda, executed a maritime strategy based on intelligence on LTTE ship movements provided by India. In 2006 the

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Figure 19.3 Destruction of the LTTE’s Floating Warehouses

Source: Sri Lankan Ministry of Defense, http://archives.sundayobserver.lk/2010/05/16 /voctory15.asp.

Sri Lankan navy had tremendous success when, based on Indian intelligence, it launched operations to destroy six LTTE warehouse vessels. Subsequently, by 2007, two more were destroyed, which completely disrupted the LTTE’s supply line (see Figure 19.3). Some LTTE warehouse ships were located about 1,700 nautical miles southeast of Sri Lanka and close to Australia’s exclusive economic zone. The Sri Lankan navy clearly does not have this capability and this shows how deep and extensive intelligence sharing between India and Colombo have been ever since 2006. Admiral Karrannagoda said this on the record in 2009: “It was one of the major turning points in the last 30 years of the conflict. That was the main reason why the LTTE are losing the battle; we did not allow a single supply of replenishment ship to come into (Sri Lankan) waters over the last two and a half years since 2006.”4

346 V. K. Shashikumar Political Will: Mandatory Foundation for a Robust Intelligence Architecture

Gotabaya reemphasized in interviews over several exclusive conversations that the mandatory foundation for a robust intelligence architecture is decisive political will. He told me in 2009 how the government of Sri Lanka exhibited intense political will to defeat the LTTE. Here is a transcript of this exclusive interview with Gotabaya: It was President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s determination that ultimately helped the army defeat the Tamil Tigers. He took several brave decisions. In the final analysis, it was the cumulative effect of those decisive, brave decisions that enabled Sri Lankan Armed Forces to liquidate the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Usually in a military operation, the world outside the conflict theater, domestic and international, see only soldiers fighting. They see tanks, guns, armored vehicles, artillery weapons, and men and women in battle fatigues. What is not visible to the people, to the outside world, is the strategy. What is also not visible immediately and also not recalled at that moment in time is the history that led to the current context of military operations. What was that context? Eight previous governments led by four different presidents had failed to end the war. They had failed to rein in the LTTE. It is not as if those eight governments and four presidents did not have under their command good military leaders and soldiers. In fact, when President Rajapaksa’s government assumed charge in 2005, around 26,000 SLAF soldiers had already sacrificed their lives. When President Rajapaksa assumed office in 2005, we studied all previous war operations. . . . The objective of our study was to arrive at conclusive reasons for our previous failures to comprehensively finish the war against the LTTE in the last thirty years. All four previous presidents had resorted to military means and yet had failed. So a political decision was made by President Rajapaksa to comprehensively study all previous war operations and arrive at a solution for every factor of failure or inability to win the war. For every factor we found a solution. We found that there was really no “failure factor” attached to the military. In fact, we realized a simple fact in 2005, that if we launched war operations against the LTTE then, we would have to fight with the same military that had fought the LTTE in the last thirty years. We were confident of winning with the same military and its special forces and commandos. They were already there! Yet, what explained the inability of the previous governments led by four different presidents to utilize the country’s military strength effectively? We came to the conclusion that the solution was to increase the force strength. The key factor of the SLAF’s previous inability to finish the war was inadequate numbers. We realized the expansion of military would have a definitive impact on the LTTE.

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We realized that all previous operations had failed to hold the ground in the immediate aftermath of battlefield success. President Rajapaksa, therefore, made a political commitment to ensure that his government would find the resources to expand the SLAF to ensure that there were enough armed forces personnel available to hold the ground. When we cleared the eastern province, the LTTE said they were not defeated and that their forces had merely staged a tactical withdrawal. The LTTE was confident that the SLAF would not have the troop strength to hold the ground in the eastern province. Like all earlier occasions, the LTTE believed that if it opened sporadic operations along the northern frontlines, then the SLAF would be forced to redeploy, enabling the LTTE to regain ground in the east. Several opposition party leaders, too, openly declared that the military operations in the east would not be sustainable. We lulled everyone into believing that the previous status quo would prevail—that the SLAF would fight and win, and then the LTTE would open a new front, and the SLAF would redeploy and fail to hold ground and consolidate in the areas where they had attained victory—this would enable the LTTE to regain control over lost areas. Little did the LTTE know that we had prepared a new war doctrine! That we were indeed prepared to fight war on a broad front, along multiple frontlines. These decisions were taken by the supreme commander, the president of Sri Lanka, and not by the army chief or battlefield commanders. It is the head of state who can decide the course and trajectory of war operations. All the four previous presidents could not take bold decisions. They were indecisive and were afraid that bold decisions might negatively impact our small economy. They were afraid that our country’s economy could not sustain such a large expansion of the SLAF. In fact, the previous presidents and political leaders were genuinely apprehensive of a rapid military expansion and its possible impact on the polity. I remember distinctly the Security Council meeting in Colombo in 2005. I told the president that we must expand the army by 50,000 as soon as possible. This was mandatory to win the war. The president immediately issued a directive that if this was required to finish the war for once and all time to come, we must make the necessary allocation right away. It is this on-the-spot, tough decisionmaking that finally led us to victory. Along with SLAF top brass I “read” and analyzed the war operations every hour, every day. I could understand and gauge the need and requirements. Any military commander will ask for everything, every possible weapon, every possible inventory. My job was to understand the priorities, rationally organize those priorities in terms of what was really required for victory, and flush out needs and requirements that had zero relevance to our objectives. President Rajapaksa was determined to single-handedly absorb the pressure of deaths and casualties. This . . . political decision made all difference for the SLAF. In three and half years, nearly 6,000 soldiers were killed. You can imagine the political pressure on the president when body-bags come

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348 V. K. Shashikumar home from the battlefield. The president was determined to absorb the political pressure generated by battlefield casualties. He committed his presidency and his government to achieving the objective of winning the war. He demonstrated his courage to continue the war until the military objectives were completely attained. This is what made him different from all previous presidents. After all, the president is responsible to the people and the fact is that he needs the support of the people to be elected back to power. He knew that he was risking his political career, because any other president in his place would have succumbed to the enormous political pressure created by mounting casualties in war operations. The Muhamalai debacle of April 23, 2008, in which 120 soldiers were killed by the LTTE in just one day, could have shaken up any other president. In fact, in this case the LTTE took away the dead bodies of the soldiers. Any other president would have [wavered]. But President Rajapaksa did not waver from the objective his government had set at the very outset. The war must be won. Not for a single moment in the three and half years of the war did he unplug himself from taking stock of the war operations. Every Wednesday, he attended Security Council meetings from morning till evening. He followed every operational development closely. He was therefore able to take correct and timely decisions. He knew we were on the correct track.

Conclusion Sri Lanka’s bilateral relationship with India defined its intelligencegathering mechanism, priorities, and infrastructure. Between 1983 and 2004, India’s “big brother” foreign policy posture and Sri Lanka’s disposition to India as the “mother country” ensured that Sri Lankan intelligence was wholly dependent on India. The relationship between the two countries was compulsively cordial with an undercurrent of bitterness. The government of Sri Lanka was aware that in the ethnic strife between Tamils and Sinhalese, India had silently made the choice to support the Tamils because of its internal need to keep the large Tamil ethnic population in India at ease. India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, recruited and trained the LTTE guerrillas in Chakrata, a secretive establishment in the Himalayas, and in Salem, Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India just a few score nautical miles from Sri Lanka. The debacle faced by the Indian Peacekeeping Force in the late 1980s after the signing of an accord between the two countries, followed by the assassination of Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE, led to India turning against the rebels it had originally trained.

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It was during President Rajapaksa’s tenure that Indian and Sri Lankan intelligence agencies truly commenced sharing intelligence in a systematic manner. It was the Rajapaksa model that spurred the establishment of a collaborative intelligence-sharing mechanism between New Delhi and Colombo. That India shared precise and specific intelligence on the Easter Sunday bombings with the government of Sri Lanka’s defense secretary and police chief is testimony that the mechanism is working. However, it is clear that a certain amount of slack and inertia has overtaken the intelligence apparatus since Sri Lanka’s triumph over the LTTE in 2009. Gotabaya had issued a prescient warning in an interview I conducted in 2009: We have to develop superior intelligence-gathering abilities and mechanisms. We have to develop military intelligence. We have to develop a national intelligence-gathering infrastructure. We have to dominate the coastal belt to ensure that weapons and ammunition are not brought in from the sea. We now know how much weaponry and artillery was brought in from the sea by LTTE ships. So maritime surveillance is of utmost importance to prevent any new group that takes up the mantle of the LTTE to bring weapons into the country. At the same time, we want to bring normalcy. Our security presence will now be largely invisible, with a strong emphasis on gathering real-time tactical, technical, and human intelligence.

With the Islamic State showing its presence in Sri Lanka through a bloody terrorist bombing campaign, the need to once again repair and rebuild Sri Lanka’s intelligence mechanisms and infrastructure has come to the fore of the country’s political agenda. Notes 1. This chapter is mainly based upon my extensive and exhaustive primary notes from the field and interviews with key decisionmakers in politics, government, and intelligence agencies during my long stint of reporting on the conflict in Sri Lanka from 1998 to 2011. 2. Pamela Constable and Amantha Perera, “Sri Lanka’s President Says Intelligence Lapse Allowed Easter Bombings to Take Place,” Washington Post, April 26, 2019. 3. Quoted in V. K. Shashikumar, “Lessons from Sri Lanka’s War,” Indian Defence Review 24 no. 3 (July–September 2009), www.indiandefencereview.com/spotlights /lessons-from-the-war-in-sri-lanka/2/. 4. Quoted in V. K. Shashikumar, “Lessons from Sri Lanka’s War,” Indian Defence Review 24 no. 3 (July–September 2009), www.indiandefencereview.com/spotlights /lessons-from-the-war-in-sri-lanka/2/.

20 Syria Florian Peil

The inner workings of Syrian intelligence are obscure to outsiders (and most insiders). —Aron Lund1

Intelligence services and the military have been crucial to the stability and survival of numerous regimes in the Middle East during the past seven decades. They have formed the ruling elites, being the only force capable of taking power and protecting their countries’ independence. The military and security services act as a major pillar to Middle Eastern regimes’ stability. As a result, the ruling systems have given significant privileges to members of the military and the intelligence and security services. This is particularly true in the case of Syria, where the military and security apparatus has been extremely powerful and fully incorporated into the country’s regime, which makes it crucial to regime survival. The Syrian intelligence services have been a tool of the regime since Hafiz al-Assad transformed Syria into an intelligence state after his ascendancy to power in 1970. The services have been a tool of the regime ever since, protecting and guaranteeing the security of the regime (usually referred to as al-nizam, “the system”) at the cost of Syrian society. One of the main characteristics of Assad’s security system was that it enjoyed virtually unlimited authority. The intelligence agencies were overarching, controlling every aspect of civilian life. They had free rein when it came to carrying out arrests, searches, interrogations, and detaining people. 351

352 Florian Peil The regime’s ruling has been coined tashbih, meaning “tyranny” or “reign of terror.” Until 2011, stability had been Syria’s main feature in the conflict-ridden theater that is the Middle East. This security architecture created by Hafiz al-Assad lasted for almost four decades. Minor changes and corrections were made by his son Bashar, who inherited this structure. Since 2011, the community has undergone a few significant changes. The initially peaceful protests of the population for more freedoms and rights escalated in the course of 2011 through the use of brutal violence by the regime against the population. A conflict developed in which ethnic and denominational differences increasingly came to the fore. After eight years of armed conflict, most observers agree that the Assad regime has won the war, due to the extensive support of Russia and Iran. As a result, the regime’s total grip on power has been limited, at least partly. New actors, national and international, have emerged, both challenging and complementing the regime’s power in formerly contested areas, thus questioning the intelligence service’s influence. The new landscape of intelligence-related actors is complex and confusing. Given the secretive character of the Syrian intelligence agencies, it is still very difficult to gather and verify information. The temporary breakdown of the military and part of the intelligence services in parts of the country had led to defections of intelligence and army staff, mostly from the lower and middle ranks. A part-time power vacuum occurred in the course of the war, leading to the emergence of new structures. This allowed human rights activists and civil society to gather and publish information on the structure and work of the intelligence services. These defectors shared their information with think tanks and humanitarian organizations in order to shed some light on the structures of the security services and the abuses done by the regime. This allowed for more detailed insights into their structure and inner workings. The information presented here is based predominantly on the works of these think tanks and nongovernmental organizations, as well as on numerous face-to-face conversations with persons with intimate knowledge of various aspects of Syrian intelligence. History With regard to the development (and structure) of the intelligence services, four distinct periods can be identified: 1946–1970, from independ-

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ence to Hafiz al-Assad; 1970–2000, the era of Hafiz al-Assad, until his death; 2000–2011, the era of Bashar al-Assad, until the beginning of the uprisings; and 2011–present, the uprisings and war. From Independence to Assad

Syria’s intelligence services were established during the French Mandate that created the Syrian state. The primary influences were French and later Russian.2 The organizational structure of the Syrian intelligence services was entirely modeled after the French template, at least in the early days. This influence is most striking in the primacy of military intelligence, known until 1969 as the Deuxième Bureau.3 Russia’s influence and impact remained limited with regard to the organizational structure. Russia’s focus was more on cooperation and training. Before Syria became an independent state in 1946, external intelligence matters were handled by the services of Metropolitan France. The intelligence officers in Syria were French. In these early days, the services were responsible only for internal security and counter-espionage. After independence, the mission of these services expanded to include targeting exile and opposition groups in Lebanon. It also comprised intelligence-gathering efforts against Israel. In the 1950s, Syria had two intelligence services. Apart from the Deuxième Bureau, there also existed the civilian Department of General Security (Sûreté Nationale). The service had approximately 300 men with intelligence functions, such as collecting political intelligence, counter-espionage, and the control of foreigners in Syria. The Sûreté did not produce high-quality, domestic intelligence due to internal organizational strains and the low amount of training, in combination with the mass of untrained informers. The Deuxième Bureau functioned as the intelligence branch of the Army General Staff. During the 1950s, the Bureau emerged as the leading intelligence service in Syria. Its rise reflected the dominant role of the army. This came at the expense of the civilian Sûreté. Consequently, the civilian service gradually turned into no more than an executive arm of the Deuxième Bureau. The Bureau also became a leading political player in its own right. It displayed a high degree of independence with regard to its influence on the formulation and execution of politics. Germany also had an influence on the Syrian intelligence services. It was until the 1960s that the Syrian government sought the support of German military advisers, all of them formerly high-ranking officers in the Schutzstaffel (SS) and Wehrmacht. The most notorious were Alois

354 Florian Peil Brunner, the former right hand of Adolf Eichmann, one of the main architects of the Holocaust; Franz Rademacher, previously head of the Judenreferat (Jewish Affairs) in the German Foreign Office during the Nazi era; and Walther Rauff, another senior ex-official in the Reich Main Security Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, RSHA), an apparatus that combined the Nazis’ intelligence service with the secret and criminal police. Brunner and Rademacher were granted asylum in 1957 and advised Syrian police and intelligence until early the next decade, especially on interrogation and torture techniques. Rauff was tasked with the mission of reorganizing the Syrian intelligence services, which he modeled after the Third Reich’s Gestapo, a department of the RSHA.4 After Syria’s reorientation toward the Soviet bloc in the Cold War, Soviet advisers took over and the German influence quickly waned. Brunner lived in Damascus until his death in 2001. In February 1958, Syria formed a political union with Egypt under the name United Arab Republic (UAR). The intelligence services of both countries had already been cooperating very closely prior to 1958. Together they were active in destabilizing mutual enemies in other Arab states, most notably in Lebanon und Jordan, and in promoting their interests inside Syria.5 In 1958, this cooperation had an impact on the structure of the Syrian intelligence services, as they came under the authority of Egypt’s Directorate of General Intelligence. The Deuxième Bureau was subordinated to Egypt’s Directorate of Military Intelligence. A new Special Bureau was set up under the Egyptian Ministry of Interior and became the primary intelligence service. At the same time, the role of the Syrian intelligence services was expanded. This marked the start of their influence on society. The UAR lasted until September 1961. The collapse of the union provoked a fierce conflict between Egypt and Syria, as Egypt’s intelligence services sought to destabilize their former ally, as Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser saw Syria’s secession as a humiliating setback and was determined to compensate for his losses. The Syrian Deuxième Bureau and a reformed civilian intelligence service, renamed the Internal Security Forces Command (ISFC), fought back. Soon they focused their activities on Lebanon, targeting the Lebanese government, Syrian exiles, and Egyptian agents. Frequent coups, military revolts, civil disorders, and riots characterized the 1960s. The Baath coup in March 1963 brought the Baath Party into control of the country, and the military took full control over policy. This move further strengthened the intelligence services on the domestic front and the dominance of the military. New directors were installed,

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each of whom concentrated on expanding his own power base by recruiting and promoting men loyal to themselves. Protected by a state-ofemergency law passed in 1963, and newly formed state security courts, the apparatuses carried out their duties with fewer restrictions and less accountability and oversight. On March 24, 1967, the ISFC was put under military control by decree, thus ending the facade of civilian control. On the external front, Lebanon remained the main target of covert operations. At the same time, intelligence gathering against Israel continued. It was during the 1960s that Palestinian groups started to play a more important role for Syrian intelligence. In the early days, Yasser Arafat’s Fatah was a mere tool of the Deuxième Bureau. In February 1966, a coup within the Baath Party led to a further centralization of control of all intelligence and security services under Colonel Abd al-Karim al-Jundi. Al-Jundi further expanded the role and power of his agencies, both at home and abroad. It was during this time that Syria aligned itself with the Soviet bloc, and that the reputation of the Syrian intelligence services for brutal ruthlessness was established.6 Also, the use of Palestinian guerrillas against Israel was intensified. The Era of Hafiz al-Assad

In November 1970, Hafiz al-Assad came to power in what he labeled a “corrective coup.” He was a leading member of the Baath Party in Syria and commander of the Syrian air force. Assad initially appointed Ahmad Hasan al-Khatib as temporary president, before Assad himself assumed the role of president in 1971. A referendum on the country’s constitution held in 1973 granted him wide powers. Hafiz al-Assad stayed in power until his death in 2000. His era is dubbed the Third Republic, an era of remarkable domestic political stability. His coming to power ended a phase of political instability, as Syria had witnessed fifteen coups d’état between 1949 and 1970. Assad’s seizure of power marked the dawn of a new era for the Syrian intelligence services. Under Assad, the regime consolidated its grip on the intelligence services, which then dominated all other political and military institutions. Hafiz al-Assad was the architect of the Syrian Mukhabarat (intelligence services) state. Under his reign, the security apparatus grew at an unprecedented rate. The numbers differ, ranging from 90,000 to 150,000 personnel, to 65,000 full-time employees, and up to 300,000 informants and enforcers.7 This equaled one member of the intelligence service for every 150 adult citizens in Syria. In 1991, the number of both army and security personnel surpassed half a million.

356 Florian Peil Assad rebuilt the institutional structures with the aim of solidifying the state, with the true authority lurking behind the facade of civil institutions. This turned government institutions into hollow bodies without any authority, existing in name only. They were in fact led by the intelligence apparatuses—a “shadow state,” so named because the real levers of power operated behind the scenes. Over time, Syrian intelligence agencies turned into political entities in their own right, and their leaders became important political figures. In 1979, Syria was designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the US State Department. The regime has since continued its political support for numerous terrorist groups, providing political, financial, and logistical support. This was the task of the highly secretive Air Force Intelligence Directorate, which Hafiz al-Assad, as the former commander of the air force, had turned into his personal action bureau. Syria supported the militant Shiite organization Hezbollah in Lebanon since the group’s establishment in 1982 and allowed Iran to resupply the organization with weapons. Groups like Palestine Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine– General Command, and the external leadership of Hamas, among others, were based in Damascus and operated within Syria’s borders. Assad had inherited the basics of the state that he then structured in a new political system that organized the state institutions in a threesided pyramidal structure. The president was at the top of the pyramid, combining constitutional, legal, and actual power in his hands. The three sides leading up to the president were the government administration, the military and intelligence apparatuses, and the Baath Party.8 Thus he was able to concentrate his power in a steeply pyramidal way, with the leadership of the regime at the top and proceeding downward to cities, then villages, and then neighborhoods, in various steps. The main characteristics of Assad’s system were its pyramidal structure combined with an immense bureaucracy, plus mutual oversight of the different security and intelligence apparatuses, following the principle of divide and conquer. This structure permitted the almost total (Orwellian) ability to oversee and control the state, the regime, and the people. The result was a highly complex environment whose inner workings remained obscure to outsiders (and to most insiders). A key principle of the new political system Hafiz al-Assad created was the concentration of power in the hands of an elitist circle. The members of this inner circle were linked to Assad by personal and family ties and most had a military background. The inner circle has always included separate groups that compete against each other. The top lead-

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ership and the upper ranks of the military and intelligence apparatuses were largely drawn from Assad’s extended family and the Alawite community. The Sunnis became the heads of the political institutions, but had only limited sway in the security structures. Thus, the state institutions could be viewed as “extended networks of patronage, rather than formal bureaucratic structures.”9 The structure of state institutions constructed by Hafiz al-Assad has survived. It still consists of four main security agencies: the General Intelligence Directorate, the Political Security Directorate, the Military Intelligence Directorate, and the Air Force Intelligence Directorate. This multitude of security and intelligence apparatuses with overlapping responsibilities, tasked with monitoring the loyalty of the military and the other services and reporting their activities directly to the president, led to the result that no single interest group gained preponderance due to this balance of power. The outcome was a remarkable domestic stability. The Inherited State: The Presidency of Bashar al-Assad

Hafiz al-Assad died in June 2000. His son Bashar was elected president in July 2000. Syria became the first hereditary republic in the Arab world. Bashar’s inaugural speech in July 2000, calling for democracy and transparency, created a great deal of expectation within the Syrian population. His inauguration was followed by a period of relative openness that was dubbed the Damascus Spring and characterized by a period of intense opposition activism, and demands for political, legal, and economic reforms, some of which were tentatively introduced before soon being withdrawn. The opposition movement was soon crushed in the name of national unity and stability. It was a cautious start for the former ophthalmologist who became president. Bashar had inherited a republic, but he had not inherited the full powers of his father, Hafiz, who had created the system, tailored by and to his personality. Compared to his father, Bashar was weak in both personality and political experience. Thus, from the beginning of his term, Bashar tried to avoid confronting the power structures he had inherited from his father. Instead, he favored a long-term strategy in dealing with the “old guard.” He preserved the existing power structures and aimed at changing the character of the system gradually. It was noted that Syria under Bashar became a dictatorship without a dictator.10 Despite having similar authoritarian instincts, the approach of Bashar al-Assad differed from that of his father in one key respect: the lack of continuity. His father’s system had been reliant on a network of

358 Florian Peil power brokers who would compete with one another to show regime loyalty. Bashar, in contrast, shuffled people in and out of the security and intelligence apparatuses, leading to a partial reconfiguration of the existing patronage networks by incorporating members of the newly established elite. This shift caused significant disruption to the status quo. It took Bashar al-Assad almost five years to eliminate the members of the old guard who had served his father from key positions. Although the new president did not fully purge the system, the removal of some members of the establishment who had protected his father’s interests reduced its effectiveness. While keeping its outward appearance, the intelligence state created by his father was weakened from inside. Bashar’s decision to bring the internet to Syria proved to be a further step toward weakening part of the regime, namely, the security and intelligence services. The latter had easily managed tapping phone lines and reading mail, but they were simply not capable of covering the giant challenge of monitoring and controlling this technology new to Syria. The internet made surveillance impossible at the levels his father had maintained. Furthermore, the internet, mainly social media, also gave the Syrian people access to previously unobtainable information and enabled debate. Assad’s intelligence state was weakened, leaving the regime unprepared for the 2011 uprising. Institutional Infrastructure There are seven intelligence and security services in Syria. The exact number depends on one’s definition and understanding of intelligence, as the lines between the intelligence services and military-security complex are often blurred. Until 2011, the main tasks of the intelligence services in Syria comprised the gathering of information, arrests, and interrogations. The four main apparatuses are the General Intelligence Directorate (GID), the Political Security Directorate (PSD), the Military Intelligence Directorate (MID), and the Air Force Intelligence Directorate (AFID). These four entities form the core of the Syrian intelligence community. The fifth apparatus, the National Security Bureau (NSB), acts foremost as a coordinating organ, while also drafting security policies. General Intelligence Directorate

The General Intelligence Directorate is the main civilian security service in Syria. It is mostly referred to by its former name, State Security.

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The GID is subordinate to the president only and thus reports to him exclusively. The current head of the GID is Major-General Hussam Luqa, a Sunni and formerly head of the Political Security Directorate. Around 70 percent of the personnel are said to be Alawite. The GID operates both domestically and abroad, thus being divided into an internal and an external division. These divisions are further divided into branches that are numbered with three digits. The GID has twelve central branches in Damascus plus branches in every region in the country. Each regional branch contains departments analogous to the central branches in Damascus. Every branch operates and supervises divisions, departments, and subunits scattered throughout its province, with each town or village having a security officer in charge. The internal division (Branch 251) is tasked with surveillance of the general population, counter-espionage, counterintelligence, and the control over hostile political groups, opponents, and dissidents. This comprises the surveillance of foreigners (Branch 300) as well as religious and ethnic minorities and other social and mass organizations. Additionally, the GID is in charge of the fight against corruption and drug trafficking. Furthermore, it controls the civilian police and the border guards and is responsible for the surveillance over the Baath Party, the civilian bureaucracy, and the general populace. Abroad, the GID is mainly dedicated to the surveillance, control, and elimination of political opponents, especially (Branch 279) from Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. Further tasks are espionage and the control and protection of Syria’s diplomatic offices. Political Security Directorate

The Political Security Directorate (PSD) is the most pervasive intelligence agency in regard to Syrian society, as it is said to have the highest amount of interaction with citizens. The PSD has an extensive network of informants throughout the entire country and in every segment of society. The directorate is financially and administratively subordinate to the Ministry of Interior. PSD officers and personnel are chosen by the Ministry of Interior, with the exception of the PSD head, who is appointed by the president by way of a presidential decree. In reality, it is the PSD that has a supervisory authority over the ministry and all its staff, including all police units. The PSD reports exclusively and directly to the president. The current director is Major-General Nasser al-Ali. According to PSD defectors, the percentage of Alawites in the PSD is lower than in the other intelligence services.

360 Florian Peil In general, the PSD focuses on the monitoring of all kinds of organized political forces and possible political activity in Syria. It is the responsibility of the PSD to ensure the stability of the regime by monitoring any political activity potentially weakening the authority of the regime. Its responsibilities are entirely domestic and as such are limited to Syrian territory, unlike its counterparts. Its tasks include monitoring all political and diplomatic activity, dissidents, and political parties that could undermine the authority of the regime; controlling and censoring the press and mass media; and monitoring foreigners in Syria and their activities and communication with locals. Its tasks partly overlap with those of the GID in the domain of counter-espionage. Furthermore, the PSD is responsible for overseeing and approving work and construction permits as well as commercial and industry licensing for hotels, clubs, restaurants, employees, and parties. This has led PSD officers to exploit their powers by accepting bribes or imposing payments (“tributes”) on citizens on a massive scale. Therefore the PSD is said to be the most corrupt of all the intelligence bodies. Although the work of the PSD is focused on nongovernmental political activities, it has supposedly begun to monitor and surveil parts of the government in recent years. The respective branch is called the Government Institutions Security Department. The PSD has a branch in Damascus and branches in the fourteen provinces. Military Intelligence Directorate

The Military Intelligence Directorate is considered to be the largest intelligence service in terms of personnel and the strongest in terms of overall reach. It falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense. Nonetheless, the ministry does not have any authority over it. Conversely, the MID plays an important role in appointing the minister and his deputies. The MID chief is appointed by the president, and the agency reports directly to the president. Since March 2019, the director is Major-General Kifah Mulhem, an Alawite and a former battalion commander in the notorious Fourth Brigade. Around 80 percent of its personnel are said to be Alawite. The MID’s central branches are located in Damascus, whereas the provincial branches are spread throughout the provinces. Each branch is assigned a three-digit number. Important branches in Damascus include Branch 291 (headquarters, administrative affairs), Branch 235 (Palestine), Branch 248 (investigations), and Branch 279 (foreign operations), mirroring the GID’s denomination system.

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The notorious Branch 235 is one of the longest-existing, largest, and overall most important in the MID. It is tasked with countering threats by Israel and liaising with Palestinian organizations. Over time, its responsibilities have expanded significantly and today include the infiltration of Islamic, Islamist, and Jihadist organizations in order to control and direct them via its own counterterrorism department. Branch 291 and Branch 235 are of great influence and enjoy a high degree of independence. Upon its establishment, the MID was tasked with obtaining military intelligence on Syria’s adversaries, primarily Israel, to monitor Syria’s borders, and the security of its own military personnel and installations. One of its main tasks is to monitor the loyalty and adherence of the military personnel to the regime’s command. The MID also controls the military police. Today the tasks and responsibilities of the MID have expanded far beyond military matters. Its influence within the Syrian intelligence apparatuses is extensive. Abroad, the MID monitors the activities of political dissidents. Additionally, the MID is responsible for carrying out unconventional warfare operations, and commands paramilitary units and militias affiliated with the regime inside Syria. This includes groups like the notorious Tiger Forces, Kameet Forces, Military Security Shield Forces, and Tribal Auxiliary Forces. During the Syrian occupation of Lebanon (1976–2005), the MID exercised political authority in Lebanon. The MID is also responsible for instrumentalizing and supporting terrorist groups predominantly from the Palestinian territories and Lebanon. Air Force Intelligence Directorate

The Air Force Intelligence Directorate occupies a special place among the Syrian intelligence services. The AFID is seen as somewhat elitist. It is the regime’s most loyal state body—its most powerful, best-organized, most efficient, and most influential service with the closest relationship to the president. Before 2011, it was said to be the least-corrupt state body. Evidence suggests that this has changed in the course of the war. The AFID has gained a fearsome reputation in Syria and abroad for being especially ruthless. The AFID is almost exclusively Alawite and tasked with special missions and the most confidential and sensitive issues. It was established during the early days of Hafiz al-Assad’s ascendance to power. The head of the AFID is Major-General Ghassan Jawdat Ismail, an

362 Florian Peil Alawite. The former deputy and head of the AFID’s Special Operations Branch replaced his predecessor, the notorious Jamil Hassan, on July 1, 2019. Hassan is a hard-liner who had commandeered the AFID since 2009, thus being the longest-serving head of a Syrian intelligence service under Bashar al-Assad, and undoubtedly one of the most influential men in Syria. Hassan is subject to Western sanctions due to his part in the Syrian war and is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The service is subordinated to the Ministry of Defense in terms of administration, finance, and armaments acquisition, at least in theory. In reality, the AFID, together with the MID, watches over the defense minister’s work and plays an important role in his appointment. In addition to its headquarters in Damascus, the AFID has five more centers in the capital alone. Furthermore, there are six branches in the provinces, thus covering the entire country. The provincial headquarters are located in the cities of Homs, Aleppo, Deir al-Zor, and Latakia. The local branches are said to be located at the respective airports (military and civilian). Important branches include the Airport Branch (responsible for the security of the president’s plane and intelligence tasks during his travels abroad), the Operations Branch (responsible for domestic and external operations of the agency), and the Special Operations Branch, which performs combat operations. Abroad, the intelligence officers of the Operations Branch are mostly stationed at embassies and in Syrian Arab Airlines offices. Initially, its prime responsibilities were to protect Syria’s military weaponry, the president’s airplane and his safety while abroad, and the security of Syrian embassies. Over time, the AFID expanded its initial scope of action, first by becoming a real competitor to Military Intelligence in protecting the regime and reinforcing loyalty to it, and second by expanding its responsibilities beyond military matters. The AFID’s Operations Branch has conducted secret foreign missions and played a decisive role in cooperation with terrorist entities, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s. In general, the AFID expands its scope of action in times of turmoil and war, then turning into a policing force. The role of the AFID seemingly diminished during Bashar al-Assad’s first decade of rule, but it was able to expand its responsibilities again in 2011. Since 2011, the role of the AFID has changed significantly, since it has in part turned into a full-fledged fighting force, commanding several pro-regime militias and paramilitary units and thus playing an important role in countering the 2011 protests and quelling internal dissent.

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National Security Bureau

The National Security Bureau (sometimes referred to as a council or office) is a Baath Party bureau headquartered in Damascus. Before July 2012, the NSB was tasked with coordinating the four Syrian intelligence agencies. While in theory the Bureau supervises the intelligence services, in practice each service has always operated with a high degree of autonomy. The local branches of the Baath Party often submit reports to the intelligence services and help them survey people. Syrians often joke about the Baath Party being no more than an additional arm of the intelligence services. The role and subordination of the NSB changed in 2012 after a terrorist attack in Damascus on July 18 killed several key regime figures. A presidential decree made the NSB directly subordinate to the president’s office. Before that, the NSB had been subordinate to the regional command of the Baath Party. This step meant a further concentration of power. The director of the NSB is General Mohammed Dib Zaitoun, a Sunni and former head of the GID. His predecessor, General Ali Mamlouk, was assigned by President Assad as his deputy for security-related affairs on July 1, 2019. Since 2012, the NSB has shifted its focus from coordinating the security services to drafting security policies in Syria. Further Intelligence Services and the Military-Security Complex

Further security services that have intelligence-related tasks compose the Criminal Intelligence Directorate (CID). It is a civilian apparatus, subordinated to the Ministry of Interior and tasked with general investigative duties. It contains a subdivision known as the Department of Protection of Public Moralities, which has the purpose of investigating suspected homosexuals and their activities. Apparatuses within the military-security complex doing intelligencerelated work compose the Naval Intelligence Directorate (NID). It reports to the MID and is tasked with military espionage and counterespionage with regard to navy-related issues, limited to the coast, its coastal defense units, and naval infantry. In 1971 Assad established a military and security unit called the Defense Companies, putting the leadership in the hands of his brother Rifaat al-Assad. The organization began to form a special intelligence branch for itself to protect the regime from potential military coups. At the end of the 1970s, its members numbered more than 10,000. The Defense

364 Florian Peil Companies were among the most feared in Syrian society because of their reputation for carrying out arrests, torture, and executions. In 1976, Assad established a new apparatus called the Presidential Guard (also called the Republican Guard) that was solely responsible for ensuring the president’s personal safety and security, the presidential palace, and central Damascus. This apparatus grew steadily until it numbered 10,000 members. The Presidential Guard included a paramilitary organization within its structure in order to be able to counter possible coups d’état from the army. Thus it combined commando and intelligence services. In the mid-1970s, Assad formed the Presidential Palace Security Apparatus (PPSA), which coordinated the work of the national security apparatus, comprising the four intelligence services and the newly formed apparatuses like the Presidential Guard and the Defense Brigades and their subdivisions. The apparatus was not part of the army, but maintained good contacts with the MID and the AFID. The PPSA was also responsible for resolving disputes among the services. The Changing Role (and Importance) of the Intelligence Services Post-2011

Since 2011 there have been numerous changes to the system created by Hafiz al-Assad and inherited by his son Bashar. These changes relate to the functions and tasks of the existing intelligence services as well as the founding of new state institutions, and the introduction of new actors. The existing intelligence structures have since undergone significant change, new state institutions have been founded, and new actors have been introduced. The major developments are a decentralization of security and intelligence, and efforts to reinforce a centralization of the regime’s intelligence institutions. The war in Syria has deeply affected the mission, functions, and capacities of the four major intelligence agencies. Defections, and the loss of personnel in the conflict, have led to a temporary hollowing-out of the services, their influence, and their capacity to exercise control in territories held by different rebel and opposition groups. Nevertheless, rumors of a total breakdown of the intelligence services have turned out to be untrue. In fact, the services have proven to be resilient at a general level, although undergoing some major changes. In part, they have been able to expand their influence and duties far beyond their traditional role. When the uprisings started in 2011, the intelligence services were responsible for crushing the protests, gathering information about the

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protesters, and chasing and arresting supporters inside and outside the country. As the uprisings turned into an armed conflict, the services started gathering intelligence on armed opposition groups. The role of the intelligence services changed as soon as the uprising spread beyond the control of the services. The task of crushing the uprising was assigned to the military. For the first time during their existence, the four main intelligence services had to give up part of their authority and essentially join the military command structures, at least partly. This led to a complex and intertwined relationship between the two. Although the intelligence services followed the military’s orders in all operations, there were also groups like the Tiger Forces that emerged from the AFID to become the spearhead of the pro-regime forces. Thus the intelligence services underwent a change of mission, fulfilling tasks of policing and as an additional fighting force under the command of the military. The conflict led to a significant increase of duties and personnel, increased numbers of human intelligence (HUMINT) sources, increased technical capabilities (provided by Iran and Russia), and an increased intelligence sharing between allied countries (Russia, Iran) and militias. There is no question that the intelligence services’ influence and reach were severely limited due to the massive fighting of the numerous rebel groups. During this phase, the local offices and properties of the intelligence services often were at the center of the fighting, leading in numerous cases to the destruction of the sites, including stored documents, and the killing or defection of personnel. The removal of intelligence personnel from within contested towns and cities left a void that was subsequently filled by armed opposition groups. When the regime gained the upper hand in the conflict, mostly due to Russian military support, the intelligence services were no longer under military control and slowly returned to their original tasks, while keeping their new duties and influences. The conflict has led to a deconstruction of formerly existing security structures. As a result, numerous local and foreign actors came to power, leading to a decentralized structure in regime-controlled areas. The security operations are neither managed nor executed through a central office. These new actors comprise militias and paramilitary groups that are affiliated to one of the four main intelligence services, mostly led or overseen by senior intelligence personnel, primarily from the MID. These pro-government militias are incorporated into the formal military structures only nominally within the confines set by Syrian state authorities.

366 Florian Peil This process of decentralization has been coined as a “transformation of the shadow state into a transactional state.”11 The rise of opportunistic actors with a transactional relationship to the regime has led to weakening of the security and intelligence apparatus, reducing the regime’s direct control in Syria. These myriad new actors comprise local warlords, the chiefs of the different intelligence services, who jealously defend their service as fiefdoms of their own making, but also pro-regime militias and Iranian-backed foreign militias. The regime has replaced its absolute control of the military and intelligence institutions with mercenaries recruited from the local population who are part of armed militias. Another major development pertains to the reorganization of the security and intelligence services. Since late 2011, two new intelligence institutions have been founded: the National Security Department and the Communications Department. Information on both entities is extremely scarce. The National Security Department was set up as a central body for the Syrian intelligence services, likely in view of eventually replacing the National Security Bureau. It is tasked with gathering all the information of all the services. Its purpose is to act as a coordination entity. All services are subject to reporting obligations. It reports directly to the president. The chief is the Sunni Ali Mamlouk, a well-known figure in the intelligence community and a longtime aide of President Bashar al-Assad. The tasks of the National Security Department are purposefully fuzzily defined. It might be an attempt to make existing structures more effective and efficient. Evidence suggests that the establishment of the department took place due to the insistence of Russia. Other information points in the direction that the establishment of the National Security Department is an attempt to consolidate the existing structures and is the first step in preparing for security sector reform, made necessary by the war, and in order to regain influence and full power over the services again. The Communication Department was founded around 2012. This new entity has the purpose of gathering all collected information from wiretapping and jamming signals intelligence (SIGINT) projects by all the intelligence services. Though it is not clear whether the different services will have to give up their own SIGINT departments, it is safe to assume that this would not be favored, as none of the chiefs of the intelligence services would be willing to give up the benefits of their positions.

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Notable Events Syrian intelligence services have proven effective when it comes to monitoring and controlling their own people, at least until 2011. Thus, documented events in the history of Syrian intelligence are rather rare, as operations were mounted against Syrian nationals within Syria, but not (or to a much lesser extent) against hostile intelligence services or targets abroad. Although information on covert action is by definition hard to document, a few cases that are related to Syrian sponsorship of terrorism are known to the public. Covert action abroad has mostly been the domain of the Air Force Intelligence Directorate and the Military Intelligence Directorate, the latter primarily in Lebanon. Proxy groups acting on behalf of Syria comprise, for example, Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command, all on a case-by-case basis. Between 1978 and 1982, an insurgency spearheaded by the Muslim Brotherhood rocked the Assad regime and its intelligence services. The Brotherhood had their followers mainly in the conservative cities of Aleppo and Hama. In 1980, then-president Hafiz al-Assad barely escaped an assassination attempt. Assad reacted with restriction, arrest, and torture. In late January 1982, members of the Brotherhood stormed the homes of twenty-two intelligence officials in Hama and killed them. On February 2, 1982, the Syrian army encircled the city, and in the following two weeks, arrests and mass executions followed. The exact number of deaths is unclear, with figures varying between 10,000 and 40,000 people murdered. The dramatic expansion of the intelligence services’ role and power was a direct consequence of the Hama insurgency. The services gained increased resources and personnel and increasingly demonstrated a brutal and calculated ruthlessness in intimidating potential political opponents. The case of Nizar Hindawi is one of the more spectacular and probably the best-documented cases when it comes to Syrian sponsorship of terrorism.12 Hindawi, a Jordanian national of Palestinian origin, was caught in London in April 1986 after trying to plant a suitcase bomb aboard an El Al flight from London to Tel Aviv. Israeli security guards found 1.5 kilograms of Semtex explosive in a secret compartment of his pregnant girlfriend’s suitcase. The device was meant to go off during the flight. During an internationally publicized trial, it turned out that Hindawi had acted under instructions from high-ranking officials from the Syrian Air Force Intelligence Directorate, namely, then-head Mohammad al-Khuli. Hindawi had traveled to London in early 1985 using a false

368 Florian Peil identity but using a Syrian diplomatic passport. He said that Syrian intelligence officers had told him to befriend a British woman and convince her to board an El Al plane. The explosive device had been prepared in Damascus and armed at the Syrian embassy in London. Hindawi himself had received active support by Syrian embassy staff. He was found guilty by a British court and was sentenced to forty-five years’ imprisonment. On February 14, 2005, a massive car bomb killed former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri in Beirut. Hariri had become a powerful and vocal opponent of Syrian influence in Lebanon. The size and sophistication of the device used in the blast pointed to the involvement of a state intelligence agency. The Syrian regime was largely blamed for the assassination. A UN-led investigation suggested a possible Syrian role in the killing, concluding that high-ranking Syrian officials within the regime orchestrated the operation, which was then executed by members of Hezbollah. While not making any direct charges, the UN report pointed firmly at senior Syrian and pro-Syrian Lebanese officials, claiming there was converging evidence of their involvement. Both Bashar al-Assad’s brother Maher and his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat were mentioned in a leaked preliminary report as two possible planners. Shawkat, who was deputy director of the MID at the time of the assassination, was promoted to director of the MID shortly afterward. In March 2011, residents of Deraa, a town on Syria’s southern border with Jordan, started protesting against the arrest of fifteen children who had painted anti-regime graffiti on walls, motivated by the perceived arrogance and the brutality of individual intelligence officers. Security forces opened fire at the demonstrators, and four people died. In the following days, the funerals continued to turn into mass rallies, extending the protests to other Syrian cities. It was the start of the Syrian uprising, which then turned into an all-out war. The case of Deraa suggests a mediocrity regarding the analytical capabilities within the Syrian intelligence services. The services clearly missed early warning signals, underestimating the threat to the regime by misunderstanding the extent of anger within the local population. Functions and Operations The Syrian intelligence services have a rather broad concept of intelligence. All major intelligence disciplines are utilized in order to gather information. These comprise human intelligence, open-source intelligence, and signals intelligence. Among these, human intelligence is a

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traditional strength and plays a decisive role, at least inside Syria and in the neighboring Arab countries. “Intelligence” in the Syrian context happens mostly on the tactical rather than on the strategic level. The focus is on gathering information rather than processing and analyzing this information in order to turn it into actionable intelligence. During the reign of Hafiz al-Assad, intelligence in the Syrian context meant not much more than raw information straight from the field, but without the crucial step of analyzing the material and with little strategic context or policy recommendation. The Syrian intelligence bureaucracy lacked true strategic intelligence and a culture of scenario-building conducted by professional analytical experts. As a result, the intelligence presented to the president for decisionmaking was based primarily on the personal knowledge and analysis of the senior advisers in his inner circle. The inability to predict and fully understand the uprising of 2011 is proof of this. In terms of modus operandi and operational audacity, the Syrian intelligence services can be compared with East German intelligence (Staatssicherheit, or Stasi) tradecraft, without reaching the Stasi’s level of operational refinement. Especially the lower and middle ranks are characterized by a low standard of training and professional conduct. Defectors after 2011 reported a lack of respect for confidentiality, which poses serious problems for every intelligence service. This is due to the fact that loyalty to the respective chiefs takes priority over competence, and quantity is favored over quality. The low standard of training, mostly limited to improving physical capabilities of the personnel and technical education, has gained the intelligence personnel a reputation for mediocrity. In this regard, there are also differences between the different apparatuses. While the Air Force Intelligence Directorate is somewhat an elite service, the Political Intelligence Directorate has a reputation for being particularly incompetent and corrupt, due to its heavily invasive approach to Syrian society. Corruption has been an endemic problem in the intelligence services since the 1970s. Evidence suggests that this is rooted in a lack of policy oversight. The chiefs of the different services turned these into personal fiefdoms in order to accumulate wealth. This had resulted in a considerable degradation of the Syrian services, presenting counterintelligence problems as well as problems on the political level.13 Nevertheless, the capabilities of the Syrian intelligence apparatuses have evolved over time. Since 2011, the regime’s sponsors Russia and Iran have been increasingly dedicated to improving capacities of the

370 Florian Peil apparatuses, mostly by providing technical support and training. The MID seems to be the major beneficiary of this support. Oversight Oversight of the intelligence services in Syria remains a privilege of the president. Due to the pyramidal structure of power, installed by Hafiz al-Assad and continued by his son Bashar, the services report to the president alone. The system ensures that the intelligence services exercise mutual oversight but that they are not subject to judicial oversight. The services continuously monitor one another in order to ensure loyalty to the president. The Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense, which in theory oversee the four intelligence services, exercise no control whatsoever. In practice, it is the services that control the ministries. Furthermore, neither parliamentary oversight (by the Syrian People’s Council) nor any kind of oversight by civil society actors exists. In practice, there is a lack of effective oversight, as even the president’s possibilities remain limited due to the overly complex structure of the intelligence and security services. The apparatuses live their own lives, depending on the will of their respective chiefs and their personal intentions and enjoying almost total freedom. As a result, the true extent of oversight of the intelligence services in Syria remains opaque. Due to the absence of any clear oversight authority, there is no information available regarding the budget of the intelligence services. Given the limited oversight by internal actors in Syria, this task largely remains the domain of external and informal actors, such as think tanks, nongovernmental organizations—often with a humanitarian focus—and the international media, which are mostly unknowledgeable on the subject. Reports from defectors from inside the intelligence services since 2011 have shed some light on the internal workings and processes of the apparatuses. The high degree of bureaucracy and documentation, even in cases of systematic torture and murder, could turn out to be an Achilles heel for the Assad regime, at least in the longer run. Legislation A clear gap exists between theory and practice with regard to legislation and the application of laws. All state institutions as well as the intelli-

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gence services and the army have been giving the appearance of being independent authorities that conduct their duties in accordance with Syrian law and the constitution. This facade was upheld for the last past decades. In practice, the laws that define the intelligence and security services’ scope of action did not have any relevance. A crucial law that has since been shaping the intelligence services’ scope of action is the emergency law enacted in January 1962. It was put into effect by the declaration of a state of emergency in March 1963 after the Baath Party came to power in a military coup. It was justified on the basis of the conflict with Israel and threats from terrorist groups. The law gave the regime absolute authority to restrict all individuals’ basic rights without exception and without oversight. In practice, the emergency law ensured that every part of the intelligence apparatus was authorized to issue arrest orders for any citizen without demonstrating reasonable cause. It allowed the intelligence services to continuously exceed and abuse the powers granted to them by the laws and decrees under which they were created. Under the state of emergency, those who violated orders were referred to the military judiciary, regardless of their status. The intelligence services have regularly exceeded the legal authorities and jurisdiction stipulated by the existing laws that established those services, and interfered outside their area of jurisdiction. A prime example is the Military Intelligence Directorate, which interferes in the lives of civilians without any relation to military affairs on a large scale. The state of emergency was in place for almost five decades, the longest continuous period of emergency in history. This state of emergency has destroyed the foundations of the Syrian judiciary, reducing it to a tool in the hands of the executive authority, which is the president. In April 2011, the state of emergency was rescinded by President Bashar al-Assad as an attempt to defuse demonstrations and protests. On paper, this abolition represented a major change to the legal framework that enabled the intelligence services practically unlimited powers. On a practical level, however, nothing changed. Apparently, the law is supposedly in hiatus and may be reactivated any time. It is also possible that the regime will pass new legislation reinstating its emergency powers under a different name. Also of importance is the law that protects intelligence employees from judicial process if they were to commit any crimes of torture, despite the Syrian law of January 1969 that criminalizes torture. In July 1980 a law was enacted stating that everyone belonging to the Muslim

372 Florian Peil Brotherhood organization was now considered to be criminals and was to receive the death penalty. That law has since been the driving force for any security operation in Syria. Any citizen suspected of oppositional tendencies could now easily be accused of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and automatically transformed into a criminal, to be dealt with on that basis. The intelligence apparatuses exploited this article against all those deemed hostile to the regime. Additionally, a decree passed in 2011 amended the code of criminal procedure by extending security detention and authorizing the security apparatus the status of a judicial officer, thus refacilitating the practices and scope of action the intelligence services had been accustomed to since 1963. International Cooperation Information in the public domain regarding the international cooperation of Syria’s intelligence agencies remains scarce. In general, the Syrian intelligence services by default operate following the principle of “friend or foe.” Traditionally, in the Middle Eastern theater of evercompeting power centers, the number of intelligence services friendly to Syria is very small, with mutual mistrust being the dominant factor. Syria’s international intelligence cooperation can roughly be distinguished by taking place with “formal” state actors and “informal” nonstate actors. The areas of cooperation include institutional support, training of staff, intelligence sharing, and common operations. The most relevant state actors are Russia and Iran. Both serve as the Syrian regime’s main sponsors in the field of intelligence. Of these two, Russia remains the main international cooperation partner. The cooperation with Russia dates back to the early days of Hafiz al-Assad’s rise to power and the times of the Cold War, when Syria was a major Soviet ally in the Middle East. Hafiz, himself a Soviet-trained air force officer, followed the Soviet model in creating a single-party intelligence state. Despite continuous Russian efforts to gain substantial influence over the Syrian intelligence agencies, Hafiz al-Assad, during his reign, was able to fend these off. Evidence suggests that as a result, intelligence cooperation was limited to training provided by Russia and the sharing of intelligence in a limited capacity. It is safe to assume that Russia has been supporting Syria foremost with regard to hone Syria’s signals intelligence defense capabilities. This responsibility fell to the Syrian Military Intelligence Directorate. Selected specialists were sent to the Soviet Union via the military for a

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more extensive education. These courses would take place at the Military Academy in Leningrad. This intensive cooperation has been ongoing quietly since the 1970s and never been severed, despite the major disruption caused by the breakdown of the Soviet Union and its entire intelligence apparatus. This cooperation was finally made public in 2012. Today, Russia fulfills the role of an international bodyguard for the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The Russian military has been actively involved in the Syrian war since 2015. While the main reason for Russia’s involvement is its ambition to be recognized as a superpower, Syria also is of strategic importance for Russia, as it allows access to the Mediterranean Sea. The Syrian port of Tartus is the only Russian Mediterranean naval base. The military involvement has also led to a more intense cooperation in the field of intelligence, as the lines between military and intelligence issues are blurring. It is safe to assume that Russia and Syria increasingly share intelligence due to the growing number of points of contact. Russia’s military Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) operates at least two joint intelligence centers with Syrian counterparts, and one signals intelligence station in Tell al-Hara on the Golan Heights, close to the border with Israel. The Center for the Reconciliation of Opposing Sides, which became operational in February 2016 and is based at the Khmeimim airbase in Latakia province, oversees ceasefires, the evacuation of civilians, and the transfer of humanitarian aid. It also offers another platform to facilitate the exchange of intelligence between Russia and the Assad regime. In general, Russia is seeking to reshape Syrian state institutions to guarantee long-lasting loyalty to Moscow. There is much evidence of extensive cooperation during the 1970s and the 1980s between Syria and East Germany.14 Being an integral part of the Soviet bloc, East Germany’s Stasi (Ministry for State Security) was tasked with the role of providing assistance to Syria in building up its police and intelligence apparatuses. In the Middle East, the Germans were more popular than the Soviets, and therefore the Stasi was mainly acting as an auxiliary to the Soviet’s KGB by training security services of Arab and African states that became part of the Soviet bloc. Starting in the early 1970s, Syria made active efforts to cooperate with the Stasi. East Germany, however, was skeptical about Syria’s trustworthiness. It was not until the end of the 1970s that cooperation became closer. Weapons and financial and practical support helped Assad’s intelligence services to stabilize and gain power. The Stasi was

374 Florian Peil also involved in active espionage against West German targets in Damascus, namely, diplomatic facilities. The most intense period of cooperation lasted from 1978 to 1984. The common fight against imperialism was positively emphasized. Another objective was to limit the expansion of Israel in the Middle East. The Stasi’s relations with Syria came to a low in the early 1980s due to the unstable situation within Syria; an abrupt interruption in the second half of the 1980s is noticeable. The reason may have been a growing concern within the Stasi that exchanged secret information was no longer secure. The gradual loss of power of the Soviet Union had led Syria’s intelligence services to discreetly establish contacts with Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND), but also the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It was not until 1989 that more intense encounters were recorded. In March 1989, eight months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, a final meeting took place in Berlin. The East German Stasi was also involved in supporting terrorism. It provided assistance to terrorists of all kinds with funding, weapons, forged passports and visas, and a safe haven in East Germany for operational planning as well as the transmission of intelligence to facilitate attack planning, and superb military-style training for terrorist operations.15 In return, the terrorists did the “dirty work” and served as deniable proxies for East Germany and the Soviet Union. The West German terrorist group Red Army Faction (RAF) may have been the Stasi’s most important terrorist partner, but it was not the only one. In fact, East Germany served as the training headquarters for a “who’s who” of international terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s. The Stasi maintained operational links to terrorists affiliated with Syria’s intelligence services, namely, Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Abu Nidal. The infamous terrorist known as Carlos was another beneficiary of the Stasi’s support. Carlos lived in a Yemeni diplomat’s flat in East Berlin from 1980 until 1983 and had a chauffeur hired by the Syrian government. Besides Russia, Iran is the second major cooperation partner of the Syrian intelligence services. While Russia is seeking to reshape Syria’s state institutions in order to guarantee long-lasting loyalty to Moscow, Iran is working to establish long-term influence in Syria at the grassroots level. In this relationship with Syria, Russia has the upper hand. While the cooperation is most visible in military terms, the cooperation between the intelligence agencies of the two countries has been ongoing since the outbreak of the first protests in 2011. Though reliable information in the public domain on the intelligence cooperation between

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Iran and Syria is scarce, it is safe to assume that the deep-rooted relationship between the two countries going back to 1979 has included not only a military relationship but also cooperation in intelligence. Iranian intelligence services active in Syria comprise the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the Law Enforcement Forces, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s Intelligence Organization. The US Department of Treasury designated the Ministry of Intelligence and Security and defense contractor Iran Electronic Industries as terrorist organizations in 2012, and the EU sanctioned Islamic Revolutionary Guard chief Hojjat al-Eslam Hossein Taeb in 2011. Accordingly, the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard serves as a conduit for Iranian material support to the Syrian GID. Since 2011, Iran has provided advisory, technical, and financial support to the Syrian intelligence services. This support has been routed primarily through the GID. It is unclear whether Iran maintains direct relations to other Syrian intelligence agencies or whether the GID remains the sole conduit for Iranian intelligence support. There is no evidence of an Iranian influence on Syrian intelligence personnel. On the technical level, Iran has provided surveillance, monitoring, and communication equipment, including jammers, delivered via defense contractor Iran Electronic Industries. Iran has also provided unarmed drones in order to monitor opposition forces. Iranian Monajer surveillance drones have repeatedly been spotted and filmed.16 The principal nonstate actor that has an ongoing cooperation with the Syrian intelligence services is the Lebanese Hezbollah. The relationship between the Syrian intelligence services and the various Hezbollah security entities is a complex one, dating back to the early 1980s. It has undergone several changes since evolving from a proxy of both Iran and Syria into a full-fledged partner. Initially, Syrian intelligence tried to infiltrate and manipulate Hezbollah in order to turn the organization into a wholly Syrian-owned asset. Despite Syria’s efforts to expand its influence on the organization, Hezbollah has been able to keep its autonomy. Since 2011, Hezbollah has undoubtedly changed the balance of the Syrian conflict in favor of the Assad regime and, through its military support, laid the groundwork for an extended presence in Syria. Hezbollah plays a major role as an intermediary between the unequal partners Syria and Iran. Being Iran’s most significant proxy in the Middle East today, Hezbollah also has an operational role in integrating Syrian-Iranian commando structures, primarily in the construction of electronic listening posts in Syria, dating back to the war against Israel in 2006. 17 Evidence suggests that the

376 Florian Peil cooperation between Syrian intelligence services and Hezbollah is limited to military-related signals intelligence. In 2015, the so-called Four Plus One coalition was formed, comprising Russia, Syria, Iran, and Iraq (plus Hezbollah). The name refers to a joint intelligence cooperation between the opponents of the Islamic State (IS), with operational headquarters in Damascus and Baghdad. Apart from the aforementioned Syrian-Egyptian intelligence cooperation during the time of the United Arab Republic, intelligence cooperation with neighboring Arab states as well as Turkey has remained punctual and limited to occasional intelligence sharing on a case-by-case basis. This approach is due to the deep and common mistrust of Syria among its neighbors, in a hostile geopolitical setting marked by fierce rivalry and competition, especially Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. Conclusion Syria is a prime example of an intelligence state. The Syrian intelligence services exercised almost limitless control over the population for more than four decades. This Orwellian system of surveillance was created by Hafiz al-Assad in order to guarantee the security and the stability of the regime and the ruling elites, at the cost of the population. Over time, the major intelligence services evolved into political entities in their own right. The inner workings of Syrian intelligence, though, remain largely obscure due to its highly secretive nature. Since 2011, the intelligence services’ resiliency and loyalty to the regime have been put to the test. The services had to give up the absolute power they held during the past four decades. Rumors of a breakdown of the apparatuses in rebel-held areas appear premature. Evidence suggests a temporary loss of control but not a lasting impact on the services’ abilities. On the contrary, the war in Syria has led to an extension of their mission and tasks, involving a more operational role as a fighting force. The long-term impact of the war on the intelligence services cannot be assessed. An array of new actors has emerged since 2011, acting on behalf of the regime in contested areas as guarantors of security. In the future, these new actors might compete with the regime’s intelligence services for power and influence. Only the future will tell whether the war in Syria has weakened the services or made them stronger in the long term.

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Notes 1. Aron Lund, “A Voice from the Shadows,” November 25, 2016, https://carnegie -mec.org/diwan/66240. 2. See Carl Anthony Wege, “Assad’s Legions: The Syrian Intelligence Services,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 4, no. 1 (January 1990), 91–100. 3. The description of the early days of Syrian intelligence is predominantly based on Andrew Rathmell, “Syria’s Intelligence Services: Origins and Development,” Journal of Conflict Studies 16, no. 2 (November 1996), 75–96. 4. Chern Chen, “Former Nazi Officers in the Near East: German Military Advisors in Syria, 1949–56,” International History Review 40, no. 4 (August 2018), 736. 5. Andrew Rathmell, “Brotherly Enemies: The Rise and Fall of the Syrian-Egyptian Intelligence Axis, 1954–1967,” Intelligence and National Security 13, no. 1 (Spring 1998), 230. 6. See Wege, “Assad’s Legions.” 7. Radwan Ziadeh, Power and Policy in Syria: Intelligence Services, Foreign Relations, and Democracy in the Modern Middle East (London: Tauris, 2012), 23–24 See also Brian Slocock, “Assad’s Torture Chiefs,” Little Atoms, October 15, 2017, http:// littleatoms.com/assads-torture-chiefs. 8. Ziadeh, Power and Policy, 19–20. 9. Rathmell, “Syria’s Intelligence Services: Origins and Development,” Journal of Conflict Studies, 16, no. 2 (1996), https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/JCS/article/view/1181. 10. Lina Khatib and Lina Sinjab, “Syria’s Transactional State: How the Conflict Changed the Syrian State’s Exercise of Power,” October 10, 2018, 10, https://www .chathamhouse.org/publication/syrias-transactional-state-how-conflict-changed-syrian -states-exercise-power. 11. Ibid., 2. 12. See Diane Tueller Pritchett, “The Syrian Strategy on Terrorism, 1971–1977,” Journal of Conflict Studies 8, no. 3 (1988), 27–48. 13. See Carl Anthony Wege, “Hizbollah-Syrian Intelligence Affairs: A Marriage of Convenience,” Journal of Strategic Security 4, no. 3 (September 2011), 10. 14. See Madlen Schäfer, “Stasi-Waffenhilfe für Syrien” (Stasi Arms Aid for Syria), April 17, 2018, http://www.bpb.de/geschichte/deutsche-geschichte/stasi/233561/stasi-in-syrien. 15. Marian K. Leighton, “Strange Bedfellows: The Stasi and the Terrorists,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 27, no. 4 (December 2014), 662. 16. Will Fulton, Joseph Holliday, and Sam Wyer, “Iranian Strategy in Syria,” May 2013, 15, https://web.archive.org/web/20160201135117/http://www.understandingwar.org /report/iranian-strategy-syria. 17. Wege, “Hizbollah-Syrian Intelligence Affairs,” 9.

21 Taiwan Jens Rosenke

The Republic of China on Taiwan (ROC), as the country is officially called, is a special case in diplomatic matters. Besides what is happening on the Korean Peninsula, it is one of the last dangerous conflicts in East Asia. The territory of the ROC covers not only the island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa, but also the Penghu island group, as well as the Quemoy island group and Matsu island, which are only a few hundred meters away from mainland China, the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The Chinese Communist Party sees Taiwan as a renegade province. Only seventeen states officially accept the ROC as a state and have established diplomatic relations, with this number tending to drop over time.1 The more diplomatic influence the PRC attains, the higher the probability that the remaining official diplomatic relationships of the ROC will be broken off. Both states assert the “one China” principle, meaning that states can establish a diplomatic relationship to only one Chinese state and must therefore choose. When Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen from the Democratic Progress Party (DPP) was elected president in 2016, the most recent diplomatic setback took place. Unlike her predecessors, Tsai does not accept states having relations with both the PRC and the ROC.2 Consequently, two states (Panama and São Tomé and Príncipe) cut off their relations with the ROC and established relations with the PRC. This has not always been the case, as the recent history of the ROC has been full of changes. In 1895 Taiwan became a part of the Japanese Empire as a result of the defeat of Imperial China in the first SinoJapanese war. Following the collapse of the Chinese Empire and the 379

380 Jens Rosenke Xinhai Revolution, the Republic of China was founded on January 1, 1912, in Nanjing. Under the rule of the Kuomintang (KMT), Sun Yatsen became the first president of the ROC. The political situation of the ROC was very unstable. There was not only the war against Japan but also the struggle against a large number of warlords and the beginnings of the civil war against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). With the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945, the colonial rule of Taiwan ended. With the support of the Soviet Union, the CCP achieved superiority over the army of the KMT and during a four-year civil war forced it to retreat in many provinces in China. Following the fall of Beijing and the proclamation of the PRC on October 1, 1949, the ROC held only some small provinces, coastal islands, and Taiwan. In 1949, General Chiang Kai-shek and the rest of the ROC government fled to Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, and established their rule in the form of a dictatorship. The PRC attempted to destroy the remaining troops of the ROC. China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conquered Hainan and the Yijiangshan Islands. It began an artillery shelling of Quemoy and Matsu, but the islands were successfully defended by the ROC army. Mao Zedong tried to invade Taiwan again in 1958 but, with the support of the United States, the army of the ROC was able to successfully defend its territory.3 The situation for the ROC changed dramatically in 1972 when US president Richard Nixon visited the PRC and recognized the “one China” principle. With the ratification of UN Resolution 2758, the ROC lost not only its seat on the UN Security Council but also its status as a UN member. Henceforth, the ROC was officially referred to as an entity rather than a state. The situation of the ROC improved with the ratification by the US Congress of the Taiwan Relations Act on April 10, 1979. In this act, the United States declared its intention to support the ROC with defensive weapons.4 With the death of Chiang Kai-shek on April 5, 1975, his son Chiang Ching-kuo became president in 1978. Under pressure from the United States under President Jimmy Carter, Chiang Ching-kuo introduced some reforms and ended martial law in 1987. In 1991 the PRC and ROC began second-track diplomatic talks about the Strait Exchange Foundation (SEF) and the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) in Singapore. These came to be known as the Koon-Wang Talks, after the two negotiators. Both sides were able to agree that there was only one China, but they could not determine the diplomatic character of this China. For the ROC the general statement is that “one China” does not refer to the PRC. With the return of Hong Kong to the PRC in 1997, the PRC established the prin-

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ciple of “one country, two systems.” The PRC respected some of the democratic rules of Hong Kong, and Hong Kong obtained the status of a special administrative region. The PRC intended this to serve as an example of what a possible reunification with the ROC could look like. With the election of Lee Teng-hui in 1996, the first free presidential elections on Taiwan, relations with the PRC worsened. As a consequence of missile tests by the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) off the coast of Taiwan, the US Navy sent two aircraft carrier groups to the Taiwan Strait.5 Unlike the KMT, the DPP stands more for an independent Taiwan and does not recognize the “one China” principle and reunification with the PRC as a major political goal. The PRC has never given up its threat to use military force if the ROC ever declares its independence. This special situation, with a persistent military threat, also constitutes a special situation for the ROC intelligence service. With the economic opening of the PRC, the dependence of the ROC grows. The ROC was the first major direct investor in the PRC. Many tourists and mainland Chinese visit the ROC. At the same time, the political and military pressure on the ROC from the PRC is increasing. With its economic success, the PRC is not only developing its industry but also modernizing its military, and doing so with a focus on Taiwan. The de facto existence of this independent state is one major driver for the modernization of the PLA and the military buildup of the PRC. The military threat is real. At its narrowest, the Strait of Formosa is only 180 kilometers wide. A guided-missile destroyer belonging to PLAN, or an amphibious landing ship with a speed of twenty knots, would need only four hours to reach the coast of Taiwan.6 The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) has stationed eight fighter divisions and two bomber divisions that could be used for air attacks in its southern and eastern military districts.7 These could easily reach Taiwan in just ten to twenty minutes. The PLA Rocket Force has also positioned more than 1,100 medium- and shortrange ballistic missiles that could reach targets in the ROC.8 Taiwan is also within range of the PLA artillery. The relationship of the ROC with the United States is therefore vital. In the strategic view of the United States, Taiwan is an unsinkable aircraft carrier and has an important strategic position in front of the coast of the PRC. The Formosa Strait is also an important shipping lane for Japan. Taiwan is a bargaining chip in the conflict between the United States and the PRC. Under the presidency of Donald Trump, relations between the ROC and the United States have improved and will intensify. The United States will be speeding up the delivery of many new weapons systems to the ROC.

382 Jens Rosenke Since Xi Jinping’s presidency of the PRC, the pressure on the ROC has increased. In his opinion, the long-existing status quo between the ROC and the PRC is no longer an option and must change in the near future. Taiwan remains the last task required in order to achieve total national reunification: a long-established goal of the PRC, and the last major security goal. In its role as a model of a democratic Chinese state, the ROC also constitutes a threat for the PRC. The people of the PRC see a different Chinese state, one that is ruled by a democratic elected government. Since Tsai Ing-wen’s presidency, Beijing has intensified its political and psychological campaign against the ROC, with the aim of destabilizing society in the ROC, undermining the people’s trust in ROC state institutions, and persuading the ROC’s last allies to change sides.9 In doing so, the PRC uses a variety of methods, such as spreading fake news, carrying out hacker attacks, cyber warfare, sabotaging actions, and espionage. 10 This represents an enormous challenge for Taiwan’s intelligence institutions. Its opponents use the same language and have the same cultural background. The economies and the people on both sides of the Strait of Formosa are deeply connected. However, the ROC has not always been a democratic state and its intelligence institutions have not always been focused on preventing the influence of mainland China. ROC Intelligence Services ROC intelligence has its roots in the foundation of the KMT. Initially, it was a party organization with no state control. It started off with a character much along the lines of a secret police force and played an important role in the Chinese civil war. Chiang Kai-shek organized intelligence institutions and adapted them to his perception of the then-existing threats. On December 12, 1936, Chiang Kai-shek was captured by his own generals Zhang Xueliang and Yang Hucheng during a troop visit in Xi’an. They forced him to make an agreement that the KMT and CCP should fight together against the Imperial Japanese Army. Chiang Kaishek made an agreement with the CCP and created the first united front, and so he could leave Xi’an.11 Following the Xi’an incident, his focus was primarily on disloyal elites and soldiers and not the CCP.12 At the same time, he played people and institutions off each other in order to gain control over them. This was his approach to maintaining total control over all important institutions.13

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Dai Li was the founder of the modern intelligence service in the ROC. He organized the first KMT intelligence organization, called Juntong but officially known as the National Bureau of Investigation and Statistics (NBIS), in 1938 and laid the foundation for the intelligence service organizations that followed. 14 He not only created the training program for members but also led the organization and recruited the personnel.15 The Juntong had the character of a secret society in the Warring States period in China. It was a sworn brotherhood of Chinese nationalists. In the Sino-Japanese war, the NBIS carried out sabotage actions and the assassination of Japanese military officers. 16 During this period the agents of the NBIS carried out 150 assassinations. 17 They also cooperated with US agents against the Japanese occupation. The NBIS was also responsible for intelligence and counterintelligence operations in this era. Chiang Kai-shek’s main focus lay in the task of governing the ROC on the Chinese mainland. His threat perceptions changed again after the collapse of the KMT on the Chinese mainland and its retreat to Taiwan. From then on, the CCP and the possibility of a local uprising and their suppression became the primary focus of intelligence activities. When the KMT arrived in Taiwan, it abolished the Japanese colonial system and in its place established a simple copy of the same system and institutions as had existed on the Chinese mainland, creating ad hoc bodies to stabilize the KMT regime on the island.18 Intelligence institutions were reorganized, and Taiwan was put under martial law by Chiang Kaishek in May 1949. This epoch, from 1947 to 1949, went down in ROC history as the “white terror,” during which the KMT’s rule over Taiwan was established.19 In 1949, the Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Interior was founded.20 Six years later, on March 1, 1955, the National Security Bureau (NSB) and the Military Intelligence Bureau (MIB) were founded with a presidential directive by Chiang Kai-shek. His son Chiang Ching-kuo became deputy secretary-general of the NSB.21 The NSB then fell under the control of the National Defense Council.22 The NSB was responsible for the control and organization of all intelligence institutions and was subject to the authority of Chiang Kai-shek. The NSB’s main task was the stabilization of internal control and the rule of the KMT in Taiwan. In its capacity as a secret police force, the NSB was feared by the population of the ROC,23 who called it “Taiwan’s KGB.”24 As an intelligence service, the NSB also led a wide intelligence network and groups of agents and training centers in Hong Kong during the 1950s that carried out intelligence and sabotage operations in the PRC.

384 Jens Rosenke Its main task was the collection of information about the CCP and the PLA.25 In the 1970s, the professionalization of the ROC’s administration and intelligence began with the separation of domestic and foreign intelligence services in order to make them even more efficient. These institutional changes continued in the 1980s. With the rise of civil authority over the military and the end of the thirty-eight years of martial law on July 5, 1987, the gradual democratization of the ROC began. The institutions of the ROC’s intelligence services were transformed from being KMT party organizations to being state institutions and more professional in their nature. One reason for these developments were some major spy incidents that highlighted the failures of the ROC’s intelligence services, especially the Military Intelligence Bureau.26 On October 15, 1984, Taiwanese businessman Henry Liu was murdered in California by members of the Bamboo Gang, a group with strong connections to the KMT, after he authored a controversial biography of ROC president Chiang Ching-kuo.27 Some MIB officers were involved in this case and were put on trial in Taiwan. 28 The trial revealed that the Bamboo Gang members had obtained access to information from the Taiwanese intelligence service. “Jiang Nan” was Henry Liu’s pseudonym as the author and the case became widely known as the Jiang Nan incident, which put ROC intelligence institutions under pressure and opened them to public criticism and reorganization. As a result, the MIB was removed from the control of the NSB and put under the control of the chief of the General Staff.29 It also encouraged political groups in the United States to demand more democratic reforms in the ROC.30 The process of binding the intelligence service into the structure of the law and the constitution of the ROC continues. In 1991, the National Security Council was established and put under the control of the NSB. On January 1, 1994, the NSB became a legal organ by presidential order, and the organic law of the NSB was passed by the ROC parliament.31 Lee Teng-hui was elected president of the ROC on March 23, 1996, the first Taiwanese native to attain this high position.32 His presidency could be characterized by the terms “institutionalism” and “Taiwanization.”33 For Lee Teng-hui, the priority was to bring more Taiwanese native officers into key command posts, such as General Tang Yaoming, who became chief of the General Staff in 1999, not only of the NSB but also of all state institutions.34 He completely reorganized intelligence structures, legalized the institutions, and put some of them under democratic control.35 Henceforth, covert action operations came under the responsibility of the NSB.36

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With the election of Chen Shui-bian as the president of the ROC on May 20, 2000, the first president from the DPP, the process of the legalization and democratization of the intelligence services, especially the National Security Council (NSC), NSB, and MIB, was completed.37 Chen Shui-bian had problems not only with the effectiveness of the intelligence institutions but also with their neutrality.38 Two cases also illustrate a great loyalty problem of the NSB with respect to the DDP and the office of the president in general. Peng Tzu-wen, a former director of the NSB, not only leaked information and security details concerning national emergency plans and underground channels in a television interview but also told the reporter that he “would not take a bullet for president Chen.”39 Chen Feng-lin, an active officer in the NSB Special Service Center, gave information to Peng about the president’s schedule so the media could follow him even when this information had not been released to the public.40 As a result, Chen Feng-lin lost his position while Peng was found guilty of leaking secrets by the High Court of the ROC, resulting in a two-year prison sentence in 2007.41 With the election of Ma Ying-jeou from the KMT as ROC president (2008–2016) the course of the relationship between the PRC and Taiwan changed again. Ma wanted to deepen the diplomatic relationship between the PRC and the ROC. This also had effects on the intelligence services. With the economic opening of the PRC, cooperation between the two sides intensified and new problems arose. Thus, the travel of retired NSB members to mainland China and the increased pressure and operations of the PRC intelligence services became the focus of the ROC intelligence services. Ma’s presidency ended ingloriously, as he himself was accused of leaking security information. On May 15, 2018, he was sentenced by the ROC High Court to pay the equivalent of US$4,000 or alternatively to go to jail for four months.42 Under President Tsai Ing-wen, the NSC underwent a major change in personnel. With the establishment of a Department of Cyber Security, one of the most recent institutional reforms, the new task is the protection of ROC digital infrastructure.43 One focus is the improvement of counterintelligence measures. Legislation The security and intelligence organizations of the ROC underwent many changes and reforms before they became fully legalized in 1994. Today, according to the constitution of the ROC, two main laws explain and

386 Jens Rosenke regulate the tasks and duties of ROC intelligences services: the National Security Bureau Organic Act44 and the National Intelligence Services Act.45 The main bodies of the ROC intelligence organization are the NSC and the NSB. Article 36 of the ROC constitution grants the ROC president the chairmanship of the NSC.46 As in the defense commissions of other states, the task of the NSC is the strategic planning of national defense as a whole. The intelligence service is a part of this. It is interesting to note that in Article 2 of the additional articles of the ROC constitution, mention is made of the establishment of the NSC and the NSB.47 Assisted by and under the coordination of the NSC, the ROC president has direct control over the activities of the NSB. According to the constitution of the ROC, the NSC has to report to the ROC parliament, the Legislative Yuan. Unfortunately, however, this system has generated a conflict between the rule of the ROC president over national defense and that of the ROC parliament.48 In practice, the Legislative Yuan cannot oversee the role of the NSC and therefore has little influence over it. The NSC is headed by the ROC president, who also appoints all members.49 ROC presidents use the advice of the NSC in order to establish and oversee their own national policy. Personnel limitations and a small budget mean that the NSC consists of only thirteen members.50 Unlike the NSB, the NSC does not have the ability to influence other institutions. The NSB is the leading institution of the ROC intelligence structure. Article 2 of the organic law of the NSB describes its position as follows: “The National Security Bureau, being a subsidiary organ of the National Security Council, is charged with the overall management of the nation’s security and intelligence activities as well as the planning and execution of special missions.”51 However, the mission and the tasks of the NSB are not restricted to organization and coordination. It is also supposed to be responsible for supporting state institutions such as the Military Intelligence Bureau, Communication Development Office, General Political Warfare Bureau and Military Policy Command under the Ministry of National Defense, Coast Guard Administration under the Executive Yuan, National Police Administration under the Ministry of Interior, and Investigation Bureau under the Ministry of Justice.52 This opens up a wide range of possibilities for the NSB in terms of influencing other institutions. The NSB organic law describes the missions and the meanings of the NSB only in general terms. In order to fulfill these tasks, from Article 4 to Article 11, the National Organic Act establishes the complete structure of the five departments and one center.53 To coordinate these institutions, the NSB is entitled to head the National Security and Intelligence Conference (NSIC) in order to “achieve the required coordination and integration for the nation’s security and intelligence . . . work.”54

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The special Service Department of the NSB is especially responsible for the safety of the president, vice president, their families, former presidents, and other designated individuals.55 According to Article 18, the NSB is also responsible for the encryption of official documents and secret codes.56 Only the NSB has permission to read and decode them. Article 20 of the NSIC law determines that “budgets for the National Security Bureau shall be handled as confidential.”57 One main problem for democratic states is the control and guidance of their intelligence services. In the ROC there is not just an institutional conflict about the Legislative Yuan and the NSC as an advisory council. It is beyond question that the NSC and the NSB are limited by the ROC constitution. One level of the conflict is the party conflict between the DDP and the KMT and the effects this has on the NSB. On the other hand, the loyalty of the NSB to a president drawn from the DPP has historically proven to be questionable. Another big issue is seen by some observers in the legislative problem of counterintelligence measures.58 These measures are not aimed at the intelligence institutions, but instead at the personal liberties of the people of the ROC and former employees of the intelligence institutions, such as bans on travel to the PRC or the duty to report all foreign travel.59 Institutional Infrastructure The National Security Bureau organic law specifies that the NSB be headed by a director-general who should have the rank of a military general.60 He is in charge and has control over the affairs of the NSB.61 The role of the NSB is not only the coordination of intelligence organizations but also intelligence and counterintelligence. It is therefore the leading institution in the ROC with respect to gathering information. The NSB is subdivided into eight departments, six supporting units, and three centers.62 Every department has its own responsibilities and the resources to support other ROC intelligence institutions and to fulfill its own tasks (see Figure 21.1). The NSB is required to report to the president of the ROC directly on matters of national security. It must not inform the NSC, nor should it report to the ROC parliament. All institutions coordinated by the NSB have an intelligence task that is overseen by the NSB. The Military Police Command is responsible for enforcing the Military Justice Act, the security of government institutions, counterterrorism, and protection of very important persons. It is subordinated to the Ministry of Defense and subdivided into four area military police commands.63 It also has its

388 Figure 21.1 Taiwan’s Intelligence Structure ROC President

National Security Council Presided Over by ROC President

National Security Bureau

Coordination Meeting for National Security Intelligence Presided Over by NSB Director

Military Intelligence Bureau

Investigation Bureau of Ministry of Justice

General Political Warfare Bureau

Military Police Headquarters

Coast Guard Command

National Security Bureau

Telecommunication Development Office of the Ministry of National Defense

National Police Administration of the Ministry of Interior

Sources: Federation of American Scientists, https://fas.org/irp/world/taiwan/nsb.htm; National Security Bureau, https://www.nsb.gov.tw/En/En_index01.html. Notes: The National Security Bureau consists of eight departments: International Intelligence, Intelligence Chinese Mainland, Security Intelligence Taiwan, Analysis of National Strategic Intelligence, Sci-Tech Intelligence and Communications Security, Research and Development, National Cyber Security, and Internal Security; three centers: Scientific Research Office, Training Center, and Special Service Center; and these units: General Affairs Office, Information Management, Secretariat, Department of Government Ethics, Accounting Department, and Personnel Department.

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own military intelligence unit, which is responsible for military reconnaissance and crime detection.64 The Bureau of Military Intelligence reports to the Ministry of Defense and is in general legally responsible for the activities of the PLA and for military reconnaissance. The Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Justice is comparable to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and its major task is the investigation of organized crime, the protection of national secrets, cyber defense, as well as counter-infiltration, especially with respect to the PRC.65 It reports to the Ministry of Justice and is subdivided into six divisions, with an estimated 3,00066 officers under its command.67 The General Political Warfare Bureau, in turn, is under the authority of the Ministry of Defense and is responsible for countering the ideological warfare of the PRC.68 The Telecommunications Development Office of the Ministry of National Defense protects ROC military communication networks. In addition, the ROC’s Coast Guard Administration has the function of preventing smuggling, overseeing Taiwan’s coastal islands, and enforcing maritime law. 69 It reports to the Ministry of Interior and is subdivided into eight commands and twenty-five coast guard battalions.70 The National Police Administration of the Ministry of Interior is responsible for all policy departments in the ROC. Its major task is crime prevention. Some observers also consider the National Immigration Agency to be part of the ROC intelligence structure. The agency is responsible for the administration and organization of migration, and preventing and cracking down on illegal immigration and human trafficking. It is also responsible for border control.71 In the early years of the ROC, the agency was supposed to prevent members of the CCP from entering Taiwan.72 It therefore also fulfills a counterintelligence function. Today it checks all foreigners who wish to enter the ROC. Functions and Operations The main task of the NSB is to help guarantee the national sovereignty and the national interests of the ROC. In order to achieve this, it collects and analyzes intelligence data, especially concerning the PRC, and organizes and coordinates intelligence operations.73 These tasks can be divided into espionage and counterintelligence operations. The espionage operations are focused on the main tasks of the NSB, particularly the reconnaissance of the military capabilities of the PLA

390 Jens Rosenke on the other side of the Strait. It checks and controls a number of parameters related to war preparations and reconnaissance, as well as troop and ship movements. The NSB has an important early-warning function with respect to war preparations by the PRC.74 For this reason, the main targets of the NSB are officials and military officers. The counterintelligence operations of the NSB are concentrated on preventing the harmful influence of the various PRC intelligence services. These include the protection of critical infrastructure, cyber warfare, the prevention of industrial espionage, and the uncovering of the espionage activities of the PRC intelligence services. The NSB is also responsible for the protection of government officials and candidates, and the handling of government documents.75 Intelligence operations are successful if they are not disclosed to the public. In this regard the NSB is very successful. If an NSB operation is disclosed, the intention behind the operation ends up being revealed as well. In 1996, Lee Teng-hui accidentally uncovered some high-ranking PLA officers who were working for the NSB when he told the public that the missiles that the PLA had test-fired in 1996 during his election campaign did not have armed warheads. Only a few PLA officers could have known this information.76 The PLA initiated an investigation and revealed PLA general Liu Liankun as the leak. He was an officer in the General Logistics Department.77 He and his wife were executed in 1999.78 In 2007, Jin Renqin, the former finance minister of the PRC, became the victim of a “honey trap” that may have been the work of ROC intelligence.79 Unfortunately, the relevant WikiLeaks cable only conjectured that the NSB was responsible. Naturally, it is difficult to verify spy cases, as the diplomatic conflict means that there is no evidence as to which side is responsible. The PRC accused Taiwan of influencing the protest movement in Hong Kong and the special administration region with the goal of creating chaos.80 Taiwan intelligence is supposedly responsible for many spy rings on the mainland. The NSB is said to use students for the collection of sensitive information. The Thunderbolt Campaign 2018 of the PRC’s Ministry of Public Security allegedly cracked down on hundreds of Taiwanese students who supposedly spied for the ROC and spy rings on the mainland.81 On the other hand, the Mainland Affairs Council warned Taiwanese citizens who sought permanent residence status of Ministry of Public Security surveillance measures.82 Counterintelligence appears to be a problematic task for the NSB as well as an enormous problem for ROC intelligence in general. 83

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The deep economic connections between the two sides and the open society of the ROC make it extremely vulnerable to PRC operations and industrial espionage. According to estimates by the Taiwanese administration, in 2017 more than 5,000 individuals were allegedly spying for the PRC in Taiwan.84 The analysis of PRC espionage activities highlights four problems and tasks for ROC counterintelligence. The PRC’s Preparedness for Spying on the ROC

On September 2018, former deputy chief of the Military Intelligence Bureau, Lieutenant General Wong Yen-ching, published a book in which he unveiled the methods and organizations used by PRC intelligence institutions to operate against Taiwan.85 He describes the PLA cyber unit Bureau Six as the leading institution for collecting data and initiating cyber attacks against the ROC.86 Bureau Six is furthermore suspected of being responsible for the infiltration of the mobile broadband network of Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom.87 It is said to have installed three eavesdropping stations on the coast of Futian and had divisions working within Wuhan University disguised as research centers.88 The Shanghai-based branch of Bureau Six in particular was collecting digital files and personal data from every member of the Taiwanese military with the rank of colonel.89 Wong stressed the role of electronic intelligence and cyber operations. The United Front Department is thought to be another important institution. It has a special role and is intended to create chaos and unrest so that Beijing can legitimize military actions or an invasion. It also undermines democratic rule and destabilizes the political system of the ROC.90 To this end, the United Front Department has a network with triads and criminals.91 The main counterparts are known by ROC counterintelligence. Preventing the Leaking of Sensitive Matters to Beijing

Due to the economic and cultural connections that exist, it is not very difficult for PRC intelligence agencies to get in contact with highranking potential sources. Taiwanese businessmen, and especially retired officials, travel frequently to the PRC, and some of them have settled in mainland China. Until recently they did not have to report their PRC travel and visits to the ROC. 92 Therefore, there have been some major incidents where former NSB officers have been captured by PRC intelligence. The situation has improved in recent years, as

392 Jens Rosenke the ROC government has passed a law that requires retired government officials and military personnel to report on their travels to foreign countries.93 As in the case of the NSB, PRC intelligence activities are mainly aimed at recruiting ROC military servicemen in order to acquire sensitive information on Taiwan’s military installations and air-defense weapons. 94 The ROC Air Force Academy had a number of highranking spy cases in 2012, such as that of Air Force Colonel Liu-Ju, who is alleged to have organized a spy ring for the PRC. 95 But the problem is not limited to Taiwan Island. In addition, the diplomatic personnel of the ROC constitute a target for PRC intelligence, as in the case of Lo Hsien-che, who was the de facto military attaché of the ROC in Thailand. He is serving a life sentence due to his contacts with PRC agents in Bangkok.96 The problem of the leaking of sensitive information and industrial espionage concerns not only the ROC but also US companies that have established contacts to Taiwan’s economy.97 Another method for the acquisition of information is Beijing’s recruitment program, which is also aimed at Taiwanese experts with a technical background. The goal of the program is the development of PRC industry by technical experts, who move to the Chinese mainland for lucrative jobs. They are then available for potential recruitment attempts by PRC intelligence.98 Beijing’s Provocation and the ROC’s Lack of Confidence

ROC intelligence service institutions are put under pressure by PRC measures and espionage operations. The PRC has increased its political and psychological campaign against Taiwan in recent years. It has intensified its operations and is attempting to destabilize the ROC. For ROC counterintelligence, it is difficult to prevent and uncover the espionage activities of the PRC. Unlike the PRC intelligence institutions, ROC intelligence institutions are bound by a legal foundation, meaning that their intelligence professionals can observe but must not act. In addition, there is national distrust with regard to the Taiwan intelligence institutions, most particularly the NSB.99 Additionally, “cutouts” and “co-optees” operating in third countries further complicate matters for ROC counterintelligence.100 PRC pressure on the ROC is not limited to cyber warfare and the creation of fake news in order to undermine Taiwanese society. Beijing directly supports the Pro-China Party in Taiwan. The political goal of this party is to support the PRC’s policy of unification with the ROC. It

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serves as a vehicle for Chinese intelligence institutions in particular to cooperate with China’s United Front Department. The head of the party is Chang An-lo, a former organized crime figure.101 The Pro-China Party is involved in laundering money and running an illegal underground bank.102 In ROC government parties such as the KMT and the DPP there is still no consensus and no strategic clarity with regard to Beijing’s intentions, which makes it difficult for counterintelligence measures and operations to be carried out.103 On the contrary, the Legislative Yuan and the ROC government have had doubts about PRC fake news in the media and its influence on ROC local elections.104 This is despite the fact that the NSB has had solid evidence that the PRC supports their preferred candidates and parties with money and had tried to influence Taipei’s local elections.105 Recruitment and “Brain Drain” Problems

Recruitment problems also affect the intelligence community, which is particularly sensitive to them. Working for the NSB is not seen as interesting, and thus much of the talent, particularly in the area of information technology, seeks jobs in the private sector. As a consequence, the NSB has been unable to establish its planned cyber divisions.106 In these situations, the NSB’s international cooperation with other agencies has become extremely important. Oversight Officially, the NSB is supervised by the Legislative Yuan, the ROC parliament. Its influence is determined by the ROC constitution and laws. The Legislative Yuan can transfer its exercising of control to the Organic Law Committee and the Budget Committee of the Legislative Yuan.107 These authorize and control the budget of the NSB.108 The budget of the NSB is decided “behind closed doors” and “incorporated into the budgets of other government agencies.”109 The NSB is under the direct control of the ROC office of the president, who leads the NSB and the coordination meeting of the national intelligence service (see Figure 21.1). However, the NSB director also has special reporting rules and must not report to the Legislative Yuan but instead directly to the ROC president. The other intelligence institutions, such as the MIB and the Coast Guard Administration, are under the control of the National Defense Ministry, for example.

394 Jens Rosenke International Cooperation The most important partner for the NSB is the United States. There is a long history of cooperation between the two countries and their intelligence services, particularly in the field of early-warning systems and the procurement of modern weapon systems. The ROC is part of the US Air Force’s Defense Support Program, which may improve ROC military capabilities in terms of missile detection and missile defense. To this end, the US intelligence agencies have established connections to Taiwan’s Space Academy.110 At the local level, the ROC has been trying to improve its relationship with Japanese intelligence, especially in the field of the reconnaissance of PLA activities and maneuvers. 111 In this case, the ROC shares the same interests as Japan and other regional partners. Taiwan would also like to participate in Interpol, but more in the field of fighting organized crime.112 Individual ROC institutions have established contacts with their partner institutions in other countries. The National Policy Administration has opened liaison offices in Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau is deeply connected with foreign services, not only in the region, but worldwide. It has liaison offices and partners in Europe, such as Military Intelligence 6 (MI6) and the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND), as well as Japan in Asia. According to its own statements it has trained more than 500 agents from foreign countries in the past decade.113 The main topic is language training in Mandarin and the tactics and methods of PRC intelligence institutions and counterintelligence.114 Investigation Bureau officers have also visited Hong Kong in order to improve counterintelligence ties, and there are rumors that the Investigation Bureau also planned to open a liaison office in Pyongyang in 1999,115 but these could not be verified. The ROC intelligence apparatus is very deeply connected with like services in neighboring countries. Conclusion Taiwan is a democratic state under pressure, and the situation will become even worse as the influence of the PRC increases in the coming years. The NSB is the first line of defense. For this reason, the NSB must be prepared to enhance its field of activity, especially in the area of counterintelligence. This will be its main goal for the next few years.

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Today it still seems that the NSB could fulfill its task. The focus has changed from controlling Taiwanese citizens to counterintelligence against the PRC intelligence service. Now the main task is to prevent the harmful influence of the mainland intelligence service, to prevent an invasion, and to cooperate with other services in order to strengthen Taiwan’s status as an independent state in the region. This is one of the reasons why Taiwan’s intelligence service needs to cooperate with other services worldwide. The NSB depends mainly on cooperation with the intelligence services of the United States and major countries in the region, such as Japan and South Korea. Over the years of its existence, the NSB has changed from a secret police force that was part of the KMT to a neutral state intelligence service. But even today, it seems that this development is not yet complete. The NSB still has many rights, and democratic oversight is still not fully established. The NSB is an institution of the ROC president, with special rights and privileges. Oversight of its budget and intelligence operations is very difficult for Taiwan’s parliament, and it seems that for the government of the ROC, this is intentionally the case. The root of this development lies in the ROC’s special security situation. In addition, the people of Taiwan do not trust the NSB. For many, it is still the secret police from the first years of the ROC. To improve this situation and enhance security, parliamentary control must be expanded so that counterintelligence measures can be established and supported by both the government and the people of the Taiwan. Notes 1. The official foreign affairs website of the Republic of China is https://www .taiwan.gov.tw/content_5.php. 2. “Panama Wählt China und Verstößt Taiwan” (Panama Chooses China and Repudiates Taiwan), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 13, 2017, https://www.faz.net /aktuell/politik/ausland/panama-bricht-diplomatische-beziehung-zu-taiwan-15058897 .html. 3. “Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, Quemoy and Matsu Islands, 23 August 1958–1 January 1959,” https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/quemoy_matsu-2.htm. 4. Taiwan Relation Act, https://www.ait.org.tw/our-relationship/policy-history/key -u-s-foreign-policy-documents-region/taiwan-relations-act. 5. A good overview of the Taiwan crisis can be found at https://www.globalsecurity .org/military/ops/taiwan.htm. 6. Some islands, such as Matsu, are only a hundred meters away from the PRC. They could easily be attacked and invaded by the PLA. 7. A good overview of the military situation and Taiwanese threat perception is provided in Ian Easton, The Chinese Invasion Threat: Taiwan’s Defense and American Strategy in Asia (Arlington: Virginia Project 2049 Institute, 2017), 300–302.

396 Jens Rosenke 8. Tanner Greer, “Taiwan Can Win a War with China; Beijing Boasts It Can Seize the Island Easily; the PLA Knows Better.” September 25, 2018, https://foreignpolicy .com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war-with-china. 9. Liao Han-yuan and Ko Lin, “China Using Fake News to Undermine Taiwan’s Democracy: U.S. Report in Focus,” Taiwan News, November 15, 2018, http://focustaiwan .tw/news/aipl/201811150018.aspx. 10. Ibid. 11. Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story (London: Vintage, 2006), 223; “Xi’an Incident,” China Daily, December 12, 2011, http://www.chinadaily .com.cn/china/19thcpcnationalcongress/2011-12/12/content_29715109.htm. 12. Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Dictators and Their Secret Police: Coercive Institutions and State Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 77. 13. Ibid. 14. Yeh Wen-hsin, “Dai Li and the Liu Geqing Affair: Heroism in the Chinese Secret Service During the War of Resistance,” Journal of Asian Studies 48, no. 3 (August 1989), 546. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid., 552. 17. Ibid. 18. Chestnut Greitens, Dictators and Their Secret Police, 77. 19. Huang Tai-lin, “White Terror Exhibit Unveils Part of the Truth,” Taipei Times, May 20, 2005, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2005/05/20/2003255840. 20. Investigation Bureau, https://fas.org/irp/world/taiwan/mjib.htm. 21. National Security Bureau, https://fas.org/irp/world/taiwan/nsb.htm. 22. Ibid. 23. Thomas C. Bruneau and Steven C. Boraz, Reforming Intelligence: Obstacles to Democratic Control and Effectiveness (Austin: Texas University Press, 2017), 173. 24. Ibid. 25. Steven Tsang, The Cold War’s Odd Couple: The Unintended Partnership Between the Republic of China and the UK (London: Tauris, 2005), 169. 26. Bruneau and Boraz, Reforming Intelligence, 175. 27. Ibid. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid. 31. National Security Bureau, https://fas.org/irp/world/taiwan/nsb.htm. 32. “Taiwan: Insel der Selbstbewußten” (Taiwan: Island of the Self-Confident), Der Spiegel, April 8, 1996, http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-8905999.html. 33. Bruneau and Boraz, Reforming Intelligence, 176. 34. Ibid., 178. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid., 177. 37. Ibid.,180. 38. Ibid. 39. “Former Top Security Chief Reprimanded in Court by Judge,” Taipei Times, October 22, 2005, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2005/10/22/2003276839. 40. Jimmy Chuang, “Presidential Office Leak Discovered,” Taipei Times, September 9, 2004, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2004/09/09/2003202170. 41. Rich Chang, “Peng Guilty of Leaks: High Court,” Taipei Times, September 22, 2007, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2007/09/22/2003379878. 42. “Former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou Sentenced to 4 Months in Prison for Leaking Information,” South China Morning Post, April 15, 2018, https://www.scmp .com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2146163/former-taiwan-president-ma-ying -jeou-sentenced-4-months.

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43. “Hacking Offensive Against Taipeh,” Intelligence Online, May 18, 2016, https:// www.intelligenceonline.com/government-intelligence/2015/02/11/beijing-expands -interception-network,108060996-art. See also Chung Li-hua, “Reshuffle and No Benefit to NSC: Sources,” Taipei Times, June 12, 2017, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan /archives/2017/06/12/2003672409/2. 44. National Security Bureau, “Organic Law,” https://fas.org/irp/world/taiwan/nsbb2-1 .htm. 45. National Security Bureau, “Missions,” https://www.nsb.gov.tw/En/En_index01 .html. 46. See Constitution of the Republic of China, art. 36, https://law.moj.gov.tw/ENG /LawClass/LawAll.aspx?pcode=A0000001. 47. See Additional Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China, art. 2, https://law.moj.gov.tw/ENG/LawClass/LawAll.aspx?pcode=A0000002. 48. York W. Chen, “The Modernization of Taiwan’s National Security Council,” China Brief 10, no. 22 (November 5, 2010), 13. 49. Ibid., 14. 50. Ibid., 15. 51. National Security Bureau, “Organic Law.” 52. National Security Bureau, “Missions.” 53. Ibid. The NSB now consists of eight departments and four centers. 54. National Security Bureau, “Organic Law,” art. 17. 55. National Security Bureau, “Special Service,” https://www.nsb.gov.tw/En/En _index01.html. 56. National Security Bureau, “Organic Law.” 57. Ibid. 58. Peter Mattis, “Counterintelligence Remains Weakness in Taiwan’s Defense,” China Brief 17, no. 11 (August 17, 2017), 12. 59. Ibid. 60. National Security Bureau, “Organic Law.” 61. Ibid. 62. National Security Bureau, “Organization Chart,” https://www.nsb.gov.tw/En /En_index01.html. 63. ROC Military Police Command, “Organization,” https://afpc.mnd.gov.tw:7443 /en/AboutUs/About_Info.aspx?ID=40043&CID=11. 64. Ibid. 65. Investigation Bureau of Ministry of Justice, “Functions,” https://www.mjib.gov .tw/EditPage/?PageID=1016363e-4741-4fdd-9406-fdd2cb444ee7. 66. Chin Ko-lin, Organized Crime, Business, and Politics in Taiwan (New York: Sharpe, 2003), 163. 67. Investigation Bureau of Ministry of Justice, “Organic Act,” https://www .mjib.gov.tw/EditPage/?PageID=0287f67e-5942-4514-9123-d3a9a6c4e770. 68. Ministry of Defense, “About,” https://www.mnd.gov.tw/English/Publish.aspx?p =74731&title=About%20MND. 69. “Coast Guard Command,” https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/taiwan /coast-guard.htm. 70. Ibid. 71. Ministry of the Interior, “National Immigration Agency,” https://www.immigration .gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=1297855&ctNode=35851&mp=2. 72. Ibid. See also “The History of the National Immigration Agency, Ministry of the Interior,” https://www.immigration.gov.tw/5475/5478/141386/141395/141414. 73. National Security Bureau, “Greetings from Director-General,” https://www .nsb.gov.tw/En/En_index01.html. 74. Easton, The Chinese Invasion Threat, 69. 75. National Security Bureau, “Greetings from Director-General.”

398 Jens Rosenke 76. “Taiwan (Republic of China),” in Brassey’s International Intelligence Yearbook 2003 (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2003), 196. 77. “Ex-Spy to Surrender to Beijing,” Taipei Times, June 28, 2001, http://www .taipeitimes.com/News/local/archives/2001/06/28/0000091846. 78. “Taiwan (Republic of China),” in Brassey’s International Intelligence Yearbook 2003, 196. 79. “Chinese Minister Was Caught in a ‘Honeytrap,’” The Telegraph, June 26, 2011, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8599565/Chinese-minister-was -caught-in-a-Honeytrap.html. 80. “Taiwanese Intelligence Accused of Meddling in Hong Kong,” The Diplomat, January 7, 2014, https://thediplomat.com/2014/01/taiwanese-intelligence-accused-of -meddling-in-hong-kong. 81. Ben Westcott and Yong Xiong, “China Accuses Taiwan of Manipulating Students with Sex to Become Spies,” September 18, 2018, https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09 /18/asia/china-taiwan-spying-allegations-intl/index.html. 82. Sherry Hsiao, “Taiwanese in China Warned of Surveillance,” Taipei Times, August 17, 2018, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2018/08/17/2003698667. 83. Mattis, “Counterintelligence Remains Weakness,” 8. 84. Xinhan Yu, “‘Beware of Honey Traps’ in Taiwan, China Warns Its Students,” https://www.inkstonenews.com/china/china-accuses-taiwan-training-spies-recruit-mainland -students-intelligence/article/216456. 85. “Book by Taiwan Ex–Spy Chief Outlines PLA Espionage Outfits,” Asia Times, October 4, 2018, http://www.atimes.com/article/book-by-taiwan-ex-spy-chief-outlines -pla-espionage-outfits. 86. Ibid. 87. Ibid. 88. Ibid. 89. Ibid. 90. Alexander Bowe, “China’s Overseas United Front Work Background and Implications for the United States,” August 24, 2018, https://www.uscc.gov/sites/default/files /Research/China%27s%20Overseas%20United%20Front%20Work%20-%20Background %20and%20Implications%20for%20US_final_0.pdf. 91. Ibid. 92. Peter Mattis, “China’s Espionage Against Taiwan, Part I: Analysis of Recent Operations Publication,” China Brief, November 7, 2014, https://jamestown.org/program /chinas-espionage-against-taiwan-part-i-analysis-of-recent-operations. 93. Mattis, “Counterintelligence Remains Weakness,” 12. 94. Mattis, “China’s Espionage Against Taiwan, Part I.” 95. “Air School Is Nest of Spies,” Intelligence Online, July 8, 2015, http://www .intelligenceonline.com/government-intelligence/2015/07/08/air-school-is-nest-of-spies ,108083253-ART. 96. “Book by Taiwan Ex–Spy Chief Outlines PLA Espionage Outfits,” Asia Times, October 4, 2018, http://www.atimes.com/article/book-by-taiwan-ex-spy-chief-outlines -pla-espionage-outfits. 97. “PRC State-Owned Company, Taiwan Company, and Three Individuals Charged with Economic Espionage,” November 1, 2018, https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell /library/news/2018/intell-181101-doj01.htm?_m=3n%252e002a%252e2419%252ebt0ao00fmv %252e285y. 98 Frank Fang, “Taiwan, South Korea Face Challenges from China’s Talent-Recruitment Agenda,” Epoch Times, October 15, 2018, https://www.theepochtimes.com/taiwan-south -korea-face-challenges-from-chinas-talent-recruitment-agenda_2689983.html. 99. Ibid., 10. 100. Ibid., 12. 101. Bowe, “China’s Overseas United Front Work Background.”

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102. Mattis, “Counterintelligence Remains Weakness”; “Taiwan Charges Pro-China Party Spokesman and Others with Breaching National Security,” Reuters, June 14, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-china-charge/taiwan-charges-pro-china-party -spokesman-and-others-with-breaching-national-security-idUSKBN1JA14X. 103. Ibid. 104. ROC Central News Agency, “Global Security,” December 10, 2018, https://www .globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/taiwan/2018/taiwan-181210-cna01.htm?_m=3n %252e002a%252e2446%252ebt0ao00fmv%252e2936. 105. “China Attempting to Meddle in Taiwan Elections—Intelligence Chief,” Focus Taiwan, October 22, 2018, http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201810220013.aspx. 106. “Taiwan’s Intelligence Agency Gets Zero Enlistment for Its Cyber Unit,” Tech News, April 29, 2015, http://technews.co/2015/04/29/taiwans-intelligence-agency-gets -zero-enlistment-for-its-cyber-unit. 107. “Taiwan (Republic of China),” in Brassey’s International Intelligence Yearbook 2003, 196. 108. Ibid. 109. National Security Bureau, “Organic Law.” 110. Wendell Minnick, “US Intelligence Is in Bed with Taiwan Space Agency,” September 24, 2018, https://www.shephardmedia.com/news/digital-battlespace/us-intelligence -bed-taiwan-space-agency. 111. Kensaku Ihara, “Taiwan Wants Intelligence-Sharing Arrangement with Japan,” January 26, 2018, https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-Relations/Taiwan-wants -intelligence-sharing-arrangement-with-Japan. 112. Claudia Liu and Elizabeth Hsu, “China Should Not Block Taiwan’s Interpol Bid—Interior Minister,” Focus Taiwan, October 17, 2018, http://focustaiwan.tw/news /acs/201810170016.aspx. 113. “Taiwan’s FBI Wants to Show It Has Friends,” Intelligence Online, November 1, 2017, https://www.intelligenceonline.com/government-intelligence/2017/11/01/taiwan-s -fbi-wants-to-show-it-has-friends,108278804-art. 114. Ibid. 115. “Stratfor: Taiwan Reportedly Planning an Intelligence Gathering Office in Pyongyang,” January 5, 1999, https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/taiwan-reportedly -planning-intelligence-gathering-office-pyongyang.

22 Tajikistan Anna Matveeva

Tajikistan is a small and landlocked country with a population of 8.8 million as of 2018 and is the poorest among the Soviet successor states. In 2016, it ranked 129 out of 187 countries surveyed for the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index, dropping from 113th place in 2002. The Legatum Institute Prosperity Index in 2017 ranked Tajikistan 102 out of 149, with downward movement on the health pillar and the lowest score in personal freedom. The country ranks low in governance indicators. It held 161st place on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index in 2017 out of 180 countries surveyed, dropping from a 124th place in 2003. Tajikistan, together with neighboring Kyrgyzstan, is the world leader in remittance dependency. Income from labor migrants, mostly in Russia, is a major contributor to consumptiondriven economic growth. Tajikistan gained its independence in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union but soon was plunged into a devastating civil war (1992–1997) that nearly led to a state collapse. The protagonists were the secularists, many of whom used to be in authority during the Soviet time, and their Islamist/democratic opponents, who sought to change the character of the state. Supporters of both camps came from different regions of the country, pitting them against each other, and the conflict turned into a bitter war between former neighbors when ideological differences mattered less than regional affiliations. Proximity to Afghanistan contributed to the acquisition of weapons.

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402 Anna Matveeva The neighboring country also became a sanctuary for around a million refugees in 1992. Peace accords were signed in 1997, negotiated with the help of international mediators, and a power-sharing deal was made, according to which the United Tajik Opposition (UTO) gained a 30 percent quota in government appointments and parliamentary seats. The accords were successful in bringing peace and allowed statebuilding to proceed. The unwritten part of the deal was in political economy, with control over lucrative assets divided in a way as to give the former adversaries a stake in maintaining peace. Shares in drug trafficking were believed to also be part of the equation. Eventually, security incidents decreased, and Tajikistan returned to growth in the 2000s. However, the quality of “power-sharing” eroded as direct presidential control increased. The Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) of Tajikistan, the successor party of the UTO, was banned as a “terrorist organization” in 2015 and the principle on which basis the accords had been signed was ended by the government. Prior to that, Tajikistan had a legitimate political opposition capable of publicly questioning state policies. Tajikistan’s political system that emerged can be characterized as “super-presidential,” whereby President Emomali Rahmon, in power since November 1992, is the supreme commander, arbiter, and decisionmaker. In 2016, 94.5 percent of the population voted in a referendum to allow him to rule for life. The system is highly centralized, which makes policymaking and execution relatively straightforward. Hierarchy of policy priorities is determined by the president, who assigns responsibilities for major areas. Policy goals are subordinated to internal security and stability of the political authority. The president’s family carries significant weight, but its members mostly hold civilian office: the president’s daughter Ozoda heads the presidential administration, son Rustam is the mayor of the capital, Dushanbe, and brother-in-law Hassan Sadulloyev is in charge of Oriyon Bank, which finances major revenue-generating assets. There are other figures occupying less significant posts. Stability has been periodically disrupted by security incidents, but all remained isolated and have been contained by law enforcement. None led to escalation or spread into larger areas. Banning of the IRP caused no disturbances by its support base. The exception is the autonomous Gorno Badakhshan, a mountainous region in the far east that is managed through a security presence; the central state has limited political control over it. Still, the region is so remote that protests, which last occurred in 2014, do not affect the country as a whole.

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History of Intelligence Services The origins of Tajikistan’s intelligence system derive from its Soviet past, when it constituted a union republic within the Soviet Union. Most of the security sector institutions were centralized and run from the headquarters in Moscow through branches in the constituent republics. Only police were managed at the republic level, and Tajikistan had a Ministry of Interior of its own. The main Soviet intelligence institution was the Committee for State Security (KGB), responsible for foreign espionage and internal surveillance. It incorporated border guards in its structure and was responsible for intelligence gathering for border protection as well. The Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the Soviet Union’s Ministry of Defense, the other major agency, was responsible for military intelligence and possessed capabilities for subversive operations abroad. Staff training was centralized in all–Soviet Union special schools, and recruits were typically sent to serve in a place that was geographically and culturally remote from their homelands before being planted back into their own regions. This experience created awareness of how the country operated as a whole and established intelligence networks throughout the Soviet Union. These networks lasted well into the post-Soviet period. As a result, intelligence services of many Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries continue to stay connected even when interstate relations are bad. They share a common outlook, based on the primacy of a strong state, their own role as its protector, and anti-Western sentiment. Tajikistan’s location on the borders of Afghanistan and China, which served as Soviet external frontiers, partially accounts for how its intelligence culture has developed. Soviet intelligence operations in that part of the world were firstly geared toward China in the 1960s, when Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated under Khrushchev and the Cultural Revolution began in China. During 1968, the Soviet command had amassed troops along the Xinjiang frontier separating western China from Central Asia, from where the Soviets could have induced Uyghur and other Muslim minorities to insurrection, if it was necessary to put pressure on Beijing. The other intelligence target was Pakistan, located in close proximity to Tajikistan, although the two countries do not share a border. Pakistan used to be a chief US ally in the region throughout the Cold War and was considered a hostile state. When Soviet involvement with Afghanistan began with political support to the Saur Revolution in 1978 and military intervention in 1979, Tajikistan acquired a strategic significance. Ethnic Tajiks and

404 Anna Matveeva Uzbeks were used in Afghanistan by the GRU for undercover operations, recruitment of informers, and establishment of channels of communication with potential defectors. Internal surveillance concentrated on fighting against penetration of radical Islamist teachings from abroad, putting down dissent to the Soviet system, and provision of confidential information for decisionmakers. Tajikistan used to produce uranium for the nuclear industry, and one of the roles of intelligence was in safeguarding Soviet defense secrets. This inherited infrastructure and traditions had a profound influence on the mindset and working processes on the intelligence institutions of independent Tajikistan, making them extremely secretive. It entrenched the belief that only the executive can hold them accountable rather than the parliament or the public. At the same time, traumas of the 1990s were considerable and produced an effect. The KGB concentrated most of its attentions on the Afghan border and failed to detect the rising tensions inside the republic in the late Soviet period. Its Tajik successor was paralyzed into inaction when violence broke out. Border intelligence has been eroding since the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 and the function was almost lost when sections of the Afghan border fell under control of warlords during the civil war. The newly founded National Security Committee suffered a mass staff exodus as European groups left the country engulfed in violence, and many intelligence officers of Slavic origin emigrated. Ethnic Tajiks were split in their loyalties, because they originated from different parts of the country, now fighting each other, and this split affected security and intelligence personnel.1 Much of the institutional memory was lost in the 1990s. The civil war’s winners brought their own cadre into the security sector when they started to rebuild government institutions. They were not intelligence professionals and were mastering the skills on the job as they fought the opposition and sometimes each other. However, the new cadre had a real-life military experience and the ability to function in a volatile context. This was the asset that the KGB in Tajikistan did not have, as it was formed in times of peace. Intelligence gathering became dispersed among multiple security actors. The result was deep distrust within the government’s own camp. This was exacerbated when appointees from the former opposition joined security sector institutions under the power-sharing deal and were allowed to integrate with their troops without disarming and demobilizing them.2 Eventually, the emergent system absorbed these diverse elements on the basis of the revived Soviet tradition.

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The first challenge was professional training, because Tajikistan did not have facilities of its own and had to send their staff to be trained in Russia and more recently to Kazakhstan. This situation largely remains today, although the Higher School was established in Dushanbe to train officers for the State Committee on National Security (SCNS). The second challenge was pitiful staff salaries, which influenced recruitment and retention. Historically, intelligence officers were among the bestpaid Soviet professionals and enjoyed various state perks, and recruitment was highly competitive. Corruption among intelligence community members had been extremely rare. This changed in the early period of independence, when security actors had to fend for themselves. Although intelligence officers were better paid than police and the army, the difference was insignificant, and it was hard to sustain a living on their salaries. Many resorted to running businesses on the side, some became corrupt, while others left the service. Next, the principle of regionalism in appointments prevailed over meritocracy. Loyalty of the former opposition regions was suspect, and individuals who came from there were not selected or promoted. Many security officials came from the president’s native Kulyab region and did not necessarily have a professional background or experience in intelligence. As the primacy of the Tajik “titular” nation moved centerstage, ethnic diversity of the Soviet period vanished and intelligence staff largely became monoethnic. Serving representatives of a sizable Uzbek minority were asked to either vacate their posts or have ethnic affiliation in their internal indentifications changed to “Tajik.” By the mid-2000s, Tajikistan’s intelligence sector began a recovery and reconstituted itself as the state underwent consolidation. It started to attract more intellectual staff with better education levels and analytical capacity who could, for example, analyze propaganda materials. They regularly underwent training. More idea-driven people came to serve the state when it started to behave like one rather than a conglomeration of warlords as in the 1990s. However, new threats had emerged by that time. One was massive drug trafficking, which the international meddling in Afghanistan only exacerbated. The other was the rise in international jihadism, to which Tajikistan became exposed as a result of the civil war when Tajik refugee camps in Afghanistan were used for recruitment, fostering penetration of groups, money, and ideas. There are also factors that have to do with the regime’s own security that impacted the shaping of the intelligence sector. The president, who has survived two assassination attacks, has been suspicious of plots, including from his closest comrades-in-arms, some of whom were

406 Anna Matveeva periodically arrested, tortured, tried, and imprisoned. An acute perception of corruption among state officials gave prominence to financial intelligence, which serves the purpose of obtaining compromising material on government members and regional authorities that could be used against them. This function became so important that in 2015 the president appointed his twenty-eight-year-old son Rustam Emomali to lead the Financial Controls Agency, an appointment he held until 2017. Legislation Much of the legislation regulating intelligence derives from inherited templates. According to the 2008 law on the organs of national security, these organs comprise the SCNS, its territorial branches, and border troops.3 The law is very similar to the 2005 version of the Russian law on the Federal Security Service. It rules that the SCNS covers a broad range of external and internal intelligence functions, including counterterrorism and fighting crime, and can create its structures within other ministries, such as the Ministry of Interior, local government bodies, and the armed forces. Intelligence activity is regulated by internal normative documents. Information on organization, tactics, methods, and means of intelligence operations is a state secret. The law states that counter-espionage measures are undertaken when there are signs of intelligence gathering or subversive activities by foreign states and individuals; for protection of strategic installations and state secrets; and for due diligence on present and past collaborators. Staff have the power to interrogate suspects; conduct investigations into cases of espionage, terrorism, and extremism; bear firearms; and use force. The law on military intelligence of the armed forces was adopted by the parliament in 2002 and amended in 2014. It presents a slightly modified version of the 1996 Russian law on foreign intelligence.4 The law stipulates that military intelligence is an integral part of the national security forces, which are responsible for protection of the security of individuals, the society, and the state from external enemies. Its activities are based on Tajikistan’s constitution. Military intelligence has two functions: to collect and analyze intelligence information on actual and potential capabilities, actions, plans, and intentions of foreign states, organizations, and individuals that concern Tajikistan’s vital interests; and to engage in measures undertaken by the state to ensure the security of the country.5 The goals are to provide the president, the parliament, and the government with intelligence infor-

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mation for decisionmaking; to create enabling conditions for the smooth implementation of security policy; and to contribute to the development of the defense economy and scientific and technological progress by obtaining defense-related economic and scientific and technological information (meaning industrial espionage). The law stipulates the principles that military intelligence should observe, namely, a division of labor between state security agencies, the rule of law, respect for individual rights and freedoms, secrecy, and a combination of public and confidential methods and means. The other relevant law is that on state secrets adopted in 2003, which makes all intelligence-related information a state secret, the definition of which is comprehensive. The government’s Central Directorate for Protection of State Secrets is responsible for safekeeping of confidential information. In 2011, a law on money laundering and financing of terrorism was adopted6 and a financial intelligence unit was established at the national bank of Tajikistan. The unit publishes updated national lists of individuals and legal entities accused of connection to terrorist or extremist activities, as well as UN and international lists. Institutional Infrastructure Tajikistan’s concept of intelligence is rather broad, a premise that derives from the Soviet and civil war legacies that turned the country into a security state. The Security Council, under the president, serves as a consultative and coordinating organ, the same as its counterpart in Russia. It is overseen by the presidential aide on national security, and close personal associate, Sherali Khairulloyev. The SCNS, a renamed KGB successor, is at the heart of the security system, which underwent three waves of reorganization. First the National Security Committee was set up in December 1991, but it gave way to the Ministry of Security in 1995. It was disbanded in November 2006 and the SCNS was established in its place. The structure of the SCNS remained the same as that of the KGB: different departments are responsible for foreign intelligence (Department of Military Counterintelligence) and internal security, but this division is kept within the organization and is not publicly known. The SCNS has a Special Department, which oversees security sector agencies such as the army and the police. A new “T” department was established to deal with counterterrorism and extremism, as it combines the features of external and internal surveillance. In continuation

408 Anna Matveeva of the Soviet tradition, the SCNS has an elite Alpha squad for counterterrorism and counter-insurgency operations. They are considered the top troopers but have sustained casualties. In 2010, twenty-one Alphas died in a helicopter crash, and in 2015 Alpha’s commander, Rustam Amakiev, was killed in clashes with the former defense minister and his supporters, whom Alpha tried to apprehend. The lines in counterterrorism intelligence are blurred with the Ministry of Interior: the latter has a department on organized crime that is responsible for counterterrorism operations. It has established a liaison office in Turkey, although strictly speaking, its mandate is internal. The department deals with foreign fighters from Tajikistan who have joined violent extremist groups in the Middle East and most certainly collects intelligence in Turkey and the region. Since 2010 the SCNS has been chaired by Saimumin Yatimov, a Tajik-language teacher by training with a career in diplomacy who comes from Farhor, a municipality close to the president’s homeland. Previous chair Colonel-General Hairiddin Abdurahimov had to resign, together with three of his deputies, after twenty-five inmates broke out of an SCNS high-security detention center in Dushanbe on August 23, 2010. Abdurahimov served eleven years in his position and was a KGB cadre member who started as a junior operative. His deputy, General Orazshoh Poyandashoev, who resigned together with his boss, was also a career KGB officer. Otherwise, senior leadership seldom changes, although in 2017 three SCNS deputy chairs were abruptly changed by the president, who appointed Alisher Mirzonabotov (a border troops officer), Zubaidullo Alikhonov, and Nusratullo Mirzoev to these positions. The Ministry of Defense follows the Soviet pattern and has a Directorate for Military Intelligence (equivalent of the GRU) under the General Staff, headed by Jaloliddin Sharipov, which supplies information and analysis for the Main Operational Directorate. Before 2006, border protection was detached from the national intelligence structure and run by a dedicated committee, but the function returned to the SCNS when border troops rejoined it, and the KGB-era template was revived.7 In 2015, the border command announced that it had established its own intelligence unit. Both military and border intelligence departments rely on Russian border advisers and on the intelligence collected at the 201st Russian military base, which is the largest deployment outside of Russia. Russian troops are stationed in the vicinity of the Afghan border in Bokhtar and have technical surveillance means and a network of agents in northern Afghanistan cultivated since Soviet times. Until

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2005, Russian border forces were deployed in Tajikistan along the Chinese and Afghan borders. However, because their withdrawal was forced by Dushanbe, the Russian command did not hand over its network of agents but continued to cultivate and benefit from it directly. In January 2016, President Rahmon instructed the government to establish a center for fighting information and communications technology–based crime and cyber terrorism. Interviewed security officials in 2016 confirmed the intention, but no information has been made available. It is believed that a structure was established. Prior to that, intelligence services had already made inroads into electronic intelligence gathering and managed to detect online jihadi recruiters through monitoring of social media. Functions and Operations As a poor country, Tajikistan has limited resources for technical surveillance and has to rely on human intelligence. Capabilities are further constrained by a deficit of qualified personnel, because information technology professionals can find jobs in the private sector and few aspire to state service. Keeping the population in a state of fear of being constantly watched is a widespread practice, so that everyone feels the eye of the state. Since the need to combat terrorism emerged, work with communities, religious leaders, and local authorities has been growing. Counter-radicalization narratives have been planted in the media. However, counterterrorism is often based not on collecting intelligence but on detentions of those who appear remotely suspicious. The rationale behind this tactic is that detentions would lead to plot disruption because potential culprits are taken out at a very early stage and, if released, are sufficiently intimidated to not try again. As stated by Minister of Interior Ramazon Rakhimzoda, in the first six months of 2016, law enforcement detained 368 extremist-group members, including 133 recruits of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), 18 Muslim Brotherhood members, and 10 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) members. Security officials claim that they have broken up terrorist plots on many occasions, at least four of them having received orders from ISIS in 2016. The suspects “came back from Syria specifically for this purpose,” 8 with Dushanbe, Kurgan-Tyube, Khujand, and Panjikent as the intended target cities. The authorities claim that they disrupted another plot in 2016 that included simultaneous attacks on police stations in

410 Anna Matveeva multiple cities. Plans were also allegedly drawn to assassinate the president on his visit to Vakhdat and unleash a mass shooting during Victory Day demonstrations. In 2015 a group of young extremists planned to launch an uprising from a mosque in Kulyab town, and the SCNS said that it narrowly averted the plot. Families are encouraged to report their members if they learn that they have joined jihadi movements or traveled to the Middle East. This is one of the methods to collect intelligence on foreign fighters. Legislation on “complicity to extremism” is applied to those who fail to report their knowledge of actions prohibited by law. Thus, parents often relay messages from their children in Syria to the security authorities, because if it transpires that they failed to report, they will be prosecuted. If families would not report, their neighbors will. When a successful exodus takes place, everyone left in the immediate neighborhood and everyone with contacts with the individuals who left are taken for SCNS interrogation, including underage children who by law cannot be questioned without an adult present. The country remained peaceful because of or despite these efforts, but spectacular intelligence failures did occur, including penetration of jihadi ideology into the elite. A stark example is that of Colonel Gulmurod Khalimov, a serving Special Purpose Mobil Unit (OMON) special forces commander who defected to ISIS in 2015 and became number three in the ISIS military hierarchy. A year later his wife, a press officer of the Tajik Customs Service, joined him with four children, a development that was overlooked by the SCNS. Action against the Islamic Renaissance Party also demonstrated intelligence and operational weaknesses. In September 2015, an attempt to arrest security executives who were appointed on the basis of the opposition quota, headed by the deputy defense minister Abduhalim Nazarzoda, ended in mutiny and two weeks of violence. The suspects fled into the mountains with weapons, and security services struggled to locate the group. These disasters happened apparently because the SCNS was too preoccupied with chasing political dissidents and overlooked threats stemming from their own elite, who appeared loyal. The role of the SCNS in policy setting carries less weight than that of the KGB in the past. Unlike in the Soviet period, the SCNS does not have a monopoly on provision of intelligence because other sources of information are available, such as the president’s personal network; Russian, Turkish, and Iranian confidential sources; international information exchanges; and publications by Tajik oppositionists abroad. The other difference is that while the KGB at least tried to observe the

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Soviet law and was guided by communist principles, the Tajik SCNS is less inclined to abide by law in pursuit of its goals and it is fairly open about being Machiavellian with its belief that ends justify the means. In this perspective, morals and values were invented by liberals to undermine the integrity of the state. The SCNS is a closed structure and has a fearsome reputation. The committee is systematically criticized by international human rights groups, which accuse it of torture and political repression. At the same time, officers on occasion have tipped off independent journalists who campaigned against jihadi ideas that assassinations were plotted against them. Although the ability to collect information has improved, analytical capacity remains limited, as staff are mostly operational. As the Soviet tradition was disrupted, no system of processing information replaced it to allow building a bigger picture, identify trends, and design intelligence-led preventive measures. Counterterrorism data are dispersed, come in small quantities, and can be contradictory. For example, an interview I conducted with representatives of the SCNS in November 2016 showed that the SCNS did not try to identify social and demographic parameters of the spread of religious radicalization in the country. The SCNS conducts a range of covert operations at home and abroad. One is collecting information on foreigners and the activities of international organizations and embassies. Their national staff are pressured into providing regular reports, often about trivial activities. An academic revealed that his personal email account was accessed by intelligence services who warned him that the report on Tajikistan that he authored for a foreign client was too critical and that he should be more careful in the future. Operations abroad have so far happened outside the Western world. They include alleged assassinations or intimidation of opponents, forced extraditions, and persuasion of dissidents to return. These functions were inherited from the KGB, which had a program of repatriation of former White Army officers to the Soviet Union. The new functions are preventive measures against violent extremism in places where Tajik diasporas are concentrated. Tajikistan’s security agencies have branches in Russia. Tajiks who practice nontraditional Islamic beliefs and organize group prayers are approached by Tajik-speaking operatives in Russia who warn them to be careful because they are being watched. Many Tajiks became Russian citizens and expressed frustration that they were still pursued by Tajik intelligence services while they were more willing to cooperate with their Russian counterparts.

412 Anna Matveeva Given that over a million Tajiks live in Russia, abductions mostly happen there, with a probable complicity of the Russian authorities in exchange for drug-related information. According to the Central Asian Political Exile database, the highest amount of forcible returns and disappearances in Russia are of Tajikistan’s citizens. For example, in 2015, Maksud Ibragimov, the activist of the Youth for the Rebirth of Tajikistan movement, was abducted in Russia and sentenced to seventeen years’ imprisonment upon his forced repatriation. Ten people have been rendered—forcibly removed without reference to legal process—back to Tajikistan. Another sixteen have been detained in Russia, Moldova, and Belarus. Still, not all extradition requests are granted by Russia; Moscow twice refused to extradite the famous government critic Dodojon Atovulloyev. There have also been repatriations by the Ministry of Interior and SCNS of Tajikistan’s citizens from foreign combat zones and from Turkey. There is a question whether Tajik intelligence operatives conduct assassinations abroad, as human rights groups and Western experts believe.9 One well-publicized incident was the death of a businessman and leader of the oppositionist Group 24, Umarali Kuvvatov. The group existed abroad and was little known in Tajikistan. It was declared an extremist organization and Kuvvatov was pursued by security agents in Russia, Dubai, and Turkey before being assassinated in Istanbul in March 2015.The first attempt on his life was made in Dubai, from which the Tajik government unsuccessfully tried to have him extradited. In Turkey, the businessman’s family was poisoned and then Kuvvatov was shot dead. His assassin, a Tajikistan citizen, was arrested and now serves time in Turkey. The action was effective because Group 24 ceased to exist after its leader was killed. The other version behind Kuvvatov’s death is business revenge. When he fell out of grace with the ruling elite from whom he used to benefit, Kuvvatov lost protection, and rivals had a chance to get even. Arguably, it is unlikely that intelligence professionals would have committed such an act or directly organized it. There was also a suspicious poisoning of a Tajik businessman in Saudi Arabia, but he was not known to be politically active. Given that Tajikistan is a drug-transit country, “dirty money” to hire assassins can be used outside of formal intelligence structures. The authorities seek to reduce the scope for spoiling the image of the country abroad, which vocal dissidents do, and intelligence services are vested with a task of persuading them to return and intimidating them into silence, such as in the case of the stabbings of Dodojon Atovulloyev (2012) and Bakhtiyor Sattori (2013) in Russia. Returns

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indeed happen. In November 2017, Saidibrohim Nazar, a former IRP dignitary who left the party before it was outlawed, was persuaded to return from Iran when repressions against the IRP began to subside. Two former Group 24 members, Umedjon Solihov and Sherzod Komilov, were persuaded to make a “voluntary” return after their families back home were allegedly threatened. The long-standing dissident Atovulloyev was brought to visit from Germany in January 2018 and the president met with him in an apparent attempt to personally convince him to repatriate. International Cooperation Russia remains the main international cooperation partner. Moscow needs Tajikistan for cooperation in counterterrorism and fighting drug trafficking, while Dushanbe wants Russia to cease being a sanctuary for Tajik dissidents and high-profile figures suspected of disloyalty to the president. Dushanbe is also keen to trade intelligence in exchange for repatriation of Tajik drug traffickers detained by Russian law enforcement who have connections to the ruling regime. As it recovered from the trauma of the 1990s, Russia began investing in the old Soviet security networks. Russian military pensions are paid to the citizens of newly independent states who served in the all–Soviet Union security institutions, such as former KGB and GRU staff in Tajikistan, whose services Moscow used as and when needed. In the 1990s, Tajikistan largely outsourced external security provision to Russia, but the September 11, 2001, attacks brought new players into Central Asia. The country acquired strategic significance for the United States and its European allies due to its location. Western security experts were deployed and assistance offers followed, giving Russia an impression that it was being displaced from the region. Great international effort was put into border protection and improving intelligence gathering and detection capabilities to fight drug trafficking. A donor-assisted Drug Control Agency (DCA) was set up. Recruitment was competitive and salaries were topped up by donors, which allowed for attracting qualified staff. The United States supported the DCA to provide training on advanced handling and recruiting of informants. However, in 2004 the president appointed his close lieutenant Gaffur Mirzoyev to head the DCA, who had a deserved reputation of being a major drug lord. Mirzoyev’s tenure was brief, but he gained access to intelligence information on his market competitors. This and similar

414 Anna Matveeva episodes gave donors a sense that their investments in building capacity were not matched by the government’s commitment and raised doubts about its effectiveness.10 Still, the United States continued to provide assistance to DCA, Ministry of Interior, and border troops in undercover and operational capabilities. One beneficiary of this assistance was a future jihadi leader, Khalimov, who trained in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as well as in Russia before, and neither power detected signs of radicalization. The United States equipped the DCA with criminal intelligence analysis software to support information sharing with other agencies nationally and in the region, but relations between them were so bad that it did not work. US support was intended for the DCA to expand collaboration with Afghanistan’s drug control units, but major drug trafficking was a well-organized operation by government members on both sides and out of reach of drug control units. Costly measures were largely ineffective: DCA drug seizures remained low in comparison with those of the Ministry of Interior, which received less Western support, and were dismal compared to past seizures by the Russian border troops. Cooperation with the United States in intelligence sharing on Afghanistan failed to materialize. The argument of Tajikistan being a frontline state in countering terrorism diminished following the almost complete Western withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Western governments’ assistance was scaled back. International organizations play a role in Tajikistan’s security sector reform, but they mostly cooperate with the Ministry of Interior and border troops. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) are the lead organizations in counterterrorism. They organize trainings such as in countering terrorist financing and identifying foreign terrorist fighters. Tajikistan is a member of the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism, a Financial Action Task Force (FATF)–style regional body. Tajikistan’s Financial Monitoring Department is a member of the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units. Cooperation within the region is more developed, such as with Turkey, than with the West. Tajikistan maintains close links to Iran, a fellow Persian-speaking state that was one of its few friends in the international arena in the 1990s. China is a latecomer to the security field but has progressively shown interest, especially since Western attention moved away from Central Asia. It has already provided US$10 million worth of surveillance equipment to Tajikistan’s intelligence services. In

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September 2017, Chinese president Xi Jinping and Rahmon established a comprehensive strategic partnership to combat the “three evils of terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism,” as well as international criminal groups and drug trafficking by launching intelligence exchanges.11 Formal intelligence-sharing arrangements are also made through multilateral channels, such as the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The CIS Anti-Terrorist Center facilitates information exchanges in the former Soviet space. Oversight Inherited political culture is responsible for the fact that the issues of intelligence cannot be freely discussed in Tajikistan. Parliamentary oversight of the SCNS is nonexistent and the state’s annual budget, which the parliament adopts, contains only scant information on defense expenditure, let alone on intelligence spending. The law on military intelligence stipulates that intelligence activities cannot be targeted against humanity or undertaken for ends that are not defined in the law, and that military intelligence must liaise with society through the Ministry of Defense’s communications office, but there is no evidence that this happens. The Committee on Law Enforcement, Defense, and Security of the lower chamber of the parliament can in theory discuss intelligence matters, but in reality it does not. Senior ministers and parliamentarians put their televisions on high volume when any issue concerning security is discussed, however benign. Laws on security and defense matters are adopted without any scrutiny, while it is considered “unpatriotic” to raise the point that such legislation should be subject to parliamentary discussion. The president controls the SCNS and military intelligence and oversees other intelligence-related bodies. By law, he defines intelligence tasks, controls and coordinates activities of intelligence organs, and decides upon matters of international cooperation. He appoints and dismisses the SCNS chair and that chair’s deputies, as well as the head of military intelligence, who is proposed by the minister of defense. Intelligence services report directly to the president, and staff carry personal responsibility for the quality and timeliness of information and advice. The attorney general ensures that intelligence agencies abide by the law, but he has no power to check upon their work with agents and cannot make services disclose identities, methods, and operations.

416 Anna Matveeva Conclusion The Soviet origins and KGB and GRU legacy produced a lasting influence on the structure, methods, and attitudes that prevail in Tajikistan’s intelligence community today. Inherited tradition survived the civil war and demonstrated remarkable resilience and adaptability to the new circumstances, despite a certain re-nationalization during independence. Legislation and personnel continued from the Soviet administration, and although after nearly three decades of independence there has been a generation change, a custom of sending staff for education in Russia has endured. Tajikistan’s special relationship with the former colonial power acquired a different basis from the one in the past when it was based on the Soviet ideology. Presently, mutual interests prevail. The Cold War influenced the intelligence setup, which imprinted a suspicion of the West. It became further entrenched when Tajik intelligence started to engage with Western donors whom they suspected of espionage and who failed the government’s expectations on material aid. The needs of the United States for intervening in Afghanistan made little impact on Tajikistan, other than creating more work in spying upon foreigners and harassing foreign, especially US, civil society grant recipients. Russia and China are considered easier donors than the Western powers because they do not interfere with domestic issues and do not lecture their Tajik partners on democratic deficits and human rights. Intelligence and security organizations believe that they are working for the state, but given that the state is personified by the president since its foundation and until his dying day, this is akin to serving an absolute monarch. The first priority is to protect the ruling regime. The dominant party, the current government, and the constitution are subordinate to that supreme force, which decides what is best for the people. Intelligence organizations partially execute but do not formulate policies; they are servants of the higher political authority and one of the voices that has the ear of the president. Loyalty is their paramount preoccupation. Persons implicated in antistate beliefs or activities, however distant, never leave the intelligence radar screens. “Past” does not become past because repentant enemies could still harbor evil intentions, while being on the wrong side of the political divide tarnishes a reputation forever. The range of the intelligence activities spans domestic, whether in provision of early-warning information or conduct of investigations, to regional, when wanted individuals are extracted or

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covert diplomacy gears into action. The SCNS is active in the countries with sizable Tajik diasporas; otherwise, in the international sphere it relies on partners, predominantly Russia. Notes 1. Anna Matveeva, “Tajikistan: Evolution of the Security Sector and the War on Terror,” in Anja Ebnöther, Ernst M. Felberbauer, and Martin Malek, eds., Facing the Terrorist Challenge: Central Asia’s Role in Regional and International Co-operation (Vienna: DCAF, 2005), http://www.dcaf.ch/publications/kms/details.cfm?ord279=title &q279=Facing&lng=en&id=19650&nav1=5. 2. Stina Torjesen, Christina Wille, and S. Neil MacFarlane, Tajikistan’s Road to Stability: Reduction in Small Arms Proliferation and Remaining Challenges (Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2005). 3. Law of the Republic of Tajikistan on Organs of National Security, 2008. 4. “Zakon o Vneshnei Razvedke Rossiiskoi Federatsii” (Foreign Intelligence Act of the Russian Federation), 1996, http://svr.gov.ru/svr_today/doc02.htm. 5. Law on Military Intelligence of Armed Forces of the Republic of Tajikistan, 2002, amended in March 2014. 6. Law of the Republic of Tajikistan on Anti–Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing, 2011, http://www.nbt.tj/upload/iblock/46b/law_RT_en.pdf. 7. Law of the Republic of Tajikistan on Border Troops of State Committee on National Security of the Republic of Tajikistan no. 82, March 2005, http://base.spinform .ru/show_doc.fwx?rgn=8060. 8. “Fewer Tajik Youth Head to Syria,” August 18, 2016, http://central.asia-news .com/en_GB/articles/cnmi_ca/features/2016/08/18/feature-02. 9. John Heathershaw, Rosa Brown, and Eve Bishop, “Practices and Patterns of Extraterritorial Security: Introducing the Central Asian Political Exiles (CAPE) Database,” and Edward Lemon, “Tajikistan: The Transnationalization of Domestic Struggles,” both in Adam Hug, ed., No Shelter: The Harassment of Activists Abroad by Intelligence Services from the Former Soviet Union (London: Foreign Policy Centre, 2016), 20–24 and 25–28. 10. Jos Boonstra, Erica Marat, and Vera Axyonova, “Security Sector Reform in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan: What Role for Europe?” EUCAM Working Paper no. 14, 2013, http://fride.org/download/EUCAM_WP14_SSR_Kazakhstan_Kyrgyzstan_Tajikistan .pdf. 11. “Tajikistan Agrees to More Intelligence Exchanges with China,” Reuters, September 17, 2017, https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-china-tajikistan-security/tajikistan-agrees -to-more-intelligence-exchanges-with-china-idUKKCN1BC3N1.

23 Turkey

İlkay Yilmaz

Turkey is a transcontinental country located in western Asia and southeastern Europe with an estimated population of 82 million. The Republic of Turkey is bordered by Greece, Bulgaria, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Turkey has three sea sides: the Aegean Sea, Black Sea, and Mediterranean Sea. Although there are no exact data available concerning the different ethnic groups in Turkey, approximately 70 percent of the citizens of Turkey identify as Turkish. Kurds are the largest unrecognized minority, at approximately 12 to 25 percent of the population. The Alevi population is around 12 percent. Smaller minority groups are Arabs, Circassians, Laz, Abhazians, Greeks, Armenians, Georgians, and Jews. Turkey’s population numbers have changed with the Arab migration wave following the Syrian war: the number of Syrian-born Arabs is estimated to be about 3.6 million people.1 Turkey’s Human Development Index score is 0.791 as of 2017, with the country ranking 64th out of 189. However, when the value is discounted for inequality, the score falls to 0.669, a loss of 15.4 percent. 2 According to the Legatum Institute Prosperity Index, Turkey ranks 93rd out of 149 countries. On the prosperity pillar, Turkey performs best on health and economic quality and scores lowest on personal freedom.3 According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, Turkey ranks 78th out of 180 countries and scores 41 out of 100.4 Turkey is a member of the United Nations, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and World Bank. 419

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The Republic of Turkey is also a member of the Council of Europe and bound by the European Convention on Human Rights, and a member of the European Court of Human Rights system. Turkey was an associate member of the European Economic Community from 1963 on and became a member of the European Union Customs Union in 1995. The Republic of Turkey started the accession process to the European Union in 2005. However, the EU stopped the process in 2017 because of authoritarian measures taken by the Turkish government. After the failed coup d’état in July 2016, Turkey declared a state of emergency, and during this period many undemocratic governmental decrees changed the structure of political institutions in Turkey and created a more centralized and authoritarian political system. With the Turkish constitutional referendum, the office of prime minister was abolished and the government in the parliamentary system was replaced with an executive presidency and a presidential system in 2017. Although the new system was framed as a presidential system, there are no checks and balances in the new Turkish political institutions as in the United States. The new system started to apply with the presidential election in 2018. Turkey’s political system was being discussed as a mix between tutelary democracy and electoral authoritarianism after 2013 and with the new institutional design of the political institutions; despite being democratically elected, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party and President Erdoğan have moved toward increasingly authoritarian measures. The longest sociopolitical question in Turkey is the Kurdish question, a consequence of the problematic nationalist policies and lack of state capacity of the republic from 1925 on. The conflict between the Turkish Military Forces and the insurgent Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), known as the Kurdish-Turkish conflict since 1984, is the main long-term political problem and has caused more than 40,000 people to die, most of whom were Kurdish. The only peace process, in 2013, between the Republic of Turkey and the PKK failed, and after the failed coup d’état many Kurdish politicians, including members of the Grand National Assembly, were arrested during the state of emergency.

History of Intelligence Services in Turkey The Republic of Turkey was legally considered a continuation of the Ottoman Empire according to the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). During its 700-year rule, the Ottoman Empire employed and adapted a combination of different intelligence methods and intelligence became a compo-

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nent of statecraft in different ways within the framework of the empire. Starting from the governing center of the empire, the legal and administrative reforms that were introduced as of 1839 could be regarded as a response to Europe’s colonial expansion and the administrative crisis that was crippling the Ottoman Empire. Senior bureaucrats often criticized the Ottoman Empire’s position against the great powers in conjunction with a security crisis. The concept of “minority” had emerged following the 1878 Congress of Berlin and the status of non-Muslim communities within the multinational empire and the geographies they inhabited had become a concern for international politics. These developments created a rationale for securitization that also continued in the republican era. As of the nineteenth century, the main axis of the discourse and logic of security was shaped according to the perception of internal and external enemies that were believed to be in liaison with each other. Another important element in the threat repertoire of Turkey is called the Sèvres syndrome, named after the Sèvres Treaty (1920), which divided the Ottoman land between different ethnic groups and Britain, France, and Italy while leaving a small area in internal Anatolia for Turkish rule. The Sèvres syndrome is a perception that external enemies are conspiring against Turkey with an intention of dividing the country into small pieces.5 Thus, security was conceptualized on a level in which the foreign threat—especially the West—was perceived according to domestic politics: “divide up the country into small ethnic states,” “internal enemies conspiring with foreign threats,” “the whole country being surrounded by enemies.” Such an approach not only created a frame in which administrative and legal reforms came across as responses to international crises but also gave birth to a pattern of logic whereby any sort of administrative crisis could easily become a matter of internal security. Today, this logic toward security still finds diverse applications in modern Turkey. Besides the discourse and logic of security, there is continuity in the institutional sense from the empire to the nation-state. Under the autocratic-absolutist reign of Abdülhamid II (1876–1908), the Ottoman Empire witnessed a multitude of institutional changes in many areas, including security and public order, and when the constitutional monarchy was proclaimed following the 1908 revolution, reforms within the police force continued throughout the nineteenth century by means of structural changes. This was the time that saw the foundation of a modern police force, the reorganization of urban policing according to the French model, and the institutionalization of a gendarmerie following

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trials with the British and French models. The political policing unit was established in 1904 inspired by the Russian Third Section (political police) example and based on the institutional structure of the political bureau in France. The Ottoman Empire and subsequently the Republic of Turkey took part in international conferences and meetings on this matter in the years after. World War I brought the need for a new form of intelligence and Enver Pasha, the minister of war, founded an agency called the Secret Organization on August 5, 1914. The agency became known for its military and paramilitary activities. The Karakol Society was established after the Ottoman Empire signed the Armistice of Mudros at the end of World War I. The organization supplied arms to the resistance against the occupation of Anatolia, while at the same time organizing armed resistance against the occupation at different locations. Members of both organizations were arrested and exiled to Malta after the British invaded Istanbul in 1918 and were tried at courts held at Malta and other locations on the account of perpetrating the 1915 Armenian genocide. However, these trials became part of the postwar negotiation process at the Paris Conference and the cases were closed without any convictions. The perpetrators of the Armenian genocide never faced a trial. To compensate for the lack of intelligence and paramilitary activity, several organizations were formed during the independence war, yet all these structures failed to solve the intelligence problem. Therefore an invitation to establish an intelligence agency was sent to Walter Nicolai, who had formerly worked for the Ottoman army and played a leading role in the organization of the German intelligence service. Nicolai accepted the invitation and formed the National Security Force (MAH). The institutional structure and functioning of the MAH were very similar to those of the German intelligence service and most of the personnel were from the military. From the onset, the MAH’s main target was domestic opposition and particularly the Turkish Communist Party. The MAH had offices in six cities across the country: Ankara, Istanbul, Izmir, Adana, Diyarbakir, and Kars. The MAH operated during the independence of Syria from the French Mandate for the Turkish-speaking province in eastern Mediterranean Sancak (Hatay). As a result of the MAH manipulation and diplomatic negotiations, on June 29, 1939, the Hatay parliament ratified a fait accompli to join Turkey.6 During World War II, seventeen foreign intelligence agencies were performing in Turkey because of the special geography of the country and the Turkish government’s political position during the war.7 For the Turkish government the priority was the integrity of the territories of

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the young republic against Italian revisionism and the Soviet Union. To strengthen its position, the Turkish government increased its military units near the Turkish border to the Balkans and signed a mutual defense agreement with the United Kingdom and France. British intelligence was exceptionally active with the cooperation of the MAH.8 This cooperation was vital for Turkey not only because of its contribution to a German defeat but also for obtaining intelligence on the Soviet Union. However, this cooperation also involved distrust between the two parties, and as a result of this, Turkey did not share all intelligence gathered on the Soviet Union with the British.9 After World War II, Turkey became a member of NATO; the Soviet threat increased the value of Turkey during the Cold War.10 A version of Gladio, the counter-insurgency operation formed to prevent the election of communists in Europe during the Cold War years, called the Tactical Mobilization Group (STK), was initially established in Turkey in 1952 with the partnership of NATO and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and in compliance with NATO’s special warfare manuals. The Association for Struggling with Communism was founded in Turkey in 1950. As one of the officers who was trained by the CIA in this program, Alparslan Türkeş was a key figure in the 1960 military coup. Later during the 1960s, Türkeş founded the ultra-nationalist Nationalist Movement Party and the Grey Wolves as the party’s militant component. Having left the Red Army during World War II to work with the Nazis with the aim of founding an independent Uzbekistan, Ruzi Nazar was appointed director of the CIA’s operations in Turkey, where he also supervised the training of the Grey Wolves. In 1965, the MAH was replaced by the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) as the main intelligence service in Turkey. The Special Warfare Department (OHD) (formerly known as the STK) cooperated with the MIT since its founding. The senior figures of both organizations had undergone the same training at special warfare camps in the United States and Germany. In addition, senior MIT officials mostly came from a military background and most were trained in special warfare. In practice, these factors meant that the OHD maintained power of command in the interaction and cooperation between the two organizations. In most cases, the MIT and civilians would handle the operational side of plans drawn out by the department. Although MIT agents would occasionally be identified as the perpetrators of such acts, there are no records of OHD members being uncovered.11 The CIA trained members of the OHD, which took part in several operations with its trainer. Prior to 1980, the OHD supported the bomb

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attacks of the ultra-nationalist group known as the Grey Wolves and protected figures linked to the organization, effectively preventing convictions against the assailants of a multitude of armed attacks targeting students, academics, lawyers, journalists, trade unionists, and Kurdish intellectuals.12 The existence of the OHD was admitted in 1973 by the prime minister at the time, Bülent Ecevit. In the period prior to the 1974 Cyprus invasion, the OHD played a key role in the foundation of the Turkish Resistance Organization in Cyprus and the provision of arms to this organization.13 Between 1975 and 1991, the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) assassinated several Turkish diplomats in Europe, the United States, and western Asia with the objective of forcing Turkey to accept responsibility for the Armenian genocide, pay compensation for its role in the genocide, and renounce its control over the ancient Armenian lands. In 1983, to handle counterattacks on ASALA members in Europe, the MIT struck a deal with Abdullah Çatlı—both a senior executive figure in the Grey Wolves since the late 1970s and a formidable criminal kingpin.14 Çatlı was active in the planning and execution of the assassinations of ASALA members and the bombing of the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Paris. In 1984 Çatlı was arrested in Paris for drug trafficking but was later extradited to Switzerland, where he escaped from prison in 1990.15 During the 1990s, the priority on the security agenda was the fight against the PKK, the armed Kurdish guerrilla insurgency active in eastern Anatolia, which was predominantly inhabited by Kurds. It is known that the MIT’s Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counterterrorism Agency (JITEM)—a Gladio-like counter-insurgency force—and the Grey Wolves collaborated in the war against the PKK. Counter-guerrilla forces were also deployed against the PKK in the post–Cold War period.16 Besides being an intelligence agency as its name suggests, JITEM was founded to practice unconventional warfare against the PKK. However, it never directly fought armed PKK forces in rural areas. Instead, JITEM used local informants to find and murder PKK supporters, organized raids on villages dressed in guerrilla uniform, and detained individuals, who would be either tortured or disappeared. The report of the Parliamentary Commission for Inquiry into Murders by Unknown Assailants published in April 1995 states that the boundaries of JITEM’s activity were vague, that the organization had gone beyond its responsibilities and authorities as permitted by law, and that it had used legal loopholes to institutionalize in new ways. The report accused JITEM of conducting unauthorized covert operations in terri-

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tories outside its jurisdiction and unknown by the police, and argued that the organization should be dissolved on the grounds of lacking legal basis and its affiliations with certain illegal activities in violation of its purpose of existence.17 During the 1990s Turkey had pressing issues other than the Kurdish question—namely, heroin and arms trafficking.18 Since these issues went hand-in-hand, intelligence agencies and security forces often collaborated with figures of the crime world, which occasionally saw conflicts that resulted in extrajudicial killings.19 Legislation According to law, the National Intelligence Organization is responsible for collecting and analyzing information and reporting on security and foreign intelligence. The MIT law has been amended a number of times since 1984, but the major changes to the law were made in 2014, 2017, and 2018. The first decree concerning compliance with the presidential system was published on August 25, 2017, after the presidential system came into force following the constitutional referendum held on April 16, 2017, changing the structure of the MIT. Another decree, of July 4, 2018, made amendments to certain laws and other decrees for compliance with the system of presidential government. So when the terms “prime ministry” and “ministerial cabinet” were replaced with “presidency,” the MIT effectively became a part of the presidential administration rather than of the prime ministry. Following the amendments of 2017, the duties, authorities, and responsibilities of the National Intelligence Organization were to be defined in a regulation to be approved by the president. The duties of the Turkish National Intelligence Organization are to procure national security intelligence on immediate and potential activities carried out inside or outside the country targeting the territorial and national integrity, existence, independence, security, constitutional order, and all elements that constitute the national strength of the Republic of Turkey, and to deliver this intelligence to the president, chief of staff, and secretary-general of the National Security Council (MGK) and to the relevant institutions; to meet the intelligence needs and requirements of the president, chief of staff, and secretary-general of the National Security Council and of the relevant ministries in formulation and implementation of the plans regarding

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the national security policy of the state; and to make proposals to the president and National Security Council on directing the intelligence activities of public institutions. The MIT’s new duties also include gathering, recording, and analyzing intelligence, documents, news, and data using any means of technical intelligence and personal intelligence methods, tools, and systems aimed at foreign intelligence, national defense, counterterrorism, international crimes, and cyber security, and sharing intelligence with relevant institutions, as well as studying modern intelligence methods and procedures, following technological progress, and acquiring efficient solutions with the aim of building the capacity, qualifications, and efficiency of intelligence. The National Intelligence Organization cannot be given any tasks other than these. As mentioned, the duties, authorities, and responsibilities of the MIT are outlined in a regulation approved by the president. The MIT is also responsible of carrying out duties designated by the president on foreign security, counterterrorism, and national security. Institutional Infrastructure

Founded in 1961, just after the military coup of 1960, the National Security Council was responsible for reporting to the president its opinions on decisions concerning the designation, identification, and practice of national security policies as well as coordinating relevant institutions. The council’s powers in politics would be expanded with a constitutional regulation following the military coup of 1980. Headed by the president, members of the MGK include the chief of staff, ministers of justice, defense, interior, and exterior, as well as chief commanders of the army, navy, gendarmerie, and air force. The MGK is responsible for writing the national security policy document. Also known as the “Red Book,” this document is prepared based on the argument that national activities must be planned and executed according to predetermined rules for national security. The 2003 reform package of the Turkish parliament limited the role of the military in Turkish politics, with reforms on regulation as concerning the MGK. The objectives of the intelligence agency are determined at MGK meetings, even though the structure of the council has been modified since 1961. Although the MIT is the principal intelligence agency in Turkey, various departments also have their own intelligence units. Besides the central organization, senior officials on foreign missions and attachés, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the General Directorate of

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Security, and the Gendarmerie General Command, operating under the Ministry of Interior; and the Turkish Armed Forces all have their own independent intelligence units (see Figure 23.1). Turkish Armed Forces General Staff

Military intelligence has been organized under the General Staff Intelligence Agency (known as J2). The unit has three subdepartments—assessments, intelligence, and counterintelligence. As a NATO member, Turkey has access to the BICES (Battlefield Information Collection and Exploitation System) network and in this context shares intelligence with NATO.

Figure 23.1 Turkey’s Intellligence Community President National Intelligence Coordination Committee

National Security Council

Security and Foreign Policies Committee National Intelligence Organization

Turkish Armed Forces General Staff General Staff Intelligence Agency

Ministry of Interior

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Gendarmerie General Command Intelligence Department

Directorate of Investigation and Security

General Directorate of Security

Deputy Directorate of Security and Intelligence

Joint Provincial Intelligence Coordination Centers

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The Turkish Armed Forces was the most influential institution in Turkey, particularly in technical intelligence like signals (SIGINT), imagery (IMINT), and communications (COMINT). There was constant information exchange with the General Staff Electronic Systems command unit. However, this unit, involved in SIGINT and COMINT activity against target countries and organizations, became a part of the MIT in 2012, handing over signals intelligence to the National Intelligence Organization. The Turkish Armed Forces also gather intelligence through a network of military attachés working at foreign diplomatic missions. Ministry of Interior

There is an intelligence department within the Ministry of Interior’s General Directorate of Security. Intelligence units operate in all the provincial security directorates across the country, and these units are expected to share information at all times. Rather than espionage and counter-espionage activities in target countries, the General Directorate of Security focuses on gathering preventive intelligence in the fight against organized crime. The main objective of intelligence units working within the police force is to collect preventive intelligence and acquire adequate information prior to forensic evidencing. Operations are executed according to plans that consider intelligence supplied by the General Staff Intelligence Agency. Provincial intelligence units are responsible for maintaining security and order within the country and are subdivided thematically under departments (counterterrorism, narcotics, illegal trafficking, organized crime, etc.).20 Gendarmerie General Command Intelligence Department

Generally, the duties, authorities, and responsibilities of the Gendarmerie General Command include legal and administrative law enforcement in areas outside the jurisdiction of the police.21 Similar to the General Directorate of Security, the Gendarmerie General Command also focuses on preventive intelligence in its operations. The intelligence units within the Provincial Gendarmerie Command work in close cooperation with units in conducting counterterrorism, fighting illegal trafficking, organized crime, and the like, and are responsible for gathering information about suspected crimes. The jurisdiction of the intelligence units is rural areas at the forefront in the fight against the PKK. The Gendarmerie Criminal Department contributes to intelligence gathering, although it is not an intelligence unit.

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When the Uludere/Roboski air strike of December 28, 2011, killed thirty-four Kurdish peasants including children who were thought to be terrorists in the Turkish-Iraqi border area while smuggling cigarettes, diesel oil, and other goods, there were arguments concerning the communication problem between the provincial government and the gendarmerie, and criticism about the gendarmerie having equal status with the minister of interior at the MGK. Subsequently, steps were taken to reorganize the gendarmerie under the Ministry of Interior. A significant part of the gendarmerie became part of the Ministry of Interior after its involvement in operations signed off by the Istanbul attorney general targeting senior Justice and Development Party (AKP) politicians in the period between December 17 and December 25, 2013.22 Under the domestic security reform of 2015, the military structure of the Gendarmerie General Command was relaxed. In this respect, the gendarmerie became part of the General Staff for duties including training and those appointed to it by military laws and regulations, and the Ministry of Interior for duties concerning security and order. Following the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016, a change was made to provincial administration law on the scope of a state of emergency. With this change, the Gendarmerie General Command was completely disconnected from the Turkish Armed Forces and became a part of the Ministry of Interior as a general law enforcement organization. The Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counterterrorism Agency was established under the name Gendarmerie Intelligence Group Command in 1987 by gendarmerie colonel Arif Doğan within the Counterintelligence Department and worked extensively in state-of-emergency zones. The state denied the existence of JITEM for years.23 Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Intelligence and Investigation Department could be classified as a part of Turkey’s intelligence infrastructure. Embassies and consulates are responsible for collecting and transmitting information, especially on matters of national interest. Intelligence activity within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is conducted under the Directorate of Investigation and Security and Deputy Directorate of Security and Intelligence. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has the capacity to gather information through its presence in hundreds of locations around the world including embassies, housing of permanent representatives, and consulates. These structures, which have extensive information and general knowledge on the host country, are capable of gathering information from legal means, particularly open-source intelligence (OSINT).

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Changes were made to the organization of the MIT in 2009 and 2012, and amendments were made to the MIT law in 2014. In 2009, the Operations Command and Psychological Intelligence Departments were dissolved, while the Information Systems Department, responsible for executing technical interception, was removed from the intelligence unit and reappointed under the technical unit, whereas the counterintelligence init was promoted to the level of directorate. A phase of rapid transformation started for the MIT following the appointment of Hakan Fidan—a figure known for his close ties with President Erdoğan—as the new MIT undersecretary on May 27, 2010. Fundamentally, this change reflects an effort to reorganize the intelligence service in the Republic of Turkey to create separate units like the CIA and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States or Military Intelligence 5 (MI5) and Military Intelligence 6 (MI6) in the United Kingdom. Throughout the reforms that were implemented after 2010, Fidan attempted targeting the problems and implementing the solutions he proposed in the last section of his 1999 master’s thesis on the intelligence framework in Turkey.24 According to Fidan, the intelligence system in Turkey stood somewhere between the British and Soviet systems. There was a democratic parliamentary regime and the government’s every move was monitored by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM). However, unlike the British system, the MIT was not reporting directly to the prime minister and was excluded from TBMM inspections. The MIT was taking care of foreign intelligence simply because Turkey lacked an organization that was dedicated to foreign intelligence. Fidan proposed that “domestic threats” required the MIT to focus its resources on security intelligence and that this demand was creating a weakness in foreign policy as well as in the collection and processing of political, economic, and technological intelligence. Fidan acted with the perception that there was a need for an intelligence organization that would collect necessary intelligence to formulate and, on some occasions, implement Turkey’s foreign, economic, and military policies. As Cold War–era intelligence sharing ceased to exist, Fidan developed a new organizational chart, arguing that an intelligence unit focused on domestic intelligence and operations was inadequate. Fidan also believed that another important aspect of a modern intelligence organization that was missing in Turkey was a dedicated unit for fathering electronic intelligence.25 Essentially, the transformation efforts put into effect aimed to develop and increase the MIT’s presence in foreign intelligence compared to pre-

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vious periods. The MIT was creating a structure aimed at expanding its foreign relations and foreign intelligence activity, but the matter of separating domestic and foreign intelligence became disputed following the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016. Six directorates had been set up inside the MIT following the changes of 2012: strategic planning, signals intelligence, electronic and technical intelligence, counterintelligence, security intelligence, and foreign operations.26 With respect to the duties and responsibilities of the directorates, the MIT is authorized to meet the demand for strategic intelligence, intercept and analyze communication and radar signals, analyze audiovisual material, decipher encrypted data and counter cyber threats, carry out counter-espionage, execute foreign operational activities (espionage), collect security intelligence against terrorist organizations, and coordinate national intelligence. The MIT is also responsible for coordinating work between intelligence units and other government institutions. This structure is governed by the National Intelligence Coordination Committee (MIKK), which is the ultimate coordination unit of the state intelligence services. This structure aims to counteract the problems and lack of communication in the process of creating intelligence. Existing laws prohibit public and private organizations from establishing communication with illegal organizations, particularly with terrorist groups. This is why the MIT has been authorized to oversee these negotiations on behalf of the state.27 Besides the granted privileges, the MIT is authorized to obtain electronic data from public and private organizations. In this context, parties who are asked to disclose information cannot evade such requests, on the grounds of the provisions of legislation that govern them.28 The MIT also performs intelligence checks on Ministry of Defense and Turkish Armed Forces personnel. Coordination-Focused Structures and Systems

A Security and Intelligence Commission was formed within the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in accordance with the amendments of 2014. The distribution of members is made according to the percentage of party groups among the total membership. The commission is responsible for giving opinions and advice on national security, monitoring international developments in the fields of security and intelligence, preparing reports about its own field of activity, improving the security of personal information obtained during security and intelligence services, and developing suggestions aimed at protecting the rights and freedoms of individuals.29

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Founded in 1965 per the MIT law, the National Intelligence Coordination Committee was restructured according to an amendment to the law in 1983. The MIT oversees the secretarial services of the committee. The objective of the MIKK is to provide coordination concerning the execution of the duties and responsibilities of ministries and other public institutions and organizations and to set forth the general perspective in the management of intelligence work. The general secretariat of the MIKK was founded under the leadership of the MIT undersecretary. In addition to the MIKK, 2012 saw the establishment of the Operational Information-Sharing System (OBIPAS) to coordinate and functionalize information obtained by organizations, share accurate and effective intelligence information, and quickly and effectively use the information. The Joint Intelligence Coordination Center (MIKM) was established toward the end of 2013 with the aim of uniting the intelligence sharing of security forces under a single roof. Joint provincial intelligence coordination centers were established within provincial governorships in rural areas. After the constitutional referendum of 2017, the MIKK became a part of the office of the president. Acting as the policy development body of the office of the president, the Security and Foreign Policies Committee is responsible for developing political alternatives to intelligence activity. Acting as coordinator of the security bureaucracy and reporter on execution assessment, the General Directorate of Security Matters, which operates under the Presidential Directorate of Administrative Affairs, is responsible for coordinating and evaluating intelligence activity. Functions and Operations

Although the MIT does not have authority to execute operations, a door is left open for domestic and foreign operational authority pursuant to a law that came into force in April 2014. The MIT executes the duties given by the ministerial cabinet in matters concerning foreign security, counterterrorism, and national security. The duties, authorities, and responsibilities of MIT units beyond those specified by law are indicated in a regulation ratified by the president. It is very likely that this regulation defines the terms of handing MIT operational authority; however, there is no knowledge about the nature of the arrangement set forth by the legislation because MIT regulations are not made public. As mentioned earlier, intelligence activity in Turkey has been organized and shaped with a focus on domestic security problems. The

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National Security Council was the body that would define threats and priorities. This provided a framework for planning Turkey’s intelligence operations regarding the political left, the Kurdish issue, and radical Islam before the AKP era. The only exception was foreign operations targeting the ASALA. Turkey adopted a policy on the Turkic states that broke away from the Soviet Union after the end of the Cold War in 1990. Going beyond developing cooperation with these nations, Turkey attempted to shape the domestic policies of the Caucasian and Central Asian republics. This was a time when a major scandal occurred in Azerbaijan that had links with Turkey. In 1994, Prime Minister Suret Huseinov and OMON (political police) unit commander Ruşen Cevadov perpetrated a coup attempt to overthrow President Haydar Aliyev in Azerbaijan. Three high-level bureaucrats from the MIT and Special Operations Division alongside Abdullah Çatlı allegedly trained the OMON units headed by Cevadov. On March 15, 1995, there was a second attempted coup against President Aliyev, allegedly with involvement of Azerbaijan General Assembly Privatization Commission member, Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) officer Ferman Demirkol, and the minister of state responsible for Turkic states, Ayvaz Gökdemir. President Demirel announced that he found out about the coup attempt from MIT intelligence, upon which he warned Aliyev. Nevertheless, Aliyev accused Turkey of having responsibility in the incident in a public speech on Azerbaijani television. Aimed at revealing deep-state connections in Turkey, the Ergenekon investigation of 2008 led to the conflict between power groups within the state becoming more apparent. With 274 defendants, the Ergenekon investigation, which Gülenist high-level bureaucrats were actively leading, had the potential of being a medium for the state of Turkey to confront its past crimes, but it was soon distorted into a witch hunt targeting the secular wing of the military and civilian society with unlawful wire taps and fabricated evidence. This period coincides with the time when the Turkish government had started the process of secret peace talks with the PKK. On September 13, 2011, a website published an audio recording— allegedly leaked by Gülenists—of the negotiations taking place between the delegates of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) and officials of the Turkish government. Allegedly, the meeting, which took place in coordinator country Norway’s capital, Oslo, was attended by high-level bureaucrats of the MIT and representatives of the KCK and PKK.

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Another allegation involved MIT undersecretary Hakan Fidan meeting with PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and PKK delegates in the capacity of “special envoy” upon special orders of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. MIT members, including Fidan, and former MIT undersecretary Emre Taner were called in for questioning as part of the KCK investigation to testify on the role of the MIT in the KCK organization and the agenda of the Oslo meetings. The MIT delegation was alleged to have gone beyond intelligence and information collection to activities including mediating and commanding the organization. Later the directors of the counterterrorism and intelligence divisions that carried out the KCK operations were dismissed. The MIT law was amended in a single session on the night of February 15, 2012, implying that MIT members would not have to testify on matters pertaining to their duties without permission by the prime ministry. Indeed, MIT officials did not testify.30 Another topic on the MIT’s agenda became public with yet a new audio recording that was leaked in 2014: a potential operation targeting Syria. Among the people allegedly talking about possibilities of a Syrian offensive on the leaked tape were the minister of foreign affairs, Ahmet Davutoğlu; the undersecretary of foreign affairs, Feridun Sinirlioğlu; the deputy commander of the General Staff, General Yaşar Güler; and MIT undersecretary Hakan Fidan. In the recording, these senior officials discuss a wide range of issues about planning the attack, including having MIT transport weapons to Syria inside trucks and the MIT organizing a rocket attack on Turkish soil as a justification to retaliate.31 Since the 2000s, the MIT’s activities targeting its own citizens have focused mainly on the PKK and the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front, organizations on the terrorist lists of both Turkey and the European Union. The MIT has also been targeting the Gülen movement since the coup attempt of July 15, 2016. The Turkish government accuses the Gülen movement of orchestrating the failed coup. The operations led by the MIT resulted in the detention of several alleged members of the Gülen movement in Azerbaijan,32 Ukraine,33 Kosovo,34 Gabon,35 and Malaysia,36 and their extradition to Turkey. The MIT also abducted the principal of a Turkish school in Mongolia on the grounds of being a member of the Gülen movement. However, Mongolian officials prevented his extradition because Turkey and Mongolia had no cooperation agreement on this matter, unlike other countries.37 Overall, the MIT arranged for the return of a total of eighty individuals from approximately eighteen countries for their alleged connections with the Gülen movement.38 During an operation carried out between

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December 2015 and January 2016, the MIT hacked the ByLock messaging network server in Lithuania—reportedly used to communicate by persons affiliated with Gülen—and transmitted all registered internet addresses to its Ankara headquarters.39 Peter Pilz, the security spokesperson of the Green Party of Austria, released a report claiming that under the guise of the Austria-Turkey Islamic Foundation (ATIB)—an extension of the Directorate of Religious Affairs in Turkey—nearly 200 informants had leaked information to the MIT about individuals, schools, cultural and student associations, and other establishments allegedly linked with the Gülen movement across thirty-five countries. A senior government official in Turkey denied the accusations.40 A federal prosecutor’s investigation that opened in Germany in December 2016 accused some imams who worked for the TurkishIslamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB) of leaking information to Ankara and the MIT about suspected Gülen advocates, but the investigation was closed. Over the past decade, the federal prosecutor has opened twenty-three investigations into various individuals suspected of being informants of the Turkish intelligence service. Seventeen of these investigations were opened following the attempted coup in Turkey. On November 22, 2017, the chief prosecutor’s office in Egypt signed off on the arrest of twenty-nine people in the country accused of espionage activity in favor of Turkey, harming Egypt’s national interests. Although these people were accused of money laundering, Egyptian intelligence announced that they were also involved in leaking information to the Turkish intelligence service about attempts to bring the Muslim Brotherhood back to power. Earlier, in 2013 and 2014, two German citizens were arrested on the Greek island of Kos for collecting intelligence for Turkey. In 2017, a Zaman Greek newspaper columnist and later Gülen sympathizer, Abdullah Bozkurt, wrote that Turkey was actively gathering intelligence along the Greek coastline. In 2016, London’s The Times published official documents suggesting that the MIT ordered the killing of Mehmet Kaygısız, a Kurd who had affiliations with heroin trafficking back in 1994 and also links to illegally trafficking Turkish Kurds to the UK.41 In 2017, the Kurdistan Communities Union reported detaining two Turkish citizens working for the MIT in the city of Sulaymaniyah. The detainees later confessed that they were planning to assassinate a significant figure of the Kurdistan Workers Party. The MIT has become even more reclusive since the attempted coup of July 15, 2010. There is more diligence in appointing units responsible

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for operational activity. These units are nowadays subject to military training by the Special Forces Command. In the post–attempted coup era, tactical operations will be executed by intelligence members with military training rather than joint operations with military units. Oversight The MIT is accountable only to the president according to a law dated August 15, 2017, that was enacted during the state of emergency following the failed coup attempt of July 15. The MIT was excluded from the scope of the law on the right to information. The justification for this change was to keep the identities of MIT personnel a secret. Although the relation between the MIT and public organizations is explained in the law on state intelligence and the National Intelligence Organization, in fact, regulations on governing the MIT are not made public. MIT members cannot be questioned or tried without the president’s permission. The MIT is funded by the presidential budget’s discretionary fund. Legislation does not specify how this money is to be spent or how it is audited. The MIT law refers to twelve regulations. However, the same law stipulates that these regulations cannot be published in the Official Gazette, which creates another block on oversight. International Cooperation

Turkey is among the members of the UN, NATO, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA), the Council of Europe’s Pompidou Group (cooperation on combating drug abuse and illicit trafficking in drugs), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and Interpol. Turkey has security cooperation agreements with eighty-three countries, with only twelve of them UN agreements. Because of its strategic location between Europe and the Soviet Union and Middle East during the Cold War, Turkey was a strategic NATO partner in intelligence collaboration. During the 1950s the United States established SIGINT and radar systems at US bases in Turkey to conduct surveillance against the Soviet Union. This relationship continued with further cooperation with Israel and Iran. The intelligence communities of Israel (Mossad), Iran (Organization of National Intelligence and Security of the Nation [SAVAK]), and Turkey (MIT)

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established a triparty consultative body known as Trident.42 All of these international collaborations were also used for intelligence support to Turkey in its fight against the PKK. However, with the end of the Cold War, Turkey lost its previous importance in the international intelligence community. Yet the collaborations continued on a different level. The intelligence chiefs of Mossad, SAVAK, and the MIT met annually and exchanged information on Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. After relations between Israel and Iran became problematic, Israeli-Turkish relations continued, especially on security-related issues in the 1980s and 1990s. Turkey and Israel continued to share intelligence about Syria, Iraq, and to a certain extent Iran, as the listening stations built by the United States are still functioning and there were Turkish spies in the region. Turkey also received information on the PKK from Israeli intelligence. It was no coincidence that the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan, was arrested in Kenya as a result of a joint operation of the CIA and MIT, and it was leaked that Mossad was involved in the operation. However, relations between Israel and Turkey have become problematic in a number of areas since the Mavi Marmara incident of May 31, 2010, when Israel launched a military action against the six ships of the so-called Gaza Freedom Flotilla. The intelligence cooperation between the United States and Turkey has a long history. However, while the US National Security Agency (NSA) provided significant information on the PKK to Turkey, Edward Snowden’s documents revealed that the NSA also targeted Turkey.43 Thus, although the cooperation continues to some extent, it is based on mutual distrust, especially since the Syrian war. Conclusion The Turkish intelligence apparatus has inherited an intelligence culture from the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire. This long history is directly connected to the threat perception called the Sèvres syndrome, which legitimizes the violent actions of actors inside or in relation to the security apparatus. The investigations, conducted many times over, on relations between intelligence agencies, the army, politicians, and the criminal underworld strengthened the belief in the existence of a deep state as a coalition of those elements in Turkey. Military tutelage, which was the main institutional problem as a result of military interventions in 1960, 1971, and 1980 in Turkish politics, was eliminated after the reforms of the European Union accession

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process started in 2002. However, the power conflicts between different groups (Gülenists, Erdoğanists, ultra-nationalists, etc.) inside different institutions—like the military, intelligence agencies, ministries, and the judiciary—created a fragile ground for democratization reforms. The Ergenekon trial and the leaked audio of ministers, the director of the MIT, and even the president himself showed both the power conflict and the undemocratic tendencies of the state elites. While power has been centralized in the hands of President Erdoğan since the failed coup d’état, not only the Gülenists, who were holding important seats both in the government and all levels of bureaucracy as an Islamic network, but also the leftist and liberal opposition, have been oppressed. The ending of the peace process with the PKK restarted the violent conflict in the region, and in addition to that, the civil politicians of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) were purged or imprisoned, accused of making terrorist propaganda or being members of a terrorist organization. While the principle of separation of powers between executive, legislative, and judicial powers was destroyed to the benefit of executive power, symbolized by President Erdoğan in the new presidential design, the most significant issue of the Turkish intelligence apparatus is its dependency on the president. Although the question of oversight of the MIT has been an issue for decades, after these recent developments it must be analyzed in this political framework. Another issue that can be framed according to the institutional structure of the intelligence apparatus is the lack of cooperation and coordination as a result of trust problems inside the agencies, especially since the failed coup, leading to insufficiency in intelligence operations. While being a crucial instrument for the new presidential system, the MIT is instrumentalized in keeping President Erdoğan in power, fighting against “internal enemies,” suppressing political opposition, and performing international operations following the foreign policy choices of the president under this political system. Notes 1. UN Refugee Agency, “Turkey: Key Factors and Figures,” November 2018, https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/syria/location/113. 2. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report: Turkey, 2018, http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/TUR. 3. Lagatum Prosperity Index, Turkey, 2018, https://www.prosperity.com/globe /turkey. 4. Transperancy International, “Country Profile: Turkey,” 2018, https://www .transparency.org/country/TUR.

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5. Hans-Lukas Kieser, Turkey Beyond Nationalism: Towards Post-Nationalist Identities (London: Tauris, 2006), 232. 6. Mehmet Gönlübol et al., Olaylarla Türk Dış Politikası (Turkish Foreign Policy by Events), 9th ed. (Ankara: Siyasal Kitabevi, 1996); Egemen B. Bezci, “Turkey’s Intelligence Diplomacy During the Second World War,” Journal of Intelligence History 15, no. 2 (2016), 84. 7. Barry M. Rubin, Istanbul Intrigues (New York: Pharos, 1992). 8. H. O. Dovey, “The Intelligence War in Turkey,” Intelligence and National Security 9, no. 1 (1994): 59–87. 9. Rubin, Istanbul Intrigues, 13–39. 10. Suleyman Seydi, “The Intelligence War in Turkey During the Second World War: A Nazi Spy on British Premises in Istanbul,” Middle Eastern Studies no. 40 (May 2004), 75–85; Rubin, Istanbul Intrigues; L. C. Moyzisch, “Cicero: The Case of the Ambassador’s Valet,” in Allen Dulles, ed., Great True Spy Stories: 39 True Accounts from to the Cold War (Secaucus, NJ: Castle, 1968), 30–48. 11. “The Parliamentary Research Commission on the In-Depth Investigation of All Coups and Memorandums That Have Intervened in Democracy in Our Country and All Other Attempts and Processes That Hindered Democracy and Determination of CounterMeasures,” bk. 1, period 24, legislative year 3, November 2012, 119–120, https://www .tbmm.gov.tr/sirasayi/donem24/yil01/ss376_Cilt1.pdf. 12. Heinz Duthel, Global Secret and Intelligence Services III (New York: Routledge, 2015); Mehtap Söyler, The Turkish Deep State: State Consolidation, Civil-Military Relations, and Democracy (New York: Routledge, 2015). 13. Balçiçek Pamir, “Bülent Ecevit’le Söyleşi: Derin Devlet Kontrgerilladır” (Interview with Bülent Ecevit: Deep State Is Counterguerilla], Sabah, April 11, 2005, http:// arsiv.sabah.com.tr/2005/04/11/gnd101.html. Ecevit survived an assassination attempt shortly after this announcement. Ankara’s supreme public prosecutor, Doğan Öz, was killed soon after submitting his report on the deep-state counter-guerrilla in 1977. 14. Abdullah Çatlı was accused and tried for a series of murders with unknown assailants targeting left-wing students, journalists, and academicians. However, the trials have not been concluded. 15. Hamit Bozarslan, Network-Building, Ethnicity, and Violence in Turkey (Abu Dhabi: ECSSR, 1999), 1–57. 16. In 1992 the Special War Department was transformed into the Special Forces Command. The command employs more than 7,000 personnel and supervised the creation of the unit called the Maroon Berets. This unit executes counterterrorism warfare, senior personnel protection, and presidential body-guarding on foreign visits. Founded in 1993 within the Turkish Grand National Assembly, the Parliamentary Commission for Inquiry into Extrajudicial Killings attempted for two years to investigate more than a thousand deaths, mostly in Diyarbakır, Istanbul, and Mardin, and their connection with counter-guerrilla activities within the state. However, this was prevented by the relentless efforts of then–chief of staff Doğan Güreş. 17. TBMM Faili Meçhul Siyasal Cinayetleri Araştırma Komisyon Raporları (The Report of the Turkish Grand Parliament Commission of Investigating the Murders with Unknown Perpetrators), (Ankara: Ayyıldız Yayınları, 1995). 18. For an analysis of Turkey’s opium production, security service, and criminal underworld with a long-term perspective from empire to nation-state, see Ryan Gingeras, Heroin, Organized Crime, and the Making of Modern Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 19. The most striking of these was the murder of former JITEM group commander Major Ahmet Cem Ersever. Another is the death of gendarmerie chief commander Eşref Bitlis in a helicopter crash. Bitlis had proposed a nonviolent solution to the Kurdish

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problem, and an official investigation into his death was prevented. Bitlis’s report on northern Iraq, circulated shortly before his death, had caused controversy. Chief of Staff Doğan Güreş attested that the helicopter malfunction was caused by freezing. For an analysis of the relationship between organized crime and the Turkish intelligence services, see Michael M. Günter, “Susurluk: The Connection Between Turkey’s Intelligence Community and Organized Crime,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counter Intelligence 11, no. 2 (June 1998), 119–141. 20. Interior’s General Directorate of Security, General Staff Intelligence Agency, “Our Mission and Vision,”http://www.istihbarat.pol.tr/Sayfalar/Misyon-ve-Vizyonumuz.aspx. 21. Gendermerie General Command, “About Us,”, http://www.jandarma.tsk.tr. 22. The operations ordered by the Istanbul public prosecutor with allegations of “bribery, misconduct, collusive tendering, and smuggling” resulted in the detention of eighty-nine people, including the sons of certain ministers and senior AKP members. President Erdoğan and key figures of the AKP government strongly advocated that the operation was masterminded by the Gülen movement, which is a network based on the Islamic teachings of Fethullah Gülen, an imam who was the head of the Association for Struggling with Communism in Erzurum in 1965. In the days that followed the investigation, a series of sound recordings were released on the internet that allegedly belonged to a number of senior government officials, including President Erdoğan and some ministers, bureaucrats, and businesspeople. The government stepped up its criticism of the Gülen movement throughout the process and pointed to a “parallel structure” that wanted to take over the government. The legal amendments that followed this incident expanded the government’s power over the judiciary. 23. Then–prime minister Bülent Ecevit and the deputy prime minister admitted the existence of JITEM following the Susurluk scandal. It was alleged that the military wing inside the ultra-nationalist Ergenekon front that was thought to be a component of the deep state in Turkey consisted of senior officers within JITEM, so much so that the second indictment of the Ergenekon trial mentioned that JITEM bombed homes and circulated PKK flyers, communicated with the illegal organization, performed instant executions, formed armed civilian units, and prepared fake identity documents. 24. Hakan Fidan, Intelligence and Foreign Policy: A Comparison of British, American, and Turkish Intelligence Systems, unpublished thesis, Bilkent University, 1999. 25. Ibid. 26. National Intelligence Organization, “Organization,”http://www.mit.gov.tr/teskilat .html. 27. Law 2937, clause 6/a (updated first item, April 17, 2014, 6532/clause 3). 28. Law 2937, clause 6/b. 29. The commission meets in closed sessions. Members who attend commission meetings cannot disclose any information about the works of the commission and issues on the agenda, and are responsible for treating such information as secret. Reports prepared by relevant organizations or the presidency cannot include information and documents considered as state secrets. The procedures and principles concerning the means and scope of reports to be prepared and submitted to relevant organizations and the presidency are defined in regulations enacted by the ministerial cabinet. 30. BIA Ankara News Center, “‘Oslo Konuşmaları’ Nedir?” (What Are “the Oslo Talks”?), Bianet, September 12, 2012, http://bianet.org/english/siyaset/140937-oslo -gorusmeleri-nedir. 31. Evrensel Politics, “Ses Kaydına Göre, Suriye ile Savaş Çıkarmaya Çalışmışlar” (According to the Sound Records, They Tried to Start a War), Evrensel, March 27, 2014, https:// www.evrensel.net/haber/81055/ses-kaydina-gore-suriye-ile-savas-cikarmaya-calismislar. 32. Anadolu Agency, “Turkish Intel Returns Wanted FETÖ Member from Azerbaijan,” Hurriyet Daily News, December 29, 2018, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish -intel-returns-wanted-feto-from-azerbaijan-140108.

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33. Hürriyet Ankara, “Turkish Intelligence Brings Key FETÖ Suspect from Ukraine to Turkey,” Hurriyet Daily News, July 16, 2018, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com /turkish-intelligence-brings-key-feto-suspect-from-ukraine-to-turkey-134608. 34. Nate Schenkkan, “Turkey Just Snatched Six of Its Citizens from Another Country,” Washington Post, April 1, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/democracy -post/wp/2018/04/01/turkey-just-snatched-six-of-its-citizens-from-another-country /?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b46e29e8e7ba. 35. Tuvan Gumrukcu and Tulay Karadeniz, “Gabon Returns Three Suspects to Turkey over Gulen Links, Erdogan Says,” Reuters, April 10, 2018, https://www.reuters .com/article/us-turkey-gabon-security/gabon-returns-three-suspects-to-turkey-over-gulen -links-erdogan-says-idUSKBN1HH1CZ. 36. Rozanna Latiff, “Malaysia Deports Three Turks Amid U.N. Fears of Widening Turkish Crackdown,” Reuters, May 12, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey -malaysia-idUSKBN1880X2. 37. Stockholm Center for Freedom, “Turkish Educator Akçay in Mongolia Applies to UN for Urgent Action Against Imminent Abduction Risk,” August 27, 2017, https://stockholmcf .org/turkish-educator-akcay-in-mongolia-applies-to-un-for-urgent-action-against-imminent -abduction-risk. 38. Rick Gladstone, “Turkish Secret Agents Seized 80 People in 18 Countries, Official Says,” New York Times, April 5, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/world /europe/turkey-coup-arrests-extraditions.html. 39. Murat Yetkin, “Turkish Intelligence Unveils Secret Codes Used Before Coup Attempt,” Hurriyet Daily News, September 13, 2018, http://www.hurriyetdailynews .com/opinion/murat-yetkin/turkish-intelligence-unveils-secret-codes-used-before -coup-attempt-103843. 40. Shadia Nasralla, “Turkey Targets Erdogan Critics in Austria via Informer Network—Lawmaker,” Reuters, February 14, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-austria -turkey-spying/turkey-targets-erdogan-critics-in-austria-via-informer-network-lawmaker -idUKKBN15T1XU. 41. John Simpson, “Turkey ‘Had Dissident Murdered’ in London,” The Times, September 27, 2016, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/turkey-had-dissident-murdered-in -london-v5shr6pw5. 42. Yossi Alpher, Periphery: Israel’s Search for Middle East Allies (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015), 12–25. 43. Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbachi Michael Sontheimer, and Holger Stark, “A Two-Faced Friendship: Turkey Is ‘Partner and Target’ for the NSA,” Spiegel Online, August 31, 2019, http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/documents-show-nsa-and -gchq-spied-on-partner-turkey-a-989011.html.

24 Yemen Anthony Chimente

Arab security and intelligence services have historically been tasked with protecting the state and regime from potential security risks, including terrorism, political subversion, transnational threats, and foreign espionage, and tend to focus on inward security threats, as opposed to collecting and analyzing intelligence on foreign adversaries, aside from the more professional and Western-aligned institutions found in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan. Collecting data on the Arab intelligence community and Yemen is complicated by the characteristically clandestine nature of the profession and autocratic environments in which they operate. Very little information, especially at the granular level, is available on the Yemeni intelligence community and the historical development of the organizations situated within. As a result, the historical development of the intelligence services is little known or understood within the Western public. While I located a select number of secondary sources to inform the research process, for the most part I relied on interviews, declassified documents available from the depository of the US Central Intelligence Agency, and a cache of diplomatic cables from WikiLeaks. While the chapter is not a detailed, holistic assessment outlining the history of the Yemeni intelligence community, it nonetheless provides insight into an opaque community. The nature of the Yemeni intelligence community becomes clearer when compared to the conventional mandates of Western intelligence agencies. The principle task of Western intelligence organizations is the collection, evaluation, and dissemination of foreign intelligence to 443

444 Anthony Chimente inform decisionmakers to safeguard national security. For example, the mission statement of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) encapsulates the relatively uniformed mandate of Western intelligence agencies: the CIA’s primary mission is to collect, analyze, evaluate, and disseminate foreign intelligence to assist the president and senior US government policymakers in making decisions relating to national security. Within this context, strict oversight and accountability of the institution are ensured through robust legislative and judicial practices. More important, the intelligence systems are in the service of the state and not the regime nor a political party. Historically, the Yemeni intelligence community, as with other Arab intelligence services, failed to replicate Western models in this regard and embrace the nature of intelligence institutions such as the United Kingdom’s Military Intelligence 6 (MI6) or the CIA. While Yemen never developed a competent intelligence machine capable of external espionage and operations, it did succeed in forming a robust internal security structure and a formidable counterterrorism capability with the assistance of Western powers. However, the nature of regime elite competition meant that the intelligence structures became embroiled in these regime power struggles. Accordingly, this chapter outlines the formation of the intelligence organizations in the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) prior to unification in 1990 and proceeds to discuss the nature of the Yemeni intelligence community within the wider global war on terror.

Intelligence Structures in the Two Yemens The Yemen Arab Republic

The Yemen Arab Republic (1962–1990) was established following a coup led by republican army officers under the leadership of Colonel Abdullah al-Sallal and upended the imamate rule that had existed in the north unperturbed since the tenth century. A civil war quickly erupted, with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia supporting the royalist tribes, while Egypt quickly intervened in support of the nascent republican government. By 1967, Colonel al-Sallal and the republicans were firmly in power and began the process of statebuilding and consolidation. Founded in 1967 with British assistance, and run by the Egyptians, the National Security Organization (NSO) became one of the first intelligence agencies in the new republic and operated with the remit of coun-

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terintelligence and subversion operations in addition to the collection and analysis of foreign intelligence. Internally, the 4,000 NSO employees oversaw both defensive and offensive operations against political detractors and subversive civilian elements within society. In many ways, the NSO incorporated the core functions of the US Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The institutionalization of a relatively professional intelligence community became a key fixture of the 1970s and coincided with the statebuilding initiatives under President Ibrahim al-Hamdi. The Central Organization for National Security (1975) would replace the NSO and incorporate the preceding internal and foreign intelligence entities to form the republic’s preeminent security institution, tasked with safeguarding the YAR from both internal and external threats. Headed by LieutenantColonel Muhammad Khamis (chosen because of his loyalty), the institution experienced a marked degree of modernization during the regime of al-Hamdi and developed into an instrument renowned for surveillance, coercion, and seemingly omnipotent control. During this period, the organization encompassed aspects of the feared Mukhabarat state, which came to define the autocratic security state emerging across the Arab world. While less competent and professional than Western intelligence agencies, the Central Organization for National Security constituted the most coherent, organized, and well-led government institution at the time. In July 1978, Ali Abdullah Saleh became president of the YAR and would continue to rule the north and a unified Yemen for thirty-nine years. However, Saleh’s rule was immediately threatened when a group of former al-Hamdi supporters launched an attempted coup. At that time, Ghalib al-Gamish, an officer in the military police, refused to support the conspirators and leaked the plot to Saleh, but was jailed by alHamdi supporters. In the aftermath, Saleh rewarded Gamish for his personal loyalty with the position of head of the newly established Central Agency of the Political Security Organization in 1981. Under his supervision, the intelligence service underwent further expansion and modernization. President Saleh transformed the north into a Mukhabarat state to buttress his grip over power. As a result, the intelligence organizations were orientated for the purpose of repression and regime maintenance. In many aspects, the collection and reporting of information was an informal affair. Apart from official state employees, the intelligence service relied on neighborhood snitches to monitor the political temperature and report on subversive activities, and used the heads of neighborhoods to report on people’s activities. Professors were refused positions until they agreed to report on their colleagues. Intelligence

446 Anthony Chimente therefore remained inseparable from political security and the requirement to thwart societal elements from usurping the power of the regime. Three years into his presidency, the rule of Saleh was threatened by an insurgency instigated by the communist-aligned National Democratic Front (NDF), because the organization provided the PDRY a foothold in the north. The Soviets offered to assist in the intelligence sphere, yet Saleh was hesitant to accept Moscow’s overtures because the Soviet Union was simultaneously selling arms to his government and covertly funding to the NDF. However, a 1981 US presidential finding on the Yemen Arab Republic enabled the CIA to collect intelligence and partner with Yemeni intelligence to stymie the NDF and limit Soviet influence in the north. YAR intelligence also had success infiltrating the south and penetrated the ruling Yemeni Socialist Party and other core political institutions of the south. In 1986, without providing details, President Saleh admitted to a prominent Yemeni defector that the north had cultivated sources at the highest levels of the Yemeni Socialist Party and the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Council.1 Like other countries in the region, the YAR had a military intelligence capability, called the National Organization for General Intelligence and Military Security (DMI). It was established in the early 1970s with the aid of Jordanian intelligence and directed by a tribesman from Sanhan, Colonel Ahmad al-Sunaydar, who managed some 600 officers and enlisted civilians. The military intelligence outfit functioned through thirteen offices dispersed across several areas in the YAR. Notionally, responsibility for the DMI fell under the purview of the military chief of staff, Bashiri. However, as a member of the Sanhan tribe, Colonel al-Sunaydar had more influence over the organization based on tribal relations with Saleh. While Western military intelligence units collect, analyze, and disseminate information on a foreign military to enable success at the tactical level (individual battles), operational level (campaigns), and strategic level (planning at the national level during war and peace), the DMI’s key core task was regime protection. The DMI closely monitored Yemeni military personnel to prevent them from threatening the regime. Officers were forbidden from congregating in large groups, and any political activity was viewed as highly suspect, with offenders often arrested and disappeared. In this sense, the DMI was more of a central intelligence unit that spied on the Yemeni military to uncover subversive officers or soldiers and monitored foreign military defense attachés. Beyond these central intelligence roles, the organization was incapable of performing any military task normally associated with military intel-

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ligence in Western militaries. For example, while the YAR viewed the south as a primary security threat for much of the period until unification in 1990, the republic gathered relevant military intelligence on the PDRY through human intelligence (HUMINT) and cooperation with foreign intelligence agencies. PDRY military and civilian defectors provided the YAR with a considerable amount of wide-ranging intelligence on the armed forces of the south. The People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen

From 1874 to 1963, South Yemen was a British colony, and the British administered security and intelligence for the mandate of South Arabia. The People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen was established in 1967 following the Aden Emergency and withdrawal of the British forces. The National Liberation Front (NLF), a Marxist-Leninist paramilitary organization that had fought during the Aden Emergency, initially governed the south from 1967 until 1978, when the party reorganized into the ruling Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP) and established a one-party state based on the principles of Marxism-Leninism. The ideological nature of the PDRY regime resulted in close political and security relationships with the Soviet Union and East Germany. However, while Moscow provided Aden with military hardware and security assistance, the East Germans worked more closely to establish the security and espionage arms of the PDRY. Aden and Berlin signed an agreement in 1970 that outlined security and intelligence relations between the two states, with East German officials hoping to reproduce their very own state- and nation-building process and establish a “mini Stasi” in the PDRY. In 1972, the Revolutionary Security Organization was formed within the Ministry of State Security and constituted the PDRY’s foreign intelligence agency. Muhammad Sa’id Abdullah (Mushin) controlled the organization until 1979 and developed a close relationship with his Stasi (Ministry for State Security) counterparts, establishing an intelligence apparatus that became synonymous with terror and repression. East German influence was most pronounced with regard to educating intelligence officers in the principles and technical capacities of intelligence gathering. Stasi officers were assigned to each department within the Ministry of State Security and Military Intelligence to facilitate this process. The Soviets played some role in the formation of a PDRY intelligence community, although less intensive than their East German counterparts. Initially, the KGB trained and educated prospective intelligence

448 Anthony Chimente and military professionals in Moscow. Then, on May 12, 1972, Yemeni minister of interior Muhammad Salih Mutiya met with Soviet general secretary Yuri Andropov to examine closer intelligence cooperation. The KGB agreed to provide the PDRY with cipher equipment and would train PDRY intelligence officers in signals intelligence (SIGINT). Two years later, both countries entered into a secret agreement to collect information on Saudi Arabia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and the PDRY was provided with sophisticated SIGINT equipment to achieve this objective. In the late 1970s the Soviets established the second-largest contingent of SIGINT facilities outside the Soviet Union. A joint KGB and East German SIGINT facility was established adjacent to the Salah al-Din communications facility on the outskirts of Aden and another located on the Ras Karma military airbase on Socotra Island. The Stasi established a surveillance (SIGINT) instillation near the Red Sea in the late 1970s under the guidance of the Soviet KGB. The facility was part of a wider Warsaw Pact surveillance network and targeted communications regarding Western attempts to thwart communist expansion in the region. Stasi intelligence officers managed the facility and provided Aden with requested information. While information regarding the PDRY’s external intelligence operations is limited, it is known that “declared” officers were stationed abroad within diplomatic postings. In most instances, these intelligence officers monitored the South Yemeni expatriate community and liaised with the host-nation security services and rarely conducted offensive intelligence operations. However, the PDRY did focus foreign collection on surrounding neighbors, and North Yemen in particular. A military intelligence unit did exist, with a large outfit stationed on the border with Saudi Arabia; it was able to collect some information from HUMINT sources but largely relied on other countries to provide intelligence on military matters. For example, the YAR military chief of staff knew Soviet military advisers were providing sensitive information on the north’s defenses to Aden. Generally, the KGB provided the Ministry of State Security and relevant political officials with intelligence on the YAR, and this included the KGB recruiting HUMINT sources within the north’s military and security services. The PDRY intelligence machine was regarded as being rather effective by the East German government, although the Stasi were disappointed in the fact that they had hoped to use the domestic services to acquire intelligence themselves. Thus the East Germans were dissatisfied that their substantial aid to the security services failed to yield much valuable intelligence. These services did not meet East German stan-

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dards of efficiency and no doubt gave greater priority to the regime’s internal enemies than to working against those of Moscow and Berlin. Politically, a mass, one-party system controlled all functions of the state and specific departments controlled all aspects of recruitment. Moreover, the role of the Stasi meant that much of the PDRY intelligence community focused on threats to regime security and allocated more attention toward domestic targets. This was exacerbated by the constant political infighting within the regime as various individuals jockeyed for power. While Minister for State Security Mushin tried to use his power to reduce the influence of South Yemen leader Ali Nasir Mohammed and other rivals, he was countered by Ali Nasir when the latter removed Mushin as minister of state security in the early 1980s. Mushin was replaced by a Nasir loyalist named Siali, who ran the ministry until 1986. While the PDRY intelligence machine was well trained and capable, these assets were effective only in what might be called national objectives. National objectives focused on subduing subversive political actors and operating against the various rivalries within the regime, which was a noticeable feature of the PDRY regime.

Unification, the Global War on Terror, and Revolution The Intelligence Community in the Aftermath of Unification

While May 22, 1990, marked the unification of the YAR and PDRY, the respective intelligence services and security forces continued to operate separately until the end of the 1994 civil war (see Figure 24.1). Two intelligence organizations would emerge that proved instrumental in the war on terror: the Political Security Organization (PSO) and the National Security Bureau (NSB) (see Figure 24.2). Oversight and accountability of the Yemeni intelligence community contrasted with Western practices in that the Yemeni parliament, legal structure, or constitution exercised negligible influence and control over the intelligence bodies. A lack of oversight resulted from the centralized nature of power, a key staple of Saleh’s autocratic rule, and translated into the president effectively controlling the intelligence apparatus. Ostensibly, the security chiefs reported to the relevant civilian directors in the Ministry of Interior or Defense in a chain of command. However, the president’s family or relatives either directed the intelligence institutions or served as de facto directors in a lower capacity and thus acted through unofficial channels as opposed to the

450 Anthony Chimente Figure 24.1 Organizations Affiliated with the Yemen Arab Republic and South Yemen Prior to Unification Yemen Arab Republic, 1962–1990

South Yemen, 1967–1990

Ministry of Interior

Ministry of Defense

Ministry of Interior

National Security Organization (1967–1975)

Directorate of Military Intelligence

Ministry of State Security

Central Organization for National Security (1975–1981)

Central Agency of the Political Security Organization (1981–1992)

Revolutionary Security Organization

formal chain of command. This structure ensured that Saleh remained firmly in control of the organization’s activities unabated, while “civilian control” rested firmly with the ruler. The real ability of the Arab intelligence culture is one of covert action. Conventional intelligence work associated with Western states is something Yemeni intelligence failed to perfect, specifically, the collection, analysis, and dissemination of information. Yemen institutions are structurally and financially weak and possess the cultural mindset in the Arab world, which favors a very centralized decisionmaking process with a long chain of command leading to one individual, in this case President Saleh. At the executive level, a security committee existed prior to 2014, comprising the various intelligence chiefs and pertinent military officers, to deliberate issues of national security, and a similar forum existed across the various governorates. However, the whole process was very informal and priority intelligence requirements were never developed during these meetings. Instead, collection requirements came from Saleh or senior officials regarding matters of regime protection, while Western partners worked with the NSB to establish targeting packages for drone strikes and intelligence priorities regarding counterterrorism operations.

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Figure 24.2 Republic of Yemen, 1990–2011 President Ali Abdullah Saleh

Political Security Organization (1992)

General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar

National Security Bureau (2002)

Note: While President Saleh controlled both the PSO and NSB, General Ali Moshen exercised influence over the PSO and its officers.

Yemeni intelligence did well in terms of amassing and collating intelligence but lacked an analytical capability and could generate only standard intelligence reports. In this sense, an intelligence cycle practiced in Western countries never really took place in the Yemeni intelligence community. Planning for counterterrorism operations was conducted by a ministerial-level committee, comprising the ministers of interior and defense and the chiefs of Military Intelligence and the Political Security Organization. A plan would then be provided to the counterterrorism unit or other organizations tasked with carrying out the operation. Yet joint operational planning and the provision of essential intelligence were hindered by a lack of cooperation and information sharing among the intelligence bodies. However, the system itself worked relatively well in terms of regime protection and coordinating counterterrorism operations with international partners. The true intelligence capacity in Yemen was one of collecting information that facilitated covert action and targeted killings and enabled the government to eliminate regime detractors and members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Intelligence and the War on Terror

In 1992, Saleh issued a presidential decree that transformed the Central Organization for National Security into the Political Security Organization, with Ghalib al-Gamish continuing his role as intelligence chief. From 1992 to 1994, Saleh instructed a covert department within the PSO to eliminate senior security and intelligence figures from the

452 Anthony Chimente PDRY, and after 1994 quickly laid the foundation for northern elites to dominate the political and security institutions of the state. He dismissed most of the senior PDRY intelligence personnel unless they were clearly loyal to the incumbent regime. This included southern families who were exiled from the PDRY in 1967, Ali Nasr partisans who fled to the north in 1986, and PDRY officials born in North Yemen. After 1994, senior military officers from the former YAR managed the 120,000-strong agency, while Saleh incorporated a combination of tribesmen from his village of Sanhan and other Hashid Tribal Confederation members from the Amran governorate. General Ali Mohsen alAhmar was also instrumental during the development of the organization and became its de facto director based on his influence over al-Qamish. Ali Mohsen recruited many jihadists and members of the Islah political party into low and mid-level ranks within the organization as a bulwark against Saleh loyalists. Information is scant regarding PSO operations abroad. Because security perceptions tended to concentrate on internal risks posed to the regime, the Yemeni intelligence community rarely conducted conventional intelligence collection operations outside of its borders. Political security officers were posted to a Yemeni embassy abroad in a traditional liaison capacity with the host nation. This type of relationship was most prominent with Western partners such as the CIA, MI6, and France’s General Directorate for External Security (DGSE). PSO officers stationed in those Arab capitals, such as Riyadh, Cairo, and Beirut, were responsible for monitoring subversive and dissident elements within the local Yemeni expatriate community, often with the assistance of the local internal security services. In this sense, the PSO functioned as a Soviet-style regime protection force and focused on domestic threats to regime stability, including terrorism, domestic insurgencies, political opposition, and most any situation that jeopardized the rule of Saleh. Yemen is a tribal society and informal networks play an important role in the territories outside of urban areas. Also, any outsider would be immediately noticed as such. Thus a substantial portion of paid PSO agents hailed from these remote tribal areas and supplied intelligence and often developed informal networks with locals to establish additional channels of information. This system enabled the PSO to gain a deep and comprehensive understanding of tribal dynamics and excel at HUMINT operations, particularly within the governorates in the northwestern territories and Hadhramaut. The PSO applied a mix of financial rewards, other inducements, and coercion to co-opt local informants into the organization. Until Yemen

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became a fixture in the global war on terror, operations focused on monitoring and collecting information on journalists, mobilized political opposition, and other suspect individuals. An early success occurred when the PSO uncovered a 2003 Iraqi Intelligence Service plot to bomb the US embassy in Sana’a. Additionally, in August 2008, PSO intelligence uncovered the location of an al-Qaeda safehouse in the Hadhramaut governorate of Yemen. A hit team assaulted the target, killed five al-Qaeda operatives including cell leader Hamza al-Qaiti, and disturbed future planned attacks. Despite the clear success of the PSO, senior officials had close links with jihadists dating back to relationships formed during the war of the 1980s in Afghanistan. General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar (who controlled relations with the jihadists and tribes) enrolled many Afghan war veterans into the organization in the 1990s. As a result, the PSO became complicit in terrorist activities. In 2008, the US intelligence detained and interrogated Abd al-Salam al-Hilah, a former PSO officer since the 1990s. Al-Hilah stated that beginning in 1996, high-ranking PSO officers and government officials aided and abetted al-Qaeda members operating in Yemen. These PSO officials included Muhammad al-Surmi, deputy chief of the PSO; Ghalib al-Gamish, director of the PSO; Colonel Ahmad Dirham, commander of the PSO’s deportation department; and Abdallah al-Zirka, an officer in Yemen’s passport authority. More important, both Ali Mohsen and al-Gamish had been aware of these activities since at least 1999. This sort of relationship with jihadists was conducive with the logic of regime stability. By co-opting and influencing the jihadists, the central authority could ensure the organization would not directly attack the regime and destabilize the country. There was never an ideological alignment between the regime and jihadists; it was more a matter of pragmatism. Nonetheless, the PSO would draw international scrutiny in the wake of the 2000 USS Cole bombing in the Port of Aden based on intelligence that at least one officer had foreknowledge of the attack. This in conjunction with the advent of the global war on terror and alQaeda’s presence in Yemen caused Western officials to push for a more acceptable intelligence partner in Yemen than the PSO. US urging led to the formation of the National Security Bureau by presidential decree in 2002 in order to provide Western intelligence with a more professional counterterrorism partner in Yemen. While Saleh appointed Ali Mohammed al-Anisi as the agency’s director, the president’s nephew, Colonel Ammar Saleh, served as the de facto chief in the role of deputy director. Despite the standard intelligence and

454 Anthony Chimente security-related responsibilities of the organization, the NSB became a focal counterterrorism force in Yemen. The United States played a fundamental role in development of the organization and allocated a substantial amount of counterterrorism aid to Sana’a to fund the organization. The US Department of Defense created a counterterrorism budget to fund foreign militaries, of which Yemen was the largest recipient and received around US$401 million. The State Department allocated an additional US$164 million through the budget for financing foreign militaries. Ostensibly, both aid packages were delivered with the intent to combat the AQAP. It is important to note that at this time, state revenue (required to sustain the patronage state) derived from oil and gas plummeted. Saleh’s ability to maintain the system of patronage that solidified his rule was declining and US aid alleviated this problem for the regime. The formation of the NSB resulted in an influx of US counterterrorism aid that President Saleh used to establish not only the NSB but also other patrimonial-driven military units to consolidate control over the intelligence and security forces. Specifically, Saleh funneled a disproportionate amount of aid into the NSB in order to dilute the power of Ali Mohsen and the PSO. This rivalry also resulted in a large portion of the pro-Saleh officers in the PSO being absorbed into the NSB, although some loyalists remained in the PSO to act as a counterbalance against Ali Mohsen’s men. Intelligence partisans included families close to the regime in addition to Ammar, who brought in his own tribal and family members. Senior agency officials were therefore appointed based on patrimonial connections, tribal affiliations, or regime loyalty. While the PSO gained some institutional independence with the creation of the NSB, Saleh used the overlapping intelligence structures, a tested coup-proofing mechanism, to monitor the ranks for dissent and subversion. Despite the nature of the newly formed organization, the roughly 6,000 regular NSB officers were better trained, qualified, and equipped than those of the Political Security Organization. Potential employees underwent a six- to twelve-month vetting process or background check and received a large salary in comparison to other members of the security community. The professional nature of the agency and level of training resulted in many early successes. In November 2002, NSB officers apprehended al-Qaeda operative Assem al-Mekki during a counterterrorism raid against the al-Qaeda-linked AdenAbyan Islamic Army. Nearly a year later, NSB operations uncovered an emerging al-Qaeda plan to assassinate the US ambassador and

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attack other Western assets in Yemen. There was also a discernable cultural divide between PSO and NSB officers. Most PSO officers tended to be “typical Yemenis”—exuberant, talkative, and friendly— as opposed to NSB personnel, who were tough, cold, hard killers similar to employees of other Arab intelligence services and were very difficult to get information from. NSB officers were of the mindset that promoted how the PSO was riddled with al-Qaeda and that alQaeda was behind all trouble in Yemen. This mindset accorded with the official regime message and flourished based on the abundance of Saleh loyalists within the NSB. Moreover, while both the NSB and the PSO were charged with a counterterrorism mandate, the NSB effectively monopolized the portfolio. In this regard, as the war on terror in Yemen progressed, a division of labor emerged between the PSO and NSB. The NSB established a strong technical collection competency based on a close relation with the US National Security Agency and UK’s Government Communications Headquarters, which enabled it to become a key collector of SIGINT. The NSB was a more covert organization and concentrated on fewer, more professional officers loyal to the regime and the president. This generated a problem because the NSB failed to establish connections to the community and specifically the south, nor did it have a large outfit in the Houthi-dominated Sa’ada governorate. Based on this, the PSO utilized its HUMINT connections based on the broader nature of recruitment and the historically close connection officers enjoyed with the tribe, and did provide this intelligence to the NSB. However, tensions between the PSO and NSB persisted. In 2006, the NSB began to recruit more qualified officers and Saleh devised a plan to phase out or retire those associated with the Islah and Yemeni Socialist Party and dissipate that power into the NSB. This would have effectively dissipated the power of the PSO, yet the plan was never fully implemented because of actions taken by Ali Mohsen and other officials. The PSO continued to operate in the field of counterterrorism and remained in association with members of alQaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. On February 3, 2006, twenty-three alQaeda members escaped from a PSO-managed detention facility. The US diplomatic community speculated that members of the PSO facilitated the prison break. Despite this, US intelligence relations with Yemeni counterparts remained unabetted. On January 24, 2009, the al-Qaeda franchises in Saudi Arabia and Yemen merged to form the AQAP and became based in Yemen. The failed 2009 Christmas Day bombing on Northwest Airlines flight 253

456 Anthony Chimente from Amsterdam to Detroit, facilitated by the AQAP, necessitated a greater US security role in the country and closer relations with Yemeni intelligence. This led to the formation of the Office of Special Security Information (OSSI) on February 3, 2010, to strengthen intelligence sharing and operational planning in the war on terror. Prior to this, stove-piping of intelligence and poor information sharing plagued Yemen’s intelligence bodies, while Yemeni intelligence was often circumspect when providing information to the United States. The OSSI would be housed in Yemeni Counterterrorism Unit headquarters and staffed by officers from the Ministry of Interior, PSO, NSB, and Military Intelligence to foster the dissemination of information. Additional employees from the British and US intelligence and military communities worked within the office to promote closer intelligence sharing. Cooperation continued to improve as Western partners from the NSA of the United States and the UK’s GCHQ assisted the NSB with the development of a technical capability to intercept SIGINT. NSA cryptological support personnel worked alongside their Yemeni counterparts to gather SIGINT and to track members of al-Qaeda and identify targets for drone strikes or other direct action. British intelligence also mentored NSB surveillance teams to locate a subject, establish surveillance, fix the target, and develop a mission plan of action. Close collaboration also took place between Yemeni intelligence and foreign partners within the framework of the drone program. Once Western intelligence—MI6 or the CIA—identified a target, the NSB and MI6/CIA officers developed actionable intelligence to strike the target, but only after deputy-director Ammar Saleh granted permission. Moreover, members of the US special operations community, housed in the OSSI, shared information with the Yemeni counterterrorism assets to include video and electronic surveillance of targets and detailed assessments of the AQAP network. Ostensibly, this degree of cooperation greatly improved the operational ability of Yemeni intelligence and security forces in the fight against terrorism. Yet the counterterrorism struggle witnessed the US fighting one war and the Yemeni regime, on the ground, another. For reasons of pragmatism, Saleh never desired for his people in the AQAP, whom he had co-opted and invested in, to be droned by the United States. This would have caused him to lose command and control over the organization and the loss of US counterterrorism aid if drone strikes eroded the structure of the AQAP. In this vein, the continuation of the AQAP was arguably inextricably linked with the longevity of Saleh’s rule.

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Intelligence, Revolution, and Fragmentation

In 2007 al-Hirak, a southern-based movement advocating secession, launched mass protests in the south and developed into a protracted threat to the regime. Around this time, an intelligence secret war emerged between Saleh and the Mohsen/Hadi camp. The assassinations of key PSO personnel began, with data collated from 2009 to 2014 highlighting that 87 of the 110 murdered officers had southern origins. Saleh’s intelligence officers in the NSB conducted the assassinations against the Mohsen/Hadi–aligned officers in the PSO. This campaign signified a broader fracture within the regime that had been in the making since the early 2000s. The 2011 uprisings in Yemen effectively dissolved the regime and power dissipated away from the central authority and around regime elites. This included the fragmentation of loyalties among NSB and PSO officers, who witnessed the former align with Saleh and the latter with Ali Mohsen and the incumbent president, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. Again, Saleh secured the loyalty of the NSB through patronage and tribal and patrimonial relationships, while Ali Mohsen and Hadi relied on political connections within Islah, regional affiliations, and patronage to retain the fidelity of the PSO (see Figure 24.3).

Figure 24.3 Republic of Yemen, 2012–2015 President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi

Ali Abdullah Saleh

National Security Bureau

General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar

Political Security Organization

Note: This chart highlights the fragmented nature of control over the Yemeni intelligence community following Saleh’s removal from power in 2012. Saleh remained in control of the NSB and wielded some influence within the PSO, whereas General al-Ahmar and President Hadi had control over most of the PSO and its officers.

458 Anthony Chimente Loyalties in Yemen, as a tribal society, are fluid and transactional in nature, and those of the intelligence services are no different. This is best illustrated by the Saleh-Houthi alliance siege of Sana’a and subsequent capture of the state machinery in September 2014. The coup succeeded based on incredibly accurate intelligence regarding the location and positions of senior politicians and ministers in the Hadi government who were not sympathetic to either Saleh or the Houthi movements. In the lead-up to the coup, NSB officers had worked to collect this valuable information and supply Saleh with the names and locations of nonsympathizers, who were immediately detained once the alliance entered the capital. While Saleh was no longer president, NSB officers remained faithful to him because they had been enveloped within the former leader’s network of patronage and were connected by tribal and familial blood. Following the coup, a plethora of intelligence organizations emerged, making it exceedingly complicated to generate a precise picture of these structures. Some NSB personnel operated in the Houthi-controlled areas alongside Houthi supervisors, who were placed within all governorates and departments to ensure cooperation with the Houthi central authority (see Figure 24.4), Conversely the PSO remained loyal to the “official” Yemeni government, led by President Hadi, who also controlled a paper-thin contingent of the NSB with a few professional officers, but Figure 24.4 Republic of Yemen Following Houthi Coup, 2015 Houthi Regime “President” Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi

Political Security Organization

Saleh

United Arab Emirates

National Security Bureau

Note: Control over the Yemeni intelligence community fragmented further following the Houthi seizure of power in 2015.

Yemen

459

the service never regained the level of professionalism and degree of competency witnessed during the Saleh era. Over time the Houthi became increasingly dominant within the governmental departments and eventually sidelined all pro-Saleh elements within the intelligence and security services. The former president lost all ability to protect himself and would ironically be assassinated by a Houthi-allied NSB operative. Following his death, Saleh loyalists in the NSB either went home or sought refuge in Riyadh or Aden and southern-held areas, while other intelligence officers were absorbed into an NSB orchestrated by the Emiratis. The long-term rivalries between Saleh and Ali Mohsen meant that working for the internationally recognized Hadi government was no longer an option for them. Conclusion Prior to unification, the YAR and PDRY experienced different formations of intelligence structures. In both cases, the intelligence services operated as tools of regime protection and focused on information collection and subverting internal threats. The intelligence community of the PDRY was heavily influenced by the Soviet Union and East Germany, as the Eastern bloc’s only ideological ally in the Arab world, and enjoyed close relationships with both countries. Once in power, Saleh orientated the north into a Mukhabarat state and relied upon the security forces—led by tribal kin—to bulwark his rule. Unification brought both continuity and change within the intelligence community. Saleh eradicated former southerners from the PSO and used the organization to suppress regime detractors, while the agencies’ complicity with jihadists and the advent of the war on terror necessitated a more palatable pattern for Western intelligence agencies, which led to the formation of the NSB. Regime protection continued to dictate the nature of intelligence operations and informed utilization of the NSB and PSO to undertake this task. There was also the lack of an intelligence cycle and formation of priority intelligence requirements. Similar to other Arab intelligence services, both the NSB and the PSO excelled at collecting actionable intelligence that facilitated covert action or targeted killings; yet this occurred without conducting the full intelligence production process. The centralized nature of rule in Yemen meant oversight and accountability of the intelligence institutions rested with President Saleh and occurred without parliamentary or judicial oversight.

460 Anthony Chimente Despite these shortcomings, the NSB developed into a capable partner in the war on terror and witnessed innumerable successes with the assistance of Western HUMINT and SIGINT partners. However, the 2011 uprisings fragmented not only the state but also the affiliated security and intelligence organs, which reemerged along patronage lines linked to Saleh, Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, and the incumbent president. In this regard, the intelligence forces worked in the service of powerful elites who secured the loyalty of personnel through the distribution of patronage and tribal affiliations. While this differs from the CIA or MI6, which work to protect the state and its citizens, many Arab security services are beholden to the regime and political elite. Note 1. Confidential author interview.

25 Elements of an Asian Intelligence Culture Bob de Graaff

At first sight there is no such thing as an Asian intelligence culture. What applies to Asia also applies to any part of the world: “Each intelligence organization has its own peculiarities, protocols, and structures.”1 For every general trend, one can find one or more exceptions within the same continent. For example, many Asian countries lack parliamentary or independent oversight of their intelligence communities, yet Indonesia, Mongolia, and South Korea have known such mechanisms for some time now. Or there is the case of India, where intelligence practitioners have championed the introduction of parliamentary oversight, but the responsible politicians have declined such an innovation. Whereas in several Asian nations a legal framework regulating the powers and practices of the intelligence services is lacking, making the judiciary powerless against obvious abuses, others such as Jordan and Taiwan do have such laws. Many Asian countries offer a fragmented scenery of overlapping intelligence and security arrangements, even in such seemingly rigidly controlled countries like China or North Korea as well as an orderly looking nation like Japan. Taiwan, however, has a unitary system of internal security. So as we try to find a common denominator of the way in which intelligence is approached in Asia, we should always keep such exceptions in mind. It is also true that some of the commonalities that can be found transgress the geographical boundaries of the Asian continent. Some of such commonalities can be found in the Middle Eastern region, stretching from Asia to North Africa. However, there again Israel is in several instances the odd one out. Many of these Middle Eastern states have been characterized as security or intelligence states, or Mukhabarat states—Mukhabarat being 461

462 Intelligence Communities in Asia and the Middle East the Arab name for a “secret service.” In these countries with autocratic rule and totalitarian tendencies, the main function of the intelligence and security services is to preserve the current leadership and therefore to control the opposition or even the entire population and diasporas abroad. This control often includes the use of large numbers of informers and of police powers (detention, interrogation, sentencing, eviction), including torture. Function of Intelligence These characteristics are not restricted to the Middle East either. With the aforementioned caveats, it is possible to come to a generalized outline— an ideal type in the Weberian sense—of a common Asian intelligence culture that differs from the intelligence cultures in most European nations, which by comparison seem to represent “intelligence light,” focusing mainly on collection and analysis of information.2 To a large extent the difference is caused by the distinction between democratic and nondemocratic regimes, but there is another explanation as well. The main difference is that in many European nations the main functions of intelligence are collecting and analyzing information as a form of policy support, excluding policymaking and executive action, whereas the latter are often integral parts of the work of Asian intelligence and security services. There the information is collected and analyzed not only for policy support but also for edifying the knowledge base of the rulers. Intelligence in Asia is often less analysis-centric and much more information-centric. Information is gathered not primarily to be analyzed but because it is supposed to “resonate” with superiors and ultimately the political masters.3 For Asian nations, in general what Richard Deacon many years ago wrote in his history of Chinese intelligence may be true: “‘Intelligence’ to the Chinese mind has a much more catholic meaning than to those who use this word in its narrow Secret Service context in the Western world. In many respects . . . intelligence gathering to the Chinese could be termed ‘self-education.’ It covers quite an astonishing field,” making it difficult to establish “where it begins and where it ends.”4 The only restriction is that the strategic information is often limited to the countries’ own region. Second, in Asia, intelligence is much more practical. It is more about doing things, influencing and coercing, than in Western contexts, where it is often restricted to collecting and analyzing information. “Do something about Sikkim” was the simple instruction the head of India’s Research and Analysis Wing received in December 1972 from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.5 Consequently Kao and his men worked toward a situation in which twenty-seven months later, in 1975, the previous autonomous

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Sikkim became the twenty-second state of India. Similarly, Chinese intelligence often did not limit itself to look for hidden information but took the form of psychological manipulation of the adversaries’ minds.6 Thus it becomes understandable that in many Asian settings there is not the more or less clear-cut distinction between intelligence on the one hand and policy or decisionmaking on the other. Neither is there a very strict divide with law enforcement and military command, a situation reinforced by the fact that large parts of the intelligence personnel stem from either the police or the military. Think of India’s Intelligence Bureau, which is very much tied in with its police system, and of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, which is a military instrument that intervenes in the country’s domestic political system as much as it supports subversive activities or sabotage in India’s neighboring areas. Their law enforcement outlook may sometimes hamper these organizations in being effective intelligence collectors and analysts.7 Regime Support Let us start with what is often considered to be the main function of intelligence in Asia in order to understand how it operates. Regime support rather than state support and citizens’ protection is a fairly common phenomenon in most Asian nations, just as are brutality on the part of the intelligence services and a lack of accountability and transparency. Intelligence is not so much an instrument of statecraft as an instrument to ensure the continuation of the regime or establishment in power. Protection of state security and the promotion of national interest are not the core mission but rather the protection of the regime and the furtherance of the regime and the establishment’s personal interests. What are called enemies of the state are actually enemies of the current regime. Therefore in many cases intelligence not only surveils direct opponents but also the media and the intelligentsia, and censorship is a core business. Oversight It is emblematic that in this volume’s contributions, paragraphs about oversight other than governmental control are often missing or rather brief. It is because in most cases it just does not exist. Accountability is lacking not only because the intelligence communities often object to it but also and especially because the responsible politicians want to keep the politicization of the services hidden from the public eye. Consequently, intelligence

464 Intelligence Communities in Asia and the Middle East services in many Asian cases are not neutral in the internal political arena. Instead of offering inclusive security protection for all citizens, they proffer exclusive security protection for the ruling elite and act as a repressive, fear-inducing mechanism of the elite vis-à-vis the ones that are excluded from power. And that may be the reason why their headquarters and regional offices are sometimes so much more conspicuous than the Western ones used to be. Thus the intelligence and security services enforce the citizens’ good behavior from the perspective of the rulers, thereby often creating a culture of not only secrecy and silence but also violence, based on arrest powers, kidnappings, acts of terrorism, imprisonment, torture, executions, and a license to kill members of the opposition abroad. Testing of loyalties and preventing threats from materializing also make the agent-provocateur a much more common character in the Asian than in the European setting.8 Of course, such conditions provide ideal backgrounds for extremely frightening leaders of intelligence organizations, like Felix Dzerzhinsky of the Soviet Cheka or Lavrenti Beria of the Soviet People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, and those who are often equated with them, like the Khmer Rouge’s genocidal Ta Mok and his tutor, Mao’s spy chief, Kang Sheng, who was dubbed Yan Wang (“King of Hell”).9 China’s social credit system and management of social media usage are just the sophisticated version of this tendency to use intelligence for behavioral engineering. In both its old-fashioned and updated versions, this form of intelligence is based on a lack of trust by the elite in parts of its own citizenry. Colonial Legacy The repression and often brutality that these countries demonstrate is not the result of some kind of proclivity to cruelty, since in some cases it can be attributed to institutions and practices that were inherited from colonial times. Initially, many of the secret services in Asia retained their original colonial names, such as the Intelligence Bureau in India, reputed to be the current longest-existing intelligence agency in the world, dating back to 1887 or even 1857, and the Deuxième Bureau in Lebanon and Syria. In several countries, the practice of policing colonial routine stamped the culture of the intelligence and security services in the newly independent countries for quite a long time. Just as important as names and practices was the inheritance of colonial legislation that contributed to the mixture of intelligence and police powers as well as a lack of transparency, as was for instance caused by the continued use of the Official Secrets Act the British introduced in colonial India in today’s South Asia.

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The influence of colonial times was mitigated by the fact that other nations were eager to fill the semi-voids left by the previous colonial powers. The United States, as the emerging world power during and immediately after World War II, was an eager contender to take their place, as it stepped in for the British in Pakistan or the Dutch in Indonesia, although the UK’s Military Intelligence 6 and Israel’s Mossad offered their services as well to the regime in Jakarta.10 Such jockeying for position sometimes started even before colonial rule came to an end, as was the case with the United Kingdom and France in the Middle East.11 Neither was the interaction between Asia and the West a one-way street. Often it was the intended policy of the former colonies or dependencies to take advantage of other Western nations’ experience, training, and resources. Although there is a colonial legacy, reflected in at least the initial organizational setup of different services in Asia, and although some countries benefited from teaching and training by non-Asian services, like the German Stasi (in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and North Vietnam), Asian services themselves also exported their know-how and tradecraft as part of a deliberate policy of national promotion. This was foremost the case with the Soviet Union’s KGB, which trained, for instance, Iraqi and Syrian intelligence officials. India also had its share, helping newly independent African nations in building up their intelligence communities, assisting the African National Congress in its anti-apartheid struggle and the South West Africa People’s Organization in its fight for an independent Namibia. Cold War Legacy The colonial legacy was just the first of two hangovers from the West that made an imprint on Asian intelligence cultures. The second was the Cold War, when Western powers and Russia saw large parts of Asia as a portion of their global chessboard, playing another version of the Great Game, and, besides revisiting Hindu Kush, created new Casablancas like Beirut, Hong Kong, Singapore, Saigon, and Peshawar, replacing prewar hubs like Shanghai with its municipal police, which had acted as a clearing house for the region’s colonial and imperial powers with regard to information on nationalists and communists.12 Control Ironically, although in many Asian countries intelligence and security services are primarily meant to support the regime and make it coup-proof,

466 Intelligence Communities in Asia and the Middle East their representatives may also play a role in bringing about coups or revolts against the current rulers, with the role played by Pakistan’s InterServices Intelligence in unseating Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto being just one example. Precisely because of this known propensity, rulers use two types of means to lessen this risk. One is that they often appoint relatives and people from the same ethnicity, ideology, or mental outlook as their own in the top echelons of the services. When one ruler is replaced by another, this proclivity for nepotism may therefore result in a complete overhaul of a service’s staff. The other is that they play a game of divide and rule between the different intelligence and security organizations, which may lead to a plethora of uncoordinated services and concurrently to an overlap of functions of the services, all competing to demonstrate their loyalty to the ruler, and ultimately a lessening of a service’s efficiency. Rivalry among the intelligence and security agencies of the same nation is a common phenomenon, with the classical examples of troubled relations between the Abwehr and the Sicherheitsdienst in Germany, and between the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States. In the case of several Asian nations, however, this natural proclivity for turf battles is exacerbated by the intentional policy of the rulers and may have unintended outcomes, illustrated by one of the most recent examples: the simultaneous interference in the US 2016 elections by three Russian services, the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), and Federal Security Service (FSB). The People’s Republic of China is another country where, despite its authoritarian if not totalitarian political nature, none of the several intelligence organizations is in overall charge. Lack of coordination is in many cases further increased by the decentralized character of the intelligence system in many Asian countries, creating situations in which the dots are not connected between the center and the regions, as well as between the regions, as far as collection and other operations as well as dissemination of the collected information are concerned. One of the most obvious examples of the penetration of security agencies to the lowest level can be found in Afghanistan, where Babul province alone was divided into 182 zones by the Khad, with as many as 100 Khad informers per bloc. This layering of intelligence activities from the national through the provincial, regional, and district levels to the local municipal and even street levels may be a function of a country’s size, as is the case with China or India, but it is also the result of the regimes’ wish to thoroughly penetrate their own societies and of the entanglement of intelligence and police powers. This wish for geographical ubiquity springs partly from the fact that the threats with which Asian

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governments are confronted are often insurgencies like the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. However, ubiquity does not equate with efficiency. Therefore, it is especially the appearance of being in control that is meant to be fear-inducing among Asian nations’ citizens. Internal Security and Foreign Intelligence As security intelligence is often the primary task of the intelligence community in Asia, this often leads to an emphasis on internal security at the expense of foreign intelligence. Even military intelligence often operates mainly as an internal security apparatus. Foreign intelligence is predominantly directed against neighboring regimes that threaten the state’s existence, as in the case of Israel, Taiwan, and the two Koreas, or each other’s regional ambitions, and against a diaspora, which often contains exiled or otherwise disaffected elements. For this reason, some of these states, falling in line with the Soviet Union’s first and trendsetting secret service Cheka and the prewar Chinese Communist Party’s security unit for the elimination of counter-revolutionaries, may be called counterintelligence states rather than intelligence or security states. Nevertheless, it is remarkable how often one encounters the terms “intelligence state,” “deep state,” “authoritarian state,” “state within a state,” or “government within the government” in the contributions to this volume as well as elsewhere in descriptions of Asian intelligence systems.13 Human Intelligence and Covert Action Intelligence directed against neighboring regimes often involves unconventional warfare or covert action, such as supporting terrorist acts or insurgencies in the opponent’s country. Countering covert action by the adversary is therefore a main aim in many of the Asian countries. This includes not only support of one’s own leaders, which is a well-recognized function of intelligence, but often also a direct role in trying to influence opposition and secessionist movements in one’s own country. Whereas a general notion in the West is that intelligence is assessed information, intelligence in Asia is, as said, often so much more. His role in intelligence on behalf of India’s government was “to talk,” writes A. S. Dulat, former director of India’s Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing. “I have talked and talked and talked, to Kashmiris in Srinagar and in Delhi, and also to Kashmiris abroad,” with the aim of “bringing militants in from the cold” as “the

468 Intelligence Communities in Asia and the Middle East best way to end militancy.”14 In a conversation between Dulat and Asad Durrani, former head of both Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence and its army’s Military Intelligence, the latter agreed: “You actually talk all the time to terrorists. For the agency of any sensible country, these are the most important people to talk to. . . . So talking and terrorism do not go together? In fact, they go so much together.”15 The talking by representatives of intelligence and security agencies is not restricted to internal contacts. Even between adversaries like the head of India’s Research and Analysis Wing and the chief of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence there have been meetings, not only to test the temperature of the water, but also actually to discuss ceasefires.16 Many Asian services thus play a part in parallel diplomacy, fulfilling or preparing functions that normally are the remit of foreign affairs ministries and their diplomats. The role played by (former) representatives of the Israeli Mossad in preparing peace talks is well known, but one could also think of the part the Research and Analysis Wing played in preparing a normalization in the relations between China and India and maintaining communications on behalf of the Indian government with Sri Lanka’s National Intelligence Bureau as representative of its government in the second half of the 1980s, with the heads of the Research and Analysis Wing often having had easier access to foreign heads of state than the Indian minister of foreign affairs and his diplomats. Whereas for a long time human intelligence and covert action seemed to be the major instruments of the Asian intelligence and security services, they have become proficient in other “ints” as well. Relatively little is known about the signals intelligence capabilities of countries such as India or Japan, but they should certainly not be overlooked.17 The most remarkable recent achievements, however, are in the cyber domain. Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, all four Asian nations, are seen as the most obvious threats to the interests of the West, not only because of their possible disruptive effects, but also because cyber intelligence, perpetrated by either state agencies or by the state jointly with private hacking groups, facilitates the diminishing of the economic backlog of these countries. It is these activities that former US National Security Agency chief Keith Alexander had in mind when he called cyber intelligence the cause of the “greatest transfer of wealth in history.”18 International Cooperation A risk of using national perspectives to bring intelligence cultures to the fore is neglect of international cooperation. Despite the national inter-

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ests at work, there is much cooperation in the field of intelligence in Asia, where after colonial times the intelligence services managed to reorient themselves away from a focus on the colonial metropole and toward collaboration in the Asian region itself. This concerns not only bilateral and official multinational initiatives like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Military Intelligence Informal Meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the South Asia Regional Intelligence Coordination Center, and the World Customs Organization’s Regional Intelligence Liaison Office but also more intricate ones. To give just one example from the memoirs of Bahukutumbi Raman, former head of the counterterrorism division of India’s Research and Analysis Wing: “One saw the curious spectacle of the US intelligence colluding with the [Inter-Services Intelligence] in assisting the Khalistan movement in Indian Punjab, with the Chinese intelligence for preventing a break-up of West Pakistan by India and with the Indian intelligence for preventing a possible Chinese take-over of North Burma.”19 It is one of the subjects that could be studied further, just as nonstate intelligence apparatuses, such as those of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic State, could be topics of further research. Conclusion It can be said that the Asian concept of intelligence is broader than the European one. It includes much more “doing”—covert action, parallel diplomacy, the use of police powers—than the operations of European intelligence systems. It is also much more internally directed than intelligence in the United States and most European systems. Most Asian intelligence systems are more repressive, servicing not the state but the current regime, and less subject to oversight. It remains to be seen whether this Asian approach will develop into a more democratic system like the ones known in the West in recent decades. It also remains a subject for study whether this is a purely Asian phenomenon or that many African nations show similar characteristics, which would make it much more appropriate not to speak of an Asian but instead of an AfroAsian intelligence culture. Meanwhile the present study is proof that even though, much more than in the West, intelligence in Asia remains a sensitive issue and intelligence study is often a taboo, it is not completely impossible to collect expert knowledge on Asian intelligence and publish about it in the public domain, which may hopefully ultimately lead to a debate on intelligence on this rapidly developing and increasingly important continent.

470 Intelligence Communities in Asia and the Middle East Notes

1. Gustavo Diaz Matey, “The Essence of Intelligence,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 28, no. 3 (2015), 632. 2. Wilhelm Dietl, Schattenarmeen: Die Geheimdienste der Islamitischen Welt (Shadow Armies: The Secret Services of the Islamic World) (Salzburg: Residenz Verlag, 2010), 10. 3. Craig A. Dudley, “Information-Centric Intelligence: The Struggle in Defining National Security Issues,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 31, no. 4 (2018), 758–768. 4. R. Deacon, A History of the Chinese Secret Service (London: Frederick Muller, 1974), 7, 23. See also Stefania Paladini, “Chinese Intelligence,” in Peter C. Oleson, ed., AFIO’s Guide to the Study of Intelligence (Falls Church, VA: AFIO, 2016), 689. 5. G. B. S. Sidhu, Sikkim: Dawn of Democracy—The Truth Behind the Merger with India (New Delhi: Penguin Viking, 2018). 6. See, for instance, Roger Faligot and Rémi Kauffer, The Chinese Secret Service (London: Headline, 1989), 54. 7. P. C. Joshi, Main Intelligence Outfits of Pakistan (New Delhi: Bookwise India, 2011). 8. Michael Schoenhals, Spying for the People: Mao’s Secret Agents, 1949–1967 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 13–14. 9. John Byron and Robert Pack, The Claws of the Dragon: Kang Sheng—The Evil Genius Behind Mao—and His Legacy of Terror in People’s China (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992); Peter L. Mattis, “Li Kenong and the Practice of Chinese Intelligence,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 28, no. 3 (2015): 540. 10. Owen L. Sirrs, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate: Covert Action and Internal Operations (London: Routledge, 2017), 30; Kenneth Conboy, Intel: Inside Indonesia’s Intelligence Service (Jakarta: Equinox, 2004). 11. Mair Zamir, The Secret Anglo-French War in the Middle East: Intelligence and Decolonization (London: Routledge, 2016); Chikara Hashimoto, The Twilight of British Empire: British Intelligence and Counter-Subversion, 1948–63 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2019). 12. Saïd K. Aburish, Beirut Spy: The St George Hotel Bar (London: Bloomsbury 1990); Richard J. Aldrich, Gay D. Rawnsley, and Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley, eds., The Clandestine Cold War in Asia, 1945–65: Western Intelligence, Propaganda, and Special Operations (London: Cass, 2005); Wilbur Crane Eveland, Ropes of Sand: America’s Failure in the Middle East (New York: Open Road, 1980); Roger B. Jeans, The CIA and Third Force Movements in China During the Cold War: The Great American Dream (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2018). 13. Prem Mahadevan, Islamism and Intelligence in South Asia: Militancy, Politics, and Security (London: Tauris, 2018), 9–10. 14. A. S. Dulat, Kashmir: The Vajpayee Years (Noida, India: HarperCollins, 2016), 87, xxv, 78, 82. See also pp. 73, 157, 180. 15. A. Dulat, A. Durrani, and A. Sinha, The Spy Chronicles: RAW, ISI, and the Illusion of Peace (Noida, India: HarperCollins, 2018), 201. 16. Dulat, Kashmir, 151–152, 288, 294; Dulat, Durrani, and Sinha, The Spy Chronicles. 17. An exception is Desmond Ball, Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) in South Asia: India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defense no. 117 (Canberra: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, 1996). 18. Josh Rogin, “NSA Chief: Cybercrime Constitutes the ‘Greatest Transfer of Wealth in History,’” Foreign Policy, July 9, 2012, https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/07/09/nsa -chief-cybercrime-constitutes-the-greatest-transfer-of-wealth-in-history/. See also William C. Hannas, James Mulvenon, and Anna B. Pugsli, Chinese Industrial Espionage: Technology Acquisition and Military Modernization (New York: Routledge, 2013). 19. B. Raman, The Kaoboys of R&AW: Down Memory Lane (New Delhi: Lancer, 2007), 20.

Acronyms

AAI AFD AFID

AGSA

AHIB AL AMAN AMIIM AMLD ANDSF ANSP

AQAP AQIS ARATS ARF ARSA ASALA ASEAN ASU ATIB ATU BDR BDSG BESA BFIU BICES BIMSTEC

Ansar al Islam—Supporters of Islam (Bangladesh) Armed Forces Division (Bangladesh) Idarat al-Mukhabarat al-Jawiyya—Air Force Intelligence Directorate (Syria) Da Afghanistan de Gato de Satalo Adara—Afghan Interests Protection Agency Army Headquarters Intelligence Bureau (South Korea) Awami League (Bangladesh) Agaf Ha’Modiin—Military Intelligence (Israel) ASEAN Military Intelligence Informal Meeting Anti-Money-Laundering Department (Bangladesh) Afghan National Defense Security Force Gukga Anjeon Gihoekbu—Agency for National Security Planning (South Korea) al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait ASEAN Regional Forum Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (Bangladesh, Myanmar) Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia Association of Southeast Asian Nations Army Security Unit (Bangladesh) Avusturya Türkiye İslam Birliği—Austria-Turkey Islamic Foundation Anti-Terrorism Unit (Bangladesh) Bangladesh Rifles Bureau of Domestic Security and Guard (China) Begin-Sadat—Center for Strategic Studies (Israel) Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit Battlefield Information Collection and Exploitation System (NATO) Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation

471

472 Acronyms BND BNP BPS BSB BSI CAIFC CCP CGI CHT CIA CIC CIC CIC CICA CID CID CID CIID CIRO CIS CJTF-HOA CMC COMINT COSCO CPA CPAFFC CPPR CPR CSIC CSIS CSTO CTC CTIB CTS CTTC CTU DAI DB DCA DDSI DFI DGFI DGMI DGSE

DIA DIC DIH DITIB

DMI

Bundesnachrichtendienst—Federal Intelligence Service (Germany) Bangladesh National Party Bureau of Political Security (China) Border Security Bureau (Bangladesh) Bureau of Special Investigations (Myanmar) China Association for International Friendly Contact Chinese Communist Party Coast Guard Intelligence (Bangladesh) Chittagong Hill Tracts (Bangladesh) Central Intelligence Agency (United States) Cabinet Intelligence Council (Japan) Central Intelligence Cell (Bangladesh) Counter-Intelligence Corps (South Korea) Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia Central Intelligence Department (China) Idarat al-Amn al-Jana’i—Criminal Intelligence Directorate (Syria) Criminal Investigation Department (Bangladesh, Myanmar) Customs Intelligence and Investigation Directorate (Bangladesh) Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office (Japan) Commonwealth of Independent States Combined Joint Task Force—Horn of Africa Central Military Commission (China) communications intelligence China Ocean Shipping Company Coalition Provisional Authority (Iraq) Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries Center for Political Planning and Research (Israel) Center for Political Research (Israel) Cabinet Satellite Intelligence Center (Japan) Canadian Security Intelligence Service Collective Security Treaty Organization Counter-Terrorism Cell (Bangladesh) Counter-Terrorism Intelligence Bureau (Bangladesh) Counter-Terrorism Section (Bangladesh) Counter-Terrorism and National Crime (Bangladesh) International Counterterrorism Collection Unit (Japan) Directorate of Air Intelligence (Bangladesh) Detective Branch (Bangladesh) Drug Control Agency (Tajikistan) Directorate of Defense Services Intelligence (Myanmar) Directorate of Forces Intelligence (Bangladesh) Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (Bangladesh) Directorate General of Military Intelligence (India) Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure—General Directorate for External Security (France) Defense Intelligence Agency (India, United States) Defense Intelligence Command (South Korea) Defense Intelligence Headquarters (Japan) Diyanet İşleri Türk İslam Birliğ—Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs Directorate of Military Intelligence (Bangladesh)

Acronyms DMI

473

National Organization for General Intelligence and Military Security (Yemen) DMP Dhaka Metropolitan Police (Bangladesh) DMZ demilitarized zone DNI Directorate of Naval Intelligence (Bangladesh) DPP Democratic Progress Party (Taiwan) DPRK Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) DRA Democratic Republic of Afghanistan DRI Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (India) DSC Defense Security Command (South Korea) DSDE Director of Security for the Defense Establishment (Israel) DSSC Defense Security Support Command (South Korea) ENP European Neighborhood Policy ETIM East Turkestan Islamic Movement EU European Union EUPOL COPPS European Union Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support EXPO International Exposition FAPSI Federal’naya Agenstvo Pravitel’stvennoy Svayazi i Informatsii— Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information (Russia) FATF Financial Action Task Force FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation (United States) FPS Federalnaya Pogranichnaya Sluzhba—Federal Border Guard Service (Russia) FSB Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti—Federal Security Service (Russia) FSK Federal’naya Sluzhba Kontrrazvedki—Federal Counterintelligence Service (Russia) FSO Federal’naya Sluzhba Okhrana—Federal Protective Service (Russia) G7 Group of Seven G20 Group of 20 GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters (United Kingdom) GDP gross domestic product Gestapo Geheime Staatspolizei—Secret State Police (Germany) GID General Intelligence Department (Jordan) GID Idarat al-mukhabarat al-amma—General Intelligence Directorate (Syria) GMD Guomindang—Chinese Nationalist Party GNI gross national income GPD General Political Department (China) GPU State Political Directorate (Russia) GRU Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravleniye—Main Intelligence Directorate (Soviet Union / Russia) GSD General Staff Department (China) GU Glavnoye Upravleniye—Main Directorate (Russia) Hamas Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-’Islāmiyyah—Islamic Resistance Movement (Palestine) HDP Halklarin Demokratik Partisi—People’s Democratic Party (Turkey) HID Headquarters Intelligence Detachment (South Korea) HUJI-B Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami Bangladesh—Islamic Jihad Movement of Bangladesh

474 Acronyms HUMINT IAB IAS IB ICG ICT IDF IIRO ILD IMF IMINT IMU INIS INSS Interpol IRP IS ISA ISA ISAF ISFC ISI ISIL ISIS JCPOA JCSS JeI JIC JITEM JIX JMB

JMJB

JP JUI KAM KCIA

KCK KCNA KCP KDIA KDP KGB

KhAD

KMT KNB KPA

human intelligence Intelligence and Analysis Bureau (South Korea) Intelligence and Analysis Service (Japan) Intelligence Bureau (India, Pakistan) interim caretaker government (Bangladesh) International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism (Israel) Israel Defense Forces International Islamic Relief Organization International Liaison Department (China) International Monetary Fund imagery intelligence Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan Iraqi National Intelligence Service Institute of National Security Studies (Israel) International Criminal Police Organization Islamic Renaissance Party (Tajikistan) Islamic State Intelligence and Special Affairs (Bangladesh) Israeli Security Agency International Security Assistance Force Internal Security Forces Command (Syria) Inter-Services Intelligence (Pakistan) Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Islamic State in Iraq and Syria Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Iran nuclear deal) Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies (Israel) Jamaat-e-Islami—Islamic Congress (Bangladesh) Joint Intelligence Committee (India) Gendarmerie Intelligence and Counterterrorism Agency (Turkey) Joint Intelligence X (Pakistan) Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh—Assembly of Mujahidin of Bangladesh Jagrat Muslim Janata Bangladesh—Awakened Muslim Masses of Bangladesh Jatiya Party (Bangladesh) Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam—Assembly of Islamic Clerics (Pakistan) Security and Intelligence Organization (Afghanistan) Jungang Jeongbobu—Korean Central Intelligence Agency (South Korea) Koma Civakên Kurdistan—Kurdistan Communities Union (Turkey) Korean Central News Agency (North Korea) Korean Communist Party Korean Defense Intelligence Agency (South Korea) Kurdistan Democratic Party Komitet Gosudartsvennoy Bezopasnosti—Committee for State Security (Soviet Union) Khadamat-e Aeta’ata-e Dawlati—State Intelligence Agency (Afghanistan) Kuomintang—Nationalist Party of China Committee for National Security (Kazakhstan) Korean People’s Army (North Korea)

Acronyms KRG KSTA KWP LAKAM LeT LIC LTTE MAH MALMAB

MAMAD

Mapam MASINT MGIMO MGK MHA MI MI5 MI6 MIB MIC MID

MIKK

MIKM

MIS MIT MODFL Mossad

MPF MPS MSS MVD NATO NBIS NBR NCIC NDF NDS NGO NIB NID

NIS

NKVD

475

Kurdish Regional Government Korean Science and Technology Association (North Korea) Korean Workers Party (North Korea) Lishka Le’Kishrei Mada—Bureau of Scientific Liaison (Israel) Lashkar e Taiba—Army of the Pure (India, Pakistan) Lawful Interception Cell (Bangladesh) Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Sri Lanka) Milli Amele Hizmet—National Security Force (Turkey) Ha-Memune al Ha-Bitahon be-Misrad Ha-Bitahon—Director of Security of the Defense Establishment (Israel) Ha-Mahlaka Le-Mehkar Medini—Center for Political Research (Israel) Mifleget Ha-Poalim Ha-Meuhedet—United Workers Party (Israel) measurement and signature intelligence Moscow Institute for International Relations Milli Güvenlik Kurulu—National Security Council (Turkey) Ministry of Home Affairs (India) Military Intelligence (Israel, Pakistan) Military Intelligence 5 (United Kingdom) Military Intelligence 6 (United Kingdom) Military Intelligence Bureau (Taiwan) Military Intelligence Corps (Sri Lanka) Shu’bat al-Mukhabarat al-Askariyya—Military Intelligence Directorate (Syria) Milli İstihbarat Koordinasyon Kurulu—National Intelligence Coordination Committee (Turkey) Milli İstihbarat Koordinasyon Kurulu Merkezi—Joint Intelligence Coordination Center (Turkey) Military Intelligence Service (Myanmar) Millî İstihbarat Teşkilâtı—National Intelligence Organization (Turkey) Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (Iran) Le-Modi-in Ule-Takfidim Meyuhadim—Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (Israel) Myanmar Police Force Ministry of Public Security (China) Ministry of State Security (China, North Korea) Ministversko Vnutrennikh Del—Ministry of Interior (Russia) North Atlantic Treaty Organization National Bureau of Investigation and Statistics (Taiwan) National Board of Revenue (Bangladesh) National Committee for Intelligence Coordination (Bangladesh) National Democratic Front (Yemen) National Directorate of Security (Afghanistan) nongovernmental organization National Intelligence Bureau (Myanmar) Idarat al-Mukhabarat al-Bahriyya—Naval Intelligence Directorate (Syria) Daehan Minguk Gukga Jeongbowon—National Intelligence Service (South Korea) Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del—People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (Soviet Union)

476 Acronyms NLD NLF NPA NSA NSA NSB NSC NSI NSIC NSO NTMC NTRO NUMEC OBIPAS

OCMI OCMSA ODKB

ODNI OECD OGD OHD OIC OMON

OSCE OSINT OSS OSS OSSI PBI PCJSS

PDPA PDRY PIA PKK PLA PLAAF PLAN PLC PLO PML-N PPP PPSA PRC PSD PSIA PSO PUK

National League for Democracy (Myanmar) National Liberation Front (Yemen) National Police Agency (Japan) National Security Act (South Korea) National Security Agency (United States) National Security Bureau (Syria, Taiwan, Yemen) National Security Council (Afghanistan, Japan, Taiwan) National Security Intelligence (Bangladesh) National Security and Intelligence Conference (Taiwan) National Security Organization (Yemen) National Telecommunication Monitoring Center (Bangladesh) National Technical Research Organization (India) Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (Israel) Operasyonel Bilgi Paylaşım Sistemi—Operational InformationSharing System (Turkey) Office of the Chief of Military Intelligence (Myanmar) Office of the Chief of Military Security Affairs (Myanmar) Organizacija Dogovora o Kollektivnoj Bezopasnosti—Collective Security Treaty Organization (Kazakhstan) Office of the Director of National Intelligence (United States) Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Organization and Guidance Department (North Korea) Özel Harp Dairesi—Special Warfare Department (Turkey) Organization of Islamic Cooperation Otrad Mobilnij Osobogo Naznatsjenija—Special Purpose Mobil Unit (Tajikistan) Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe open-source intelligence Office of Strategic Services (United States) Office of Strategic Studies (Myanmar) Office of Special Security Information (Yemen) Police Bureau of Investigation (Bangladesh) Parbatta Chattagram Janasamhati Samity—United People’s Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (India) People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen Parallel Intelligence Apparatus (Iran) Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê—Kurdistan Workers Party (Turkey) People’s Liberation Army (China) People’s Liberation Army Air Force (China) People’s Liberation Army Navy (China) Palestinian Legislative Council Palestine Liberation Organization Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz Pakistan People’s Party Jihaz Amn al-Qasr—Presidential Palace Security Apparatus (Syria) People’s Republic of China Shubat al-Amn al-Siyasi—Political Security Directorate (Syria) Public Security Intelligence Agency (Japan) Political Security Organization (Yemen) Patriotic Union of Kurdistan

Acronyms RAB RAF RAW RCEP RILO ROC ROK RSHA SAARC SAARCPOL SAD SARICC SAVAK

SB SCA SCNS SCO SDOMD SEF SFF SG SHABAK SHAI SIBAT SIGINT SLA SLAF SNSC SORM SS SSF Stasi

STK STOMD SVR 2PLA 3PLA TAO TBMM

TECHINT TIKA

UAE UAR UFWD UK ULFA UN

477

Rapid Action Battalion (Bangladesh) Red Army Faction (West Germany) Research and Analysis Wing (India) Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Regional Intelligence Liaison Office (World Customs Organization) Republic of China on Taiwan Republic of Korea (South Korea) Reichssicherheitshauptamt—Reich Main Security Office (Germany) South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation South Asian Police Social Affairs Department (China) South Asian Regional Intelligence Coordination Center Sāzemān-e Ettelā’āt va Amniyat-e Keshvar—Organization of National Intelligence and Security of the Nation (Iran) Special Branch (Bangladesh, Myanmar) Soviet Civil Administration State Committee on National Security (Tajikistan) Shanghai Cooperation Organization SAARC Drug Offensives Monitoring Desk (Bangladesh) Strait Exchange Foundation Special Frontier Force (India) Special Group (India) Sherut Bitahon Klalili—General Security Service (Israel) Sherut Yedioth—Information Service (Israel) Siyua Bithoni—Security Support (Israel) signals intelligence Sri Lankan Army Sri Lankan Armed Forces Supreme National Security Council (Iran) System of Operational-Investigatory Measures (Russia) Schutzstaffel—Protection Squadron (Germany) Special Security Force (Bangladesh) Ministerium für Staatssicherheit—Ministry for State Security (East Germany) Seferberlik Tetkik Kurulu—Tactical Mobilization Group (Turkey) SAARC Terrorism Offenses Monitoring Desk (Bangladesh) Sluzhba Vneshnei Razvedki—Foreign Intelligence Service (Russia) Second Department of the PLA General Staff Department (China) Third Department of the PLA General Staff Department (China) tailored access operation Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi—Grand National Assembly of Turkey technological intelligence Türk İşbirliği ve Koordinasyon İdaresi Başkanliği—Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency United Arab Emirates United Arab Republic United Front Work Department (China) United Kingdom United Liberation Front of Assam (India) United Nations

478 Acronyms UNESCO UNODC US USAMGIK USSC USSR UTO VARASH VEVAK

WFP WTO Yamam YAR YSP

United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime United States United States Army Military Government in Korea United States Security Coordinator Union of Soviet Socialist Republics United Tajik Opposition Va’dat Rashei Hasherutim—Committee of Directors (Israel) Vezarat-e Ettela’at Jomhuri-ye Eslami-ye Iran—Ministry of Intelligence (Iran) World Food Programme World Trade Organization Yehidat Mishtara Meyuhedet (special unit of the Israel Police) Yemen Arab Republic Yemeni Socialist Party

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The Contributors

Hani Al Jbour is a former Jordanian brigadier-general retired from the General Intelligence Department in Jordan, with extensive experience in security and political affairs in the Middle East and North Africa, counterterrorism, de-radicalization, and crisis management. He worked as an operative and an analyst for twenty-seven years and was posted in senior positions in the fields of counterterrorism, crisis management, intelligence analysis, intelligence training, and intelligence operations management. After his retirement he developed new initiatives to deal with strategic studies and intelligence solutions, marketing, and training. He is an expert consultant for international organizations in Jordan and is the author of many specialized papers about politics, counterterrorism, and de-radicalization in the Middle East and, more specifically, Jordan.

A. S. M. Ali Ashraf is a professor in the Department of International Relations at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. His teaching and research interests include security and intelligence studies, international migration, and public policy. He is the editor of Intelligence, National Security, and Foreign Policy: A South Asian Narrative.

Ibrahim al-Marashi is associate professor of Middle East history at California State University, San Marcos. His research focuses on twentieth-century Iraqi history, particularly regime resilience, civil-military relations, and state-sponsored violence during the Baathist era, from 1968 to 2003. He is the coauthor of Iraq’s Armed Forces: An Analytical History; The Modern History of Iraq; and A Concise History of the Middle East.

Stephan Blancke is a political scientist whose research focuses on the intelligence and clandestine activities of North Korea and China. Previously he worked in an Intelligence and Analysis Unit in the UK Home Office and was a researcher at King’s College in London. He is the editor of East Asian Intelligence and Organised Crime. He is a contributor to Jane’s Intelligence Review and Intelligence Online.

Anthony Chimente is a PhD student at Durham University, researching civil-military relations and regional security in Iraq and Yemen. He has taught courses on international

487

488 The Contributors relations in the Middle East and Middle East politics. In addition, he has worked in the US House of Representatives and with the US Army in Europe.

Christopher M. Davidson is a fellow of the European Centre for International Affairs and an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London. He previously taught at Durham University, Kyoto University, and Zayed University. He is the author of several books on the comparative politics of the Arab world, including Shadow Wars: The Secret Struggle for the Middle East. He has also written for the New York Times, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, and Foreign Affairs and has briefed a number of governmental organizations including Britain’s Foreign Office, Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, NATO Intelligence, and the Dutch and New Zealand foreign ministries.

Bob de Graaff is a professor of history at the University of Utrecht, specializing in intelligence and security studies. He is the founder of the Netherlands Intelligence Studies Association, of which he was president from 1991 until 1997. Between 1999 and 2002 he served as coordinator at the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation for the investigation into the events leading up to, during, and after the fall of the UN-declared safe area in Srebrenica. He also was professor of terrorism and counterterrorism at The Hague Campus of Leiden University (2007–2009) and was professor of intelligence and security at the Netherlands Defense Academy in Breda from 2010 until 2017. He was the president of the European chapter of the International Association for Intelligence Education from 2015 to 2019. Xuezhi Guo is professor and chair of political science at Guilford College. A graduate of South China University of Technology, he earned his PhD from the University of Virginia. He is the author of The Ideal Chinese Political Leader: A Historical and Cultural Perspective; China’s Security State: Philosophy, Evolution, and Politics; and The Politics of the Core Leader in China: Culture, Institution, Legitimacy, and Power. He has published articles in many international journals such as China Quarterly and China Journal.

Ephraim Kahana is senior research fellow at the Europa Institute, Bar Ilan University. Previously he was chair of the Political Science Department and the National Security Program at Western Galilee College in Israel. He is the author of A to Z of Israeli Intelligence; A to Z of the Middle Eastern Intelligence; and Ashraf Marwan: Israel’s Most Valuable Spy—How the Mossad Recruited Nasser’s Own Son-in-Law.

Yoshiki Kobayashi is professor in the Graduate School of Governance Studies at Meiji University as well as visiting lecturer at the National Defense Academy of Japan. A former Cabinet Intelligence Officer for counterterrorism, he worked for the government of Japan for more than three decades, mostly focusing on intelligence analysis, counterterrorism, and transnational organized crime. He is the author of Fundamentals of Intelligence and “Assessing Reform of the Japanese Intelligence Community,” the latter published in the Journal of Intelligence and Terrorism Studies.

Filip Kovacevic is adjunct professor in the Departments of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, where he was the first to design and teach a course on intelligence. He is on leave from the University of Montenegro, where he has taught since 2005. A Montenegrin author and geopolitical analyst, he has lectured and taught across Europe, in the former Soviet Union, and in the United States, including two years at St. Petersburg State University in Russia. He specializes in Russian and Eurasian intelligence history and spy fiction; his current research includes the publications of contemporary Russian intelligence authors and historians.

The Contributors

489

Andreï Kozovoï is associate professor at Lille University, France. A Russian native, he is a specialist on the Cold War from the Soviet side and has published articles on antiAmericanism, cultural diplomacy, the Cuban missile crisis, and the cinematic Cold War. He is author of several books, including The Russian Secret Services from the Tsars to Putin (updated edition forthcoming).

Prem Mahadevan is senior fellow with the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. Previously he was senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. As a member of the CSS Global Security Team, he was responsible for tracking trends in jihadist terrorism and studying the use of intelligence by violent nonstate actors. He has written extensively on the strategic and military intelligence aspects of the 1962 Sino-Indian War and has been invited to brief NATO, the Global Counterterrorism Forum, the OSCE, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service on emerging threat patterns from terrorism and transnational crime. His latest book is Islamism and Intelligence in South Asia.

Anna Matveeva is senior visiting research fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London, a board member of Nonviolent Peaceforce, and a context analysis adviser at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)–Syria. She was UNDP regional adviser on peace and development in Central Asia, and is a consultant for international organizations such as the UN, EU, and OSCE. In 2010 she worked for the international Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission. Previously she was research fellow at Chatham House, worked at the London School of Economics, and headed programs at International Alert and Saferworld. She is the author of Through Times of Trouble: Conflict in Southeastern Ukraine Explained from Within.

Kunal Mukherjee is lecturer in international relations and Asian security at Lancaster University. His research and teaching focus is on South and East Asia. He previously taught at both Nottingham and Nottingham Trent Universities. He is the author of many publications on Asian politics and security.

Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus is a doctoral candidate and lecturer at the Institute of Japanese Studies at Free University of Berlin. Previously he was research fellow at the Institute of Korean Studies at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. He was also a visiting research scholar at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia and the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo and at the Institute of Korean Studies, Yonsei University, in Seoul. Dolf-Alexander is a contributor to Jane’s Intelligence Review and Intelligence Online.

Diva Patang was the first Afghan female to graduate in intelligence and security studies at Brunel University. She is currently pursuing her doctoral degree at the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham. She is the author of “Why the NDS Matters: The Emergence of the Afghan Intelligence Agency After 9/11,” published in the Journal of Intelligence and Terrorism Studies, and of Fixing the EU Intelligence Crises: Intelligence Sharing, Law Enforcement, and the Threat of Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear Terrorism.

Florian Peil is a security analyst and consultant with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa. He advises international companies and nongovernmental organizations on security, terrorism, and intelligence issues. He has traveled extensively in the region and has published numerous articles on regional affairs related to jihadism, terrorism,

490 The Contributors intelligence, and security studies. A regular guest contributor on terrorism for German newspapers, magazines, and broadcasting stations, he is the author of Terrorismus: Wie Wir Uns Schützen Können (Terrorism: How We Can Protect Ourselves). Jens Rosenke is a PhD student at the Institute of Korean Studies at Freie Universität, Berlin. He was a visiting scholar of the Chinese Academy of Social Science in Beijing and an editor of the monthly magazine Antimilitarismus Information. His research focuses on Asian and Pacific security affairs, especially the modernization of the People’s Liberation Army of China.

Andrew Selth is an adjunct professor at the Griffith Asia Institute. He has been studying international security issues and Asian affairs for forty-five years as a diplomat, strategic intelligence analyst, and research scholar. During this time, he has been an adjunct associate professor in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University (ANU), a visiting fellow at the ANU’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, a Chevening Scholar at St Antony’s College, Oxford University, an Australian Research Council Fellow at Griffith University, and a Harold White Fellow at the National Library of Australia. Selth has published seven books and more than fifty peer-reviewed works, most of them about Myanmar (Burma) and related subjects. His latest major work is Secrets and Power in Myanmar: Intelligence and the Fall of General Khin Nyunt.

V. K. Shashikumar has reported extensively from conflict hot-spots across Asia, including Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sri Lanka, writing about insurgency and terrorism in India’s northeast, Jammu and Kashmir, and the Maoist guerrilla insurgency. He was consulting editor of Indian Defence Review and is currently editorial adviser of Canary Trap, a specialist security affairs online publication.

Alaa Tartir is a research associate at the Centre on Conflict, Development, and Peacebuilding, and a visiting fellow at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, in Geneva. He is also a policy adviser and program director of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, and a visiting professor at Sciences Po, Paris School of International Affairs. Tartir is coeditor of Palestine and Rule of Power: Local Dissent vs. International Governance, and editor of Outsourcing Repression: Israeli-Palestinian Security Coordination.

Carl A. Wege is professor emeritus of political science at the College of Coastal Georgia, Brunswick, where he taught for nearly thirty years. He has traveled extensively in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Israel and has published many articles on terrorism and security relationships involving Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran. His academic focus has been the nexus between state intelligence services and terrorist organizations. He serves on the editorial advisory board of the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence.

İlkay Yilmaz is an associate fellow at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin. Previously she was assistant professor in political science at Istanbul University. She specializes in the security policies and police institutions of the Ottoman Empire, the Armenian question, the administrative history of the Ottoman Empire and Turkish Republic, state formation, and comparative empires.

Index

Abbas, Mahmoud, 268, 272 Abductions, 7, 138, 182, 188, 190, 219, 229, 232, 255, 322–323, 412, 434 Abdul-Azi bin Baz, 305 Abdülhamid II, 421 Abdullah I, king of Jordan, 165 Abdullah II, king of Jordan, 102, 164–165, 170 Abdullah, Muhammad Saïd (Mushin), 447, 449 Abdurahimov, Hairiddin, 408 Abe Shinzo, 153, 156, 329 Abish, Samat, 182 Abu Dhabi, 301, 305 Adana, 422 Aden, 459 Adham, Kamal, 301–303, 305 Aegean Sea, 419 Afghanistan, 2, 4–5, 11–23, 75, 102, 104, 108, 243, 252, 254–255, 286, 295, 305, 308, 401, 403–405, 408, 414, 416, 453, 466 Africa, 2, 102, 105–106, 233, 286, 373, 469 Agee, Philip, 185 Agranat Commission, 131, 142 Ahituv, Avraham, 134, 141 Akbari, Aziz Ahmed, 16 Al-Ahmar, Ali Mohsen, 452–456, 459–460 Al-Ali, Nasser, 359 Al-Anisi, Ali Mohammed, 453 Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, 135–136 Al-Assad, Bashar Hafiz, 103, 308, 352–353, 357–358, 362, 364, 366, 368, 370–371, 373

Al-Assad, Hafiz, 351–353, 355–357, 363– 364, 367, 369–370, 372–373, 376 Al-Assad, Maher, 368 Al-Assad, Rifaat, 363 Al-Bashir, Omar, 106 Al-Batikhi, Samih, 170 Al-Bik, Iyad, 135 Al-Dahabi, Mohammed, 170 Al-Fatah, 103, 135, 263, 265–266, 268–269, 271, 273, 355, 367 Al-Gamish, Ghalib, 445, 451, 453 Al-Hamdi, Ibrahim, 304, 445 Al-Hariri, Rafiq, 368 Al-Hasa, 300 Al-Hawl, Abu (Hayil ‘Abd-al-Hamid), 265 Al-Hilah, Abd al-Salam, 453 Al-Hindia, Amin, 265 Al-Humaidan, Khalid, 101 Al-Iraqi, Abu Ayman, 122 Al-Jundi, Abd al-Karim, 355 Al-Jundi, Adnan, 170 Al-Khalayleh, Muhammad Nazzal Fadil. See al-Zarqawi, Abu Musab Al-Khalifa family, 101 Al-Khatib, Ahmad Hasan, 355 Al-Khuli, Mohammad, 367 Al-Kilani, Muhammad Rasul, 170 Al-Kubaisi, Ghanem, 102 Al-Mabhouh, Mahmoud, 139 Al-Majid, Ali Hassan, 116 Al-Mekki, Assem, 454 Al-Nayif, Abd al-Razzaq, 118 Al-Qaeda, 2, 17, 30, 35, 68, 105, 135, 165, 174, 255, 307, 309–310, 453–456

491

492 Index Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), 307, 451, 454–456 Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, 43 Al-Qaisi, Mustafa, 170 Al-Qaiti, Hamza, 453 Al-Rashid family, 300 Al-Reeh, Ziad Hab, 268 Al-Rikad, Mohammed, 170 Al-Sadr, Moqtada, 103 Al-Sallal, Abdullah, 444 Al-Saud, Bandar bin Sultan, 308–309, 311 Al-Saud, Fahd bin Abduls-Aziz, 307 Al-Saud, Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz, 301, 306 Al-Saud, Saud bin Abdul-Aziz, 301 Al-Saud, Saud bin Faisal, 307–308 Al-Saud, Turki bin Faisal, 305–307 Al-Shabaab, 105 Al-Shahwani, Mohammad Abdallah, 123 Al-Shamsi, Hamid, 102 Al-Shobaki, Faisal, 170 Al-Sunaydar, Colonel Ahmad, 446 Al-Surmi, Muhammad, 453 Al-Tirawi, Tawfiq, 266 Al-Turkmani, Abu Muslim al-Afari, 122 Al-Utaybi, Juhayman, 306 Al-Wahhab, Muhammad bin Abd, 300 Al-Zarqawi, Abu Musab, 165, 174 Al-Zirka, Abdallah, 453 Aladdin, Tariq, 170 Alavi, Mahmoud, 96 Alawites, 357, 359–362 Aleppo, 363, 367 Alevis, 419 Alexander II, tsar, 285 Alexander III, tsar, 285 Alexander, Keith, 468 Alexei, tsar, 284 Alikhonov, Zubaidullo, 408 Alimzhanov, Anuar, 178 Aliyev, Rakhat, 182, 185, 189–191, 194, 433 Alma-Ata. See Almaty Almaty, 179, 188 Alon, Yigal, 142 Alpha troops, 183, 187, 408 Amakiev, Rustam, 408 Amal (Islamiyah), 102 Aman, 102 Ames, Aldrich, 287, 296 Amin, Assadullah, 16 Amin, Hafizullah, 13–14, 16, 187 Amir, Yigal, 134 Amir Timur, 110 Amman, 163, 165, 170 Amritsar, 84 Amsterdam, 456 Anatolia, 422 Andropov, Yuri, 286, 295, 448

Angola, 233 Ankara, 422, 435 Annenkov, Boris, 182 Arabia, 106, 121, 129, 130–131, 141, 147, 163, 166–169, 257, 261, 264, 273, 301– 304, 307–308, 354, 357, 368–369, 373, 376, 450, 460 Arabian Gulf, 167 Arabian Peninsula, 130, 279, 300–301 Arab Spring, 164, 175, 308, 358 Arafat, Musa, 266 Arafat, Yasser, 257, 262, 265–266, 269, 271, 355, 374 Arak, 109 Argentina, 7 Arkia, 133 Armenia , 104, 419, 422, 424 Artuzov, Artur, 289 ASEAN. See Association of Southeast Asian Nations Asfoura, Samih, 170 ASIO. See Australian Security Intelligence Organization Assad, Bashar Hafiz. See al-Assad, Bashar Hafiz Assam, 42 Assassinations, 19, 115, 117–119, 134–135, 139–140, 182, 188, 190, 199, 219, 226, 229, 235–236, 265–266, 287–288, 292, 295, 297, 310, 322–323, 329, 340, 348, 364, 367, 383, 405, 411–412, 425, 454, 457, 459 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), 199, 208, 232, 469 Astana, 181, 192 Atomic weapons. See nuclear assets Atovulloyev, Dodojon, 412–413 Aum Shinrikyo, 152 Aung San Suu Kyi, 199, 202, 204–205, 207, 209–211 Australia, 6, 43–44, 154–155, 345 Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), 154 Austria, 145, 163, 189–190, 435 Avigur, Shaul, 144 Ayalon, Ami, 135 Ayash, Yahya, 135 Azad, Maulana, 244 Azerbaijan, 102–105, 108, 419, 433–434

Baalbeck, 102 Baath Party (Iraq, Syria), 354–356, 359, 363, 371 Babcock, Charles R., 322 Badia, 163 Badran, Mudar, 170 Baer, Yisrael, 134

Index Baghdad, 118, 120, 174, 376 Bahrain, 101, 301, 307 Baikonur, 192 Baku, 104 Bal’awi, Hakam, 265 Balkans, 423 Baluchistan, 108, 243, 247, 254 Bander Abbas, 108 Bangkok, 392 Bangladesh, 3, 25–50, 78, 85, 89, 249, 253– 254, 469 Barak, Ehud, 143, 146 Bashiri, Abdallah Husayn, 446 Basra, 118 Baton Rouge, 414 Batticoloa, 342 Bay of Bengal, 30, 254 Bay of Bengal Intitiative for Multi-Sector Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), 29, 45, 232 Bayzhanov, Gabit, 185 Beer Sheba, 141 Be’eri, Isser, 130 Begin, Menachem, 142, 147 Beijing, 61, 219, 222, 380 Beirut, 232, 308, 368, 452, 465 Belarus, 280, 412 Ben-Gurion, David, 134, 137 Ben-Nathan, Asher, 141 Beqaa Valley, 102 Beria, Lavrentiy, 286, 464 Berlin, 218, 222, 230, 232, 322, 374, 421 Bhutto, Benazir, 254, 466 Bhutto, Zulfiqar Ali, 254 Biden, Joe, 309 BIMSTEC. See Bay of Bengal Intitiative for Multi-Sector Technical and Economic Cooperation Black Sea, 419 Black September, 140 Blair, Tony, 191 Blake, George, 217 Blumberg, Binyamin, 144 Blunt, Anthony, 289 BND. See Bundesnachrichtendienst Bokhtar, 408 Boko Haram, 105 Bondarenko, Aleksandr, 295 Bondarev, Viktor, 294 Bonn, 322 Border security, 29–31, 37, 78, 104, 125, 165, 182–183, 205–206, 221, 361, 404, 408– 409, 429 “Boshirov, Ruslan.” See Chepiga, Anatoliy Boston, 144 Boston bombings, 296 Bouchiki, Ahmed, 140

493

Bozkurt, Abdullah, 435 Brezhnev, Leonid Ilyich, 13, 280, 286, 291 Brunner, Alois, 353–354 Bsayu, ‘Atif, 265 Bseiso, Atef, 139 Buddhists, 26, 201, 337–338 Buenos Aires, 138 Bulgaria, 290 Bull, Gerald, 139 Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), 6, 374, 394 Burdwan, 42 Burgess, Guy, 289 Burma. See Myanmar Bush, George W., 68 Butina, Maria, 293 Byman, Daniel, 255 Byzantine Empire, 282

Cairncross, John, 289 Cairo, 303, 452 Calcutta, 86 California, 53 Cambodia, 232 Cambridge, 191 Cameron, David, 18 Camp Bucca, 122 Camp David Summit, 135 Canada, 43–44, 140, 155, 306 Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), 155 Cara, Eli, 140 Carlos. See Ramírez Sánchez, Ilich Carmon, Chaim, 141 Carter, Jimmy, 380 Casablanca, 465 Catherine II, tsarina, 284 Çatlı, Abdullah, 424, 433 Caucasus, 280, 291–292, 433 Cawthorne, Walter Joseph, 6, 251 Ceausescu, Nicolae, 145 Central Asia, 11, 102–104, 178, 187, 191– 193, 305, 403, 412–414, 433 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 6, 20, 53, 73, 140, 145, 154, 174, 180, 185, 200– 201, 217, 230, 233, 253–254, 257, 266, 268, 272, 282, 287, 295–296, 299, 305, 308, 321–322, 374, 423, 430, 443–446, 452, 456, 460, 466 Cevadov, Ruşen, 433 Cha Ji-cheol, 322 Chakatra, 348 Chang An-lo, 393 Chechenya, 290–291, 293, 296 Cheka, 182, 285, 289, 295, 464, 467 Chen Feng-lin, 385 Chen Shui-bian, 385

494 Index Chepiga, Anatoliy (“Boshirov, Ruslan”), 290– 291 Chiang Ching-kuo, 380, 383–384 Chiang Kai-shek, 52, 380, 382–383 Chiang Kai-shek, Madame (Soong Mei-ling), 52 Chi Mak, 53 Chin, Larry China, 1–4, 6, 11, 27–28, 44, 48, 51–71, 75, 78–79, 85–88, 105, 108–109, 140, 178– 179, 181–182, 187, 194, 199–200, 218– 220, 222, 228–230, 232–235, 248–249, 272, 316, 379–383, 385, 389–393, 395, 403, 409, 414–416, 461–463, 466, 468–469 China Sea, 2, 149 Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), 28–30, 42, 85 Choe Deok-geun, 229 Choe Ryong-hae, 223 Chongqing, 52 Chosen Soren, 218–219, 222 Chowdhury, Tamim, 44 Christians, 26, 30–31, 104, 163–164, 229 Chun Doo-hwan, 317, 323–324, 332 Chung Eui-yong, 329 CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency Circassians CIS. See Commonwealth of Independent States Clinton, Hillary, 293–294, 309 Coats, Daniel, 1 Cold War, 5, 133, 246, 248, 286–287, 289– 290, 292, 294, 299, 304–305, 316, 321, 354, 372, 403, 416, 423, 430, 433, 436– 437, 465 Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), 185, 192, 415 Colombo, 337, 342, 344, 347 Colonialism, 3, 5, 25, 31, 37, 40, 75–77, 116, 163, 197, 201, 243–247, 258, 261, 264, 320, 353, 421, 464–465, 469 COMINT. See Communications intelligence Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), 403 Communications intelligence (COMINT), 59, 428 Communism, 6, 13, 16, 26, 51–53, 56–58, 66, 78, 133, 145, 179–181, 200, 216–217, 223, 246, 248, 254, 280, 287, 294, 316– 317, 319–321, 379, 411, 422–423, 446, 448, 465, 467 Congo, Democratic Republic of, 233 Corruption, 27, 39, 93, 125, 169, 172, 174– 175, 179, 181, 222, 225, 234–235, 261– 262, 266, 279, 288, 304, 315–316, 318, 327, 360, 369, 401, 405, 419 Cossacks, 182 Counterproliferation, 40, 152, 251

Counterterrorism, 7, 25, 31, 34–36, 39–41, 44–46, 48, 68, 105, 131, 133, 135, 147– 149, 151, 159, 165, 168, 172–174, 183, 186, 192, 263, 292, 296, 361, 407–409, 411, 414–415, 424, 426, 428, 433, 449– 451, 453–454, 456, 460 Covert action, 6–7, 55, 74–75, 78–79, 83–85, 87–88, 90, 104, 138, 367, 384, 450–451, 459, 467–468 Cox’s Bazar district, 28 Crime, 7, 29–30, 36–46, 64, 68–69, 74, 96, 99, 101, 116, 123, 152, 171, 173, 175, 183, 186, 192, 198–199, 205, 208, 229, 231–233, 263, 291, 293, 295–296, 315, 319–320, 324, 327, 329–331, 372, 389, 391, 393–394, 406, 408–409, 413, 415, 424–426, 428 Criminal intelligence, 5, 37, 46, 320, 363, 414 Crimea, 293 Crimean war, 284 Croatia, 308 Crosston, Matthew, 75 CSIS. See Canadian Security Intelligence Service CSTO. See Collective Security Treaty Organization Cultural Revolution (China), 6, 51, 57, 403 Customs intelligence, 5, 38, 46 Cyber attacks, 1, 7, 100, 106, 148, 225, 288, 293–294, 296–297, 310, 320, 329, 331, 382, 409 Cyber intelligence, 5, 64, 106–107, 131, 231, 288, 311, 328, 391, 468 Cyber security, 106–107, 192, 310, 320, 329, 331, 385, 426, 431 Cyprus, 424 Czechoslovakia, 134, 286

Da’esh. See ISIS Dagan, Meir, 140 Dahlan, Mohammad, 266, 268 Dai Li, 383 Damascus, 139, 296, 302, 356, 359–360, 363–364, 368, 374, 376 Davutoğlu, Ahmet, 434 Dayan, Moshe, 142, 147 Deacon, Richard, 462 Dead Sea, 163 Dean, Karen, 207 Dearlove, Richard, 309 Defectors, 15, 18, 52–53, 66, 223–226, 236, 287, 290, 309, 320, 329, 342, 352, 359, 364–365, 369–370, 404, 410, 446–447 Deir al-Zor, 362 Demirel, Süleyman Gündoğdu, 433 Demirkol, Ferman, 433 Deng Xiao Ping, 51, 58 Denisov, Nikolay, 182

Index Deraa, 368 Detroit, 456 DGSE. See Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure Dhahran, 301 Dhaka, 38, 253 Dias, Jagath, 342–343 Diasporas, 43, 55, 102, 106, 200, 205, 225, 344, 417, 462, 467 Dimona, 139, 141 Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE), 452 Dirham, Ahmad, 453 Diyarbakir, 422 Djibouti, 105 Doğan, Arif, 429 Dorri-Najafabadi, Ghorbanali, 96 Dorril, Stephen, 303 Doval, Ajit, 89 Dubai, 82, 101–102, 139, 301, 412 Dujayl, 119 Dulat, A.S., 467–468 Durrani, Asad, 468 Dushanbe, 105, 146, 402, 405, 408–409, 413 Dutbayev, Nartay, 189 Dutov, Alexander, 182 Dzerzhinsky, Felix, 285, 464 Dziak, John, 177, 181

East Asia, 231, 316, 379. See also China; Japan; North Korea; South Korea East China Sea, 149 Eastern Bloc, 132, 146, 220, 231, 373, 459. See also Warsaw Pact Eastern Europe, 57–58, 132–133, 144–146, 287 Ecevit, Bülent, 424 Economic intelligence, 5, 64 Egypt, 106, 129–131, 165, 249, 260, 273, 300–302, 304, 306, 308, 354, 376, 435, 437, 443–444 Eichmann, Adolf, 7, 138, 354 Eitan, Rafael, 144 Electronic intelligence (ELINT), 59, 64, 287, 391, 430–431 Elephant Pass, 339, 343–344 El-Mashad, Yehya, 139 Emami, Saeid, 96 Entebbe, 139 Entezar, Mohammad Hassan, 106 Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip, 434, 438 Eritrea, 233 Ershad, Hussain Muhammad, 26–27, 33 Ethiopia, 138–139, 233 Europe, 2–4, 8, 86, 108, 141, 145, 174, 190, 222, 230–233, 235, 297, 311, 323, 394, 413, 419, 423–424, 462, 464, 469 European Free Trade Organization, 164

495

European Union, 28, 164, 263, 306, 375, 420, 437

Falun Gong, 60 Faraj, Majid, 267–268 Farhor, 408 FBI. See Federal Bureau of Investigation Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 60, 68, 144, 152, 282, 287, 290, 292, 297, 322, 389, 430, 445, 466 Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti (Russian Federal Security Service [FSB]), 183, 281–282, 288, 291–297, 466 Fedor, Julie, 295 “Fedotov, Sergei.” See Sergeev, Denis “Fenix,” 219 Fernando, Hemasiri, 337 Fidan, Hakan, 430, 434 Financial intelligence, 5, 31, 38–39, 46, 406– 407, 414 Finland, 280 Fonseka, Sarath, 340, 342, 344 Foreign Broadcast Information Service, 53 Formosa. See Taiwan Fradkov, Mikhail, 296 France, 105, 185, 284, 289, 293, 302, 306, 353, 421–423, 465 Franco-Korean Friendship Association, 229 Frauenknecht, Alfred, 144 Freud, Sigmund, 114 FSB. See Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti Fuchs, Klaus, 289 Futian, 391

Gabon, 434 Gagarin, Yuri, 192 Gandhi, Indira, 78–79, 81, 84, 86–87, 89, 253–254, 462 Gandhi, Mahatma, 245 Gandhi, Rajiv, 348 Gates, Robert, 296 Gaza, 106, 134, 166, 258–260, 262, 264, 266, 268–269, 274, 437 GCHQ. See Government Communications Headquarters Gebrev, Emilian, 290 Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police [Gestapo]), 228, 354 Gehlen, Reinhard, 6 Geneva, 185 Geng Biao, 57 Genocide, 29, 208, 422, 424 Georgia, 146, 279, 288, 293, 419 Germany, 6, 52, 108, 218–220, 228–230, 250, 272, 288, 322–323, 353, 369, 373–374, 413, 422–423, 435, 447–449, 459, 465 Gestapo. See Geheime Staatspolizei

496 Index Gillon, Carmi, 134 Gladio, 423–424 Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravleniye (Main Intelligence Directorate), 182, 187, 281–282, 288, 290, 292–297, 373, 403– 404, 408, 413, 416, 466 Gökdemir, Ayvaz, 433 Golan Heights, 309, 373 Golpayegani, Mohammad, 109–110 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 179, 187, 280, 287, 291 Gorelov, Lev Nikolaevich, 14 Gorno Badakhshan, 402 Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), 455–456 Great Britain. See United Kingdom Greece, 419, 435 Greenglass, David, 289 Group of Seven (G7), 149, 154 Group of 20 (G20), 316 GRU. See Glavnoye Razvedyvatel’noye Upravleniye Guangxi, 53 Gulabzoy, Sayed Mohammad, 13–14 Gülen Movement, 433–435, 438 Güler, Yaşar, 434 Gulf of Aqaba, 163, 259 Gulf States, 101, 118, 301, 303 Gulshan, 42 Gunarathne, Kamal, 342 Guo, Xuezhi, 3 Guriel, Boris, 141–142

Hadhramaut, 452–453 Hadi, Abdrabbuh Mansur, 457–459 Hainan, 380 Halevy, Ephraim, 140 Hall, Theodore, 289 Hama, 367 Hamas, 2, 103, 135, 139, 140, 174, 258, 260, 263–264, 267–269, 271, 273, 356, 367, 469 Hamidaddin, Imam Muhammad Al-Badr, 303 Hanssen, Robert, 287, 296 Haqqani, Jalaluddin, 255 Haqqani network, 17, 255 Harel, Isser, 131 Harmelin, Yosef, 134 Hashim, Zahran, 337 Hasina, Sheikh, 26–27, 29, 33, 42, 44, 47 Hassan, Jamil, 362 Hatay. See Sancak Hatokai, Ahmed Hassan, 170 Havana, 222 Hejaz, 300 Hejazi, Asghar Mir, 110 Hekmatyar, Gulbuddin, 12 Helmand, 18 Herzliya, 147

Hezbollah, 2, 102–104, 106, 135, 174, 232, 307, 356, 367, 375–376, 469 Himalaya, 78, 348 Hindawi, Nizar, 367–368 Hindu, 26, 76, 81, 84, 244–245, 337 Hindu Kush, 465 Hitler, Adolf, 52, 286 Hizbullah. See Hezbollah Hollande, François, 293 Homs, 362 Hong Kong, 52, 55–56, 66, 218, 380–381, 383, 390, 465 Horn of Africa, 102, 105 Houthi, 106, 310, 455, 458–459 Hudayfah, Abu. See Karbouli, Ziad Khalaf Human intelligence (HUMINT), 19, 36, 48, 59, 88, 130, 136, 154, 156–157, 199, 202, 221, 230, 287, 289–290, 319, 329, 349, 365, 368–369, 392, 447–448, 452, 455, 460, 467–468 Human rights violations, 15–17, 29, 34, 115, 136, 191, 201, 207, 209, 258–259, 264, 268, 279, 292, 297, 351, 362–364, 367, 405–406, 411–412, 416, 425. See also Abductions; Assassinations; Torture HUMINT. See Human intelligence Hunan, 53 Hungary, 286 Huseinov, Suret, 433 Hussein, king, 143, 163, 170 Hussein, Saddam, 103, 113–114, 116–127, 307 Hussein, Sharif, 300–301 Iagoda, Genrikh, 285 Ibragimov, Maksud, 412 Ibragimov, Rustam, 188 Imagery intelligence (IMINT), 130, 151, 156, 199, 203, 319, 428 Imam Hussein, 94 IMF. See International Monetary Fund IMINT. See Imagery intelligence India, 1–3, 6, 17, 25, 27–30, 33, 37, 39, 42– 43, 45, 48, 73–91, 198, 200, 243, 245– 246, 249–250, 252–255, 344–345, 348– 349, 461–469 Indian Ocean, 25 Indonesia, 394, 461, 465 Intelligence Bureau (India), 33, 73–91, 340, 464 Intelligence failures, 8, 73–74, 80–84, 89, 118, 148, 339, 368, 404 Intelligence successes, 84–87, 89, 345 International intelligence cooperation, 4, 41– 46, 48, 67–69, 106, 108–109, 131, 138, 191–193, 199, 204, 208–209, 232–235, 272–274, 296–297, 329, 332, 372–376, 394, 413–415, 436–437, 468–469

Index International Monetary Fund (IMF), 29, 250, 318, 419 Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), 6–7, 13, 17, 28, 42, 79, 81, 84–85, 87, 89, 243–256, 466, 468–469 Interpol, 46, 108, 190, 273, 394 Intifada, 135, 262, 269 Iqbal, Mohamed, 244 Iran, 1–4, 93–112, 118, 126, 131, 140, 147, 192, 232, 306–308, 310, 352, 356, 365– 366, 372, 374–376, 410, 413–414, 419, 436–437, 468 Iran-Iraq War, 94, 97, 109, 113, 117–118, 120, 123 Iraq, 2, 4, 5, 44, 75, 101–103, 113–128, 130– 132, 138–139, 163–165, 174, 178, 301, 307, 376, 419, 429, 437, 453, 465 ISI. See Inter-Services Intelligence ISIS. See Islamic State in Iraq and Syria Islamabad, 251 Islamic Jihad, 103, 135, 139, 257, 260, 356 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, 409 Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), 2, 20, 30, 35, 42, 44, 105, 122, 124–127, 159, 164–165, 170, 174, 178, 272, 309, 337, 376, 409–410, 469 Ismail, Ghassan Jawdat, 361 Israel, 1–4, 7, 101–104, 118, 121, 126, 129– 148, 163–166, 199, 221, 258–261, 263– 267, 269, 272–273, 303, 353, 355, 361, 436–437, 465, 467–468 Istanbul, 412, 422, 429 Italy, 294, 310–311, 421, 423 Ivan III, 282 Ivan IV (“The Terrible”), tsar, 284 Iyad, Abu (Salah Khalaf), 265 Izmir, 422

Jabhat Al-Nusra, 309 Jaffee, Mel, 147 Jaffna, 339, 344 Jaffrelot, Christophe, 247 Jakarta, 222 Jalali, Ali Ahmad, 11 Jammu and Kashmir, 17, 76–79, 82–84, 243, 246, 249–250, 252–253, 467 Jang Jin-sung, 223 Jang Myeon, 321 Jang Song-taek, 229, 329 Japan, 3, 5–6, 28, 66, 105, 149–162, 198, 201, 215, 218, 222, 231, 250, 320, 332, 380– 381, 383, 394–395, 461, 468 Jayasundara, Pujith, 337 Jeddah, 301 Jenin, 275 Jerusalem, 143 Jews, 94, 129, 136, 138–139, 143–146, 303, 419

497

Jharkhand, 42 “Jiang Nan.” See Liu, Henry Jiangxi, 53 Jin Renqin, 390 Jinnah, Mohamed Ali, 245 Johnston, Rob, 4, 120 Jordan, 4, 102, 118, 129–131, 140, 163–176, 264–265, 272–273, 302, 308–309, 354, 367–368, 376, 443, 446, 461 Jordan River, 259 Jordan Valley, 163 Jo Song-gil, 229

Kabul, 14, 17, 187, 466 Kalugin, Oleg, 290 Kamil, Hussein, 119 Kang Sheng, 6, 57, 62, 464 Kankesanthurai Port, 339 Kao, Rameshwar Nath, 462 Karachi, 84 Karandeniya, 341 Karannagoda, Wasantha, 344 Karbouli, Ziad Khalaf, 174 Kargil, 82–83 Karmal, Babrak, 12–16 Karpukhin, Viktor, 187 Kars, 422 Karuna, 342 Karzai, Hamid, 20 Kashmir. See Jammu and Kashmir Kautilya, 1 Kavir Lut, 100 Kaygısız, Mehmet, 435 Kazakhstan, 177–196, 405 Kazzar, Nadhim, 116–117 Kelman, Uriel, 140 Kempeitai, 6, 201 Kennedy, John F., 304 Kenya, 437 Kerry, John, 44 KGB. See Komitet Gosudartsvennoy Bezopasnosti Khaiber, Mir Akbar, 13 Khairulloyev, Sherali, 407 Khales, Mawlawi Yunus, 13 Khalil, Izz El-Deal, 139 Khalimov, Gulmurod, 410, 414 Khalistan movement, 469 Khamenei, Ali Hoesseini, 96, 100–101, 106, 109–110 Khamenei, Sayyed Mojtaba, 109 Khamis, Muhammad, 445 Khan, Ayub, 252–253 Khan, Imran, 250, 256 Khan, Liaqat Ali, 245 Khan, Sardar Mohammad Daud, 12–14 Khan, Sir Syed Ahmed, 244

498 Index Khan, Yayha, 254 Khartoum, 105 Khashoggi, Jamal, 310 Khatami, Mohammed, 96 Khavarshahar, 100 Khin Nyunt, 198, 202–204, 211 Khomeini, Ahmad, 109 Khomeini, Ayatollah, 93–94, 96–98, 109–110 Khorasan, 108 Khrushchev, Nikita, 138, 236, 286, 403 Khujand, 409 Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 243, 254 Kidnappings. See Abductions Kiev, 282 Kilinochchi, 339 Killinochi, 339, 342 Kim, Byung Ha, 221 Kim Chang-ryong, 321 Kim Chong-il Kim Dae-jung, 317–318, 323, 325–326 Kim Hyun-joong, 234 Kim Il-sung, 215–216, 218, 220–221, 224, 316 Kim Jae-gyu, 317, 322–323 Kim Jong-il, 215, 220–224, 229, 329 Kim Jong-nam, 229 Kim Jong-pil, 317, 321 Kim Jong-un, 215, 220, 222–223, 228–229, 235–237, 329 Kim Young-sam, 317, 324 Kirkuk, 118 Kissinger, Henry, 303 Kolbin, Gennady, 179 Komilov, Sherzod, 413 Komitet Gosudartsvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security [KGB]), 14–17, 21, 94, 116, 118, 145, 179, 182, 187, 192, 282, 285–290, 297, 322, 373, 403–404, 407–408, 410–411, 413, 416, 447–448, 465 Koon-Wang Talks, 380 Korea Strait, 315 Korean Peninsula, 215, 234, 315–316, 379 Korean War, 51, 67, 215, 316–317, 320, 332 Korobov, Igor, 282 Kos, 435 Kosachec, Konstantin, 234 Kosovo, 434 Kostuykov, Igor, 282 Ko Young-hee, 229 Kravchuk, Leonid, 179 Kryuchkov, Vladimir, 187 Kulibayev, Timur, 191, 194 Kulyab, 405, 410 Kumaratunga, Chandrika, 339 Kunayev, Dinmukhamed, 179 Kuomintang, 200, 380, 382–385, 387, 393, 395

Kurds, 117–118, 121, 124–126, 419–420, 424–425, 429, 433–435, 437–438 Kurenbekov, Amantay, 187 Kurgan-Tyube, 409 Kuvvatov, Umarali, 412 Kuwait, 121, 123, 301, 307 Kuzichkin, Vladimir, 15 Kyrgyzstan, 401

Laden, Osama bin, 18, 255 Laldenga, Pu, 85–86, 89 Landau Commission, 134, 136 Lashkar e Taiba, 83, 254–255 Latakia, 362, 373 Latin America, 2, 101–102, 145, 286 Lebanon, 102, 106, 130–131, 174, 259, 264– 265, 307–309, 353–356, 361, 368, 375– 376, 464 Lee Bong-won, 221 Lee Byung-ho, 327 Lee Byung-kee, 327 Lee Myung-bak, 318, 326 Lee Teng-hui, 381, 384, 390 Legislation, 5, 39–41, 86, 98–100, 136, 156, 160, 168–173, 175, 187, 207–208, 223–224, 269–272, 291–292, 295, 321–322, 330–331, 355, 370–372, 384–387, 406–407, 416, 425–426, 430–432, 434, 436, 461, 464 Lenin (Vladimir Ulyanov), 280, 285 Leningrad. See Saint-Petersburg Leninski. See Baikonur Levant, 163 Li Kenong, 52 Libya, 165, 301 Lieven, Anatol, 243 Lillehammer affair, 140 Lim Dong-won, 326 Lipka, Robert, 290 Lithuania, 288 Litvinenko, Aleksandr, 288 Liu, Henry (“Jiang Nan”), 384 Liu-Ju, 392 Liu Liankun, 390 Liu Shaoquing, 57 Lo Hsien-che, 392 London, 15, 140, 188, 218, 230, 254, 287– 288, 303, 367–368 Los Alamos, 289 Los Angeles, 144 Luqa, Hossam, 359

Ma Ying-jeou, 385 Maclean, Donald, 289 Macau, 55–56, 66 Madrid, 230 Mahdi, Adel Abdul, 126 Mairanovsky, Grigori, 285

Index Majrooh, Sayd, 16 Makiya, Kanan, 115 Malaysia, 229, 434 Malik, Iftikhar, 247 Malta, 139, 287, 42 Malta summit 287 Mamdani, Mahmood, 305 Mamin, Askar, 180 Mamlouk, Ali, 363, 366 Mandalay, 197, 204 Manhattan Project, 289 Mannar, 343 Manor, Amos, 132–133 Mao Zedong, 52, 55–57, 60, 380 Maoists, 30, 57 Markov, Georgy, 287 Mashal, Khaled, 140 MASINT. See Measurement and signature intelligence Massimov, Karim, 182, 194 Massoud, Ahmad Shah, 13, 18 Matsu, 380 Maung Lwin, 203 Measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT), 319 Mechenbayev, Bulat, 186 Mecca, 300, 306 Mediterranean, 259, 296, 373, 419 Medvedev, Dmitry, 279 Menchenbayev, Bulat, 186 Mengele, Josef, 285 Mercader, Ramon, 286 Mexico, 286 MI5. See Military Intelligence 5 MI6. See Military Intelligence 6 Middle East, 4, 11, 20, 39, 103, 105, 114, 142–143, 147, 163, 192, 296, 300, 309, 311, 351–352, 372–373–375, 408, 410, 461–462, 465 Migration, 7, 31, 33–34, 144–145, 192, 205, 245, 296, 303, 320, 389, 404, 419 Military intelligence, 5–6, 16, 21, 36–37, 54, 62, 64, 69, 74–75, 114–116, 118–119, 122, 130–131, 142, 148, 151, 182, 187– 188, 198–201, 207–208, 210–211, 231, 234, 250–251, 257, 266–268, 271, 282, 284–285, 318–321, 338, 341–342, 349, 353–354, 358, 360, 362, 367, 371–372, 383–384, 386, 389, 391, 403, 406–408, 415, 427, 446–447, 450, 456, 467–469 Military Intelligence 5 (MI5), 7, 44, 73, 154, 430, 444 Military Intelligence 6 (MI6), 7, 44, 154, 297, 299, 303, 309, 394, 430, 444, 452, 456, 460, 465 Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Stasi), 6, 228, 369, 373–374, 447–449, 465

499

Minsk, 187 Mirzayanov, Vil, 290 Mirzoev, Nusratullo, 408 Mirzonabotov, Alisher, 408 Mirzoyev, Gaffur, 413 Mishkin, Alekandr (“Petrov, Aleksandr”), 290–291 Mizoram, 77, 85–87, 89 Modi, Narendra, 30, 89 Mohammed, Ali Nasir, 449 Mohammad-Najjar, Mostafa, 99 Mohsen, Zuheir, 139 Mohseni-Ejehi, Hojatolislam Gholamhussein, 96 Moldova, 412 Mongolia, 55, 179, 434, 461 Moon Jae-in, 318–319, 326, 328–329, 332 Morocco, 132 Morozov, Alexander, 14 Mossad, 1, 7, 104, 129–131, 137–144, 146, 148, 303, 436–437, 465, 468 Moscow, 182, 187, 193, 222, 288, 292, 295– 297, 403, 448 Mosul, 118, 120, 122, 125 Mountain Heights Plateau, 163 Mozambique, 233 Mugniyah, Imad, 104, 139 Muhamalai, 348 Muhammad Reza Shah, 306 Mujahidin, 254 Mulhem, Kifah, 360 Mullativu, 343 Mullik, Bhola Nath, 77–78 Mumbai, 81–84, 255 Muna, princess of Jordan, 164 Munich, 139 Musawi, Hussein, 102 Muscovy, 280 Musharraf, Pervez, 245, 247–248 Mushin. See Abdullah, Muhammad Sa’id Musleh, Zakaria, 268 Muslim Brotherhood, 174, 302, 304, 359, 367, 371–372, 409, 435 Muslim World League, 306 Muslims, 26, 28, 30–31, 76, 81, 84, 120, 163, 199, 204, 244, 250, 299–300, 305, 337, 403 Mutiya, Muhammad Salih, 448 Myanmar, 2, 3, 28, 30, 37, 43, 197–214, 232, 469

Nabisheet, 102 Nagaland, 78, 85 Najd, 300 Najibullah, Mohammad, 15–17 Nam Young-sin, 319 Namibia, 233, 465

500 Index Nam Jae-Joon, 327 Nanjing, 380 Napoleon Bonaparte, 284 Naryshkin, Sergei, 282 Nasr, Ali, 452 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 302, 354 Nategh-Nouri, Ali Akbar, 109 National Security Agency (NSA), 74, 107, 287, 290, 437, 455–456 National-Socialists (Nazis), 6, 52, 353–354, 423 NATO. See North Atlantic Treaty Organization Naval intelligence, 130, 287, 289, 341, 344– 345, 363 Naypidaw, 204–205 Nazar, Ruzi, 423 Nazar, Saidibrohim, 413 Nazarbayev, Aysultan, 188 Nazarbayev, Dariga, 189–190, 194 Nazarbayev, Nursultan, 178–182, 185, 188, 191, 193 Nazarzoda, Abduhalim, 410 Nazis. See National-Socialists Near East, 101–102 Netherlands, The, 465 Ne Win, 198, 200–201 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 77–78, 86 New Delhi, 467 New Mexico, 289 New York, 144 New Zealand, 140 Nicholas I, tsar, 284 Nicholas II, tsar, 179, 285 Nicolai, Walter 6, 422 Nidal, Abu, 374 Niigata, 231 Nixon, Richard Milhous, 253, 380 Non-Allignment Movement, 200 North Africa, 130, 147, 461 North America, 108 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 13, 188, 288, 292, 307, 419, 423, 427, 436 North Korea, 1, 2, 5, 58, 66, 100, 109, 149, 155, 159, 178, 187, 215–242, 296, 315– 318, 320–324, 326, 328–329, 331–333, 461, 467–468 North Western Frontier provinces, 243, 254 NSA. See National Security Agency Nuclear assets, 1, 118–119, 139–141, 144, 216, 219, 286, 289, 307, 318 Nur Otan, 191 Nursultan, 181, 192

Obama, Barack, 309 Obeidat, Ahmed, 170 Öcalan, Abdullah, 434, 437 Odessa, 145

OECD. See Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OIC. See Organization of Islamic Cooperation Okhrana, 284–285, 289, 222 Olympic Games, 139, 149, 159, 317 Omanthai, 339, 344 Open sources intelligence (OSINT), 19, 130, 205, 429 Operation Barbarossa, 52 Operation Cyclone, 305 Operation Diamond, 138 Operation Enormoz, 289 Operation Entebbe, 139 Operation Garibaldi, 138 Operation Moses, 138–139 Operation Opera, 139 Operation Orchard, 139 Operation Solomon, 138 Operation Timber Sycamore, 308 Operation Wrath of God, 139 Operation Yehonathan, 139 Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 289 Ordin-Nashchekin, Afanasy, 284 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 316 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), 191, 414, 419, 436 Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), 164, 191, 436, 442 OSCE. See Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe OSINT. See Open sources intelligence Osirak, 118, 121, 139 Oslo Accords, 135, 257–259, 262, 268, 272 Ottoman Empire, 300–301, 420–422, 437 Oversight, 4, 8, 34, 39–40, 46–48, 68–69, 109–110, 122–124, 153–154, 161, 171, 206, 209–210, 223, 267, 274–275, 294– 295, 297, 318, 324, 330–331, 355–356, 369–371, 393, 395, 415, 436, 438, 444, 449, 459, 461, 463–464

Pahlavi, Mohammad Reza, 94 Pak Hon-yong, 216 Pakistan, 1–2, 4, 6, 17–18, 21, 25, 27–29, 33, 40, 42, 45, 75–79, 81–85, 87–89, 232, 243–256, 305, 403, 463, 465–466, 468–469 Palaly, 339 Palestine, 4, 103, 129, 135–136, 144, 163– 166, 174–175, 257–277, 355, 361 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), 139, 257, 259–260, 262, 264–265, 268, 374 Panahian, Hojatoslem Ali-reza, 101 Panama, 379 Panjikent, 409 Paranthan, 343 Paris, 139, 141, 229, 230, 265, 422, 424

Index Park Chung-hee, 219, 315, 317, 318, 321– 323, 328, 332 Park Geun-hye, 318–319, 326–328 Pasha, Enver, 422 Pathan, 243 Patrushev, Nikolai, 282 Peacekeeping, 29, 164, 309, 348 Pearl Harbor, 6, 80 Pelton, Ronald, 287 Peng Tzu-wen, 385 Penghu island group, 379 Peres, Shimon, 135 Permanent Court of Arbitration, 30 Persia. See Iran Persian Gulf, 93 Peshawar, 465 Peter I, tsar, 284 “Petrov, Aleksandr.” See Mishkin, Aleksandr Philby, H. A. R. (“Kim”), 289 Philby, St. John, 302 Philippines, 2, 249, 394 Pilz, Peter, 435 Podesta, John D., 294 Poland, 280 Pollard, Jonathan Jay, 143–144 Poonaryne, 343 Port of Aden, 453 Portugal, 163 Poyandashoev, Orzashoh, 408 Prabhakaran, Vellupillai, 338, 343 Prussia, 89 Pudukudiyiruppu, 343 Punjab, 77, 79–81, 87, 89, 246–248, 469 Putin, Vladimir, 279, 281–282, 288, 290–292, 294, 297 Pyongyang, 216, 232, 234, 329, 394

Qatar, 101, 301, 309 Quemoy, 379–380 Quennedey, Benoit, 229 Qom, 93

Rabbani, Burhanuddin, 12–13 Rabin, Yitzhak, 133–135, 265 Rademacher, Franz, 354 Rafi, Mohammad, 14 Rahman, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur, 26– 27, 33, 40 Rahman, Ziaur, 26–27, 33 Rahmon, Emomali, 402 Rahmon, Ozoda, 402 Rahmon, Rustam Emomali, 402, 406, 408, 410, 415–416 Rajapaksa, Basil, 340 Rajapaksa, Gotabaya, 340,342, 346–349 Rajapaksa, Mahinda, 338–342, 344, 346–349 Rakhimzoda, Ramazon, 409

501

Rakhine State, 28, 199, 204 Raman, Bahukutumbi, 469 Ramat-Gan, 147 Ramírez Sánchez, Ilich (“Carlos”), 374 Rangoon, 204 Rantissi, Abd al-Aziz, 136 Ras Karma, 448 Rashid, Nazir, 170 Rauff, Walther, 354 Ravanbakhsh, Qasemi, 101 Raviv, Avishay, 134 Raviv, Yehoshua, 142 RAW. See Research & Analysis Wing Rayshahri, Mohammed, 94 Razari, 108 Reagan, Ronald, 294, 305 Red Sea, 304, 448 Refugees, 28–31, 43, 164–166, 168, 175, 199, 223, 229, 275 Reilley, Sidney, 289 Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), 28, 42, 73–91, 337–338, 462, 467–469 Rhee Syngman, 316–317, 321 Richelieu, Cardinal, 284 Rjoub, Jibril, 266, 268 Riyadh, 300, 305, 308, 452, 459 Roboski, 429 Rodman, Dennis, 220 Rohingyas, 28–29, 31, 43, 204 Roh Moo-hyun, 318, 325–326 Roh Tae-woo, 317, 324 Romania, 145 Rome, 139, 229 Rotterdam, 230 Russia, 1- 3, 15, 76, 96, 103–105, 108, 178– 179, 181, 185–186, 188, 192–193, 221, 230, 232–234, 272, 279–298, 352–353, 365–366, 369, 372–374, 376, 405–406, 408–414, 416–417, 422, 465–466, 468. See also Soviet Union Russian Third Section. See Okhrana Ryongchon, 221

Sa’ada, 455 SAARC. See South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation Sadat, Anwar, 147, 302–303 Sadulloyev, Hassan, 402 Sadykulov, Anuar, 187 Sagintayev, Bakhytzhan, 180 Sahel, 102 Saigon, 465 Saint-Petersburg, 280, 288, 294, 373 Salafism, 105 Salameh, Ali Hassan, 140 Salih, Barham, 126 Said, Edward, 257

502 Index Saleh, Ali Abdullah, 445–446, 449, 451–454, 456–460 Saleh, Ammar, 453–454, 456 Salem, 348 Salisbury, 290–291 Sana’a, 453, 458 Sancak, 422 Sanhan, 446 São Tomé and Principe, 379 SARICC. See South Asia Regional Intelligence Coordination Center Sarsenbayev, Altynbek, 188, 190 Sarwari, Assadullah, 16 Saryshagan, 193 Sasson, Moshe, 142 Satellites, 64, 119, 125, 145, 151, 158–159, 161, 192, 199, 203 Sattori, Bakhtiyor, 412 Satybaldy, Kayrat, 182 Saud, Abdul-Aziz bin (“Ibn Saud”), 300–301 Saud, Muhammad bin, 300 Saudi Arabia, 4, 44–45, 48, 101, 105–106, 118, 131, 163, 272, 296, 299–314, 412, 443, 448, 455 SAVAK, 94, 252, 436–437 Savinkov, Boris, 289 Sayigh, Yezid, 257 Scientific intelligence, 64 Sea of Japan, 315–316, 323 Seo Hun. See Suh Hoon Seoul, 317, 323 Sergeev, Denis (“Sergei Fedotov”), 290 Sèvres Treaty, 421, 437 Shah, Aqil, 247 Shabdarbayev, Amangeldy, 187 Shallah, Ramadan, 257 Shalom, Avraham, 134 Shanghai, 52, 391, 465 Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), 5, 68, 192, 415, 469 Shapiro, Zalman M., 144 Shaqaqi, Fathi, 139 Sharett, Moshe, 137 Sharif, Nawaz, 248 Sharipov, Jaloliddin, 408 Shawkat, Assef, 368 Shawraba, Mohammad, 104 Shepte, 190 Shiloah, Reuven, 137, 143, 147 Shin Bet, 268 Shoygu, Sergey, 282 Shushkevich, Stanislav, 180 Siali, 449 Siddiqa, Ayesha, 244 SIGINT. See Signals intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT), 19, 31, 36, 38, 59, 103, 116, 130, 151, 156, 199, 202,

221, 287, 293, 319, 329, 366, 428, 431, 436, 448, 455–456, 460 Sikhs, 82, 84, 87, 89 Sikkim, 86–87, 462–463 Silavathura, 343 Silva, Prasanna, 342 Silva, Shavendra, 342–343 Sinai, 106 Sindh, 243 Singapore, 194, 465 Singh, Manmohan, 30 Sinirlioğlu, Feridun Hadi, 434 Sinitsyn, Sergey, 187 Sino-Japanese War, 66, 69, 379, 383 Sino-Soviet split, 57, 403 Sirisena, Maithripala, 337 Sistan, 108 Sitta, Kurt, 134 Six-Day War Skripal, Sergei, 288, 290, 296 Skripal, Yulia, 290, 296 Sluzhba Vneshnei Razvedki—Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), 94, 281–282, 288, 292, 295–297, 466 Smith, Martin, 201 Smuggling, 31, 43, 46, 102, 105–106, 108, 116, 139–140, 175, 192, 199, 255, 296, 413–414, 425, 429 Snowden, Edward, 107, 437 Socotra Island, 448 Solihov, Umedjon, 413 Somalia, 105 South Asia, 11, 199, 243–246, 248, 255, 341. See also India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. South Asia Regional Intelligence Coordination Center (SARICC), 46, 469 South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), 29, 45–46 South China Sea, 2 Southeast Asia, 33, 53 South Korea, 2, 5, 66, 215–219, 222, 225, 229, 231, 315–333, 395, 461, 467 Soviet Union (USSR), 12–14, 16–17, 21, 52, 57–58, 67, 104, 118–119, 132–134, 138, 144–146, 163, 177–179, 182, 186– 188, 191–194, 215–216, 217, 220, 235– 236, 246, 248, 250, 252, 254, 280, 282, 286–287, 289–290–294, 296–297, 302– 305, 316, 322, 354–355, 372–374, 401, 403–405, 407–408, 410–411, 413, 416, 423, 430, 433, 436, 446–449, 452, 459, 465, 467 Spain, 230 Sri Lanka, 337–349, 467–468 Srinagar, 467 Stalin, Joseph, 132, 138, 179, 236, 280, 285– 286, 289

Index Stasi. See Ministerium für Staatssicherheit Steele, Christopher, 297 Strait of Formosa. See Taiwan Strait Sudan, 105–106, 130, 233 Suez Canal, 302 Suh Hoon (Seo Hun), 328–330 Sukhumi, 146 Sulaymaniyah, 435 Sundarapuram, 343 Sun Ke, 52 Sun Tzu, 1 Sun Yat-sen, 380 SVR. See Sluzhba Vneshnei Razvedki Swat territories, 247 Sweden, 273 Switzerland, 86, 145, 220, 424 Syria, 2, 4, 5, 44, 102–103, 105, 118, 125, 129–131, 139, 163, 165, 168, 178, 221, 232, 273, 279, 288, 296, 301–302, 308– 310, 351–377, 410, 419, 422, 434, 437, 464–465

Taeb, Hojjat al-Eslam Hossein, 101, 375 Taeb, Mehdi, 101 Taipei, 380 Taiwan (Formosa), 2, 55–56, 62, 200, 379– 399, 461, 467 Taiwan Strait, 380–382, 389–390 Tajikistan, 102–105, 146, 185, 401–417 Tal Afar, 122 Talbot, Ian, 254 Taliban, 2, 17–19, 21, 68, 75, 250, 255 Tamerlane, see: Amur Timur Tamil Nadu, 348 Tamils, 337–349, 467 Ta Mok, 464 Taner, Emre, 434 Tang Yao-ming, 384 Tanzania, 233 Taraki, Nur Mohammad, 13–15 Tartus, 139, 296, 373 Taylor, Robert, 210 Technical or technological intelligence (TECHINT), 36, 48, 64, 287, 290, 349, 407, 431 Tehran, 93, 96, 108–109 Tel Aviv, 137, 146–147 Tell al-Hara, 373 Terrorism, 7, 25, 29–31, 34–36, 39–40, 43, 68, 83–84, 105, 135–136, 139–140, 148, 156, 165, 173–175, 219, 228, 249, 255, 258, 267, 280, 289, 291–292, 297–298, 310, 329, 337, 349, 356, 367–368, 374– 375, 406–407, 409–410, 414–415, 423– 424, 434, 454–456 Thae Yong-ho, 230 Thailand, 3, 200, 392

503

Thein Sein, 202, 204, 206–207 Third Section (Russia) Tibet, 55–56, 79 Tikrit, 117, 120 Tin Oo, 203 Tokayev, Kassym-Jomart, 180, 193–194 Tokyo, 152, 323, 329 Torture, 15–16, 18, 115, 168, 201, 207, 259, 317, 364, 371, 406, 411, 462 Tripura, 30 Trotsky, Leon, 286 Trump, Donald J., 1, 68, 268, 272, 293, 381 Trust, The, 289 Tsai Ing-wen, 379, 382, 385 Tufalyi, Sheikh Subhi, 102 Tunis, 266 Tunisia, 264–265, 308 Turabi, Hassan, 105 Turezhanov, Kairzhan, 185 Türkeş, Alparslan, 423 Turkey, 2, 4, 103, 108, 118, 147, 181, 185, 192, 376, 408, 410, 412, 414, 419–441 Turkmeni, 123

UAE. See United Arab Emirates UAR. See United Arab Republic Udawatta, Nandana, 342–343 Uganda, 233 Uglev, Vladimir, 290–291 Ukraine, 76, 279–280, 288, 293–294, 434 Uludere, 429 UN. See United Nations United Arab Emirates (UAE), 102, 305, 309 United Arab Republic (UAR), 354, 376 United Front Department (Taiwan) United Kingdom, 7, 18–19, 25, 31, 37, 40, 43–44, 73, 76, 116, 129, 140, 144, 154, 161, 163, 191, 197–198, 243–246, 250, 284, 286, 290, 297, 300–303, 308, 310, 367–368, 421–423, 430, 444, 447–448, 455, 464–465 United Nations (UN), 17, 19, 29, 39, 45–46, 68, 108, 164, 185, 191–192, 208, 230, 233, 259–261, 273, 309, 368, 380, 401, 407, 414, 436, 456 U Nu, 198, 200, 202 United States of America, 1, 5–6, 8, 14, 18– 19, 28, 43–44, 53, 57, 60, 67–68, 73–74, 80, 86, 96, 101–105, 108, 113–114, 121– 123, 125–126, 133, 138, 140, 143–145, 147, 150, 152–156, 160–161, 163, 165, 174, 182, 185, 191, 200, 207, 215, 217– 218, 220, 233–234, 236, 246, 248, 250, 253, 263, 266, 272, 279, 282, 286–287, 290, 293, 296–297, 299, 301–311, 316, 321, 323, 332, 356, 374–375, 380–381, 383–384, 389, 395, 403, 413–414, 416,

504 Index 420, 423, 430, 436–437, 443–445–448, 453–456, 466, 468–469 Ural, 182 Urumiyeh, 108 Urumqi, 108 USSR. See Soviet Union Utembayev, Erzhan, 188 Uyghurs, 55, 403 Uzbekistan, 423 Uzel Balkhash, 193 Vakhdat, 410 Vanni, 339, 344 Vanunu, Mordechai, 139, 141 Vatican, 56 Vavuniya, 339, 343–344 Velayati, Ali Akbar, 109 Venezuela, 101 Vienna, 189–190 Vietnam, 187, 232, 323, 394, 465 Vietnam War, 290 Vladimir, 295

Wahidi, Ahmad, 100 Walker, John A., 287, 289 Warsaw Pact, 224–225, 448. See also Eastern Bloc Washington D.C., 144, 265, 290 Watanyar, Aslam, 13 Weber, Max, 94, 99, 109, 462 Welioya, 343 West Asia, 11 West Bank, 103, 134, 163, 166, 257–262, 264, 266–267, 274–275 West Bengal, 42 White Russian Army, 285, 289, 411 Wickremesinghe, Ranil, 339 Wilson, Charlie, 305 Witte, Sergei, 285 Wong Yen-ching, 391 Won Sei-hoon, 318, 326 World Bank, 29, 250, 316, 419 World Food Programme, 230 World Trade Organization (WTO), 29, 164 World War I, 6, 178, 280, 301, 422 World War II, 15, 52, 149, 154–155, 198, 201, 280, 286, 289, 295, 422, 465 WTO. See World Trade Organization

Wuhan, 391 Wu-Tai Chin, Larry, 53

Xi’an, 382 Xi Jinping, 58, 66, 68–69, 109, 382, 415 Xinjiang, 56, 108, 182, 403

Ya’ari, Haim, 137 Ya’ari, Meir, 132 Yan’an, 52 Yan Baohang, 52 Yang Hucheng, 382 Yang Qiging, 60 Yariv, Aharon, 142 Yarovaya, Irina, 292, 294 Yasenovo, 288 Yassin, Ahmed, 136 Yatimov, Saimumin, 408 Yatom, Danny, 146 Yazdi, Mohammad, 96 Ye Jianying, 66 Ye Xuanning, 66 Yellow Sea, 315 Yeltsin, Boris, 179, 187, 280, 287–288, 291, 296 Yemen, 2, 4, 45, 106, 132, 165, 302–304, 310, 374, 443–460, 465 Yermekbayev, Nurlan, 187–188 Yezhov, Nikolai, 285–286 Yijiangshan Islands, 380 Yom Kippur War, 130, 142 Yoo Woo-sung (Yu U-seong), 329 Yun I-sang, 323 Yu Qiansheng, 53 Yu U-seong. See Yoo Woo-sung Yu Youren, 52

Zahir Shah, 12 Zaitoun, Mohammed Dib, 363 Zargos Mountains, 93 Zhanaozen, 190–191 Zhang Xueliang, 382 Zhankuliyev, Amanzhol, 185 Zhasuzakov, Saken, 188 Zhou Enlai, 52, 57–58 Zia, Khaleda, 26–28, 33 Zia-ul-Haqu, 254 Zimbabwe, 233

About the Book

How are intelligence systems structured in countries across Asia and the Middle East—from Russia to India, from Turkey to China and Japan, from Kazakhstan to Saudi Arabia? In what ways did decolonization and the Cold War influence their organization? What is their mission, and to what extent do they come under public scrutiny? The authors of this comprehensive reference delve into these questions, and more, to provide a unique, systematic survey of intelligence practices and cultures in twenty-three countries.

Bob de Graaff is professor of intelligence and security studies at the University of Utrecht.

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