New in SpyWeek: That CIA Mystery Plane, the Iran Threat to Kill Trump, Israeli and Russian Intrigue, and More
Also: Trump's Iran back channel, another Kremlin fall guy, Vienna's old timey espionage theater, Intelligence gaps in Kabul's fall, Cyber citizens aid US water defenses
Israeli Plane Trick? It was a report from Israeli intelligence that prompted the Secret Service to persuade President Trump to ditch his tricked out Qatari-gifted 747 for the regular Air Force One and then secretly abandon that for yet another jet in Turkey, leaving Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, other White House staffers and the press corps to fly home on what became a decoy plane. But as it turned out, the CIA had “low confidence’ in the Iranian threat before Trump switched planes in Turkey, according to The Washington Post, which quoted a source saying that the warning fitted “a broader pattern of Israeli intelligence reporting that some officials see as designed as much to shape presidential decision-making as to inform it.”
Trump’s IRGC Back Channel: Since U.S. and Israeli warplanes targeted Iran’s civilian leadership for assassination in the opening days of the now six-month long war, the Trump administration has struggled to find somebody to talk to in Tehran. So they looked around and settled on Nechirvan Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan region in Iraq, “who had something very few others do: the trust of both U.S. and IRGC leaders,” reports Trump telegrapher Barak Ravid at Axios.
Iran’s Secret Plan to Escalate the War: “Arab intelligence officials have picked up evidence—including communications between Iran and militia allies in countries such as Yemen and Iraq—of a strategic shift inside the country’s hard-line leadership to get their forces ready to widen the war and raise the costs for the U.S., officials familiar with the findings say. Alarming weaker Gulf countries like Kuwait, Iran’s leaders are increasingly talking about offensive operations on enemy territory.” (WSJ)
Disinfo on Iran Nuclear? An anonymous post on X in India in early August claiming Iran had gone nuclear and quoting its IRGC commander saying “his country would never give up its nuclear weapon ambitions as long as Israel and the United States possessed those weapons,” got traction in Washington—no matter that it was palpably untrue, reported the New York Times on Sunday.
