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.
The phony post was first boosted by Israeli social media, then PM Benjamin Netanyahu, then by Israeli TV, after which “Mike Waltz, the Trump administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, reposted the quotation, as did Senator Rick Scott of Florida, a Republican,” the Times said. “Fox News also reported the claim, as anchors and guests cited it as evidence of Iran’s duplicity.” Coincidentally, former U.S. Marine Corps Captain Haley Fuller went deep on cognitive warfare of all kinds at Military.com, but noted, “Recent reporting and disclosure filings illustrate how Israeli-linked information efforts—including paying undeclared influencers—”have combined overt messaging with targeted digital persuasion.”
Iran in U.S. Water: With U.S. cyber defenses weakened by DOGE cuts and political witch hunts, Trump administration security agencies have struggled to positively identify the exact responsibility for the foreign infiltration of American water control systems, mostly in the American heartland—although an official Iranian role is strongly suspected. Now citizen cyber-sleuths have stepped forward, with “a program to help small, vulnerable water utilities across the country combat similar attacks,” reports the Independent. “Cybersecurity experts told The Independent last week that the new wave of attacks could open a new, asymmetrical front in the U.S. war with Iran that cash-strapped and under-resourced public utilities are not prepared to face.”
CIA Mystery Plane: U.S. air attacks on fishing boats near the Galapagos Islands were aided by “a high-end business jet equipped with specialized surveillance technology,” The Washington Post reported. “In each of the incidents,” the plane ”flew from El Salvador in the direction of the fishing vessels on the days of the strikes and in the days prior, according to flight- and ship-tracking data. Details about the plane, and the pattern of its flights before the incidents, suggest that it may be linked to the secret CIA program” assisting the Trump administration’s kinetic anti-narcotics tactics in the Pacific. Survivors said that “small quadcopter drones either dropped munitions on the vessels or detonated by crashing into them. The men said they were then taken aboard a nearby ship, hooded and cuffed by armed men, and transported to El Salvador—only to be returned later without explanation to Ecuador.” Independent journalist Seth Hettena linked the plane to River City Companies LLC, a company whose “principal office is listed as a UPS Store in Henrico, Virginia, a Richmond suburb.”
Russian Plot to Kill U.S. Citizen: Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Thursday his security services disrupted an “unprecedented” Russian plot to kill a Ukrainian-American citizen in the country. The suspected assassin was arrested Aug. 7, Tusk said, without naming him/her or the intended victim. “The operation to disrupt the plot was carried out in cooperation with U.S. services, said Tomasz Siemoniak, Poland’s minister overseeing intelligence services. He said the targeted victim was a U.S. citizen ‘of Ukrainian origin.’” (CBS) (AP)
Was He Really a Russian Spy? Fascinating, convoluted true spy story by veteran foreign correspondent Shaun Walker centered on Igor Rogov, a 27-year-old Russian exile in Poland whose “whole career as an anti-Kremlin activist might have been a cover story for his FSB work.” (Guardian.)
Fall Guys: On Thursday former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov “died after falling from a window at the age of 73,” a fate common among high ranking officials and oligarchs who fall out of favor (sorry) with the Kremlin. Ukrainian military veteran Mykhailo Rohoza reported on X: “Once considered one of Vladimir Putin‘s closest allies and even a potential successor, Ivanov held several of Russia’s most powerful positions, including Defense Minister, Security Council Secretary, and Kremlin Chief of Staff. The Kremlin confirmed his death.”
Like Old Times in Vienna: “Austria’s Defence Ministry has urgently asked all soldiers whether they recognise or were contacted by 21 people suspected of being Russian intelligence officers under diplomatic cover in Vienna,” Kremlin watcher Anton Shekhovtsov reported on X. “It fears the operatives (linked to the GRU, SVR and FSB) targeted military staff to extract information.” Cue The Third Man zithers.
Like Old Times in Korea: South Korean intelligence has an old-timey so-called numbers station to communicate with its secret agents in the north. It opens with KPop tunes. You can listen to a sample here. Meanwhile, South Korean police accused two ex-Chinese military men of espionage activities near U.S. bases in the country. “In one case, a man is accused of intercepting flight communications near an airbase where U.S. fighter jets are based, while in the other, information about military drills between U.S. and South Korean forces was allegedly obtained. (CNN)
Putin Testing NATO Defenses: NATO warplanes downed yet another Russian drone, this one over Romania. The incursions into NATO airspace “have become a near-weekly occurrence this summer,” said the Wall Street Journal. “Many are believed to result from Russian or Ukrainian electronic-warfare systems interfering with drone navigation equipment, but some are also suspected of being Russian attempts to probe NATO air defenses.”
Me ‘n’ the Jackal: Veteran Washington Post national security investigative reporter Joby Warrick on Thursday recounted his prison visit last year with the infamous terrorist Carlos the Jackal (real name, Ilich Ramírez Sánchez). “His audacious and brutal hostage-taking at OPEC headquarters ushered in a new form of terrorism,” the headline noted. “Fifty years later, what has he — and the world — learned?” Warrick’s feature piece was an excerpt from his new book, The Jackal: The Rise and Fall of Carlos, the World’s First Super-Terrorist. He’ll be the SpyTalk podcast’s featured guest later this week.
Kabul Chaos Remembered: Aug. 30 will mark the fifth anniversary of the calamitous end to America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan. In the confidential oral histories of the disastrous decisions by senior leaders over the decades, obtained by The Washington Post’s Craig Whitlock, one thread stood out: Washington never understood the country, its people, and its enemies—a blind ignorance fueled by faulty, or nonexistent, intelligence. As early as September 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld complained to an aide, “I have no visibility into who the bad guys are in Afghanistan or Iraq. I read all the Intel from the community and it sounds as though we know a great deal, but in fact, when you push at it, you find out we haven’t got anything that is actionable. We are woefully deficient in human intelligence.” See Whitlock’s monumental The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War, for more insight and teachable lessons.
Legal Spies or Provocateurs?: A federal indictment unsealed Wednesday accuses the Southern Poverty Law Center, a longtime civil rights group, of criminally paying undercover agents inside the KKK and the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement. Prosecutors also allege that former SPLC Director Heidi Beirich “was romantically involved with an informant who was receiving payments,” according to The Washington Post. Her lawyer called the case an effort to “silence political opponents.”
The Presidential disappearing act would have been more dramatic had they used a septic pumper truck.