Russia says it caught ‘CIA spy’ red handed

Updated 15 May 2013
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Russia says it caught ‘CIA spy’ red handed

MOSCOW: Russia yesterday said it had detained an alleged American CIA agent working undercover at the US Embassy who was discovered with a large stash of money as he was trying to recruit a Russian intelligence officer.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB, ex-KGB) identified the man as Ryan C. Fogle — third secretary of the political section of Washington’s embassy in Moscow — and said he had been handed back to the embassy after his detention.
In the latest espionage scandal that risks rocking US-Russia relations at a sensitive time, the Russian foreign ministry said it was summoning US ambassador Michael McFaul on Wednesday to provide an explanation.
Photographs published by state English language television RT showed Fogle being held to the ground face down and having his hands put behind his back for the arrest.
He was then shown being questioned at the Federal Security Service while documents such as his passport and a stack of 500 euro notes along with some letters were displayed.
Pictures were also shown of his alleged espionage equipment including wigs, a compass, torch and even a mundane atlas of Moscow as well as a somewhat old-fashioned mobile phone.
The FSB said in statement carried by Russian news agencies that Fogle was carrying “special technical equipment, written instructions for recruiting a Russian citizen, a large sum of money and means for changing a person’s appearance.”
The statement added that “recently, the US intelligence service has made repeated attempts to recruit the staff of Russian law enforcement agencies and special services, which were detected and carried out under control of the Russian FSB counter-intelligence service.”
The Russian news agency reports said the suspected agent had been caught red-handed trying to recruit an employee of one of the Russian security services. It is not clear what will now happen to Fogle but normal practice in Russia would be for him to be declared persona non grata and ordered to leave within 48 hours or less.
The incident comes amid a new chill in Russian-US relations sparked by the Syrian crisis and concern in Washington over what it sees as President Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on human rights. The last major spy row between the two former Cold War rivals involved the glamourous Anna Chapman and 10 other Russian spies arrested in the US in 2010.
The spy scandal — which ended with a swap of the 10 sleepers and four Russians convicted of spying for the West — was a huge embarrassment for Russia’s foreign intelligence at the time.
Several of the spies were portrayed by the press as bumbling amateurs who had accomplished little through careers that in some cases stretched back to the Soviet era.
On Tuesday, the FSB and Russia’s tightly-controlled state media appeared intent on showing to the public that the man it had caught was a real agent who posed a danger to Russia’s interests.
The photos published by RT also showed a document entitled “printed instructions for the Russian citizen being recruited”. Parts of the recruiting document allegedly used by Fogle read: “Dear Friend. This is an advance from somebody who is impressed with your professionalism, and who would value highly your future cooperation with us.”
The document added that the US government was willing to pay $ 100,000 outright. “Payment can be much higher if you are ready to answer specific questions,” it added. “Besides, we offer up to $ 1 million per year for long-term cooperation, with a promise for an additional bonus for information that will help us.” McFaul — who was doing a question-and-answer session with Russians on his Twitter account at the time the news broke — tweeted “No” when asked if he could comment on the incident.


North Korean foreign minister arrives in Moscow for talks

Updated 9 sec ago
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North Korean foreign minister arrives in Moscow for talks

  • The visit comes after Pyongyang tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile this week
  • Washington says there are 10,000 North Korean troops in Russia
MOSCOW: North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui has arrived in Moscow and will hold strategic consultations with her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the ministry, in a post on her official Telegram channel, published photographs of Lavrov meeting Choe at a Moscow train station.
“Today, talks between the heads of Russia and the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) will be held in Moscow. Sergei Lavrov greeted his counterpart with a bouquet of flowers,” said Zakharova.
“The meeting began at the Yaroslavsky railway station (in Moscow), where a memorial plaque was unveiled to mark the occasion of Kim Il Sung’s 1949 visit to the USSR,” she said, referring to the founder of the DPRK.
The visit, Choe’s second in six weeks, comes after Pyongyang tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile this week and as Washington says there are 10,000 North Korean troops in Russia, including as many as 8,000 deployed in Russia’s Kursk region where Ukrainian troops have dug in.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday that the United States expected the North Korean troops in Kursk region to enter the fight against Ukraine in the coming days.
Moscow has neither denied nor directly confirmed the presence of North Korean troops on its soil. President Vladimir Putin has said it is for Russia to decide how to implement a treaty he signed with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June that includes a mutual defense clause.

Shootout in western France wounds five: minister

Updated 36 min 14 sec ago
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Shootout in western France wounds five: minister

  • 15-year-old boy is between life and death after the gunbattle erupted in front of a restaurant overnight
Paris: A drug trafficking-related shooting has left a teenager and four others seriously wounded in the western French city of Poitiers, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said Friday.
The 15-year-old boy is between life and death after the gunbattle erupted in front of a restaurant overnight, Retailleau told BFMTV/RMC radio.

Drone crashes on oil depot in Russia’s Stavropol region

Updated 01 November 2024
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Drone crashes on oil depot in Russia’s Stavropol region

  • There were no casualties in the incident at the Svetlograd oil depot, Vladimirov said on Telegram

MOSCOW: A drone fell on an oil depot in Russia’s southern Stavropol region, local governor Vladimir Vladimirov said on Friday.
It was the second suspected Ukrainian attack in consecutive days on Russian fuel and energy targets, following a lull of about seven weeks since a fuel facility in Tula was attacked on Sept. 10.
There were no casualties in the incident at the Svetlograd oil depot, Vladimirov said on Telegram.
Baza Telegram channel, which is close to Russia’s security services, posted a CCTV video purportedly showing the attack on the oil depot. The video showed that at least one of several fuel tanks was swiftly engulfed by a fireball.
On Thursday, several fuel and energy facilities were targeted in a Ukrainian drone attack on the central Russian region of Bashkortostan, home to Bashneft, a major oil company controlled by Russia’s leading oil producer, Rosneft .
Bashneft operates several refineries in the region, playing a significant role in Russia’s energy infrastructure.
The attacks come days after the Financial Times reported early-stage talks between Ukraine and Russia about potentially halting airstrikes on each other’s energy facilities. The Kremlin dismissed the report.
Russia has called such attacks terrorism, while Ukraine, which stepped up the drone strikes on Russian energy facilities since the start of the year, has said it is striking back in retaliation for attacks on its energy infrastructure.
Andrei Kartapolov, chairman of Russia’s lower house of parliament’s defense committee, said in comments to Life media channel earlier this week, that there were no talks on halting the attacks.
“We are not going to spare anyone,” he said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in September that Russia had knocked out the gigawatt equivalent of over half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The European Union aims to restore 2.5 GW of capacity, about 15 percent of the country’s needs, she said, referring to proposed EU-funded repairs.


Eight dead as huge fire engulfs cooking oil factory near Jakarta

Updated 01 November 2024
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Eight dead as huge fire engulfs cooking oil factory near Jakarta

  • The factory is operated by PT Primus Sanus Cooking Oil Industrial (Priscolin)

JAKARTA: Eight people died in a large fire at a cooking oil factory near the Indonesian capital Jakarta, local fire authorities said on Friday.
Around 20 firefighting trucks are at the site and have contained the blaze in most areas of the factory, authorities said.
Footage from Metro TV showed flames and billowing black smoke coming out of a building in the center of an industrial complex in Bekasi, a city on Jakarta’s eastern edge. The report said roads had been closed around the factory.
All of the bodies had been evacuated from the site, Suhartono, head of Bekasi’s fire department SAID, adding that three other people were injured.
But the number of casualties could still rise, he said.
Local authorities are investigating the cause of the fire.
The factory is operated by PT Primus Sanus Cooking Oil Industrial (Priscolin), said Suhartono.


Schoolgirls, policeman among five killed in roadside blast in Pakistan’s Balochistan

Updated 01 November 2024
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Schoolgirls, policeman among five killed in roadside blast in Pakistan’s Balochistan

QUETTA: At least five people, including three schoolgirls and a policeman, were killed in a roadside blast in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province on Friday morning, police said, in the latest incident of violence to hit the restive region.
The blast appeared to target a police van passing by a girls school in the Mastung district of the province, according to police and local administration officials.
Fateh Baloch, in-charge of the Mastung police station, said the police mobile van came under attack when it was on a routine patrol on Friday morning.
“Five people, including a police constable and three minor schoolgirls, were killed and 13 others injured in the blast,” Baloch told Arab News.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast.
“We have cordoned-off the area and are shifting the injured to the hospital,” Baz Muhammad Marri, the Mastung deputy commissioner, told Arab News.
Balochistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan and is home to major China-led projects such as a strategic port and a gold and copper mine, has been the site of a decades-long separatist insurgency by ethnic Baloch militants. The province has lately seen an increase in attacks by separatist militants.
On Tuesday, five people were killed in an attack by armed men on the construction site of a small dam in Balochistan’s Panjgur district. The outlawed Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the most prominent of several separatist groups, claimed responsibility for the attack along with killing of two other persons in Kech and Quetta districts.
This month, 21 miners working at privately run coal mines were killed in an attack by unidentified gunmen.
The separatists accuse the central government of exploiting Balochistan’s mineral and gas resources. The Pakistani state denies the allegation and says it is working to uplift the region through development initiatives.
Besides Baloch separatists, the restive region also has a presence of religiously motivated militant groups, who frequently target police and security forces.
Islamabad says militants mainly associated with the Pakistani Taliban frequently launch attacks from Afghanistan and has even blamed Kabul’s Afghan Taliban rulers for facilitating anti-Pakistan groups. Kabul denies the allegation.

- This article originally appeared on Arab News Pakistan