Anonymous ID: 36b95f May 12, 2019, 7:36 p.m. No.6484530   🗄️.is 🔗kun

CIA Briefed Colleagues Of Khashoggi That Saudis Are Now Targeting Them

 

According to a 2015 directive issued by the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA has a legal "duty to warn" potential victims of threats such as murder, kidnapping or serious bodily harm. And now it appears the CIA has tipped off at least three individuals who were close to Khashoggi and who have since been fierce critics of crown prince Mohammed bin-Salman (MbS). A report issued Thursday in Time detailed that the CIA made the three former Khashoggi colleagues aware of ongoing threats by Saudi security services to them and their families, though the exact nature of the threats were not revealed. Since the report, at least one of those named have confirmed they were visited by western intelligence services.

 

Time identified those who face "potential retaliation by Saudi Arabia" as follows: Three of those who were given security briefings in recent weeks––democracy advocates Iyad El-Baghdadi of Oslo, Norway; Omar Abdulaziz of Montreal, Canada; and a person in the U.S. who asked not to be named––were working closely with Khashoggi on politically sensitive media and human rights projects at the time of his killing inside a Saudi diplomatic facility in Turkey last October. The report said further the activists and journalists had emerged as fierce critics of MbS, and some of them are known as prominent voices in Arabic media, including the Palestinian-born Iyad El-Baghdadi. The Time report continued: Based on the security briefings, the advocates say they have been targeted because they have become especially vocal and influential critics of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, accusing him of ordering Khashoggi’s murder as part of a broader crackdown on Saudi dissidents worldwide.

 

In the months following the October 2018 killing, the US and Canada had levied sanctions against a 17 Saudis suspected of participating or orchestrating Khashoggi's murder, and a handful of countries declared said they wouldn't sell arms to Saudi Arabia. And in late November of last year, somebody inside the CIA leaked a preliminary report to the Washington Post detailing the agency's determination that MbS had ordered the killing. And yet the absurd irony is that the CIA and United States government continue to coordinate closely with Saudi Arabia and its intelligence services - as they've done for decades spanning multiple administrations. So the CIA is essentially warning citizens they are under threat by their own allied partner security services.

 

The Times report gave more details, including voluntary travel restrictions for increased safety from Saudi operatives, as follows: he nature of the new threat was not specified. Neither Baghdadi nor Abdulaziz were told that they or their families were in physical danger, either now or in the future, according to people familiar with briefings. But Baghdadi said he was instructed to take a wide range of precautions, including preventive measures to make it harder to hack their electronic devices in order to leak and weaponize the information against them. That tactic was used by Saudi Arabia against Abdulaziz, who is suing an Israeli security company, NSO Group, for selling Saudi Arabia the malware that compromised his cell phone, a breach documented by the University of Toronto watchdog Citizenlab.

 

The CIA briefings, which were further conducted with at least one unnamed individual who resides in the US, involved going to secure locations for multiple hour briefings: Agents from the Norwegian Police Security Service, or PST, first approached Baghdadi on April 25 at his home and took him to a secure location for a two-hour briefing, Baghdadi says. That warning, first reported by the Guardian, came about the same time as the warnings to Abdulaziz and the U.S.-based advocate, which have not been previously reported. Baghdadi believes the PST would not have taken such lengths unless its partner agency, the CIA, was behind the original tip off. “But my entire conversation with the PST from beginning to end was about the Saudis. And from the initial moment on, the fact the Norwegians have taken it so seriously is that it was the CIA,” the journalist explained.

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-11/cia-has-warned-khashoggi-colleagues-saudis-targeting-them

Anonymous ID: 36b95f May 12, 2019, 7:59 p.m. No.6484805   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4830 >>4831 >>4834 >>4874 >>4913 >>4940 >>4947 >>4990

Iran commander calls U.S. military in Gulf a target not a threat -ISNA

 

GENEVA, May 12 (Reuters) - A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander said on Sunday the U.S. military presence in the Gulf used to be a serious threat but now represents a target, the Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) reported. The U.S. military has sent forces, including an aircraft carrier and B-52 bombers, to the Middle East in a move that U.S. officials said was made to counter "clear indications" of threats from Iran to American forces in the region. The USS Abraham Lincoln is replacing another carrier rotated out of the Gulf last month. "An aircraft carrier that has at least 40 to 50 planes on it and 6,000 forces gathered within it was a serious threat for us in the past but now it is a target and the threats have switched to opportunities," said Amirali Hajizadeh, head of the Guards' aerospace division. "If (the Americans) make a move, we will hit them in the head," he added, according to ISNA.

 

U.S. President Donald Trump also has increased economic pressure on Iran, moving to cut off all its oil exports, to try to get Tehran to curb its nuclear and missile programs as well as end support for proxies in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. Speaking to CNBC in an interview to be broadcast on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. deployments came in response to intelligence about potential Iranian attacks and aimed both to deter them and to be able to respond if necessary. "We've seen this reporting," Pompeo said. "It's real. It appears to be something that is current, that is things we're worried about today." "In the event that Iran decided to come after an American interest - whether that be in Iraq or Afghanistan or Yemen or any place in the Middle East - we are prepared to respond in an appropriate way," he said, adding that "our aim is not war."

 

Iranian navy commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi said on Sunday that American forces must exit, according to ISNA. "The presence of the Americans in the Persian Gulf region has reached its end and they must leave the region," Khanzadi said. Major General Hossein Salami, appointed head of the Guards last month, told parliament on Sunday the United States had started a psychological war in the region, the parliamentary spokesman said. "Commander Salami, with attention to the situation in the region, presented an analysis that the Americans have started a psychological war because the comings and goings of their military is a normal matter," spokesman Behrouz Nemati said, according to parliament's ICANA news site.

 

http://news.trust.org/item/20190512203243-xaijb

Anonymous ID: 36b95f May 12, 2019, 8:04 p.m. No.6484867   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>4917 >>4932 >>4940 >>4990

Ecuador to Provide US With Assange's Documents, His Personal Devices - Reports

 

MADRID (Sputnik) - The Ecuadorian government will pass to Washington documents of WikiLeaks founder Assange that are currently kept in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where Assange was residing from 2012 and until his arrest in April, according to El Pais newspaper. Ecuador will also provide Washington with Assange's mobile phones, computers, memory cards and other data storage devices following a search in the room where he used to reside, Spanish media reported on Sunday, citing an official notice for Assange's lawyer. The search is expected to take place on 20 May.

 

It was the Office of Attorney General of Ecuador that briefed Assange's Ecuadorian lawyer Carlos Poveda on the decision to pass to the US Assange's belongings. This comes after Assange was arrested in the UK capital on 11 April, after Ecuador revoked his asylum status. He was then sentenced to 50 weeks in jail for jumping his bail back in 2012, when he took refuge inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden over a sexual assault investigation that has since been dropped. The United States is seeking Assange's extradition on charges of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion.

 

The United States has to provide London with all necessary documents for Assange's extradition until 12 June. Assange's lawyers and supporters fear that he could be charged under the Espionage Act in the United States and face death penalty.

 

https://sputniknews.com/world/201905121074944323-ecuador-assange-us/

Anonymous ID: 36b95f May 12, 2019, 8:17 p.m. No.6485001   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Louie Gohmert: ‘This Came Very Close to Being the First Successful Coup’ in U.S. History

 

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) warned that America “came very close” to suffering its “first successful coup,” describing Robert Mueller’s operation — marketed as an “investigation” by authorities — as an attempt to usurp a duly elected president. He offered his remarks in a Friday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

 

Gohmert said, “It’s time for Republicans to say, ‘Enough already. You have put this country through hell. You have let these ridiculous allegations that we now see are totally bogus get you the majority in the House.’ But if the American people will wake up, and I hope that they will, I think that they are, it seems like things are indicating that, then it’s time for anybody with an R or D beside their names that’s going to preserve the Constitution — make no mistake, we are in a constitutional crisis — to stand up and say, ‘Enough already.'” Gohmert added, “This came very close to being the first successful coup since our Constitution went into effect in 1789. We are not having it, and we’re going to put people in jail that were part of this. That’s got to happen.”

 

https://www.breitbart.com/radio/2019/05/12/louie-gohmert-came-very-close-first-successful-coup-u-s-history/