An intelligence agency is a government secret service that is devoted to collect information for national security and defence.
An intelligence agency is a government secret service that is devoted to collect information for national security and defence. Means of information gathering may include espionage, communication interception, cryptanalysis, cooperation with other institutions, and evaluation of public sources. Intelligence agencies can provide the following services to their national governments.
• provide analyses in areas relevant to national security;
• give early warning of impending crises;
• serve national and international crisis management by helping to detect the intentions of current or potential opponents;
• inform national defence planning and military operations;
• protect secrets, both of their own sources and activities, and those of other state agencies;
• they may act covertly to influence the outcome of events in favour of national interests, or influence international security;
• they are involved in defensive activities such as counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism.
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI - Pakistan)
Agency Overview
Formed: 1948
Headquarters: Islamabad, Pakistan
Agency executive: Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha
Role
Pakistan's directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, has been facing accusations of double-standards over its role in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Many observers find it hard to believe the organisation had no idea that Osama bin Laden had been hiding under the nose of the Pakistani Military, Kakul, until his death. As to the US Special Forces raid that killed the al-Qaeda leader, questions abound about what the ISI knew.
What is not in doubt however is that the agency is a central organ of Pakistan's military machine and has played a major, often dominant, role in the country's volatile politics. Much of the country's early history was shaped by politicians seeking regional autonomy and the central civilian and military bureaucracies trying to consolidate national unity. Pro-military writers often claim that it was a civilian prime minister namely Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who first allowed the creation of a political cell in the ISI that ultimately led the agency to get involved in national politics in all important matters, from buying the loyalties of politicians to influencing the results of the elections. The ISI not only mounted surveillance on parties and politicians, it often infiltrated, co-opted, cajoled or coerced them into supporting the army's centralising agenda. The Pakistani government has consistently rejected all the allegations against the ISI as negative propaganda by the US and its allies. It has also dismissed charges that the ISI is run as a state within a state and subverts elected governments.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA - America)
Agency Overview
Formed: September 18, 1947
Headquarters: Langley, Virginia, US
Agency executive: Leon Panetta, Director
Role
The CIA has been criticised for ineffectiveness in its basic mission of intelligence gathering. Assassina tion attempts and human rights violations tend to be carried out in operations that have little to do with intelligence gathering. The CIA had long been dealing with terrorism originating from abroad, and in 1986 had set up a Counterterrorist Centre to deal specifically with the problem. At first confronted with secular terrorism, the Agency found Islamist terrorism looming increasingly large on its scope. The CIA also channeled US aid to Afghan resistance fighters via Pakistan in a covert operation. After 9/11, the CIA came under criticism for not having done enough to prevent the attacks.
Whether or not the intelligence presented by the former Bush Administration justified the 2003 invasion of Iraq is quite controversial. However, many CIA employees asserted that the Bush administration officials placed undue pressure on CIA analysts to reach certain conclusions that would support their stated policy positions with regard to Iraq.
Mossad (Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations - Israel)
Agency Overview
Formed: December 13, 1949
Headquarters: Classified
Agency executive: Tamir Pardo
Role
Mossad's activity is diverse, and varies from silent operations like monitoring individuals and organisations, to manipulating journalists, politicians and organisations, to the kidnapping and killing of individuals. It is believed that Mossad has been one of the main providers of the intelligence on Iraq's alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) and nuclear programmes leading up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Mossad has been unusually crude in its work of defending Israeli and Jewish interests abroad, and have had some of the most hated system and state leaders as partners. In recent years, its prime focus has been to slow down or halt Iran's nuclear programme.
Mossad is said to have been involved in brutal killings of Palestinians and is held responsible for incidents of bloodshed in Gaza Strip. Palestinian Authority had also accused the Mossad of creating a fake al-Qaeda cell in Gaza Strip.
Secret Intelligence Service (MI 6 - UK)
Agency Overview
Formed: 1909 (Previously known as Secret Service Bureau)
Headquarters: Vauxhall Cross, London
Agency executive: Sir John Sawers, the Chief of SIS
Role
In the run up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, it is alleged that MI6 conducted Operation Mass Appeal which was a campaign to plant stories about Iraq's WMDs in the media. The operation was exposed in the Sunday Times in December 2003. Claims by former weapons inspector Scott Ritter suggest that similar propaganda campaigns against Iraq date back well into the 1990s. Ritter claims that MI6 recruited him in 1997 to help with the propaganda effort. "The aim was to convince the public that Iraq was a far greater threat than it actually was"—Scott Ritter, Sunday Times, December 28, 2003. During the global war on terror, MI6 accepted information from the CIA that was obtained through torture, including the extraordinary rendition programme.
Research and Analysis Wing (RAW – India)
Agency Overview
Formed: September 21, 1968
Headquarters: New Delhi, India
Agency executive: Sanjeev Tripathi
Role
Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) has always supported the dissent ethnic or sectarian groups inside Pakistan. It was actively involved in supporting Seraiki Movement in Punjab. According to the Jane Commission's report Indian Government has accepted its dirty role in destabilising the regional states to exert its influence on the region. India's support to Tibetans against China, playing deadly games in supporting Bengali movement Mukti Bahini in East Pakistan is another façade of RAW. It is evident from the past that India wants to engage its neighbours in turmoil and instability so it can easily exert its hegemony in South Asia. Although RAW's contribution to the War on Terror is highly classified, the organisation gained some attention in the Western media after its claims that it was assisting the United States by providing intelligence on Osama bin Laden and the Taliban's whereabouts. It appears that RAW and Mossad have been covertly making efforts to penetrate sensitive circles of top ranks in Pakistan. RAW is also said to have been involved in the insurgency in Balochistan by establishing dozens of consulates in Afghanistan along the border with Balochistan.
The CIA has been criticised for ineffectiveness in its basic mission of intelligence gathering. Assassination attempts and human rights violations tend to be carried out in operations that have little to do with intelligence gathering.
Ministry of State Security (MSS - China)
Agency Overview
Formed: 1983
Headquarters: Beijing
Agency executive: Geng Huichang, Minister of State Security
Role
In recent years, the Chinese government is thought to have played a key role in conducting espionage activities on several other nations and regions. There have been several incidents of suspected Chinese spies in France. Germany also suspects that China has stolen billions of Euros worth of business secrets and Chinese hackers have been suspected of using Trojan horse spyware on various government computers. In September 2010, the Russian Federal Security Service detained two scientists working at the Baltic State Technical University in Saint Petersburg. The two were charged with passing on classified information to China, possibly through the Harbin Engineering University.
UK officials, including experts at its MI5 intelligence agency, are fearful that China could shut down businesses in the nation with Chinese cyber attacks and spy equipment embedded in computer and telecommunications equipment. India has quietly informed companies to avoid using Chinese-made telecommunications equipment, fearing that it may have spy capabilities embedded within it. And, India's intelligence service, RAW believes that China is using dozens of study centres that it has set up in Nepal near the Indian border in part for the purposes of spying on India. China is suspected of having a long history of espionage in the United States against military and industrial secrets, often resorting to direct espionage, exploitation of commercial entities, and a network of scientific, academic, and business contacts. Several US citizens have been convicted for spying for China.
Directorate General for External Security (DGSE - France)
Agency Overview
Formed: April 2, 1982
Headquarters: Paris, France
Agency executive: Erard Corbin de Mangoux, Director
Role
DGSE operatives have been credited for infiltrating and exposing the inner workings of Afghan training camps during the 1990s. One of the spies employed by the agency later published a work under the pseudonym "Omar Nasiri", uncovering details of his life inside al-Qaeda. In a controversial article published by the Center for Research on Globalisation, Wayne Madsen claimed to have obtained a leaked DGSE report which stated that the CIA and Britain's MI6 maintained effective control of an important al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan as late as 1995.
In 2006, the French newspaper L'Est Républicain acquired an apparently leaked DGSE report to the French president Jacques Chirac claiming that Osama bin Laden had died in Pakistan on August 23, 2006, after contracting typhoid fever. The report had apparently been based on Saudi Arabian intelligence. These death allegations were thereafter denied by the French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy and Saudi authorities, as well as the CIA bin Laden specialist Michael Scheuer.
Agency Overview
Formed: 1983
Headquarters: Beijing
Agency executive: Geng Huichang, Minister of State Security
Role
In recent years, the Chinese government is thought to have played a key role in conducting espionage activities on several other nations and regions. There have been several incidents of suspected Chinese spies in France. Germany also suspects that China has stolen billions of Euros worth of business secrets and Chinese hackers have been suspected of using Trojan horse spyware on various government computers. In September 2010, the Russian Federal Security Service detained two scientists working at the Baltic State Technical University in Saint Petersburg. The two were charged with passing on classified information to China, possibly through the Harbin Engineering University.
UK officials, including experts at its MI5 intelligence agency, are fearful that China could shut down businesses in the nation with Chinese cyber attacks and spy equipment embedded in computer and telecommunications equipment. India has quietly informed companies to avoid using Chinese-made telecommunications equipment, fearing that it may have spy capabilities embedded within it. And, India's intelligence service, RAW believes that China is using dozens of study centres that it has set up in Nepal near the Indian border in part for the purposes of spying on India. China is suspected of having a long history of espionage in the United States against military and industrial secrets, often resorting to direct espionage, exploitation of commercial entities, and a network of scientific, academic, and business contacts. Several US citizens have been convicted for spying for China.
Directorate General for External Security (DGSE - France)
Agency Overview
Formed: April 2, 1982
Headquarters: Paris, France
Agency executive: Erard Corbin de Mangoux, Director
Role
DGSE operatives have been credited for infiltrating and exposing the inner workings of Afghan training camps during the 1990s. One of the spies employed by the agency later published a work under the pseudonym "Omar Nasiri", uncovering details of his life inside al-Qaeda. In a controversial article published by the Center for Research on Globalisation, Wayne Madsen claimed to have obtained a leaked DGSE report which stated that the CIA and Britain's MI6 maintained effective control of an important al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan as late as 1995.
In 2006, the French newspaper L'Est Républicain acquired an apparently leaked DGSE report to the French president Jacques Chirac claiming that Osama bin Laden had died in Pakistan on August 23, 2006, after contracting typhoid fever. The report had apparently been based on Saudi Arabian intelligence. These death allegations were thereafter denied by the French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy and Saudi authorities, as well as the CIA bin Laden specialist Michael Scheuer.
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