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| Europe |
| Italians were in on plan to grab Milan imam |
| 2005-06-30 |
| Before a CIA paramilitary team was deployed to snatch a radical Islamic cleric off the streets of Milan in February 2003, the CIA station chief in Rome briefed and sought approval from his counterpart in Italy, according to three CIA veterans with knowledge of the operation and a fourth who reviewed the matter after it took place. The previously undisclosed Italian involvement undercuts the accusation, which has fueled public resentment in Italy toward the United States, that the CIA brashly slipped into the country unannounced and uninvited to kidnap an Italian resident off the street. In fact, former and current CIA officials said, both the CIA and the Italian service agreed beforehand that if the unusual operation was to become public, as it has, neither side would confirm its involvement, a standard agreement the CIA makes with foreign intelligence services over covert operations. Last Thursday, an Italian magistrate issued arrest warrants for 13 U.S. intelligence operatives. The warrants charged that they kidnapped a suspected terrorist, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr -- also known as Abu Omar -- held him hostage at two U.S. military bases and then flew him to Cairo, where he alleged to his wife in a phone call that he was tortured under interrogation. The CIA "told a tiny number of people" about the action, said one intelligence veteran in the management chain of the operation when it took place. "Certainly not the magistrate, not the Milan police." It is unclear how high in the Italian intelligence service the information was shared or whether the office of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was aware. It was not shared with the magistrate issuing the warrants, who works independently from the national government. The Italian court case offers an accidental glimpse into how U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies coordinate and communicate on sensitive counterterrorism matters in ways that are expressly kept secret, even from other parts of their governments. This bifurcation between stated policies and secret practices has become more common since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, as the CIA has sought cooperation from other governments to covertly apprehend and transport suspected terrorists to undisclosed locations without legal hearings. The CIA has conducted more than 100 of these apprehensions, known as extraordinary rendition, since Sept. 11, according to knowledgeable intelligence officials. In Italy, the justice department and public have been demanding answers from the United States and their own government since Nasr disappeared as he was walking to a mosque on Feb. 17, 2003. And justice departments and government investigators in other countries have begun to unearth information about their governments' roles in apprehensions once thought to be the work of the CIA alone. In Sweden, an inquiry discovered that Swedish ministers had agreed to apprehend and expel two Egyptian terrorism suspects in 2002 but called the CIA for help in flying them out of the country when they could not charter a flight quickly to take the suspects to Egypt. A former CIA official said the covert operation was exposed after the CIA paramilitaries drew attention to it by arriving commando-style, in semi-opaque masks, and "went through the standard drill as if they were arresting Khalid Sheik Mohammed," the architect of the Sept. 11 attacks. In Canada, a government inquiry has revealed a greater role by Canadian intelligence in the Justice Department's secret 2002 "expedited removal" of a Syrian-born Canadian citizen to Syria after he was detained as he changed flights at a New York airport. The CIA and a spokesman for the Italian Embassy in Washington yesterday declined to comment on the Milan case or this article. Officials involved in the Milan operation at the time said it was conceived by the Rome CIA station chief, organized by the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, and approved by the CIA leadership and by at least one person at the National Security Council. The station chief has since retired but remains undercover. The Italian operation was highly unusual even in the context of 100 renditions. In most, if not all, other post-Sept. 11 renditions, the security service of the foreign country has apprehended the suspect, then transferred him into CIA custody. In the Italian case, operatives from the CIA's paramilitary branch, the Special Activities Division, were dispatched, making the risk of disclosure much higher. Two of the CIA veterans said the operatives became directly involved because, by 2003, counterterrorism operations had become the main thing the agency's leadership and the White House cared about. "Everyone wanted into the game," a CIA officer said. "The CIA chief in Italy wanted to have a notch in his belt." Current and former CIA officials offered conflicting accounts of whether anyone outside the Rome station chief's counterpart at Sismi, as Italy's military intelligence unit is known, was informed. One U.S. government official involved with the operation said the Italians approved it "at the national level, among senior people." But another CIA officer who reviewed the operation after it took place said it was highly unusual because "it should have been the head of service to the head of service" -- meaning then-CIA Director George J. Tenet speaking directly to his counterpart, Gen. Nicolo Pollari. "There's none of that . . . this is pretty abnormal." Sometime after his apprehension on the night of Feb. 17, 2003, Nasr was secretly transported to Egypt, where he was detained on terrorism-related charges. When Egyptian authorities released him and placed him under house arrest, he called his wife in Italy, asserting that he had been tortured and describing his abduction. Nasr's whereabouts are unknown. People familiar with the case believe he is likely back in custody. According to court records, the CIA operatives left paper and electronic trails that allowed Italian prosecutors and police to track their movements and associations as if they were pursuing an organized crime network, and to identify at least one CIA officer, the base chief in Milan, by his real name. The chief left the country shortly after the operation was discovered, according to several CIA veterans. The paramilitary team and other CIA operatives who participated are also long gone, and it is highly unlikely the U.S. government would confirm their identities or extradite them for trial. "They just won't be able to go back to Europe," quipped one CIA veteran. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #10 I think that the charges by the magistrate are coming from the Italian resentment to our accidently whacking the Italian agent in the recent hostage rescue. My guess would be that the hope was to demonstrate that the CIA did cowboy type moves as well. Releaseing the fact that the Italian governement had knowledge of the raid undercuts that argument but may end up damaging Berlusconi. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2005-06-30 20:45 |
| #9 Forget grabbing them, capture one and force him to wear a suicide bomb belt for fear his family will be killed and buried with pig guts. Have him get close to the target and boom. Start using a few of their own tactics but don't take credit for it. Ah, make sure Hezbollah gets credit. Forement confusion, distrust, and hatred amung our enemies. Silence those who are preaching Jihad and recruiting for our enemies. And kill a few in the process. |
| Posted by: Black Bart 2005-06-30 18:27 |
| #8 Not notifying the gov't in charge of your special ops plans is a good way to get your special agents dead. Just ask Nicola Calipari. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-06-30 16:32 |
| #7 The Italian "government" is glad to see this POS gone off their streets. It's some Commie terrorist loving "magistrate" sturing up trouble. The Italian government is only reacting the way it must. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet 0’ Doom 2005-06-30 16:27 |
| #6 This Mojo sounds like a lamplighter |
| Posted by: G Smiley 2005-06-30 16:19 |
| #5 Because it ain't polite, BAR. You notify the home team and seek an ok first. If that's denied, you consider how badly you want the guy, and whether he's worth the potential shitstorm. And how likely the home team might be to rat you out. |
| Posted by: mojo 2005-06-30 14:59 |
| #4 Before a CIA paramilitary team was deployed to snatch a radical Islamic cleric off the streets of Milan in February 2003, the CIA station chief in Rome briefed and sought approval from his counterpart in Italy, according to three CIA veterans with knowledge of the operation and a fourth who reviewed the matter after it took place. The previously undisclosed Italian involvement undercuts the accusation, which has fueled public resentment in Italy toward the United States, that the CIA brashly slipped into the country unannounced and uninvited to kidnap an Italian resident off the street. If the guy was indeed a radical Islamic cleric (having a history of spouting off anti-American and anti-Western b/s), why get all upset about him being spirited away? At least the troublemaker is off your soil. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2005-06-30 13:46 |
| #3 Lh - "the CIA (old line) is using WaPo for defense" -- well that certainly rings true. You're probably right - I just find myself amazed that any CIA team from any time period would have been this klutzy. Yeah, they pulled off the grab, but the rest is just startling in its amateurism. Sigh. Hurry Goss, hurry. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-06-30 10:38 |
| #2 nah, dot com. Look at who printed the above leak - the WaPo. They dont usually print leaks that defend the Admin, let alone on page 1, which i think this was. No, sounds to me more like the issue here is that it was NOT bush under attack, but the CIA, and the CIA (old line) is using WaPo for defense. Where the leak to the magistrate happened I dont know, but Id suspect on the Italian side. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2005-06-30 10:10 |
| #1 Does anyone else get that funny feeling that this might have been intentionally bungled by some of those CIA types that Goss is trying to root out - to try to embarrass the US? Just wondering. The thing stinks. Something's not right about this whole fumblimg kluzty mess. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-06-30 09:54 |