Exclusive: CIA Spies Caught, Fear Execution in Middle East

By artappraiser on Tue, 11/22/2011 - 2:40pm |

By Matthew Cole and Brian Ross, ABC News, Nov. 21, 2011

In a significant failure for the United States in the Mideast, more than a dozen spies working for the CIA in Iran and Lebanon have been caught and the U.S. government fears they will be or have been executed, according to four current and former U.S. officials with connections to the intelligence community.

[....]

Hezbollah then began to "roll up" much of the CIA's network against the terror group, the officials said. One former senior intelligence official told ABC News that CIA officers ignored warnings that the operation could be compromised by using the same location for meetings with multiple assets. "We were lazy and the CIA is now flying blind against Hezbollah," the former official said.

URL:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cia-spies-caught-fear-execution-middle-east/story?id=14994428

696 reads

Comments

Calling this story "Exclusive" is really stretching it:

Hezbollah unraveling CIA spy network in Lebanon
By Adam Goldman, Matt Apuzzo, Associated Press November 22, 2011

Washington --Hezbollah has partially unraveled the CIA's spy network in Lebanon, severely damaging the intelligence agency's ability to gather vital information on the terrorist organization at a tense time in the region, former and current U.S. officials said.....

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/21/MNBV1M26P7.D...

CIA forced to curb spying in Lebanon
The agency's crucial post in Beirut is affected after the arrest of several informants this year, sources say.
By Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 20, 2011, 10:27 p.m.

Reporting from Washington—The CIA was forced to curtail its spying in Lebanon, where U.S. operatives and their agents collect crucial intelligence on Syria, terrorist groups and other targets, after the arrests of several CIA informants in Beirut this year, according to U.S. officials and other sources.

"Beirut station is out of business," a source said, using the CIA term for its post there. The same source, who declined to be identified while speaking about a classified matter, alleged that up to a dozen CIA informants have been compromised, but U.S. officials disputed that figure.....

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-cia-spy-20111121,0,868084.story

by artappraiser on Tue, 11/22/2011 - 4:35pm

More reporting on the same story.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/11/pizza-cia/

by A Guy Called LULU on Tue, 11/22/2011 - 4:47pm

Exclusive: CIA Spies Caught, Fear Execution in Middle East

Comments

Sections

Bloggers