The ministry’s department head of ideological work Alexander Ivanov shared his suspicions on the national talk show, Po Suschestvu, during a discussion about potential targets for spies.

“Where do you think there were the most Pokémon at that time?” he asked before stating that the bulk of virtual Pokémon were present at the “territory of the 50th air base, where the runway is, where there is a lot of military aviation equipment.”

Pokémon GO relies on GPS tracking as it invites users to turn on location and use their phone camera to search their physical surroundings and collect virtual pocket monsters.

The mobile game was developed as a collaboration among Niantic Inc., Nintendo, and The Pokémon Company.

Privacy Concerns

Since the game’s release in 2016, several governments and individuals have been wary of the game’s data-gathering capabilities.

It requires uninterrupted use of user location and camera and “full access” to Google accounts on Apple devices, which garnered multiple data privacy concerns.

At the height of the game’s popularity, Indonesian State Intelligence Agency director Sutiyoso commented that the location-based mobile game poses national security risks, although security experts and analysts did not share this view.

Egypt, Kuwait, and other Middle Eastern governments echoed similar concerns and warned players to avoid sensitive sites.

The US also established procedures preventing civilians from trespassing onto military bases and preventing service members from entering restricted areas to catch Pokémons as these might expose confidential information.

In the year of its release, Russia asserted that the mobile game was a security risk, claiming that it was part of a CIA plot.

Niantic, the game’s software developer company, is headed by former Google Geo division executive John Hanke. 

Hanke was tangled up in conspiracy theories because his former company Keyhole (later acquired by Google) received funding from various sources, including the CIA’s venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel.

However, Niantic denied the allegations and informed The Register that the game “only accesses basic Google profile information (specifically, your User ID and email address) and no other Google account information is or has been accessed or collected.”

In 2022, the year Russia invaded Ukraine, Niantic shut down game operations in the Russian and Belarus markets.

“We stand with the global community in hoping for peace and a rapid resolution to the violence and suffering in Ukraine. Niantic’s games are no longer available for download in Russia and Belarus, and gameplay will also be suspended there shortly,” the company tweeted on March 11 of that year. 

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Richard Moore, the head of Britain’s MI6, said Thursday that the 15,000 dead was “probably a conservative estimate” and marked a “very bloody nose” for Putin, who expected a quick victory.

“That’s probably a conservative estimate. That is the same number, roughly, as they lost in 10 years in Afghanistan in the 1980s,” he told the Aspen Security Forum in the US Rocky Mountains.

“And these are not middle-class kids from Saint Petersburg or Moscow,” he said.

“These are poor kids from rural parts of Russia. They’re from blue-collar towns in Siberia. They are disproportionately from ethnic minorities. These are his cannon fodder.”

CIA Director Bill Burns, speaking a day earlier at the same conference, said that US intelligence estimated Russian losses “in the vicinity of 15,000 killed and maybe three times that wounded.”

“So quite a significant set of losses. The Ukrainians have suffered as well, probably a little less than that, but significant casualties,” Burns said.

Ukraine has offered a much higher figure on losses inflicted on Russia, saying earlier this month that some 36,200 Russian personnel had died.

Russia has been deeply reticent and has given an official toll only twice, the last on March 25 with a figure of 1,351, which experts believe is far too low.

The post US, UK Say 15,000 Killed in Russia’s Ukraine ‘Cannon Fodder’ appeared first on The Defense Post.

The veteran officer was a member of the CIA’s Special Activities Center, a paramilitary branch that carries out some of the US intelligence agency’s most dangerous tasks, The New York Times said.

The officer died of injuries sustained during an operation last week, according to CNN.

The CIA has not commented publicly on the death.

Washington has some 700 troops deployed in Somalia carrying out training of Somali forces and conducting counter-terrorism raids against the Al Shabaab militant group, which Washington designated a terrorist movement in 2008.

Earlier this month, Washington put on its terror blacklist the leader of an elite unit of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated group blamed for a January attack in Kenya that killed three Americans.

Al Shabaab is estimated to have between 5,000 and 9,000 fighters who have vowed to overthrow the Somali government, which is supported by some 20,000 troops from the African Union.

The slain US operative was a veteran of special forces operations, having previously been a member of the elite SEAL Team 6, the Times reported.

The outgoing administration of President Donald Trump is considering withdrawing all US forces from Somalia by the time he leaves office in January, the paper added.

At the start of his term, Trump gave the Pentagon a freer hand to expand their operations, with both air strikes and ground raids, in the war-ravaged African country.

But an official report released in February said that “despite continued US air strikes in Somalia and US assistance to African partner forces, Al Shabaab appears to be a growing threat that aspires to strike the US homeland.”

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The killing of Major General Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike near Baghdad airport in January brought decades-old arch-enemies Iran and the United States to the brink of conflict.

The judiciary’s Mizan Online website said Mahmoud Mousavi Majd‘s death “sentence was carried out on Monday morning over the charge of espionage so that the case of his betrayal to his country will be closed forever.”

Its spokesman said earlier this month that Majd had been sentenced to death for spying on “various security fields, especially the armed forces and the Quds Force and the whereabouts and movements of martyr General Qassem Soleimani.”

Majd had been found guilty of receiving large sums of money from both the US Central Intelligence Agency and Israel’s Mossad, said the spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili.

Soleimani headed the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iran retaliated against the United States for his death by firing a volley of ballistic missiles at US troops stationed in Iraq, but US President Donald Trump opted against responding militarily.

While the attack on the western Iraqi base of Ain Al-Asad left no US soldiers dead, dozens suffered brain trauma.

 ‘American Dollars’

Majd was arrested about two years ago and was not directly involved in the killing of Soleimani, according to a statement the judiciary issued in June.

Majd had migrated to Syria in the 1970s with his family and worked as an English and Arabic language translator at a company, Mizan said.

When war broke out, he chose to stay in the country while his family left.

“His knowledge of Arabic and familiarity with Syria’s geography made him close to Iranian military advisers and he took responsibilities in groups stationed from Idlib to Latakia,” the site added.

Majd was not a member of the Revolutionary Guards “but infiltrated many sensitive areas under the cover of being a translator”.

He was found to have been paid “American dollars to reveal information on adviser convoys, military equipment and communication systems, commanders and their movements, important geographical areas, codes and passwords” until he came under scrutiny and his access was downgraded.

Iranian state television showed footage of what it said was one of Majd’s CIA handlers, saying the alarm was raised after the interception of communications between the two.

It also showed Majd in an apparent confession video saying he had received coded messages and reportedly met his handlers with documents, including “photos and identification documents of forces and commanders”.

Executions and Arrests

According to the report, he had been planning to also work with Saudi Arabia’s intelligence services before being detained.

He was arrested in October 2018, Mizan said.

Iran said last week it had executed another man convicted of spying for the CIA by selling information about Iran’s missile program.

Reza Asgari had worked at the defense ministry’s aerospace division for years but retired four years ago, after which he sold “information he had regarding our missiles” to the CIA in exchange for large sums of money.

Iran in February handed down a similar sentence for Amir Rahimpour, another man convicted of spying for the US and conspiring to sell information on Iran’s nuclear program.

Tehran announced in December it had arrested eight people “linked to the CIA” and involved in nationwide street protests that erupted the previous month over a surprise petrol price hike.

It also said in July 2019 that it had dismantled a CIA spy ring, arrested 17 suspects between March 2018 and March 2019 and sentenced some of them to death.

Trump at the time dismissed the claim as “totally false.”

The post Iran Executes Man Convicted of Spying for CIA, Mossad appeared first on The Defense Post.

“It would be foolish to predict there’s going to be no son of ISIS,” Pompeo said at the National Security Summit organized by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“This threat from radical Islamic terrorism is real. The fall of the caliphate is great news. It is a historic achievement, but it is partial at best,” he added.

The CIA head noted that the terror group continues to operate in the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and other regions, and still has the capacity to control and influence people around the world.

“ISIS capacity to conduct external operations remains,” Pompeo said. “The intent still remains, the capability remains, and we worry too that there is capability that we just don’t see.”

In the recent months, ISIS has lost its major strongholds in Iraq and Syria, including Mosul and the caliphate’s self-declared capital, Raqqa.

SDF to be redeployed to accelerate Deir Ezzor offensive after capture of Raqqa

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