[NEWS] Special Report: U.S. hackers helped UAE spy on Al Jazeera chairman, BBC host – Loganspace AI

0
385
[NEWS] Special Report: U.S. hackers helped UAE spy on Al Jazeera chairman, BBC host – Loganspace AI


WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A neighborhood of American hackers who as soon as labored for U.S. intelligence agencies helped the United Arab Emirates discover on a BBC host, the chairman of Al Jazeera and other illustrious Arab media figures throughout a demanding 2017 war of words pitting the UAE and its allies in opposition to the Gulf direct of Qatar.

FILE PHOTO: Structures are seen from all the plot in which by the water in Doha, Qatar June 5, 2017. To match Special Document USA-RAVEN/MEDIA REUTERS/Stringer/File Photograph

The American operatives labored for Project Raven, a secret Emirati intelligence program that spied on dissidents, militants and political opponents of the UAE monarchy. A Reuters investigation in January published Project Raven’s existence and inner workings, at the side of the indisputable fact that it surveilled a British activist and several other unnamed U.S. journalists.

The Raven operatives — who included no much less than 9 mature staff of the U.S. Nationwide Safety Company and the U.S. protection power — found out themselves thrust into the thick of a excessive-stakes dispute among The US’s Gulf allies. The Americans’ role in the UAE-Qatar imbroglio highlights how mature U.S. intelligence officers have change into key avid gamers in the cyber wars of different countries, with itsy-bitsy oversight from Washington.

The crisis erupted in the spring of 2017, when the UAE and allies — at the side of Saudi Arabia and Egypt — accused Qatar of sowing unrest in the Middle East by its abet of media shops and political groups. The UAE camp demanded Qatar spend a sequence of actions, at the side of shuttering the Qatar-funded Al Jazeera satellite television community, withdrawing funding from other media shops Doha supports, and cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic movement some Arab governments regard as a possibility.

In June 2017, the UAE camp severed diplomatic ties with Qatar and imposed an air, land and sea blockade in opposition to the minute nation. It used to be an unparalleled war of words among Arab countries that had historically prized consensus.

That week, Project Raven operatives sprang into movement, launching operations to interrupt into the Apple iPhones of no much less than 10 journalists and media executives they believed had connections to the Qatari govt or the Muslim Brotherhood, in accordance to program paperwork reviewed by Reuters and four people angry by the actions.

Raven targeted Arab media figures who spanned a vary of political belief — from a Beirut-primarily based totally BBC host to the chairman of Al Jazeera and a producer from a London satellite channel primarily based by a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The impartial, the mature Raven operatives talked about, used to be to find field material exhibiting that Qatar’s royal family had influenced the coverage of Al Jazeera and other media shops, and repeat any ties between the influential TV community and the Muslim Brotherhood. Reuters couldn’t resolve what files Raven got.

Al Jazeera has prolonged maintained it is some distance fair from Qatar’s govt. Jassim Bin Mansour Al-Thani, a media attaché for Qatar’s embassy in Washington, talked about “the government of Qatar does no longer question, build apart a test to, or put in power on Al Jazeera any agenda the least bit.” Al Jazeera “is treated esteem several other revered media outlet.”

The UAE Ministry of International Affairs and its embassy in Washington did no longer answer to requests for comment. The NSA declined to comment. A Department of Protection spokeswoman declined to comment.

Dana Shell Smith, the mature U.S. ambassador to Qatar, talked about she found out it alarming that American intelligence veterans were in a position to work for one more govt in focusing on an American ally. She talked about Washington ought to higher supervise U.S. govt-trained hackers after they wobble away the intelligence neighborhood.

“Other people with these skill objects ought to no longer be in a position to knowingly or unknowingly undermine U.S. pursuits or contradict U.S. values,” Smith urged Reuters.

Among the Arab journalists hacked, Raven mission paperwork portray, used to be Giselle Khoury, Beirut-primarily based totally host of BBC Arabic’s “The Scene,” a program that interviews Middle Jap leaders on latest events. Three days after the blockade began, Raven operatives hacked her iPhone. Raven program paperwork portray she used to be targeted thanks to her contact with Azmi Bishara, a Doha-primarily based totally author who has been famous of the UAE and primarily based the news outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.

“They need to spend their time on making higher their country, their economy,” Khoury talked about in an interview after Reuters urged her of the hack. “No longer on having Giselle Khoury as a hacking purpose.”

On June 19, 2017, Americans working for Raven targeted Faisal al-Qassem, host of a favored Al Jazeera portray referred to as “The Reverse Direction,” interviews and paperwork portray.

The portray parts traffic who heatedly debate controversial matters equivalent to corruption in Middle Jap governments. Told by Reuters about his hacking, al-Qassem talked about he used to be no longer taken aback he used to be targeted by the UAE, which he accuses of being “a symbol of corruption and soiled politics.”

“In a discover, they are horrified of the real fact,” he talked about.

That identical day, Raven operatives targeted the iPhone of Al Jazeera’s chairman, Hamad bin Thamer bin Mohammed Al Thani. Through an Al Jazeera spokesman, Al Thani declined to comment.

The assaults utilized a cyber weapon referred to as Karma. As Reuters reported in January, Karma allowed Raven operatives to remotely hack into iPhones by inputting a purpose’s cell phone quantity or connected electronic mail address into the attack tool. No longer like many exploits, Karma did no longer require a purpose to click on a link despatched to an iPhone, they talked about. Apple declined to comment.

Karma supplied Raven operatives entry to the contacts, messages, pictures and other files kept on iPhones. It did no longer allow them to show screen cell phone calls.

Whereas Raven operatives broke into the devices, they did no longer have plump entry to the records they serene; they handed the topic material on to UAE intelligence officers overseeing the operation. It’s unclear what they found out.

In January, UAE Minister of Insist for International Affairs Anwar Gargash used to be requested by newshounds in Fresh York about Project Raven after the initial Reuters file. Gargash acknowledged his country has a “cyber ability” but didn’t particularly address the program. He denied focusing on U.S. citizens or countries with which the UAE has factual family members.

SPYING EFFORT’S U.S. LINKS

The UAE created Project Raven in 2009 with the encourage of American intelligence contractors and mature senior White Dwelling officers from the George W. Bush administration. The U.S. Nationwide Safety Council declined to comment on Project Raven.

First and major, the impartial used to be to crack down on terrorism by serving to the UAE show screen militants spherical the location. But Raven’s mission rapid expanded to consist of monitoring and suppressing a vary of UAE political opponents, the paperwork portray.

Among its targets used to be Qatar, which the UAE and Saudi Arabia had prolonged accused of fueling political opposition all the plot in which by the location, in fragment by the Qatari govt’s funding of Al Jazeera.

At some level of the Arab Spring protests of 2011, Gulf countries seen Al Jazeera’s substantial coverage of aspect road demonstrations as a deliberate strive by Qatar to fuel opposition to their monarchs. “It used to be seen as a instrument to foment approved unrest,” talked about Elisa Catalano Ewers, a mature handbook on the location for President Obama’s Nationwide Safety Council.

Al Jazeera’s philosophize coverage “had a huge psychological influence” for demonstrators, talked about Moncef Marzouki, the mature president of Tunisia, who used to be elected in 2011 after Arab Spring demonstrations ousted prolonged-time ruler Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. The declares despatched a message to protesters that “this fight goes on in every single situation, you potentially could doubtless also very smartly be no longer on my own.”

Al-Qassem, the host hacked by Raven, talked about Al Jazeera items both aspect, with out censorship. “The aspect road and the Arab people can scheme shut what’s factual,” he talked about.

Wary of the Muslim Brotherhood’s rising have an effect on in the location after the 2011 protests, UAE authorities launched a crackdown on dozens of suspected Islamists, loads of whom were convicted of planning to overthrow the government. In 2014, the UAE formally designated the Brotherhood and local mates as terrorist groups.

The Emiratis moreover tapped Raven in the misfortune to occupy dissent at dwelling, in accordance to mature Raven operatives and mission paperwork. In the years after the Arab Spring, the operatives were more and more tasked with focusing on human rights activists and journalists who wondered the government.

TARGETING JOURNALISTS

In June 2017, after Gulf countries began their blockade of Qatar, the UAE ramped up efforts to discover on journalists seen as tied to Qatar. That month, Project Raven’s Qatar mission expanded from two plump-time operatives assigned to the country to seven.

On June 20, Raven operatives hacked into the iPhone of Abdullah Al-Athba, chief editor of Qatar’s oldest newspaper, Al-Arab, program paperwork portray.

In an interview with Reuters, Al-Athba talked about he believed he used to be targeted “because I’m a supporter of the Arab Spring because the starting,” who frequently criticized the Emiratis for their opposition to the movement.

The Raven effort went previous the Middle East. Operatives former Karma to concentrate on the cellphones of different media figures the UAE believed were being supported by Qatar, at the side of journalists for London-primarily based totally Arabic media shops Al-Araby TV and Al-Hiwar. Each and each networks televise Arabic language channels approved in the Middle East.

Al-Thani, the Qatari spokesman, talked about the government does no longer abet Al-Araby TV, Al-Hiwar or Al Arab.

The satellite channel Al-Araby TV and its namesake web location are objects of London-primarily based totally Fadaat Media Ltd, owned and supported by Qatari businessmen. The outlet sees itself because the utter of “secular, liberal, expert-democracy” Arabs, talked about Abdulrahman Elshayyal, director of Al-Araby TV. He and two other Araby staff were hacked in the weeks following the initiating of the blockade, Raven paperwork portray.

“It’s a extremely caring building that a direct is utilizing all this stuff to discover on people famous of them,” Elshayyal talked about in a cell phone interview. “I’m no longer a terrorist or a cash launderer.”

Bishara, the founder of Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, used to be moreover targeted by Raven. He urged Reuters he regards his outlet as “reasonably fair” in the context of the Arab world. “No one tells us what to direct,” talked about Bishara, a Palestinian Christian who lives in Qatar, even if “usually the newspaper could maybe be ravishing about what no longer to direct, since you potentially could doubtless also very smartly be no longer there to provoke the these who finance you.”

Al-Hiwar, one more London-primarily based totally Arabic satellite channel, used to be targeted by Raven on the day the blockade began. Al-Hiwar founder Azzam Tamimi talked about he believes the UAE used to be disturbed of his channel’s abet for political reform and democratization in the Arab world.

No longer like others caught in the crosshairs of Project Raven, even if, Al-Hiwar doesn’t divulge being sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood, which the outlet supports “because they are the victims,” he talked about. Tamimi urged Reuters he is a longtime Muslim Brotherhood member and a supporter of the Palestinian militant neighborhood Hamas.

Tamimi declined to direct whether or no longer the channel received cash from the Qatari govt but talked about he’ll gain any abet, supplied there’s no strings linked. He talked about the channel affords utter to a vary of opinions and encourages dialogue. But there are obstacles.

“The majority of our viewers are Muslim,” he talked about in a cell phone interview. “We are no longer going to market suggestions which could maybe be alien to our culture. That’s what makes us approved.”

Editing by Ronnie Greene and Michael Williams

Leave a Reply