TECHINT Development news and techniques related to SIGINT

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Volume 35, 2020 - Issue 5

Maximator: European signals intelligence cooperation, from a Dutch perspective

SIGINT alliance formed by Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands and France and deciphering both signal analysis and crypto analysis of the Organization

Volume 35, 2020 - Issue 7

The third eye: Canada’s development of autonomous signals intelligence to contribute to Five Eyes intelligence sharing

ABSTRACT

Canada established independent signals intelligence in 1946, after years of British and American guidance. The dominant driver was inclusion in postwar intelligence sharing. Wartime intelligence negotiations depict Canadians framing themselves relative to their allies, seeking to shake off a ‘younger brother’ mindset and to migrate from British-led models towards autonomous intelligence sharing with the Americans. This paper traces the origins of autonomous Canadian signals intelligence in the context of postwar intelligence sharing with the United States and United Kingdom, demonstrating Canada’s prioritization of capabilities that would ensure inclusion in the intelligence-sharing partnership known today as Five Eyes.

 

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Volume 35, 2020 - Issue 3

‘Favourable geography: Canada’s Arctic signals intelligence mission’


ABSTRACT

The Canadian signals intelligence effort during the Cold War was forged in the late 1940s and 1950s with a focus on the interceptions and processing of communications from the Soviet Arctic. Canadian authorities struggled hard to build capacity for this important mission, win bureaucratic battles at home, and convince our key SIGINT partners, the US and UK, that Canada should be granted status as the controlling agency for signals intelligence against the target-rich Soviet north. The story of the origins of Canada’s Arctic SIGINT mission has remained highly classified until now.
 

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Tracking wi-fi signals could be one of interesting Sigint work area in near future


Advances in computer vision and machine learning techniques have led to significant development in 2D and 3D human pose estimation from RGB cameras, LiDAR, and radars. However, human pose estimation from images is adversely affected by occlusion and lighting, which are common in many scenarios of interest. Radar and LiDAR technologies, on the other hand, need specialized hardware that is expensive and power-intensive. Furthermore, placing these sensors in non-public areas raises significant privacy concerns. To address these limitations, recent research has explored the use of WiFi antennas (1D sensors) for body segmentation and key-point body detection. This paper further expands on the use of the WiFi signal in combination with deep learning architectures, commonly used in computer vision, to estimate dense human pose correspondence. We developed a deep neural network that maps the phase and amplitude of WiFi signals to UV coordinates within 24 human regions. The results of the study reveal that our model can estimate the dense pose of multiple subjects, with comparable performance to image-based approaches, by utilizing WiFi signals as the only input. This paves the way for low-cost, broadly accessible, and privacy-preserving algorithms for human sensing.

*

Studies in this area may lead to future use in the battlefield. Information processed and interpreted in real time can provide valuable datas about the physical conditions of the target, what it is doing and what systems it carries. In the example above, the dancing young people could very well be a squad attempting to infiltrate with weapons in their hands which they are in contact with C-C over wireless communication.
 

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Germany's spy agencies should be more like GCHQ, say ex-spy chiefs who complain of 'sprawling bureaucracy'​


  • August Hanning and Gerhard Schindler led German intelligence service BND
  • They said German spy agencies were suffering under an 'excess of oversight'

Germany's spy agencies should be more like GCHQ, two ex-spy chiefs, who also complained about the 'sprawling bureaucracy' in the country, have said.

August Hanning, 77, and Gerhard Schindler, 70, former chiefs of the German foreign intelligence service BND, wrote in tabloid Bild that German spy agencies were suffering under an 'excess of oversight'.

This includes seven different committees and ombudsmen the agencies have to respond to, which Hanning and Schindler described this as a 'sprawling bureaucracy of control' that is the 'sister of inefficiency'.

They highlighted that politicians and courts shouldn't be allowed to label intelligence services as a threat to the freedoms of the German people.

Instead, the country's domestic, foreign and military agencies should be treated as an 'indispensable part' of the German defence front and be part of the ministry of defence.

They said: 'Our intelligence agencies protect the country, the German people and our armed forces; they are part of the solution and not part of the problem.'

Hanning and Schindler also argued Germany's intelligence services should focus more on signals intelligence, explaining: 'We need a new technical intelligence service based on the successful models of the NSA in the US and GCHQ in the UK.

'We cannot afford to outsource terrorism investigations in Germany and the protection of our soldiers on deployments to foreign services in the long run.'

The German intelligence services would have to get back to the same level as foreign ones like the GCHQ and NSA.

Effective intelligence services don't shy away from using human sources close to the action - the closer the more valuable the information they can provide, but the German agencies are told to avoid risks as much as possible, the ex-chiefs said.

'The change of times should also be used in intelligence services, where new ways to protect our country and its population should be treated as the highest priority', Hanning and Schindler concluded.

Former CIA agent John Sipher called the BND - which has long been seen as a weak link in the intelligence community in the west - 'arrogant, incompetent and useless'.

Nathalie Vogel, a security expert at the Institute of World Politics, said the challenges for the German spy agencies go even deeper than Hanning and Schindler suggested.

She told the Telegraph: 'They want to establish a system after the British model of oversight committees, but an intelligence service is only as good as the worst member who sits on an oversight committee.

'In Germany you have far-left and AfD MPs who maintain direct relationships with Moscow, visit the Russian embassy and even make trips to [Russian occupied] Donbas.'

She also criticised the BND's bad relationship with allies in Central and Eastern Europe, because these countries would now 'think twice before exchanging information with the Germans'.

The efficiency of the German foreign intelligence agency BND - which Hanning headed from 1998 to 2005 and Schindler from 2011 to 2016 - has been questioned since scandals came to light amid the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

Among those scandals is the case of Carsten Linke, an experienced agent with alleged far-right sympathies, who was leaking secrets to Moscow that could help them win the war in Ukraine.

The father of two had gained respect within the BND, where he oversaw units for spying on foreign communications and internal security.

He is suspected of handing over top-secret intelligence to Russia, some of which is believed to be linked to Ukraine, according to the newspaper Der Spiegel.

His arrest raised doubts for Western allies sharing intelligence during the time of an intense ground war in Europe.

Before his arrest, Mr Linke was thought to be in line to become one of the BND's top officials and had access to highly sensitive intelligence that was being shared among Western spies.

With the assistance of a courier, he was alleged to have used the role to pass over intelligence to Russia on two separate occasions in autumn 2022.

The current BND head, Bruno Kahl, found himself in the middle of a scandal himself when it emerged that he was stranded in Kyiv for 'urgent talks' when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

His extraction took two days as he had to be evacuated by special forces via land because the airspace over Ukraine was closed.

The BND said in a statement at the time: 'This was a difficult and lengthy journey because of the streams of refugees going in the same direction. He is back in the European Union and is expected in Berlin today.'

 

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IS MILITARY SPACE-BASED JAMMING NORMAL? SOME WORRY IT IS​



Most open source researchers following the Chinese military space program are well aware of China’s perceptions of the U.S. Space Force and its public technology and operation plans. However, I was surprised to find the People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force discussing their perspectives of U.S. and Russian space-based jamming. This isn’t the typical thing that the People’s Liberation Army includes in their discussion of the former Strategic Defense Initiative. I asked myself, “Is global military space-based jamming normal?” As it turns out, intentional jamming may be more prevalent than the very limited media coverage of it implies. My research shows that the Chinese military thinks space-based jamming is a common practice among space powers. As a result, they claim to have developed an experimental spacecraft to practice signal interference between satellites from geosynchronous Earth orbit.

The People’s Liberation Army researchers described their experimental jammer as targeting communications satellites. Depending on the location and power capacity of the jammer, it could interfere most easily with other nearby communications satellites, or those at lower orbits. This could be detrimental for any country using communications satellites near China, including U.S. partners and allies.

The U.S. military is heavily reliant on satellite communications for power projection, and as such has developed a suite of anti-jamming capabilities. However, an electromagnetic spectrum-enabled cyber intrusion, sometimes called radio frequency-enabled cyber, is still a concern, even in space.





Current space regulations and treaties do not explicitly prohibit space-based jamming, only that which is harmful. The United States and a handful of other countries have raised concerns with it, signaling that some may have experienced instances of intentional, harmful jamming from space. The People’s Liberation Army has only recently written about its perception that the United States and Russia already have space-based jammers. If the United States hopes to influence future behaviors, improved messaging and continued international engagement is needed.

In the meantime, incremental improvements in transparency and technology could ease the perennial challenge of attributing intentional jamming. The space industry’s improved awareness of spectrum interference and willingness to report anomalies and cyber intrusions is one of the best ways to support policymakers to further safeguard U.S. military communications and lead international discussions.

An International Issue

Based on states’ submissions to the U.N. General Assembly Resolution 75/36 in 2021 and the recently concluded Open Ended Working Group on Reducing Space Threats through Norms, Rules and Principles of Responsible Behaviors, military space-based jamming in peacetime deserves more discussion. The U.S. submission included space-to-space and space-to-ground threats as distinct categories separate from ground-to-space threats, and called out radiofrequency interference as a specific threat in each category. Depending on the spectrum band, a space-to-ground signal could interfere with a space-to-space signal.

U.S. allies and partners have also recently raised space-based jamming as a space security concern. The British submission to the working group raised space-to-space jamming, even if only for experiments, as potentially leading to misunderstanding, miscalculation, and unintended escalation. Their submission to Resolution 75/36 discussed communications interference caused by uncoordinated proximity operations in space. The French government’s submissions to Resolution 75/36 and to the working group also both raised space-based jamming, though their written submissions did not distinguish between the space-to-ground or space-to-space categories.

However, France did include both space-based and ground-based jamming among their top three space threats. The Brazilian submission to the working group explicitly called out space-based sensors for jamming, as well. Brazil mentioned an “electronic attack” in space among their top four threatening behaviors, and also did not distinguish between the space-to-space or space-to-ground categories. The Chinese delegation only raised ground-to-space jamming in their submission to Resolution 75/36. Russia did not mention any jamming in either submission.

If national representatives to the United Nations discuss space-based jamming as threatening, it may be a common occurrence, beyond unintentional interference or a space weather event. This led me to review U.S. military doctrine and budget requests specific to space and radio frequency spectrum operations. Based on my review, none of them explicitly mention space-based jamming. However, these documents do include general plans for countermeasures and a “shift to offense.” Some U.S. media reports of U.S. Space Force orbital warfare training, U.S. policymakers referring to jamming as being “normal,” and Department of Defense space budget requests including “offensive capabilities” could give the impression that the United States considers military space-to-space jamming appropriate and necessary. The implications of a tacit approval for jamming in space deserves more domestic and international discussion, and would be consistent with the U.S. submission to the U.N. General Assembly, which made a similar call for deeper discussion.

Chinese Perceptions

At least some in the People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force perceive that the United States and Russia already have on-orbit spacecraft capable of jamming satellite downlink and crosslinks. In 2019, a People’s Liberation Army unit under the Strategic Support Force published an academic assessment of Russia’s LUCH-Olymp satellite, noting that they could not rule out that the satellite was carrying an attack payload, probably referring to an electronic jamming payload given the frequency with which it approaches non-Russian communications satellites. Another Strategic Support Force unit in 2020 published a paper on American electronic satellite jamming systems, and included what they perceived to be U.S. systems in geosynchronous Earth orbit capable of jamming other satellites. The authors judged that the U.S. Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program satellites and other national security satellites were capable of space-based jamming.

China’s Strategic Support Force’s perception that other leading countries already have on-orbit jammers, and their commitment to weakening the U.S.’s ability to use satellites in any potential conflict with China, may have driven them to develop their own experimental on-orbit jammer. At least according to Strategic Support Force technical reports, by 2020 they had tested an experimental on-orbit jamming system, after which they concluded they needed to develop Ka-band capability. In late 2022, the Strategic Support Force received an invention patent for a method to evaluate if a satellite’s on-orbit jamming capability and electronic reconnaissance capabilities were working. None of these documents discuss the Strategic Support Force’s objectives or intentions, nor specific satellites, but they do at least indicate that it has tasked its satellite developers and operators to explore options for on-orbit jamming.

Legal Interpretations

Many legal interpretations indicate that military space-based jamming is not prohibited. Article 48 of the International Telecommunication Union’s constitution provides freedom for military radio installations but requires them, so far as possible, to observe provisions to prevent “harmful interference.” The Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (also known as the Outer Space Treaty) provides a mechanism for consultations regarding perceived “harmful interference,” and only explicitly prohibits nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. The International Telecommunication Union constitution defines harmful interference as “interference which endangers the functioning of a radionavigation service or of other safety services or seriously degrades, obstructs, or repeatedly interrupts a radiocommunication service operating in accordance with Radio Regulations.”

The above examples of the United States and its allies and partners raising space-based jamming as a security threat suggest that there needs to be further discussion on the topic and substantiation of the threat. Since 2014, the International Telecommunication Union has collected international satellite operators’ reports of harmful interference, which could emanate from space and ground sources. According to the union, these cases have significantly grown. This indicator should be considered cautiously, as the International Telecommunication Union does not disaggregate the volume of reports and satellite operators’ increasing familiarity with the reporting mechanism, nor the growing numbers of satellites. However, it provides one of several starting points to deepen discussions.

Additional organizations are also working to get better data on intentional harmful interference. For example, the Space Data Association — a nonprofit organization of satellite operators — continues to strengthen efforts to “create a database of interference events and to share data that supports geo-location. Data shared with the Space Data Association by definition in the member agreement can be used to validate complaints taken to the International Telecommunication Union. A newer organization focused on cyber security threats to space systems, called the Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center, also provides participants a way to share information on multiple types of electromagnetic interference, including space-to-space signal spoofing and malware injection.

To date, ground-to-space jamming has been the easiest to attribute. Toward better identifying space-based sources of interference, the U.S. Department of Defense is already taking a leadership role in developing space-based technologies to assess a spacecraft’s local space weather environment. This will further support efforts to carefully attribute intentional jamming. While many organizations provide notifications of space weather events like solar flares that will impact many satellites, individual satellites may experience unique environmental impacts. As more of these systems are integrated into Department of Defense high-value satellites, the military process for reporting and assessing on-orbit interference will be more empowered to attribute intentional on-orbit jamming.

The United States and its allies and partners have already raised space-based jamming at international forums, so there is a clear opportunity for the United States to lead deeper discussions. In the U.S. submission to the United Nations, it said that “radiofrequency interference” and “interference with security-related space systems” are among the topics that “warrant additional discussion.” The Department of Defense has also already committed to avoiding “harmful interference” in its Tenets of Responsible Behavior in Space, which the department released in mid-2021. Attributing intentional space-based jamming could also be slowly, but increasingly within reach with the help of new technologies to monitor a spacecraft’s local space weather environment. Increased discussion of the topic could also improve helpful distinctions in the reporting of harmful interference. The Strategic Support Force’s perception that the United States and Russia already have spacecraft capable of space-based jamming could cause miscalculation and escalation, especially without any military-to-military engagement. Working through the United Nations to deepen discussion on space-based intentional jamming would help inform a wider group of states on the threat, and further demonstrate American leadership in space.

 

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Chinese naval scientists say they can use other countries’ military radar to locate, track ships in new research​


  • Researchers say new technology can use signals from radars, warships or even early warning planes of other countries to track cargo ships
  • Set-up uses simple gear such as a laptop and an antenna to disentangle the radar signals of foreign militaries, team says in recent paper

Borrowing a blade to slay, an old Chinese proverb, speaks of using another’s weapon against them. Now, scientists from China’s navy say they have applied this ancient wisdom to today’s technology-driven wars.
The team, from China’s eastern Shandong province, says it has developed a technology that could use the signals emitted by the radars, warships or even early warning planes of other countries, to track cargo ships on the high seas. And it only requires simple gear such as a laptop and small antenna.
“The images were clear as day,” wrote Song Jie, a scientist at the PLA Naval Aviation University, in a peer-reviewed paper with his colleagues from Yantai University, both based in the coastal city of Yantai. Their findings were published in the Chinese-language journal Radio Science and Technology on December 20.
This feat was once considered impossible. Since the invention of radar in 1935, only the sender or their allies could use its signals. Using electromagnetic waves to locate targets requires knowledge of detailed physical parameters that are known only to the transmitter – and these are constantly changing.


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The team says their simple detection set-up “works well for slow-moving targets at sea”. Photo: PLA Naval Aviation University

To outsiders, these signals appear as a tangled mess, and extracting valuable information from them would be like finding a needle in a haystack.


But Song’s team managed to use potentially non-friendly radar signals to detect ships going into and out of ports, an unprecedented feat.

“Our system works well for slow-moving targets at sea,” the team said. “It can track ships with ease.”

For countries like China, with vast radar networks, this might not be a game-changer. But for smaller nations or forces whose radars are destroyed or not affordable at all, this could be a lifesaver. By hijacking enemy signals, they could gain a crucial advantage with little effort.


Imagine the Houthis in Yemen, attacking cargo ships with drones or missiles. The United States blames Iran for passing intelligence about these ships, but what if the Houthis used American radar signals instead? Song’s team has proved this is technically possible.

In Yantai, the scientists chose a residential building as the base for their experiment. By the window, a receiving antenna – not much larger than a clothes-drying rack – stood ready. Connected to this antenna was an electromagnetic wave analyser, about the size of a microwave oven, which processed the signals received. These signals were then fed into an ordinary laptop for further analysis.


The set-up was simple: all the equipment could be sourced easily and transported in the boot of a car.

Detecting targets at sea using radar is notoriously challenging due to the constant flux of electromagnetic waves reflecting off the waves, which often drown out crucial information amid the noise. But Song’s team was still able to locate and track all commercial ships sailing within 20km of the shore – a distance comparable to that between the Red Sea shipping lane and Yemen’s coast.
Moreover, they gathered vital intelligence on the direction and speed of the ships, invaluable for potential drone or missile attacks.

Although the signal source in the experiment came from a Chinese military radar, Song’s team did not use any technical parameters related to the radar.

This meant that, in real-world scenarios, their system could harness signals from any country’s military platforms.

In their paper, Song and his colleagues shared their powerful algorithm, explaining how they used it to reverse-derive the operating parameters of a military radar from the received spectrum.

But practical applications presented their own set of hurdles. For instance, the direct signal from the radar to the receiving antenna was significantly stronger than that reflected off a ship’s hull, often masking the latter’s distinct characteristics. Both signals are crucial for accurate positioning. Also, disentangling them required a unique processing approach not typically found in standard radar stations.

Song’s team meticulously detailed these processes and precautions in the paper, along with insights on data compression and accumulation techniques that enhanced the speed and accuracy of the computer analysis.

The researchers believe their work could also assist the Chinese military in electronic warfare, with potential applications in electronic reconnaissance, anti-radiation weaponry, ultra-low altitude penetration missions and stealth technology.


Experimental Study of Maritime Target Detection Using Passive Bistatic Radar​


Abstract:
A passive bistatic radar system for the detection of moving targets at sea is designed in this paper. Through the continuous acquisition of non-cooperative radar direct wave and echo data, pulse compression, incoherent integration, MTI moving target processing, adaptive constant false alarm detection, and finally realize the detection of maritime targets. In this paper, the process of the proposed method is explained in detail, and then the field experiment is carried out. The experiment obtained clearly range-azimuth display image and PPI display image. Preliminary results of field experiments show that the system can successfully detect targets at sea.

Zhuang Jingmin
Yantai University of China, Yantai, China

Song Jie
Naval Aviation University, Yantai, China

Tan Wenqing
Yantai University of China, Yantai, China

Wang Zhongxun
Yantai University of China, Yantai, China

Date of Conference: 15-18 August 2023
Date Added to IEEE Xplore: 22 September 2023



China has developed a simple, practical but effective passive bistatic radar to support the Houthis. The Houthis must be monitoring the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait with this radar.

@Yasar @Cabatli_TR @Zafer @Nilgiri @Gary @NEKO @Kartal1 @MADDOG @Mis_TR_Like @Radonsider @TheInsider @OPTIMUS @Test7 @Ryder @Ripley @dBSPL @Anmdt
 
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U.S. SPIES HAVE ‘WIDE RANGE’ OF FACILITIES ON UK’S CYPRUS BASE NEAR GAZA—AND SHARE MATERIAL ‘DAILY’ WITH ISRAEL​

1 DECEMBER 2023


  • American spies class their bases on British Cyprus as “important assets”
  • US has four spy sites on Cyprus, which are believed to form part of its “far-reaching” intelligence relationship with Israel
  • Israel “enjoys the benefits of expanded geographic access” to US spy sites, top secret document notes
  • GCHQ, NSA and CIA all refuse to comment to Declassified
US spies have widespread access to Britain’s bases on Cyprus and share information ‘daily’ with their Israeli counterparts, leaked top secret documents show.

The British so-called Sovereign Base Areas (SBA) on Cyprus, which comprise 3% of the island’s landmass, sit just 200 miles from Gaza. The bases are said to be the largest British intelligence facilities outside of the UK, although they have never been officially acknowledged.

“Cyprus hosts a wide range of UK and US intelligence facilities”, notes a top secret document from GCHQ, Britain’s largest spy agency. The document adds: “Cyprus collection facilities are acknowledged by NSA as important assets”.
The main US spy agency working on the British territory in Cyprus is the National Security Agency (NSA).
Another top secret document, meanwhile, notes that the NSA maintains a “far-reaching technical and analytic relationship” with the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU) “sharing information on access, intercept, targeting, language, analysis and reporting.”

SIGINT stands for signals intelligence, which describes the interception of communications between people—or other types of electronic signals.

The documents, leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, are significant in light of current US activities on Cyprus. It is likely intelligence obtained from Gaza by US spy agencies on British Cyprus is being fed to the Israelis, further implicating both countries in Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

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US support

The US and British militaries are key partners of Israel, and have supported its bombing of Gaza. The documents show intelligence gathered on Cyprus is likely to be part of this support.

The GCHQ document admits that intelligence gained from Cyprus is integrated “with military planning and operations”, noting that “the symbiotic relationship between GCHQ and MoD [Ministry of Defence] on Cyprus requires close interaction”.

Declassified recently revealed that over 30 UK military transport flights have flown from the Cyprus base to Tel Aviv since the bombing of Gaza began. But the MoD has so far refused to say what equipment or forces have been on those flights.

Meanwhile, US surveillance drones are known to be flying over Gaza, while the US is moving arms to Israel from around Europe using RAF Akrotiri, Britain’s vast air base on Cyprus. The MoD has also refused to tell Declassified what American aircraft are flying or what weapons are on board.

For 50 years, the US and Britain have attempted to keep secret the size and activities of the American presence at the UK bases and “retained sites” on Cyprus.

But Declassified recently revealed that 129 US airmen are permanently deployed to RAF Akrotiri, which is a staging post for bombing campaigns across the Middle East. The US spy force, the 1st Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron, is also permanently deployed at Akrotiri.

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The sites

The documents leaked by Snowden in 2013 stipulate four sites for NSA spying facilities on Cyprus.

One is a communications interception facility at Ayios Nikolaos in the Eastern SBA, Dhekelia, which is believed to hoover up calls, texts, and emails from across the Middle East and North Africa.

The Ayios Nikolaos facility also hosts a measurement and signatures intelligence, or MASINT, component. This highly technical field detects and describes the specific characteristics of target objects and sources.

The document observes that the NSA provides half of the funding for the UK’s listening post at Ayios Nikolaos.

Two more MASINT locations operating in partnership with the US are found on the Western base, including an unmanned facility at Cape Gata, just up from RAF Akrotiri.

At RAF Troodos, a British “retained site” near the border with northern Cyprus, the US operates another listening post, which utilises covert electronic intelligence gathering. The Troodos site, GCHQ noted, “has long been regarded as a ‘Jewel in the Crown’ by NSA as it offers unique access to the Levant, North Africa, and Turkey”.

“Weapons-related collection from Troodos is used to support technical [signal intelligence] analysts in the US and UK,” the document noted.

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Relationship with Israel

The intelligence relationship between the NSA and its Israeli counterparts is shown in the documents to be unusually close.

The top secret agreement formalising US and Israeli intelligence sharing notes that a “dedicated communications line between NSA and ISNU supports the exchange of raw material, as well as daily analytic and technical correspondence.”

It adds that “NSA routinely sends ISNU minimised and unminimised raw collection [intelligence]”.

The relationship had recently undergone “an expansion to include other Israeli and US intelligence organisations such as CIA [and] Mossad”. The document continued that “this SIGINT relationship has increasingly been the catalyst for a broader intelligence relationship between the United States and Israel.”

US-Israel “cooperation covers the exploitation of internal governmental, military, civil, and diplomatic communications and…intelligence organisations”, the document noted.

The GCHQ document, meanwhile, hints that intelligence collected on Cyprus is being shared with other foreign governments.

Under the “partnerships” section of the GCHQ document it is noted there are “on island initiatives with other government agencies where these support joint working aims”. It continues that these intergovernmental relationships have “clear intelligence benefits”, but it is unclear if this includes Israel.

The document then adds: “The Cyprus Stakeholders’ Conference will continue to be an important forum for resolving issues and strengthening relationships.” It is again unclear who attends the stakeholders conference, but it could include Israel.

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Expansion

US-Israel intelligence sharing is also shown to focus on the Middle East, the region covered by the NSA sites on Cyprus.

“The single largest exchange between NSA and ISNU is on targets in the Middle East which constitute strategic threats to US and Israeli interests,” the top secret document notes.

It adds that “the Israeli side enjoys the benefits of expanded geographic access” to NSA sites.

US and Israeli spies “have explored and executed unique opportunities to gain access to high priority targets”, the document continues. A key priority for the ISNU is stipulated as “Palestinian terrorism”.

Meanwhile, NSA’s partnerships with Israeli spies had “expanded” to include Israeli Defense Intelligence’s Special Operation Division and Mossad. This had resulted in “unprecedented access and collection breakthroughs”.

It is believed the CIA is also operating from Britain’s bases on Cyprus. A leaked US cable recently reported by Declassified included a UK official stating that American aircraft flying from RAF Akrotiri are operated by the State Department and US military. But he added “possibly other agencies” are flying from the base, which is assumed to mean the CIA.

GCHQ declined to comment for this story. The NSA and CIA did not respond to Declassified’s requests for comment.

 

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