Latest spy Stories

By Tabassum Zakaria WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers, some from President George W. Bush's Republican party, are challenging his expected choice as CIA chief of a general behind a disputed domestic spying program. They voiced reservations on Sunday talk shows about Bush's potential choice of Gen. Michael Hayden, deputy to national intelligence director John Negroponte, to head the spy agency following Porter Goss's resignation under pressure on Friday. The members of Congress said...

By Tabassum Zakaria and David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA chief Porter Goss, assigned to rebuild the U.S. spy agency after the twin intelligence breakdowns of September 11 and Iraq, quit under pressure on Friday after less than two years on the job. President George W. Bush gave no explanation for the move, which a senior administration official said Bush had been discussing with Goss' boss, national intelligence director John Negroponte, for the last few weeks. No replacement...

By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - CIA chief Porter Goss, assigned to rebuild the U.S. spy agency after huge intelligence lapses over the September 11 attacks and Iraq, abruptly quit on Friday after less than two years on the job. President George W. Bush gave no explanation for Goss' resignation, praising the former member of Congress from Florida for his candid advice. No replacement was named for Goss, who has come under fire over his handling of the agency. Bush is pursuing a...

By Allan Dowd VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - Canada will hold a public judicial inquiry into the attack on Air India Flight 182, which killed 329 people in history's deadliest bombing of a passenger airliner, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Monday. The broad-ranging inquiry will examine if security lapses that allowed the 1985 bombing have been fixed, and if police and Canada's spy agency have resolved problems that critics say led to a bungled criminal investigation...

By Ori Lewis JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel successfully launched on Tuesday a highly accurate imaging satellite which will enhance its ability to spy on Iran, an official said. Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said this week that the nuclear program being pursued by arch-foe Iran was the most serious threat faced by Jews since the Nazi Holocaust. "The launching of the satellite was successful," an official with the manufacturer ImageSat International said. It would be established...

MOSCOW -- Russia on Tuesday launched a satellite for Israel that the Israelis say will be used to spy on Iran's nuclear program. The Eros B satellite was launched from a mobile pad at the Svobodny cosmodrome in the Far East, said Alexei Kuznetsov, a spokesman for the Russian military space forces. About 20 minutes later, the satellite successfully reached orbit, Russian news agencies reported, citing the space forces' press service. "The Israeli satellite reached its target orbit and has...

By Ori Lewis JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel is set to launch on Tuesday a highly accurate imaging satellite which will enhance its ability to spy on Iran, a report in the mass circulation daily Yedioth Ahronoth said. Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said this week that the nuclear program being pursued by arch-foe Iran was the most serious threat faced by Jews since the Nazi Holocaust. "The capabilities of the satellite speak for themselves. I do not need to say anything about what...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA said on Friday that it has fired an intelligence officer who acknowledged leaking classified information about the spy agency's operations to the news media. The CIA, which declined to identify the officer or describe the officer's duties at the agency, said the dismissal was the result of a three-month-old investigation of CIA operations that had been the subject of recent media leaks. "This CIA officer acknowledged having unauthorized discussions with...

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) - Residents of a troubled Pakistani border region found the beheaded body of a man with note saying he was an American spy and a warning others would face the same treatment, an official said on Sunday. The body was found on Saturday in a market area in the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border, where Pakistani forces have been battling al Qaeda-linked militants. "He was American spy and all of you will face this if you follow him," a government...

BELFAST (Reuters) - The Irish Republican Army was not behind this week's murder of an Irish nationalist who spied for Britain, the dead man's family said on Friday in a statement that criticized the media for revealing his whereabouts. "We acknowledge the speedy statement from the IRA disassociating themselves from this murder," the family said in a statement issued by their solicitors in Northern Ireland. "We believe that statement to be true." The guerrilla group, which last July...