Iran obtained missiles from North Korea

US intelligence believes Iran has obtained advanced missiles from North Korea that could strike Europe, according to US documents divulged by WikiLeaks.
The documents also show frustration among US diplomats who have been pressing for China to block shipments of missile parts from North Korea to Iran, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported.
The New York Times, citing a diplomatic cable dated February 24, said “secret American intelligence assessments have concluded that Iran has obtained a cache of advanced missiles, based on a Russian design”.
Iran obtained 19 of the North Korean missiles, an improved version of Russia’s R-27, from North Korea, the cable said, and was “taking pains to master the technology in an attempt to build a new generation of missiles”.
At the request of US President Barack Obama’s administration, the New York Times said it had agreed not to publish the text of that cable.
“The North Korean version of the advanced missile, known as the BM-25, could carry a nuclear warhead,” said the newspaper, adding it had a range of more than 3,000 kilometres.
“If fired from Iran, that range, in theory, would let its warheads reach targets as far away as Western Europe, including Berlin. If fired northwestward, the warheads could reach Moscow,” it said, referring to other dispatches.
“The cables say that Iran not only obtained the BM-25, but also saw the advanced technology as a way to learn how to design and build a new class of more powerful engines,” said the Times.

Saudi king urged US to attack Iran

Saudi King Abdullah has repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran’s nuclear programme and China directed cyberattacks on the United States, according to a vast cache of US diplomatic cables released on Sunday.
Among the revelations in Britain’s Guardian newspaper, which also received an advance look at the documents along with France’s Le Monde, Germany’s Der Spiegel and Spain’s El Pais, King Abdullah is reported to have “frequently exhorted the US to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons programme”.
“Cut off the head of the snake,” the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel Al Jubeir, quotes the king as saying during a meeting with US General David Petraeus in April 2008.
The leaked documents, the majority of which are from 2007 or later, also disclose US allegations that China’s Politburo directed an intrusion into Google’s computer systems, part of a broader coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by Chinese government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws, the Times reported.

US diplomats asked to spy on foreign dignitaries

The United States has ordered its diplomats to play a larger intelligence role by performing espionage work like obtaining the credit card and frequent flyer numbers of foreign dignitaries, according to leaked US documents published on Sunday.
Secret cables reveal that US State Department personnel are asked to glean highly personal information from UN officials and key players from countries around the world.
The cables alluding to work usually associated with the Central Intelligence Agency and other spy bodies were sent to embassies in Africa, the Middle East, eastern Europe, Latin America and the US mission to the United Nations.
For example, a classified directive sent to US diplomats under US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s name in July last year sought technical details about the communications systems used by top UN officials, The Guardian said. These included passwords and personal encryption keys used in private and commercial networks for official communications, it reported.
The New York Times said that one cable signed by Clinton sought “biographic and biometric information on ranking North Korean diplomats” from US diplomats at the US mission to the United Nations in New York.
The Guardian said the directive also sought intelligence on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s “management and decision-making style and his influence on the secretariat”.
Washington also asked for credit card numbers, email addresses, phone, fax and pager numbers and even frequent-flyer account numbers for UN officials, the British daily added.
The secret “national human intelligence collection directive” was sent to US missions at the UN in New York, Vienna and Rome as well as 33 embassies and consulates.
A similar directive issued under Clinton's name in April 2009 sought out details about key figures in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, according to the Guardian.
The list asked for data “including health, opinions toward the US, training history, ethnicity... and language skills of key and emerging political, military, intelligence, opposition, ethnic, religious, and business leaders”, said the cable on the Guardian website.
“Data should include email addresses, telephone and fax numbers, fingerprints, facial images, DNA, and iris scans,” it said.
The Guardian said a directive sent to Cairo, Tel Aviv, Amman, Damascus and Riyadh demanded the travel plans and vehicles used by leading members of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.


Dangerous US standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel

For years the United States has led top secret efforts to remove highly enriched uranium from Pakistan, worried it could be used to make an illicit nuclear device, according to leaked US cables.
The New York Times said the documents, part of quarter of a million confidential American diplomatic cables released by Internet whistleblower Wikileaks, showed that the effort had so far proved unsuccessful.
Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is one of the most sensitive topics for the United States as it tries to improve relations with its frontline ally in the campaign against Al Qaida and the Taliban.
Militants embarked on a nationwide bombing campaign across Pakistan in 2007, the same year that the Times said the secret efforts began.
In May 2009, it quoted then US ambassador Anne Patterson as saying that Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American technical experts.
The Times attributed the reason to a nameless Pakistani official who said: “If the local media got word of the fuel removal, ‘they certainly would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan’s nuclear weapons’.”
Islamabad has been adamant that its nuclear weapons are in safe hands and US President Barack Obama has publicly concurred.
But the Times said the leaked documents showed the United States trying to remove the uranium from a research reactor, fearing it could be diverted for use in an “illicit nuclear device”.


Karzai’s brother ‘corrupt drugs baron’

American officials believe a powerful brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and an ally in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar, is a corrupt drugs baron, leaked US documents showed on Monday.
The president’s younger half-brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, who serves as chairman of Kandahar’s legislative council, has long been dogged by allegations of unsavoury links to the lucrative opium trade and private security firms.
But as a powerful figure in the pivotal southern province, where US and Afghan forces are concentrating efforts to break a nine-year Taliban insurgency, Western officials have stayed quiet publicly on his tainted record.
“While we must deal with AWK (Ahmad Wali Karzai) as the head of the provincial council, he is widely understood to be corrupt and a narcotics trafficker,” said one note that followed a meeting between the president's brother and US envoy Frank Ruggiero in September 2009.
Of the meeting itself, the report said Karzai “dressed in a crisp white shalwar kameez and pinstriped vest, appeared nervous, though eager to express his views on the international presence in Kandahar”.
In May, British Major General Nick Carter, then Nato commander in southern Afghanistan, said he hoped Karzai would gradually cede power to the governor of the province, Tooryalai Wesa.
Kandahar is a make-or-break battleground in the US-led fight to defeat the insurgency, where the United States has poured in thousands of extra troops to wrest the initiative from the Taliban and bolster the Afghan government.


US diplomats called Putin 'alpha male'

US diplomats refer to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as a hesitant leader and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as an “alpha male”, Kommersant reported on Monday citing documents released by Wikileaks.
“The Americans call the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pale and hesitant, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin an alpha male,” the newspaper wrote.