Africa emerges as the 21st century theatre of espionage, with South Africa as its gateway, in the cache of secret intelligence documents and cables seen by the Guardian. “Africa is now the El Dorado of espionage,” said one serving foreign intelligence officer.

The continent has increasingly become the focus of international spying as the battle for its resources has intensified, China’s economic role has grown dramatically, and the US and other western states have rapidly expanded their military presence and operations in a new international struggle for Africa.


The unglamorous life of a modern spy in the new ‘El Dorado of espionage’
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With South Africa a regional powerhouse and communications hub, Pretoria has become a centre of the continent’s new Great Game, intelligence officials say, and a target of global espionage. The leaked documents obtained by al-Jazeera and shared with the Guardian contain the names of 78 foreign spies working in Pretoria, along with their photographs, addresses and mobile phone numbers - as well as 65 foreign intelligence agents identified by the South Africans as working undercover. Among the countries sending spies are the US, India, Britain and Senegal.

The United States, along with its French and British allies, is the major military and diplomatic power on the continent. South Africa spends a disproportionate amount of time focused on Iran and jihadi groups, in spite of internal documents showing its intelligence service does not regard either as a major threat to South Africa. “The Americans get what they want,” an intelligence source said.

The targets of foreign intelligence are myriad, ranging from jihadi groups to economic or technological theft. China has emerged as one of the biggest economic players on the continent, investing heavily in infrastructure, building a strong presence in many countries, in large part motivated by its huge appetite for fuel and resources.

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Chinese intelligence is identified in one secret South African cable as the suspect in a nuclear break-in. A file dating from December 2009 on South Africa’s counter-intelligence effort says that foreign agencies had been “working frantically to influence” the country’s nuclear energy expansion programme, identifying US and French intelligence as the main players. But due to the “sophistication of their covert operations”, it had not been possible to “neutralise” their activities.

However, a 2007 break-in at the Pelindaba nuclear research centre – where apartheid South Africa developed nuclear weapons in the 1970s – by four armed and “technologically sophisticated criminals” was attributed by South African intelligence to an act of state espionage. At the time officials publicly dismissed the break-in as a burglary.

Several espionage agencies were reported to have shown interest in the progress of South Africa’s Pebble Bed Modular Reactor. According to the file, thefts and break-ins at the PBMR site were suspected to have been carried out to “advance China’s rival project”. It added that China was “now one year ahead … though they started several years after PBMR launch”.



In an October 2009 report by South Africa’s intelligence service, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), on operations in Africa, Israel is said to be “working assiduously to encircle and isolate Sudan from the outside, and to fuel insurrection inside Sudan”. Israel “has long been keen to capitalise on Africa’s mineral wealth”, the South African spying agency says, and “plans to appropriate African diamonds and process them in Israel, which is already the world’s second largest processor of diamonds”.

The document reports that members of a delegation led by then foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman had been “facilitating contracts for Israelis to train various militias” in Africa.

The NIA’s relationship with its highly active Israeli counterpart, Mossad, has been mixed: close during the apartheid era, distant in the early years of the rule of the pro-Palestinian African National Congress, and more ambiguous in recent years.

One factor in South Africa’s attraction for rival spy agencies is the porous nature of its security services. A South African intelligence document, Security Vulnerabilities in Government, dated October 2009, offers an uncompromising look at the weakness of its security, a point rammed home by the fact it is marked secret but ended up among the leaked files.

The document says: “Foreign governments and their intelligence services strive to weaken the state and undermine South Africa’s sovereignty. Continuing lack of an acceptable standard of security … increases the risk.” It lists theft of laptop computers, insufficient lock-up facilities, limited vetting of senior officials in sensitive institutions, no approved encryption on landlines or mobiles, total disregard by foreign diplomats for existing regulations, ease of access to government departments allowed to foreign diplomats, and the lack of proper screening for foreigners applying for sensitive jobs.

According to one intelligence officer with extensive experience in South Africa, the NIA is politically factionalised and “totally penetrated” by foreign agencies: “Everyone is working for someone else.” The former head of the South African secret service, Mo Shaik, a close ally of the president, Jacob Zuma, was described as a US confidant and key source of information on “the Zuma camp” in a leaked 2008 Wikileaks cable from the American embassy in Pretoria.

The cables disclose an apparent assassination plot in Ethiopia against the South African politician Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, days after she became the new chair of the African Union Commission in 2012, giving a flavour of the day-to-day tribulations of intelligence operations in Africa.

South Africa’s head of station in Addis Ababa was warned of the plot, but instructed not to give details to the Ethiopians. Eventually, the Ethiopians were tipped off but the bodyguards assigned to Dlamini-Zuma’s hotel to protect her left their positions to get food and water.

In a frantic series of cables to Pretoria and in meetings with Ethiopian officials, South African intelligence officials are shown struggling to protect Dlamini-Zuma’s security without creating an impression of no confidence in Ethiopian security. When South Africa hands over a list of suspects, Ethiopian intelligence blames Sudan but is unable to link the names with Khartoum.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/24/africa-el-dorado-espionage-leaked-intelligence-files

OREMUSSANCTUS:
#bringbackourbuhari

okomogo:

Respect your age na, can't you behave well for once. Smh for some people shall,

IbnSultaan:
Am surprise #spycables clearly show Africans can't keep secrets. Image the quantity of sensitive data and details leak out 2 aljazeera. Its just mind blowing.

SirShymexx:


Understandable.

However, once you read the between the lines - you'll see that Africa (Sub Saharan) is where the next battle-line would be, once they move away from the middle east. And Israel, China, US, UK, and France are already carving out their interests on the continents, without necessarily involving those who occupy the place - apart from South Africa.

So, the question is: where's Nigeria in all of this, and what proactive structures do we have in place, to protect our own interests in the scheme of things, once it finally kicks off?

SirShymexx:
Where's Nigeria and its intelligence agency in the scheme of things, since the new theatre for the new century, is on the continent?

South Africa is taking the lead again, while Nigeria is nowhere to be found - utterly shameful.

Nigeria definitely needs a complete overhaul, the darn country is just big for nothing.

They might as well break the darn country in different fragments, since its size is of no use/value.

Vikkie14:
Please, don't worry on something that doesnt concern you. This is a security issue. For SA to have reveal such "classified" info show their Intel/recon strength is weak. A classified document is not meant to be 'reveal' and that's why its termed CLASSIFIED. Our Intelligence Unit are really the "silent" type. The Army is a classic example, the procurement they do are kept out of public glare. If not for the directive from Mr President, NA would not had release any battle field imagery/video to the public. They believe in SECRECY.

vandalZA:
South Africa again proved to be the leader of this continent

SirShymexx:
Where's Nigeria and its intelligence agency in the scheme of things, since the new theatre for the new century, is on the continent?

South Africa is taking the lead again, while Nigeria is nowhere to be found - utterly shameful.

Nigeria definitely needs a complete overhaul, the darn country is just big for nothing.

They might as well break the darn country in different fragments, since its size is of no use/value.

SirShymexx:
Where's Nigeria and its intelligence agency in the scheme of things, since the new theatre for the new century, is on the continent?

South Africa is taking the lead again, while Nigeria is nowhere to be found - utterly shameful.

Nigeria definitely needs a complete overhaul, the darn country is just big for nothing.

They might as well break the darn country in different fragments, since its size is of no use/value.

SirShymexx:


Understandable.

However, once you read the between the lines - you'll see that Africa (Sub Saharan) is where the next battle-line would be, once they move away from the middle east. And Israel, China, US, UK, and France are already carving out their interests on the continents, without necessarily involving those who occupy the place - apart from South Africa.

So, the question is: where's Nigeria in all of this, and what proactive structures do we have in place, to protect our own interests in the scheme of things, once it finally kicks off?

Missy89:


Nigeria's intelligence agencies are designed monitor the opposition and "enemies" of the regime. The crisis in the NE has shown that they do not have any clout.

vandalZA:
South Africa again proved to be the leader of this continent

Tumisang:


With what? – weak laws and non-existent intelligence services??

Tumisang:


With what? – weak laws and non-existent intelligence services??

Vikkie14:
Please, don't worry on something that doesnt concern you. This is a security issue. For SA to have reveal such "classified" info show their Intel/recon strength is weak. A classified document is not meant to be 'reveal' and that's why its termed CLASSIFIED. Our Intelligence Unit are really the "silent" type. The Army is a classic example, the procurement they do are kept out of public glare. If not for the directive from Mr President, NA would not had release any battle field imagery/video to the public. They believe in SECRECY.

omenka:
Haven't had the time to follow the series as closely as I want to on Aljazeera, but stuffs like this about intelligence/espionage really tickle my fancy. From the little I watched yesterday about the deals that went on under the table between Obama, Abbas and Natanyahu, and the contacts CIA tried to make with Hamas , I concluded that we the ordinary citizens haven't the slightest idea about what goes on in this world of ours; totally ignorant about EVERYTHING that matters!

I think this is gonna open more cans of worms regarding governments' dealings that what Assange or Snowden could possibly reveal.

And the fact that Nigeria didn't feature prominently in the scheme of things didn't come as a surprise to me. What do you expect when our intelligence agencies now act like political parties in alliance with PDP. Give them an assignment and all you need to do is get a bottle of cool aid, sit back and watch them bungle things up right before your eyes. Their incompetence is astounding. Just look at Marylin Ogar for instance.

I can wager at some point Nigeria would come into the picture, but her role would be like that of a grain of sugar in a cup of coffee.

Our system needs a total rebirth.

SirShymexx:


Understandable.

However, once you read the between the lines - you'll see that Africa (Sub Saharan) is where the next battle-line would be, once they move away from the middle east. And Israel, China, US, UK, and France are already carving out their interests on the continents, without necessarily involving those who occupy the place - apart from South Africa.

So, the question is: where's Nigeria in all of this, and what proactive structures do we have in place, to protect our own interests in the scheme of things, once it finally kicks off?

OREMUSSANCTUS:
I swear if I had d chance to see ya I for beat ya like mad man