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| (Anonymous Conceptual Graph of Power) ...conjecture at best... |
(1Jerusalem) Last December, the global intelligence company Strategic Forecast, referred to as Stratfor, was hacked by members of the Anonymous group. Among the files gathered were a very large number of internal emails, showing how the private intelligence gathering company conducted its business around the world, and include a lot of revelations that are only now becoming public. One such email for example hints at the fact that Israeli commandos and Kurdish fighters may have destroyed an Iran nuclear facility. If true, this could have wide repercussions in the middle east.
The email is just one of five millions that the firm sent and that was hacked in the December attack. In it, Stratfor analysts apparently obtained information that would indicate an Israeli commando wiped out an Iranian nuclear facility. Some of the company staff discuss how likely that is, and come to the conclusion that it could be true if the Israeli forces cooperated with Kurdish fighters. The explosion at the Iranian facility was seen as possibly being caused by such an attack: “[He] was asked what he thought of reports that the Israelis were preparing a military offensive against Iran. Response: I think this is a diversion. The Israelis already destroyed all the Iranian nuclear infrastructure on the ground weeks ago.” Thanks to the series of emails that followed, the company comes to the conclusion that it may well have happened the way their informant says it did.
But this is just one of many revelations that are already starting to come out from these massive files. In its press release, WikiLeaks portrayed Stratfor as a private intelligence agency, a shadow CIA bribing people to obtain their intelligence through a series of hidden Swiss bank accounts, working with large corporations, executives, government agencies and the military to get the best intelligence they could through money exchanges or extortion, and then turning this into a money making business. Their latest fund StratCap aims at profiting financially from getting this early access to facts and rumors from around the world. Meanwhile, a select few individuals and corporations are allowed to pay the company to get early access to this information.
Meanwhile, Stratfor has posted a statement on its web site, saying the hack and subsequent release of private emails is a deplorable and illegal act, something they did not authorize, and warn that some of the emails may be altered or faked. They claim that their internal systems are now more secure and that such a hacking attempt would not happen again. Still, there’s no doubt that the emails released will more than likely bring us more facts about powerful world figures in the weeks to come.
