When Napalm, Christian Persecution and Genocide are Ignored

Posted on March 12, 2018March 12, 2018 by Denise Simon

There are several human rights groups operating in the Middle East reporting on civil war and military conflict casualties. Yes, the United Nations is reporting also, including being in theater…but reporting is just reporting while people die, become sick and are displaced such as living under ground for safety as best they can.

The Violations Documentation Center in Syria has filed with evidence to the United Nations Security Council that 59 reports of napalm attacks by the Syrian government and Russian forces, resulting in 6 fatalities. Yes….NAPALM

US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis has warned Syria it would be “very unwise” to use poison gas in Eastern Ghouta amid reports of chlorine attacks.

Mr Mattis did not say President Trump would take military action, but the US struck Syria last April after a suspected gas attack in northern Syria.

Fierce fighting is continuing and the Syrian army says it has surrounded a major town in the rebel-held enclave.

More than 1,000 civilians have been reported killed in recent weeks.

The Syrian military has been accused of targeting civilians, but it says it is trying to liberate the region – the last major opposition stronghold near the capital Damscus – from those it terms terrorists.

The statistical report on deaths and casualties in Syria up to February 2018 is here.

Newsweek reports Christian deaths this way:

The persecution and genocide of Christians across the world is worse today “than at any time in history,” and Western governments are failing to stop it, a report from a Catholic organization said.

The study by Aid to the Church in Need said the treatment of Christians has worsened substantially in the past two years compared with the two years prior, and has grown more violent than any other period in modern times.

“Not only are Christians more persecuted than any other faith group, but ever-increasing numbers are experiencing the very worst forms of persecution,” the report said.

The report examined the plight of Christians in China, Egypt, Eritrea, India, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Turkey over the period lasting from 2015 until 2017. The research showed that in that time, Christians suffered crimes against humanity, and some were hanged or crucified. The report found that Saudi Arabia was the only country where the situation for Christians did not get worse, and that was only because the situation couldn’t get any worse than it already was.

The authors criticized the administration of President Donald Trump for not holding Saudi Arabia accountable for its human rights violations and instead focusing on the trade relationship between the two nations. In May 2017, Trump signed a $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia during his first overseas trip in office.

The report put special focus on Middle Eastern countries like Iraq and Syria, where the authors argued Christians would have been entirely wiped out if it weren’t for military action and the assistance of Christian humanitarian organizations, like Aid to the Church in Need.

“The defeat of Daesh [the Islamic State militant group] and other Islamists in major strongholds of the Middle East offers the last hope of recovery for Christian groups threatened with extinction,” the report found. “Many would not survive another similar violent attack.”

Relatives of Coptic Christians who were killed during a bus attack surround their coffins during their funeral service, at Ava Samuel desert monastery, in Minya, Egypt. Getty Images

The report, which was released in November 2017 but received renewed attention this week, is based on research in the countries and testimony from victims. It detailed attacks against Coptic Christians in Egypt and monasteries burned in Syria.

In Africa, the report focused on countries like Sudan, where the government ordered that churches be destroyed, and Nigeria, where ISIS-affiliated groups like Boko Haram have led a surge in attacks on Christians. In Eritrea, hundreds of Christians have been rounded up and imprisoned over the past year because of their faith.

The report also documented numerous case studies in which Christians in countries such as India and Nigeria were murdered or beaten for practicing their faith.

Indian Christians gathers at St. Teresa’s Church for the midnight Christmas mass in Kolkata, India. Getty Images

“A Christian pastor in India was left in a coma after being beaten in a ‘planned’ attack apparently carried out by Hindutva extremists,” the report noted. “Before slipping into unconsciousness, the pastor told police that the attack was religiously motivated.”

“You must never come to our village to pray. You should never enter our village,” the men told the pastor, according to the report.

In late October, Vice President Mike Pence pledged that the Trump administration would redirect aid money formerly given to the United Nations to the U.S. Agency for International Development, a move that was meant to appease Christian organizations that say the U.N. isn’t doing enough for persecuted Christians.

Moath Hamza Ahmed Al-Alwi, GITMO Hearing for Release

Posted on March 12, 2018March 12, 2018 by Denise Simon

Release back to Yemen, his home country? His terror history/jihad file is here.

His detainee ID number is 028. Guantanamo analysts estimated he was born in 1977, in Bajor, Yemen.

Al-Alawi arrived at Guantanamo on January 17, 2002, and has been held at Guantanamo for 16 years, 1 month and 23 days. In January 2010 the Guantanamo Review Task Force recommended he should be classed as a forever prisoner“, one who couldn’t face charges, because he was innocent of committing a crime, who, nevertheless, was too dangerous to release. By his 2015 Periodic Review Board hearing intelligence analysts had dropped the damning allegation that he was one of Osama bin Laden’s bodyguards, claiming instead that he “had spent time” with some of his bodyguards.^[3]

Al-Alawi is a long-term Guantanamo hunger striker, who has described his force-feeding as “an endless horror story.”

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In 2011, it was summarized as such:

Government prosecutors introduced evidence showing that al Alwi, who is a Yemeni, traveled to Afghanistan to join the Taliban in its fight against the Northern Alliance, stayed in al Qaeda and Taliban-run guesthouses, and received light arms training at a “Taliban-linked training camp near Kabul.” The court also found that “Al Alwi then joined a combat unit, led by a high-ranking al Qaeda official” and that “fought with the Taliban on two different fronts.”

Al Alwi’s story is a common one found in declassified and leaked documents produced at Guantanamo. Like many other detainees held there, al Alwi was a member of al Qaeda’s 55th Arab Brigade, which is the “combat unit” referenced in the circuit court’s opinion.

A leaked Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) threat assessment of al Alwi, dated March 14, 2008, notes that the 55th Arab Brigade was “also referred to in reporting as the al Qaeda Brigade, the Mujahideen Brigade, and the Arab Fighters.” It “served as [Osama bin Laden’s] primary battle formation supporting Taliban objectives, with [Osama bin Laden] participating closely in the command and control of the brigade.”

The 55th Arab Brigade was headed by top al Qaeda lieutenant Abdel Hadi al Iraqi, who is also currently held at Guantanamo. Al Iraqi had “primary operational command” of the brigade and served as bin Laden’s “military commander in the field,” according to the leaked threat assessment. Indeed, al Alwi admitted that he fought under the command of al Iraqi, as well as one of al Iraqi’s sub-commanders.

The court’s findings closely match JTF-GTMO’s description of the 55th Arab Brigade. Citing al Alwi’s admissions, the court concluded that al Alwi “joined a combat unit, the Omar Sayef Group,” which “fought the Northern Alliance and related forces on two fronts.” Al Alwi “fought under the leadership of an Iraqi named Abd al Hadi, a high-level al Qaeda member responsible for commanding Arab and Taliban troops in Kabul,” the court concluded.

The 55th Arab Brigade’s existence has long been known to US counterterrorism officials. The leaked JTF-GTMO threat assessment cites an FBI analysis written in 1998, as well as several other analyses by intelligence officials. In late 2001, the brigade was quashed by Coalition forces in Afghanistan, with many of its members being killed or captured. In the years that followed, al Qaeda reformed the 55th under the auspices of the Lashkar al Zil, or Shadow Army, which draws members from various jihadist groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As in previous habeas proceedings, the courts did not weigh all of the evidence against al Alwi. The district and circuit courts concluded that al Alwi’s own admissions, including those tying him to al Qaeda’s 55th Arab Brigade, were enough to justify his detention.

Additional intelligence not considered

The leaked JTF-GTMO threat assessment summarizes additional intelligence compiled in al Alwi’s case, including descriptions of al Alwi provided by other Guantanamo detainees, several of whom were senior al Qaeda leaders.

Al Alwi was originally “recruited through an al Qaeda associated Salafist network linked to Sheikh Muqbil Bin Hadi al Wadi,” JTF-GTMO found. Al Alwi admitted that he visited Sheikh Wadi and that he attended the al Furqan Institute. Sheikh Wadi, who died in 2001, recruited jihadists for training in Afghanistan at both al Furqan and the al Dimaj Institute in Yemen.

Although al Alwi made some important admissions about his time in Afghanistan, authorities at Guantanamo concluded that he was never truly forthcoming.

Al Alwi used a “known cover story” and withheld “significant details of his activities, associates, facilities, times, and locations in Afghanistan” during questioning, the JTF-GTMO threat assessment reads. In particular, al Alwi claimed that he first traveled to Afghanistan in 2001, but JTF-GTMO’s analysts found that this conflicted with other parts of al Alwi’s own story, as well as additional intelligence placing him in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.

JTF-GTMO determined that al Alwi was a bodyguard for bin Laden and also received advanced terrorist training in al Qaeda’s camps. But al Alwi never did admit that either of those allegations was true. Other detainees in US custody, however, did.

Al Alwi was captured in December 2001 as he fled the Tora Bora Mountains. He was captured as part of a group referred to in JTF-GTMO documents as the “Dirty 30,” which was comprised mainly of Osama bin Laden’s elite bodyguards.

One member of the “Dirty 30” was Mohammed al Qahtani, the so-called “20th hijacker.” Qahtani was slated to take part in the September 11 attacks but was denied entry into the US in the summer of 2001. Qahtani, whose detention has been controversial because of the harsh interrogation methods employed during his questioning, was one of several detainees to identify al Alwi. Qahtani identified al Alwi as “a veteran fighter in Afghanistan.”

Ahmed Ghailani, who helped plot al Qaeda’s August 1998 embassy bombings, “photo-identified” al Alwi to his interrogators as well. According to the leaked threat assessment, Ghailani said al Alwi was a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden. While he was detained by the CIA, Ghailani was subjected to controversial interrogation techniques. He was later transferred to the US to stand trial and convicted of terrorism-related charges.

Other detainees held at Guantanamo identified al Alwi as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, too.

JTF-GTMO concluded that al Alwi, whose internment serial number is 28, received “elite hand-to-hand combat training taught by” Walid Bin Attash, a top al Qaeda operative who was involved in both the 9/11 plot and the USS Cole bombing. Attash, who is also known as Khallad, conducted the training course at al Qaeda’s Mes Aynak camp in Afghanistan.

The leaked JTF-GTMO threat assessment notes that the training sessions were “also attended by al Qaeda members slated for the cancelled Southeast Asia 11 September 2001 attacks.” As part of the September 11 operation, al Qaeda originally planned to attack targets on the West Coast of the US using planes flying from Southeast Asia. Osama bin Laden reportedly canceled this part of the operation because he feared it would be too difficult to strike both East Coast and West Coast targets at the same time.

A biography of Khallad released by US intelligence officials provides additional details about the training at Mes Aynak. Osama bin Laden asked Khallad “to help select about two-dozen experienced and reliable operatives for special training” there. Khallad “supervised the training” and many of his trainees went on to achieve infamy.

One of Khallad’s trainees “became a suicide bomber in the Cole operation.” Two others “were later 11 September hijackers.” Another trainee “was a cell leader who was killed during the suicide bombings in Riyadh in May 2003.” Still another “gained renown for his involvement in the bombing of the Limburg in October 2002 and for his plot to assassinate the US Ambassador to Yemen.”

Khallad, who was interrogated as part of the CIA’s so-called enhanced interrogation program, told his interrogators that al Alwi was among these trainees.

The training at Mes Aynak was not the only terrorist training al Alwi received, according to the leaked JTF-GTMO threat assessment. Al Alwi was also allegedly trained at al Qaeda’s al Farouq camp. Top al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah told authorities that al Alwi may have been trained at the Khalden camp as well. Before being transferred to Guantanamo, Zubaydah was held in the CIA’s custody and waterboarded in 2002. In 2005, Zubaydah told US authorities that he saw al Alwi “several times during 2000 and 2001.”

In all likelihood, the damning statements made by senior al Qaeda terrorists were not introduced during al Alwi’s habeas proceedings because of the controversies surrounding their interrogations.

A “high” risk

Although the courts focused narrowly on al Alwi’s role fighting for the 55th Arab Brigade, JTF-GTMO looked at the entire intelligence picture and concluded that al Alwi is a “high risk.” Al Alwi is “likely to pose a threat to the US, its interests, and allies” if he is released, JTF-GTMO warned.

The leaked threat assessment also notes that al Alwi “has demonstrated his hatred for Americans at JTF-GTMO and will likely reestablish ties to al Qaeda and other extremist elements if released.”

JTF-GTMO recommended that al Alwi be retained in the Department of Defense’s custody. And in a section of the threat assessment detailing the reasons for al Alwi’s continued detention, JTF-GTMO’s analysts wrote that he “was identified as someone more disposed than others to conduct terrorist attacks in Yemen.”

The courts have now agreed that al Alwi’s detention is justified, albeit based on a much narrower review of the intelligence concerning his al Qaeda career.

UK’s PM Terresa May has to Face Russia over Use of Nerve Agent

Posted on March 12, 2018March 12, 2018 by Denise Simon

May says it is very clear that the use of this nerve agent goes against the spirit of the chemical weapons treaty. This is part of a group of nerve agents known as Novichok.

Using nerve agents of this kind is banned under international conventions, developed in secret to get around those treaties and designed to avoid detection. And it is banned in part because of its potency, and the horrible effects that could stem from its use.

Novichok was first developed in the 1970s and 80s by what was then the Soviet Union. The name means “newcomer” in Russian, and indicates the fact that when it was developed it marked a major breakthrough in the power of such chemical weapons.

That new potency meant that it was by some way the most powerful nerve agent in the world, and it continues to be thought one of the most deadly weapons available.

They work like all nerve agents, by overriding neurotransmitters in the body and shutting down the way it normally works. By forcing muscles to contract by attacking the nervous system, important parts of the body start to shut down – soon after someone comes into contact with such a nerve agent, the heart and diaphragm will shut down and death can result either through heart failure or suffocation.

Though it was developed to be as dangerous as possible when used, it was also designed so that it could be relatively easily transported. The nerve agent is made out of different “precursors” – which are relatively safe until they are mixed so that they can be used in a weapon. Novichok became famous in the 90s, when a Soviet scientist called Vil Mirzayanov revealed that the country had secretly developed the powerful nerve gas – which was far more potent than anything in the US. Though the Soviet Union had been developing it for some time, it didn’t become known for as much as a decade after it was actually available, because it had been kept entirely secret. More here.

Russia deployed a military grade nerve agent in a city of 40,000 people. Chemical warfare experts were sent to the scene and hundreds of people may have been poisoned in Britain.

British PM May: “The government has concluded that it is highly likely that Russia was responsible” for nerve agent attack on Russian ex-spy. “There are only two plausible explanations… Either this was a direct act by the Russian state against our country, or the Russian government lost control of its potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others.”

British PM May says she’ll give Russia until Wednesday to respond: “Should there be no credible response, we will conclude that this action amounts to an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom.”

British emergency services workers in hazard suits put a tent on Thursday over the bench where Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were found. Ben Stanstall / AFP – Getty Images

19 others treated after nerve agent attack on Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal, his daughter

by Daniel Arkin

A police sergeant who assisted a former Russian spy and his daughter after a nerve agent attack in Britain is receiving medical treatment, as well as 18 other people who may have been exposed to the poison, police said Thursday.

The attack on Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter, Yulia, 33, is being treated as attempted murder, authorities have said. The two remain hospitalized in critical condition after being found unconscious Sunday on a bench near a shopping mall in Salisbury, 90 miles west of London.

Sgt. Nick Bailey, an officer from the Wiltshire police who assisted the two victims, also remained hospitalized on Thursday but appeared to be making progress, said Kier Pritchard, the acting Wiltshire police chief.

“Of course he’s very anxious, very concerned,” Pritchard told reporters.

Some of those who were treated after the nerve agent attack received blood tests, support and hospital advice, Pritchard said. He would not say whether the other victims were other officers, medical workers or bystanders.

At a news conference, Britain’s home secretary, Amber Rudd, described Bailey as “still seriously unwell,” but “engaging and awake and talking to point.”

Police have not offered any specifics about the attack, including the type of nerve agent used or how it was delivered.

Skripal, a former military intelligence officer, was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2006 after being convicted in Russia of spying for Britain.

He passed the identity of dozens of spies to the United Kingdom’s MI6 foreign intelligence agency, according to news reports. He was freed in 2010 as part of a U.S.-Russian spy swap that also included Anna Chapman, who was arrested in New York earlier that year.

The incident has drawn parallels to the death of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with radioactive polonium 11 years ago in London.

Litvinenko, 43, an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, fled Russia for Britain six years before he was poisoned. He died after drinking green tea laced with the rare and very potent radioactive isotope at London’s Millennium Hotel.

In a report published in 2016, a British judge found that Litvinenko was killed in an assassination carried out by Russia’s security services — with the probable approval of Putin. Russia has denied any responsibility for Litvinenko’s death.

There is no evidence of any Kremlin connection in Skripal’s case. But intelligence analyst Glenmore Trenear-Harvey, who formerly worked for MI6, told NBC News that he believes that the case has the hallmarks of Putin’s involvement.

Pritzker, Boxer, Sherman and MoveOn.org, the Strike Force

Posted on March 12, 2018March 12, 2018 by Denise Simon

The top person on John Kerry’s Iran JPOA team was Wendy Sherman. But then we have Obama’s dear friend Penny Pritzker in the mix too, along with Barbara Boxer and Hillary’s Jake Sherman all part of this National Security Action team, which is all things against Trump. So, while we do have the Director of MoveOn in the mix…this group likely has some robust funding from Soros.

This is a strike force that even includes Jeremy Bash.

He served as Chief of Staff of the CIA (2009-2011) and Defense Department (2011-2013), was Panetta’s right hand person and perhaps we should remember it was Panetta that allowed Hollywood access to top secret information to make a movie, that Zero Dark Thirty movie.

According to a June 15, 2011, email from Benjamin Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications, the Obama White House was intent on “trying to have visibility into the UBL (Usama bin Laden) projects and this is likely a high profile one.”

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Ben Rhodes the aspiring novelist became Obama’s top advisor even when Rhodes security clearance was denied.

In early July 2012, Obama’s senior White House adviser on Iran, Puneet Talwar, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s right-hand man, Jake Sullivan, arrived in the sleepy Arabian sultanate of Oman, 150 miles across sparkling Gulf waters from the Iranian coast. It was the first significant back-channel contact with Tehran.

FNC: A group of about 50 former Obama administration officials recently formed a think tank called National Security Action to attack the Trump administration’s national security policies.

The mission statement of the group is anything but subtle: “National Security Action is dedicated to advancing American global leadership and opposing the reckless policies of the Trump administration that endanger our national security and undermine U.S. strength in the world.”

National Security Action plans to pursue typical liberal foreign policy themes such as climate change, challenging President Trump’s leadership, immigration and allegations of corruption between the president and foreign powers.

This organization uses the acronym NSA, which is ironic. Three of its founding members – Ben Rhodes, Susan Rice and Samantha Power – likely were involved in abusing intelligence from the federal NSA (National Security Agency) to unmask the names of Trump campaign staff from intelligence reports and to leak NSA intercepts to the media to hurt Donald Trump politically. This included a leak to the media of an NSA transcript in February 2017 of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s discussion with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak. No one has been prosecuted for this leak.

Given the likely involvement of Rhodes, Rice and Power to weaponize intelligence against the Trump presidential campaign, will their anti-Trump NSA issue an apology for these abuses?

It is interesting that the new anti-Trump group says nothing in its mandate about protecting the privacy of Americans from illegal surveillance, preventing the politicization of U.S. intelligence agencies or promoting aggressive intelligence oversight. Maybe this is because the founders plan to abuse U.S. intelligence agencies to spy on Republican lawmakers and candidates if they join a future Democratic administration.

It takes a lot of chutzpah for this group of former Obama officials, who were part of the worst U.S. foreign policy in history, to condemn the current president’s successful international leadership and foreign policy.

After all, ISIS was born on President Obama’s watch because of his mismanagement of the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and his “leading from behind” Middle East policy. The Syrian civil war spun out of control because of the incompetence of President Obama and his national security team.

This was a team that provided false information to the American people about the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the nuclear deal with Iran. I wonder if the anti-Trump NSA will include videos on its website of former National Security Adviser Susan Rice falsely claiming on five Sunday morning news shows in September 2012 that the attack on the Benghazi consulate was “spontaneous” and in response to an anti-Muslim video.

And of course there’s the North Korean nuclear and missile programs that surged during the Obama years due to the administration’s “Strategic Patience” policy, an approach designed to kick this problem down the road to the next president. Because of President Obama’s incompetence, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un may have an H-bomb that he soon will be able to load onto an intercontinental ballistic missile to attack the United States.

It must appall this group of former Obama national security officials that President Trump is succeeding as he undoes everything they worked on.

ISIS will soon control no territory in Iraq or Syria because of the Trump administration’s intensified attacks on it and arming of Kurdish militias.

In sharp contrast to President Obama, President Trump drew a chemical weapons red line in Syria and enforced it.

North Korea is pushing for talks with the U.S. in response to strong United Nations sanctions the U.S. worked to obtain in 2017. And compliance with the new sanctions has been significantly improved, especially by China, as the result of President Trump’s actions.

President Trump repaired the damage done to U.S.-Israel relations by President Obama and has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – something several previous presidents promised but failed to do.

Iranian harassment of U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf stopped in 2017, likely due to the more assertive Iran policy of President Trump. This includes the president’s successful effort to build a stronger U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia.

President Trump is right when he says he inherited a mess on national security from the Obama administration. This is because President Obama and his national security team undermined U.S. credibility and left President Trump a much more dangerous world. I doubt the new anti-Trump National Security Action think tank will succeed in convincing Americans otherwise.

UK: Nerve Agent Used in Assassination Attempt of Russian Spy

Posted on March 7, 2018March 7, 2018 by Denise Simon

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Former foreign office minister Chris Bryant, who now chairs the all-party parliamentary group on Russia, said: “I don’t think the Government will have any choice but to send a significant number of ‘so-called Russian diplomats’ back to Moscow if there is any evidence that the trail from Salisbury goes straight back to the Kremlin.” The Russian embassy in London has dismissed claims that the poisoning was an operation by Russian special services as “completely untrue” and said the allegations were “vilification” attempts on Russia. Theories over who was responsible grew today with one former KGB agent even claiming that the poisoning of Skripal was an operation by Western secret services to harm Vladimir Putin as he seeks re-election this month. More here.

Russian spy: Nerve agent ‘used to try to kill’ Sergei Skripal

A nerve agent was used to try to murder a former Russian spy and his daughter, police have said.

Sergei and Yulia Skripal were found unconscious in Salisbury on Sunday afternoon and remain critically ill.

A police officer who was the first to attend the scene is now in a serious condition in hospital, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, head of Counter Terrorism Policing, said.

Mr Rowley would not confirm the exact substance identified.

He said: “Having established that a nerve agent is the cause of the symptoms leading us to treat this as attempted murder, I can also confirm that we believe that the two people who became unwell were targeted specifically.”

He said there was no evidence of a widespread health risk to the public.

***

Guardian: The biggest question about Sergei Skripal’s suspected poisoning is the timing. Skripal had spent several years in a Russian jail after being convicted of espionage and had presumably been thoroughly debriefed by his former spy bosses. If the Russian security services had wanted him to have an “accident” during those years it would have been very easy to organise.

Sunday’s assassination attempt in Salisbury, if that is what it was, therefore appears to have a demonstrative nature. Suggestions that this could be some kind of vote-winning ploy, coming two weeks before presidential elections Vladimir Putin is certain to win, seem unconvincing. Many Russians are patriotic and have bought into the Kremlin’s aggressive new foreign policy, but it is unlikely that the assassination of a former spy of whom few had heard would do much to whip up popular passions.

More likely, the move is a deterrent, aimed at reminding other Russian operatives of the potential risks of working with foreign intelligence agencies. Every year Russia’s top security officials speak of active attempts by the CIA and other western agencies to recruit Russians. Part of this is propaganda for domestic consumption, but there is no doubt that western spy agencies are active in Russia.

Last January, two of Russia’s top cybersecurity officials were arrested and accused of aiding the CIA, in a case some have linked to US election hacking claims. The British, too, have been active in Russia, most memorably revealed by the “spy rock” scandal, in which a fake rock was used to pass messages back to British intelligence.

While there are fewer ideological reasons than during the Soviet period for Russian spies to become traitors, western agencies can provide financial incentives. Russian prosecutors suggested, during Skripal’s court case, that he was recruited with cash – according to Russian media. Many agents, working in structures in which their superiors are demonstratively corrupt, might be tempted into colluding with friendly foreigners offering cash for secrets.

As such, the demonstrative killing of a traitor could be a warning to junior officers not to follow the same path. Russian officials have often made it clear that traitors will meet a sticky end one way or another. Public threats were made against the officer in the SVR foreign intelligence service who betrayed the Russian sleeper agents swapped for Skripal and others, back in 2010.

“We know who he is and where he is,” a high-ranking Kremlin source told Kommersant newspaper at the time. “You can have no doubt – a Mercader has already been sent after him.” Ramón Mercader was the assassin tasked by the KBG to kill Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1940.

It is unusual, however, to target spies after they have been swapped. One possible reason is that Skripal was being punished for a continuing relationship with British intelligence, or the suspicion of one.

“My presumption is that if the Russians were behind this, and it does look plausible, then it is because they assumed Skripal was still working for British or other western intelligence and not simply retired,” said Mark Galeotti, a Russia watcher and security analyst. “That is likely what tipped the balance with Litvinenko.”

Many hits on Russians abroad arise from financial warfare and do not necessarily come from the Kremlin – such as the shooting of the banker German Gorbuntsov in London, 2012, and the assassination of the Russian MP Denis Voronenkov in Kiev last year.

Yet the attack on Skripal looks more likely to belong to the category of hits organised and approved by the Russian state. And given the long political fallout of the Alexander Litvinenko murder, it is unlikely that intelligence agencies would risk such a gambit without a signoff at the highest level.

Since you’re here …