Showing posts with label State Department. Show all posts
Showing posts with label State Department. Show all posts

20160910

Wiki: Gulmurod Khalimov

Gulmurod Khalimov

Birth name Gulmurod Khalimov
Born April 14, 1975 (age 41)
Varzob, Tajik SSR, Soviet Union
Allegiance Tajikistan (unkown–2015)
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (2015–present)
Service/branch Ministry of Internal Affairs
Rank Lieutenant colonel (Tajikistan)
Commands held OMON


Lieutenant-Colonel Gulmurod Salimovich Khalimov is a Tajiki man who was commander of Tajikistan's Interior Ministry OMONpolice special forces and is now a leader in the Islamic State.[1][2][3]

History[edit]
He was born 14 May 1975 in Varzob, Tajikistan, then part of the Soviet Union.[4]
US training[edit]
From 2003 to 2014, Khalimov participated in five counterterrorism training courses in the United States and in Tajikistan, through the United States Department of State's Diplomatic Security/Anti-Terrorism Assistance program.[5]
Islamic State[edit]

He disappeared in late April 2015, and surfaced May 28, 2015 in an Islamic State video.[6]
Tajik reaction[edit]

Tajik Prosecutor-General Manuchehr Makhmudzod announced on May 29, 2015 that a probe had been opened into Halimov's activities. The Prosecutor-General's Office said on June 3 that Colonel Gulmuro Halimov is wanted for crimes including high treason and illegal participation in military actions abroad. "Acting for mercenary means, he joined the international terrorist organization calling itself Islamic State," the statement said.[7][8]

20160612

FBI criminal investigation emails: Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations with her cellphone, report says

The FBI has been conducting a criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information for months.

An explosive new report reveals just what it is that the FBI is looking to: emails in which then-Secretary of State Clinton approved CIA drone assassinations in Pakistan with her cellphone.

From 2011 on, the State Department had a secret arrangement with the CIA, giving it a degree of say over whether or not a drone killing would take place.

The U.S. drone program has killed hundreds of civilians in Pakistan and other countries.

Under Sec. Clinton, State Department officials approved almost every single proposed CIA drone assassination. They only objected to one or two attacks.

The emails that are at the heart of the FBI’s criminal investigation are 2011 and 2012 messages between U.S. diplomats in Pakistan and their State Department superiors in D.C., in which the officials approved drone strikes.

Clinton’s aides forwarded some of these emails to her personal email account, on a private server in her home in suburban New York.

These are the revelations of a report by The Wall Street Journal, based on information provided by anonymous congressional and law-enforcement officials who were briefed on the FBI’s probe.

The State Department revealed in January that 22 of the emails that were on Clinton’s private server at her home contained top-secret information. These messages were not publicly released, and an investigation was eventually launched...


http://www.salon.com/2016/06/10/fbi_criminal_investigation_emails_clinton_approved_cia_drone_assassinations_with_her_cellphone_report_says/

20150222

DESTROYED BY THE ESPIONAGE ACT

ON THE MORNING of June 11, 2009, James Rosen stepped inside the State Department, scanned his building badge and made his way to the Fox News office in the busy press room on the second floor. It was going to be a hectic day. Like other reporters working the phones that morning, Rosen was looking for fresh news about the latest crisis with North Korea.

Two weeks earlier, North Korea had conducted a nuclear detonation that showed the rest of the world it possessed a functioning bomb. The United Nations was on the verge of a formal condemnation, but no one at the U.N. or inside the U.S. government knew how North Korea’s unpredictable regime would respond and whether things might escalate toward war.

Rosen called North Korea  a State Department expert on rogue nations and weapons of mass destruction. Kim, a U.S. citizen who was born in South Korea, spoke fluent Korean and had worked at one of America’s nuclear-weapons labs. He probably knew more about what was going on in Pyongyang than almost anyone else in the building.

The call, according to metadata collected by the FBI, lasted just half a minute, but soon afterward Kim called Rosen and they talked for nearly a dozen minutes. After that conversation, they left the building at roughly the same time, then spoke once more on the phone after they both returned.

A classified report on North Korea had just begun circulating, and Kim was among the restricted number of officials with clearance to read it. He logged onto a secure computer, called up the report at 11:27 a.m., and phoned Rosen 10 minutes later. A few minutes past noon, he left the building again, and a minute later Rosen followed. The destruction of Kim’s life would center on the question of what the two men discussed during that brief encounter outside the State Department...

20140408

State Department can't account for $6B


SUBJECT: Management Alert (Contract File Management Deficiencies)

The Office ofInspector General (OIG), in recent audits, investigations, and inspections, has identified significant vulnerabilities in the management of contract file documentation that could expose the Department to substantial financial losses. Specifically, over the past 6 years, OIG has identified Department of State (Department) contracts with a total value of more than $6 billion in which contract files were incomplete or could not be located at all. The failure to maintain contract files adequately creates significant financial risk and demonstrates a lack of internal control over the Department's contract actions...

http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/224580.pdf

20131230

State Dept. whistleblower has email hacked, deleted

WASHINGTON — The personal e-mail account of a State Department whis­tle­­blower was hacked, and four years worth of messages — some detailing alleged wrongdoing at the agency — were deleted, The Post has learned.

The computer attack targeted the Gmail account of Diplomatic Security Service criminal investigator Richard Higbie, his lawyer, Cary Schulman, confirmed.

“They took all of his e-mails and then they deleted them all,” said Schulman. He said that he could not prove who was responsible for the hack job, but said the attack was “sophisticated” and called the targeting of Higbie “alarming.”

“Obviously, somebody is not happy with something he’s doing and wanted to get that information and also cause him an inability in the future to have ready access to that,” Schulman said...

http://nypost.com/2013/12/30/state-dept-whistleblower-has-email-hacked-deleted/

20130724

Watchdog critical of State Department contracting in Afghanistan

A U.S. government watchdog found "serious deficiencies" in how the State Department awarded a contract job in Afghanistan, according to a letter from the organization to Secretary of State John Kerry released Thursday.

In the letter dated Monday, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, John Sopko, raised a number of concerns on the oversight practices of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) at the State Department and how they awarded a contract for the training of Afghan justice workers.

Sopko said the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), the nongovernmental organization awarded the contract, is "ill-prepared to manage and account for how U.S.-taxpayer funds will be spent," while also criticizing the State Department's role in awarding the contract...

...A second audit found the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development lack the same authority the Pentagon has to terminate contracts with an entity later found to be affiliated with insurgent groups in Afghanistan or those deemed to be an enemy of the United States....

http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/25/watchdog-critical-of-state-department-contracting-in-afghanistan-2/