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Alfreda Frances Bikowsky
Alfreda Frances Bikowsky (born 1965) is a Central Intelligence Agency officer who has headed the Bin Laden Issue Station and the Global Jihad unit. Bikowsky's identity is not publicly acknowledged by the Agency but was deduced by independent investigative journalists in 2011. In January 2014, the ''Washington Post'' named her and tied her to a pre-9/11 intelligence failure and the extraordinary rendition of Khalid El-Masri. The Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, released in December 2014, showed that Bikowsky was not only a key part of the torture program but also one of its chief apologists, resulting in the media's giving her the moniker "The Unidentified Queen of Torture." CIA career Bikowsky started her CIA career in the 1990s as a Soviet analyst. She was brought into the Bin Laden Issue Station when it was created in 1996 by its first chief, Michael Scheuer. Sometime after the USS ''Cole'' bombing in October 2000, she was promoted to Deputy Chief of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Scheuer
Michael F. Scheuer (pronounced "SHOY-er"), (born 1952) is an American former intelligence officer for the Central Intelligence Agency, blogger, author, commentator and former adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and Security Studies. One assignment during his 22-year career was serving as Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station (the Osama bin Laden tracking unit at the Counterterrorism Center, known as "Alec Station") from 1996 to 1999. He also served as Special Advisor to the Chief of Alec Station from September 2001 to November 2004. Scheuer became a public figure after being outed as the anonymous author of the book ''Imperial Hubris'' (2004), in which he criticized many of the United States' assumptions about Islamist insurgencies and particularly Osama bin Laden. Later in 2004, shortly after the "outing" of Scheuer's harsh criticism of America's close alliance with Israel, Scheuer resigned from his position at the CIA. In his book, Scheuer depicted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Federal Bureau Of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, the FBI is also a member of the U.S. Intelligence Community and reports to both the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence. A leading U.S. counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigative organization, the FBI has jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crimes. Although many of the FBI's functions are unique, its activities in support of national security are comparable to those of the British MI5 and NCA; the New Zealand GCSB and the Russian FSB. Unlike the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which has no law enforcement authority and is focused on intelligence collection abroad, the FBI is primarily a domestic agency, maintaining 56 field offices in major cities throug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khalid Al-Masri
Khalid al-Masri ( ar, خالد المصري; other transcriptions: '', , Khaled, El-Masri'' ) is the name of a person alleged to have approached two 9/11 hijackers on a train in Germany and suggested that they contact an alleged al Qaeda operative in Duisburg. The 9/11 Commission Report stated: However, in response to Slahi's petition for a writ of habeas corpus, a U.S. District Court found only that Slahi "provided lodging for three men for one night at his home in Germany n November 1999 that one of them was Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and that there was discussion of jihad and Afghanistan". An unrelated German citizen, Khalid El-Masri, spent almost five months in the covert CIA prison in Afghanistan called the Salt Pit The Salt Pit and Cobalt are the code names of an isolated clandestine CIA black site prison and interrogation center outside Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. It is located north of Kabul and was the location of a brick factory prior to the Afgh ... in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transliteration
Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one writing system, script to another that involves swapping Letter (alphabet), letters (thus ''wikt:trans-#Prefix, trans-'' + ''wikt:littera#Latin, liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Greek → the digraph , Armenian → or Latin → . For instance, for the Greek language, Modern Greek term "", which is usually Translation, translated as "Greece, Hellenic Republic", the usual transliteration to Latin script is , and the name for Russia in Cyrillic script, "", is Scientific transliteration of Cyrillic, usually transliterated as . Transliteration is not primarily concerned with representing the Phonetics, sounds of the original but rather with representing the characters, ideally accurately and unambiguously. Thus, in the Greek above example, is transliterated though it is pronounced , is transliterated though pronounced , and is transliterated , though it is pronounced (exactly li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waterboarding
Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water torture, water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive, causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning. In the most common method of waterboarding, the captive's face is covered with cloth or some other thin material and immobilized on their back at an incline of 10 to 20 degrees. Torturers pour water onto the face over the breathing passages, causing an almost immediate Pharyngeal reflex, gag reflex and creating a drowning sensation for the captive. Normally, water is poured intermittently to prevent death. However, if the water is poured uninterruptedly it will lead to death by asphyxia, also called dry drowning. Waterboarding can cause extreme pain, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including bone fracture, broken bones due to struggling against restraints, and lasting psychological damage. Adverse physical effects can l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Counterterrorism Center
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's Mission Center for Counterterrorism (often referred to as the Counterterrorism Mission Center or CTMC, formerly the Counterterrorism Center, or simply CTC) was established in 1986, and is a division of the CIA's Directorate of Operations. It was renamed during an agency restructuring in 2015, and is distinct from the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which is a separate entity. The most recent publicly known Assistant Director for Counterterrorism Mission Center was Chris Wood who led the organization from 2015 to 2017.Coll, Steve (2018). ''Directorate S: The CIA and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan''. New York: Penguin Press. pp. 11–16. . Foundation and early years The Counterterrorism Mission Center was established as the Counterterrorism Center in February 1986, under the CIA's Directorate of Operations, with Duane Clarridge as its first director. It was an "interdisciplinary" body; many of its personnel, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (sometimes also spelled Shaikh; also known by at least 50 pseudonyms; born March 1, 1964 or April 14, 1965) is a Pakistani Islamist militant held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp under terrorism-related charges. He was named as "the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks" in the ''9/11 Commission Report''. Sheikh Mohammed was a member of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization, leading al-Qaeda's propaganda operations from around 1999 until late 2001. Mohammed was captured on March 1, 2003, in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi by a combined operation of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Immediately after his capture, Mohammad was extraordinarily rendered to secret CIA prison sites in Afghanistan, then Poland, where he was interrogated by U.S. operatives. By December 2006, he had been transferred to military custody at Guantanamo Bay detention camp. In March 2007, after ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Dark Side (book)
''The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals'' is a 2008 non-fiction book written by American journalist Jane Mayer about Islamic radicalism, the War on Terrorism, and the "closed-doors domestic struggle over whether" U.S. President George W. Bush should have " limitless power to wage it". The book details the origins of controversies such as the coercive interrogation program, in which detainees were tortured, and the NSA electronic surveillance program of domestic surveillance without court warrants. Reception The book became a best-seller in non-fiction hardcover in the United States, with its author Jane Mayer booked on various news programs for interviews. It later made the ''New York Times Book Review'' editors' list of "10 Best Books of 2008" and was nominated for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award in General Nonfiction. The book was a finalist for the National Book Awards. It also received the Robert F. Kennedy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zero Dark Thirty
''Zero Dark Thirty'' is a 2012 American thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. The film dramatizes the nearly decade-long international manhunt for Osama bin Laden, leader of terrorist network Al-Qaeda, after the September 11 attacks. This search leads to the discovery of his compound in Pakistan and the military raid where bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011. Jessica Chastain stars as Maya, a fictional CIA intelligence analyst, with Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton, Reda Kateb, Mark Strong, James Gandolfini, Kyle Chandler, Stephen Dillane, Chris Pratt, Édgar Ramírez, Fares Fares, Jennifer Ehle, John Barrowman, Mark Duplass, Harold Perrineau, and Frank Grillo in supporting roles. It was produced by Boal, Bigelow, and Megan Ellison, and independently financed by Ellison's Annapurna Pictures. The film premiered in Los Angeles on December 10, 2012, and had its wide release on January 11, 2013. ''Zero Dark Thirty'' received critical acclaim for its acti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John F
John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second Epistle of John, often shortened to 2 John * Third Epistle of John, often shortened to 3 John People * John the Baptist (died c. AD 30), regarded as a prophet and the forerunner of Jesus Christ * John the Apostle (lived c. AD 30), one of the twelve apostles of Jesus * John the Evangelist, assigned author of the Fourth Gospel, once identified with the Apostle * John of Patmos, also known as John the Divine or John the Revelator, the author of the Book of Revelation, once identified with the Apostle * John the Presbyter, a figure either identified with or distinguished from the Apostle, the Evangelist and John of Patmos Other people with the given name Religious figures * John, father of Andrew the Apostle and Saint Peter * Pope Jo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maher Arar
Maher Arar ( ar, ماهر عرار) (born 1970) is a telecommunications engineer with dual Syrian and Canadian citizenship who has resided in Canada since 1987. Arar was detained during a layover at John F. Kennedy International Airport in September 2002 on his way home to Canada from a family vacation in Tunis. He was held without charges in solitary confinement in the United States for nearly two weeks, questioned, and denied meaningful access to a lawyer. The US government suspected him of being a member of Al Qaeda and deported him, not to Canada, his current home and the passport on which he was travelling, but to Syria. He was detained in Syria for almost a year, during which time he was tortured, according to the findings of a commission of inquiry ordered by the Canadian government, until his release to Canada. The Syrian government later stated that Arar was "completely innocent." A Canadian commission publicly cleared Arar of any links to terrorism, and the government of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Kiriakou
John Chris Kiriakou (born August 9, 1964) is an American author, journalist and former intelligence officer. Kiriakou is a columnist with Reader Supported News and co-host of ''Political Misfits'' on Sputnik Radio. He was formerly an analyst and case officer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, counterterrorism and a consultant for ABC News. He was the first U.S. government official to confirm in December 2007 that waterboarding was used to interrogate al-Qaeda prisoners, which he described as torture. In 2012, Kiriakou became the first CIA officer to be convicted of passing classified information to a reporter disclosing the identity of a CIA officer. He received a 30-month sentence for this whistleblowing. Early life and education Kiriakou was born on August 9, 1964, the son of elementary school educators in Sharon, Pennsylvania, and raised in nearby New Castle, Pennsylvania. His grandparents had immigr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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