The Risk Professional: US Treasury discloses intelligence sources in sanctions document

The document, "Information on persons listed in the annex to Executive Order 13536 of 12 April 2010" revisits the bald list of individuals and entities to which the USA applied sanctions, alleging involvement in piracy and other terrorist acts. All are connected to Somalia. The information contains no evidence but it does demonstrate the intelligence on which the USA based its decisions.

What is surprising is the how that intelligence was gathered - and what the sources of that intelligence were.

In some cases, the source was the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia. It is not known how that intelligence was gathered.

But the most featured sources are those most favoured by many bloggers writing fake newspapers or opinion pieces based on what they have read in the more established media.

In the minutes after the attacks on New York's World Trade Centre on 11 September 2001, many Americans turned from their domestic channels to the more measured coverage provided by the BBC. And, the document makes clear, it is to the UK's public service broadcaster that the US Treasury turns for its intelligence. The document makes repeated reference to BBC reports as the source of information as to the activities and allegiances of several of those named.

It also places heavy reliance on reports by The Times, an interesting throwback to the late 18th century when the newspaper's foreign correspondents filed reports ahead of Britain's own intelligence network getting their information home. The situation became so worrisome that The Times and the British Government did a deal for the government to have access to those reports prior to publication as part of its formal intelligence gathering.

The document also shows that, even after serious questions were raised about the quality of intelligence work by the USA, the intelligence is not handled with due care and attention: it makes reference to a report in "The UK's Globe and Mail." The Globe and Mail is published in Canada.

The sources quoted are sometimes less well known but no less well regarded: The Council on Foreign Relations is a New York-based think tank and publisher.

In some cases, reference is made to unidentified sources: "ATOM is reportedly involved in arms trafficking. Information from a number of sources indicates that his forces receive arms and equipment from Yemen and Eritrea. According to a December 2008 report, "An eyewitness described six such shipments during a four-week period in early 2008, each sufficient to fill two pickup trucks with small arms, ammunition, and rocket-propelled grenades." The report referred to is UN Security Council document number S/2008/769. Reviewing that document suggests that the relevant part was compiled by US representatives to the UN and is, by implication, credited to the Monitoring Group on Somalia. However, it appears from reading the UN report that, in producing its Somalia document, the USA was highly instrumental in writing the passage which it now quotes, providing what amounts to self-corroboration.

The full text of the document is available in the Sanctions section of our sister publication BankingInsuranceSecurities.Com