Deputy of Russian GRU dies in Syria, washes up in Turkey

[Carsten Wiethoff]

See http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...ident.html

and http://www.haaretz.com/news/internationa...y-1.311464

Yuri Ivanov, 52, was found washed ashore in the Hatay province in southern Turkey after he had gone missing in Syria.
According to Russian media he "died while swimming".:hmmmm2:

[Magda Hassan]

No canoe involved?

[Carsten Wiethoff]

No, and he was also not packed in a sporting bag.:burnout:

[Jan Klimkowski]

From The Godfather:

[Tessio brings in Luca Brasi's bulletproof vest, delivered with a fish inside]
Sonny: What the hell is this?
Clemenza: It's a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.

Yuri Ivanov more accurately was gnawed by the fishes.

I have no idea of the symbolic meaning of such a cadaver.... :captain:

[Peter Lemkin]

Clearly it’s “Russian spies in the news” week. After revelations that a British MP’s Russian aide may be (but almost certainly isn’t) a Russian spy, we now hear that one of Russia’s top spies was found dead a couple of weeks ago, washed up on a Turkish beach.

Major-General Yuri Ivanov was Deputy Head of the GRU (Russian military intelligence), and had been visiting Syria, to inspect the construction of the Tartus Russian Naval base – the only Russian military base outside of the Former Soviet Union. From there, it’s not clear what happened to him; the next sighting was when he washed up on a beach in the province of Hatay in Turkey on 16 August.

His death was tersely announced in the Red Star Newspaper this week, and Kremlin officials have announced simply that he died in a tragic swimming accident while on holiday.

But, as always when an intelligence officer dies, people are questioning whether his death was really an accident, or whether he was murdered. Russian news sites like Svobodnaya Pressa have noted that high ranking Generals and intelligence officers are usually accompanied by bodyguards – which raises the question of where they were at the time, and where they might be now. Svobodnaya Pressa also went on to point out that the Kremlin generally (and probably quite sensibly) doesn’t usually announce when its spies have been murdered – when another senior spy was murdered in 1992, it took an investigation by fellow officers to prove that he had, indeed, been murdered.

Speculation about who had the motive to kill Ivanov seems so far to be focusing on Israel’s Mossad agency, because Israel is known to be concerned about the development of a technologically advanced Russian listening base in the area that will be able to spy on its communications and military movements. But I have to ask – how does killing one General help Israel’s ambitions in this area? Something so small (in the grand scheme of things) as one Generals’ murder certainly wouldn’t warn off the Russian state, who are investing heavily in the base.

Other speculation notes that Ivanov was the head of the GRU’s operations in Chechnya,. He was thought to have ordered the assassination of Chechen seperatists outside of Russia, including two men in Qatar in 2004. Revenge could be a plausible motive but, again, questions need to be asked – most importantly, do demoralised and disorganised Chechen separatists have the resources and ability (let alone the urgent desire) to carry out an assassination like this?

No-one has yet looked into Ivanov’s business dealings, and whether he was tainted at all by corruption. His position, combined with the construction of a massive military base, would have offered many opportunities for graft – he could well have upset someone, either by taking a bribe, or perhaps even refusing to take one.
http://siberianlight.net/

[Carsten Wiethoff]

Strangely, according to Turkish media (http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=russian-diplomats-body-found-in-hatay-shores-2010-08-13)
Ivanov was found around August 8 and identified at or before August 13.

Russian diplomat's body found on Hatay shore

Friday, August 13, 2010 Hatay - Anatolia News Agency
A body found by fishermen on the coast of Çevlik in the border province of Hatay five days ago has been identified as Russian diplomat Yuri Ivanov, Anatolia News Agency reported Friday.
The diplomat drowned while on vacation in Latakia in Syria, but his body could not be found despite widespread search operations. Authorities said the wind and waves must have dragged the body toward the Samandağ district’s coast.
Officials said they had been able to identify the body by corresponding with both domestic and international authorities and were helped by Ivanov’s cross necklace.
The body was sent for an autopsy to the Forensic Medicine Institute in the neighboring province of Adana before being released to the diplomat’s relatives in Samandağ.

[Carsten Wiethoff]

Debka has a different timing account than all the others:
http://www.debka.com/article/8999/

Mysterious death of Russian military intelligence high-up in Syria
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 30, 2010, 6:13 PM (GMT+02:00)

Dep. Director of Russian GRU dies in Syria

Gen. Yuri Ivanov, 52, deputy head of GRU, the Russian military's overseas intelligence arm of Russian military, was found dead in mysterious circumstances described in a terse official Russian eulogy on Aug. 30 as a tragic swimming accident "several days ago." No further details were provided such as where he died.
debkafile's exclusive sources report that Gen. Ivanov appears to have drowned in early August at the Syrian Mediterranean port town of Latakia. After he had been missing for ten days, his body was washed up on the shore of southern Turkey on Aug. 12.
Turkish sources revealed that his remains were recovered by Turkish fishermen from Cevlik village in the Hatay province near the Syrian border. According to unofficial sources, the body was too decomposed for identification. The Russian general was finally identified by the cross around its neck, but there was no word on the cause of his death.
debkafile's Middle East intelligence sources do not believe he accidentally drowned but find it more likely that was murdered and his body thrown into the sea. They say it is inconceivable that the deputy head of GRU would have gone swimming without bodyguards, especially at a Russian foreign base, and drowned without anyone noticing. Even if he did drown accidentally, his guards would not have rested until they recovered his body and not let drift for miles. Furthermore, Latakia is a summer resort frequented by high-ranking Syrian and Gulf emirate officials with their families. Its bathing beaches are well guarded by security personnel as well as professional life-savers, who would have been instantly alerted to any mishap in the water.
Our sources surmise that Gen. Yuri Ivanov went missing from a private, secretive engagement from which his aides and guards were banished to wait outside, not swimming alone in the sea of Latakia. This would account for the delay in reporting his disappearance.
They recall in this regard his former position as head of the North Caucasus branch of Russian military intelligence, which he held until late 2006. In this capacity he played a leading role in clandestine operations against al Qaeda and the Chechen revolt. Among the many terrorist groups present in Syria are al Qaeda cells from the Caucasian.

[Magda Hassan]

Thought I would see what has been happening with this death. There has been very little in the news either Russian or English. Interestingly this Russian weapons expert died in a close time frame while on holiday in Malta. Maybe just a co-incidence and an accident.

Sunday, June 20, 2010 by Claudia Calleja

Russian weapons expert death probably accidental

Alexander Pikayev

The death of a Russian weapons expert, whose lifeless body was found in a St Paul's Bay apartment last Wednesday, appears to have been an accident, according to sources.
However, police are not ruling out the possibility of foul play at this stage since they are waiting for the outcome of the magisterial inquiry and further forensic tests, including toxicology results.
Alexander Pikayev, 48, was found lying on the floor in his apartment in Triq Buġibba, with a wound to his head. Police were called to assist after relatives could not contact him.
An autopsy revealed that he suffered from a fractured skull and intracranial haemorrhage.
"It seems that he slipped and hit his head with the jamb of a door in the apartment. A dent on the jamb supports this theory," sources said, adding that results of further tests were still pending.
The fact that the apartment was locked from the inside and nothing inside was disturbed reinforced the belief that it was an accident, the sources added.
Dr Pikayev was holidaying in Malta with relatives, including his brother. They arrived a few days before the accident and had a three-month travel visa. It is not clear how long he intended to stay.
Dr Pikayev was an internationally recognised expert on weapons of mass destruction disarmament and non-proliferation, and was one of the most frequently cited Russian experts in the field.
He was the director of the Department of Disarmament and Conflict Resolution at the Moscow-based Institute of World Economy and International Relations.
He also headed the James Martin Centre for Non-proliferation Studies' Non-proliferation Project in Russia. He worked at the Russian Duma Defence Committee as a senior professional staff member.


Mr Pikayev's mysterious death evoked memories of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London four years ago. The former KGB officer died after weeks of debilitating illness triggered by thallium poisoning.

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/vie...tal.313559

[Magda Hassan]

From the Caucus Islamist beloved by Washington.

Mossad claims GRU General killed by CE Mujahideen, Palestinians and GRU say Mossad did it

Publication time: 31 August 2010, 13:31

According to a Jewish website Debkafile, which has close ties to the Zionist terrorist gang of Mossad, which in turn is no less closely linked to the Russian terrorist gang of the FSB, a Russian-speaking general of the terrorist gang of the GRU "Ivanov" has allegedly been killed in Syria by Caucasian Mujahideen. The Debkafile writes:

"Debkafile's Middle East sources do not believe he accidentally drowned but find it more likely that was murdered and his body thrown into the sea. They say it is inconceivable that the deputy head of GRU would have gone swimming without bodyguards, especially at a Russian foreign base, and drowned without anyone noticing.

Even if he did drown accidentally, his guards would not have rested until they recovered his body and not let drift for miles.

Furthermore, Latakia is a summer resort frequented by high-ranking Syrian and Gulf emirate officials with their families. Its bathing beaches are well guarded by security personnel as well as professional life-savers, who would have been instantly alerted to any mishap in the water.

Our sources surmise that Gen. Yuri Ivanov went missing from a private, secretive engagement from which his aides and guards were banished to wait outside, not swimming alone in the sea of Latakia. This would account for the delay in reporting his disappearance.

They recall in this regard his former position as head of the North Caucasus branch of Russian military intelligence, which he held until late 2006. In this capacity he played a leading role in clandestine operations against al Qaeda and the Chechen revolt. Among the many terrorist groups present in Syria are al Qaeda cells from the Caucasian".

An official Palestinian government (according to Hamas) news agency, the Palestinian Information Center, writes with reference to the GRU:

"Experts in the Russian military community do not rule out that the general of the Chief Intelligence Directorate (AKA GRU), as a carrier of important classified information, could have been kidnapped by the "Israeli" spy service Mossad, and after attempts to knock out information from him (including the tortures that leave no traces on the body), he was killed.

We would like to note from our part that the GRU general "Ivanov" was hardly killed in Syria. It is to be recalled that according to Russian claims, he allegedly drowned in Syria on 6 August.

According to Turkish media dated 13 August a corpse was fished out in Turkey on August 8 rather far from the border to Syria. Russians stated that it is their corpse. The corpse decomposed, and Russians "identified" it only by a cross on its neck

Usually, a few days are required for a corpse to rise the surface from seabed. In most favorable cases (water is very warm), the body can surface only after 1 day, but not earlier.

If the improbable happened and the corpse surfaced on August 7, it could not cover in one day the distance of 75 km (on the straight line from Latakia to the Turkish border). Moreover, corpses do not swim in a straight line, and the place of its discovery is more than 75 km from Latakia. Thus, it was not the dead body of GRU's "Ivanov", allegedly drowned in Syriain that was fished out in Turkey on August, but of a corpse of an unknown person.

According to a usually well informed Polish agency Polska Web News, which received insider information from the Polish military, the GRU general "Ivanov" was drowned in the bathtub of his Moscow apartment between August 24 and August 26. The official obituary appeared in the Russian military newspaper Red Star on August 28.

Department of Monitoring


Kavkaz Center

http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2010...2454.shtml

[Magda Hassan]

Israel special forces conducting cross-border operations in Syria

DECEMBER 10, 2012 BY JOSEPH FITSANAKIS


By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Teams of Israeli special forces are currently operating inside Syria in an effort to detect and sabotage the Syrian military's chemical and biological arsenal. Citing an unnamed "Israeli source", the London-based Sunday Times newspaper said yesterday that the operation is part of a wider "secret war" to track Damascus' non-conventional weapons stockpiles and "sabotage their development". The Israeli government refused comment on the paper's allegation. However, Israel's covert activities against the Syrian government's chemical and biological arsenal go back almost 30 years. Reputedly, some of the more recent such activities may have involved the targeting of Russian scientists. Although Russia routinely denies it, it is believed that Syria's non-conventional arsenal was significantly augmented in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the help of Russian retired general Anatoliy Kuntsevich. Kuntsevich, one of the Soviet Red Army's top scientists, is said to have helped Damascus build its XV nerve agent stockpiles, which are still believed to be in existence today. Interestingly, Kuntsevich died suddenly in 2003 onboard a flight from the Syrian capital to Moscow. It was widely speculated at the time that the Mossad, Israel's covert-action agency, may have played a role in the Russian general's sudden death. In 2010, another retired Russian general, Yuri Ivanov, who had served as Deputy Director of the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency, died in unclear circumstances. The body of 52-year-old Ivanov was found in Turkey on August 16, 2010, several days after he had disappeared close to a Russian naval facility in Syria. Russian media did not report Ivanov's death until several days later, when he was quietly buried in Moscow. According to reports in the Israeli press, the former GRU official was on his way to a meeting with Syrian intelligence officers when he went missing. Israel has never acknowledged having played a part in Ivanon's death, but many suspect that Tel Aviv had been targeting the two Russians for quite some time. The Sunday Timesarticle quoted an "Israeli source" who said that intelligence gathered through Israeli-operated satellites and unmanned drones flying over Syria indicates that chemical and biological stockpiles were recently moved to new locations around the country. Earlier this month, intelNews reported on allegations in The Atlantic magazine that Israel had sent Jordan at least two requests in the past two months to bomb targets in Syria in order "to take out many of Syria's chemical weapons sites". According to the report, Amman rejected the requests, saying that "the time was not right" for direct military action against the regime in Damascus.
http://intelnews.org/2012/12/10/01-1150/#more-9707