Sudan’s spy agency acknowledges cooperation with CIA

September 2, 2010 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) responded to a report by the Washington Post on cooperation with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) by saying that it is normal for all intelligence agencies around the world to cooperate on matters of mutual benefit.

The newspaper has said that the CIA is training and equipping NISS agents to deal with counterterrorism operations such as “setting up meetings in secure places with surveillance and counter-surveillance, knowing what info to look for, keeping all pocket litter, not allowing them to erase cell phones or computers”.

The government sponsored Sudanese Media Centre (SMC) website quoted the unnamed head of information division at the NISS as saying that cooperation of this kind is done in the interests of citizens on both sides.

The official said that relations with other intelligence agencies is similar to other ministries within the government such as the foreign and interior ministries which conduct joint activities with their counterparts internationally. He further added that areas of cooperation includes combating terrorism, money laundering and organized political crimes in all its forms.

He however, denied that NISS is receiving equipments from CIA or any other foreign intelligence body.

The NISS and other Sudanese officials have long acknowledged relations with the CIA which started since the September 11 attacks in the United States or even before that. The former NISS chief Salah Gosh was ferried by the CIA to Washington in 2005 in a private plane for talks prompting fierce criticisms by Sudan advocacy groups.

U.S. media reports have revealed joint CIA-NISS work in the Horn of Africa and Iraq raising eyebrows even within the Islamist backed government.

In 2007 Gosh in an apparent bid to silence hard-line Islamist voices within the regime said that the cooperation with the CIA prevented a destructive backlash by the US against Sudan in the wake of the World Trade Centre attack in New York by Al-Qaeda.

The U.S. has defended its work with the NISS saying that it has not prevented it from being the most outspoken critic of human right violations in Sudan.

(ST)