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ACounterterrorist Intelligence Center (CTIC) is, according to aThe Washington Post November 18, 2005front page article byDana Priest, acounterterrorist operations center run jointly by theCentral Intelligence Agency and foreignintelligence services as part of the US "war on terror".[1]
According to Dana Priest's article, on which the CIA declined to comment at the time:
The CTIC were modeled on the CIA'scounternarcotics centers in Latin America and Asia. In the 1980s the CIA persuaded these states to let it select individuals for the assignment, pay them and keep them physically separate from their own institutions. Officers from the host stations serving in the CTICs are vetted by the CIA, and usually supervised by the CIA'sChief of Station and augmented by officers sent from theCounterterrorist Center atLangley.
According to two intelligence officials interviewed by Dana Priest, "the first two CTICs were established in the late 1990s to watch and capture Islamic militants traveling from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt and Chechnya to join thefighting in Bosnia and other parts of the former Yugoslavia." TheNational Security Agency is a partner in the CTICs, and has established a Foreign Affairs Directorate that now handles sharing information and equipment with 40 countries.
CIA former directorGeorge Tenet convincedYemenite presidentAli Abdullah Saleh to work with the CIA. Tenet sent material and 100 Army Special Forces trainers to help Yemen create an antiterrorism unit after the2001 invasion of Afghanistan. He also obtained the authorizations to flyPredator drones over Yemen. The CIA killed six al Qaeda operatives, includingAbu Ali al-Harithi, suspected mastermind of the2000 attack on the USSCole, with such a drone, sent from the French military base inDjibouti.
In Paris, theAlliance Base is run by a General of theDGSE French intelligence agency, and gathers the CIA, theMI6, theBND, and Australian and Canadian intelligence agencies. It took part in the arrest of the German convert to IslamChristian Ganczarski, imprisoned inFresnes Prison in Paris in June 2003. Investigative journalistDana Priest referred to the Alliance Base in a July 3, 2005 article,[2] and its existence was confirmed on 8 September 2006 byChristophe Chaboud, chief of theUCLAT ("Unité de Coordination de la Lutte contre le Terrorisme", "Fight against Terrorism Coordination Unit"), in an interview toRFI.[3]
Italy was not invited to participate in Alliance Base, allegedly because of jealousies between theSISMI and theSID.[citation needed] However, in the currentAbu Omar case, the Milan magistrates have spoken of a "concerted CIA-SISMI operation.[4]" Former CIA responsible in Italy,Jeffrey W. Castelli, Milan station chiefRobert Seldon Lady, as well as 24 others CIA officers, and head of SISMINicolò Pollari and his secondMarco Mancini have been indicted in 2006 by the Italian justice for this affair.
