NEW YORK: Israel was singled out in 2007 as a top espionage threat against the US government and its intelligence services, according to a newly published National Security Agency (NSA) document obtained by Edward Snowden, the fugitive NSA worker. The document also identified Israel, along with North Korea, Cuba and India, as a “leading threat” to the infrastructure of US financial and banking institutions.

The threats were listed in the NSA’s 2007 Strategic Mission List, according to the document obtained by journalist/activist Glenn Greenwald, a founding editor of The Intercept, an online magazine that has a close relationship with Snowden, a former NSA and CIA contractor who fled the US with thousands of top-secret documents last year.

In the document, Israel was identified by the NSA as a security threat in several areas, including “the threat of development of weapons of mass destruction” and “delivery methods (particularly ballistic and nuclear-capable cruise missiles).” The NSA also flagged Israel’s “WMD and missile proliferation activities” and “cruise missiles” as threats.

In a section of the document headed “Foreign Inte­lligence, Counter-intelli­gence; Denial & Deception Activities: Countering Foreign Intelligence Thr­eats,” Israel

was listed as a leading perpetrator of “espionage/intelligence collection operations and manipulation/influence operations…against US government, military, science & technology and Intelligence Community” organs.

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2014