Can the CIA really be that dumb?
The week's news at a glance.
Italy
Paolo Biondani
Corriere della Sera
The CIA doesn’t try very hard to cover its tracks, said Paolo Biondani in Milan’s Corriere della Sera. As a result of its clumsiness, an Italian judge last week issued arrest warrants for 13 American agents. The Americans “apparently violated Italian sovereignty” in 2003 by kidnapping Egyptian-born militant cleric Abu Omar, the imam at a prominent Milan mosque, and spiriting him off to Egypt to be interrogated and tortured. While conducting surveillance of Abu Omar and preparing his kidnapping, the agents were hardly discreet, littering Milan with evidence that has now wound up in Italian courts. The agents slept “in five-star hotels like the Hilton and the Prince of Savoy,” where their passport photos are now on file. And they used Italian phones to communicate with each other, with the U.S. Consulate, and with the U.S. air base from which the plane bearing Abu Omar took off for Cairo, so the times and locations of all the calls are on record. Could the CIA really be so “naive” and sloppy? Or were they so careless because the Italian government secretly “gave permission” for an American spy operation on our soil?
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Inside Marseille's deadly drug wars
The Explainer Teenage hitmen recruited through social media are lured by money and gang 'brand'
By The Week UK Published
-
A human foot found on Mount Everest is renewing the peak's biggest mystery
The discovery is reviving questions about who may have summited the mountain first
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
Crossword: October 22, 2024
The Week's daily crossword
By The Week Staff Published