It was revealed this week in a bombshell New York Times report that the CIA has raised the alarm with all its overseas stations and officers that an unusually high number of US informants are being captured and executed abroad. There are “dozens” of such instances, according to an agency memo.
The report is an incredibly rare instance of the media getting hold of a fresh, very recent highly classified memo that’s also sure to be embarrassing for the agency. “The message, in an unusual top-secret cable, said that the CIA’s counterintelligence mission center had looked at dozens of cases in the last several years involving foreign informants who had been killed, arrested or most likely compromised,” the NYT writes.
“Although brief, the cable laid out the specific number of agents executed by rival intelligence agencies — a closely held detail that counterintelligence officials typically do not share in such cables.”