Ex-CIA analyst David McCloskey on the Mossad's intelligence inside Iran: I was surprised'

"From what I have seen on open-source intelligence, the Israelis had essentially developed a capability to tap existing public CCTV networks in Tehran and then layered on top of that, a bunch of data integration software that enable them to build targeting packages on senior leaders. My sense is that there was a US-sourced piece of humint that was then able to be fed into that model."

"We have an interest in stealing state secrets from Iran and finding people who will sell us those secrets, give us those secrets for any number of motivations and Iran is a hard target. It's also one of our top targets, because it's a country that's been in opposition to us since the revolution."

David McCloskey, a former CIA analyst and novelist, expressed surprise at reports that the CIA provided human intelligence crucial to Israel's assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei. McCloskey noted that Israel had developed sophisticated capabilities to access Tehran's public CCTV networks and layer data integration software for targeting senior leaders. He suggests US human intelligence was fed into this Israeli targeting model. McCloskey praised CIA analysts at Langley for their work penetrating Iran, a country with which the US has had no diplomatic relations since 1979. He emphasized Iran's status as a top intelligence target due to its opposition to US interests since the Islamic Revolution, highlighting the difficulty of recruiting sources within the Iranian government.

Read at www.theguardian.com