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posted by martyb on Friday January 21 2022, @06:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the so-what-*IS*-it? dept.

U.S. foe or specific weapon not behind sustained, global campaign causing 'Havana Syndrome,' CIA finds

A U.S. adversary is not engaged in a sustained global campaign aimed at harming or collecting intelligence on hundreds of American diplomats serving abroad, according to an interim CIA finding on the so-called Havana Syndrome.

But there remain a significant number of cases that the agency cannot yet attribute to a specific source. The interim finding, described to POLITICO by three intelligence officials, does not rule out the possibility that a foreign actor or a sophisticated weapon is behind a specific, smaller number of mysterious incidents that have stumped U.S. officials for more than five years.

The new CIA-prepared interim finding assesses that the vast majority of reported cases can be explained by medical, environmental or technical factors — including previously undiagnosed illnesses — and that it is "unlikely" that a malicious state actor is inflicting purposeful harm on U.S. diplomats on a far-reaching, worldwide scale. The broader intelligence community has varying levels of confidence in that assessment.

"There's no one explanation" for the large number of reported cases around the world, a senior CIA official said, insisting "we don't see a global campaign by a foreign actor." There are still unresolved cases, the official continued, and the CIA is still open to the notion that a nation-state or specific device is causing symptoms such as headaches and nausea — if the agency finds evidence to that effect.

[...] "We would definitely not rule out the possibility of foreign-actor involvement in some discrete cases," the official said, adding that "we have not identified a causal mechanism, a novel weapon, that's been used at this point" on a worldwide scale, including a long-suspected directed-energy weapon.

FECA Program Issues Guidance on Coverage of 'Havana Syndrome'

The Federal Employees Compensation Act program has issued guidance on coverage of what it calls the "anomalous health incidents" known as Havana Syndrome [...] Federal employees experiencing such symptoms should file a standard claim form "as current understanding of AHIs are that they are specific events that occur over a single day or work shift" and should designate that as the specific cause, it says. Such claims are to be reviewed by a special claims unit which will consider "medical evidence submitted to determine if any medical conditions have been diagnosed in connection with the AHI incident."

Also at NYT.

Previously: "Havana Syndrome": U.S. Baffled After New Cases in Europe


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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 21 2022, @07:23PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 21 2022, @07:23PM (#1214574)

    Not a foreign adversary. Its the CIA itself.

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  • (Score: 2) by Username on Friday January 21 2022, @08:42PM

    by Username (4557) on Friday January 21 2022, @08:42PM (#1214606)

    Probably the FBI investigating whether or not russian hookers were urinating on them.

    Though, more likely it's israel, south korea or the philippines. The allies that are the most dependent on the united state.