Wednesday, November 13, 2013

What is the GRPO?

A journalist friend of mine is trying to get some answers from the Icelandic police in relation to a stated liaison between GRPO and the Iceland police. The USA embassy claims it doesnt know that the GRPO is (lol) and I want to ask the Icelandic police about this liaison at a meeting in the parliament. Would be very useful to know what this stands for. Cant find anything useful online, so forget about google. We need your help, if you know how to decode this.
D.  (S/NF) Iceland does not have an intelligence service. 
The National Security Unit (NSU) within the National 
Commissioner's Office handles threat information analysis. 
The NSU is comprised of three individuals.  The NSU is too 
small to undertake any type of intelligence gathering role 
and responds to threats as they arise, such as threats 
against Icelandic officials, demonstrations/protests, and 
"extremist" groups.  The NSU is not a tradecraft or covert 
group.  There are no terrorism-related examples, but the 
NSU's investigative and analytical capabilities have been 
demonstrated through operations in varying fields of law 
enforcement such as organized crime (OC), counterintelligence 
(CI), and counter-narcotics (CN).  GRPO maintains liaison 
with the NSU. 
 
E.  (SBU) Law enforcement agencies, including the NSU, have 
been very cooperative with US Embassy requests for 
information and support. 
 
Random Cables where the GRPO is mentioned to get some context:

“Two separate GRPO sources, one highly credible, have alleged that Patiño obtained and managed Venezuelan funds for Correa’s campaign. An uncorroborated report from a GRPO source indicated that Patiño also solicited funds from the FARC for Correa’s campaign,” the cable reads.
„On December 15-16, 2009, Treasury Department 
Acting Assistant Secretary of the Office of Intelligence and 
Analysis Howard Mendelsohn, along with GRPO officers and Treasury 
analysts, met with senior officials from the UAE's State Security 
Department (SSD) and Dubai's General Department of State Security 
(GDSS) to discuss suspected Taliban-related financial activity in 
the UAE.  Prior to these meetings, GRPO and Treasury passed to SSD 
and GDSS detailed information on the financing of the Taliban and 
other terrorist and extremist groups based in Afghanistan and 
Pakistan.“
„During the course of the two multi-hour intelligence 
exchange sessions, GRPO and Treasury analysts walked through the 
previously shared information suggesting that Taliban-related 
finance officials have visited the UAE in order to raise or move 
funds.“
„GRPO and Treasury analysts also shared 
names and phone numbers of multiple Taliban and Haqqani associates 
known either to reside in or travel to the UAE.“
„UAE security services were not familiar with the names of specific UAE-based LT members shared by GRPO and Treasury, but promised to follow up on 
the information.“
„On 06 November 2007, ARSOI coordinated 
with GRPO and scheduled a follow up interview of Subject 
detailed in RefTel who claimed to have information about the 
sale of uranium.  ARSOI began the interview and subsequently 
introduced the Subject to GRPO to answer detailed questions 
sent from GRPO headquarters.  GRPO will send detailed results 
of the interview via SepTel.“
„RSO and GRPO will continue coordinating efforts 
and wait for GRPO headquarters to determine if the 
information obtained during the interview merits additional 
contact with the Subject.“
„This National HUMINT Collection Directive (NHCD) is compliant with the National Intelligence Priorities Framework (NIPF), which was established in response to NSPD-26 of February 24, 2003. If needed, GRPO can provide further background on the NIPF and the use of NIPF abbreviations (shown in parentheses following each sub-issue below) in NHCDs.“
„Military and Security Issues 1) Critical Infrastructure Protection (INFR-4) 2) Military Structure and Capabilities (FMCC-4) 3) GRPO can provide text of this issue. 4) Health and Medical Developments (HLTH-4)“
„There are opportunities in the area of security cooperation, too. For starters, we know that Tunisia could be doing a better job in sharing intelligence with us about
TUNIS 00000492 005 OF 005
the threat of terrorism in North Africa. This was all too clear when, yet again, the GOT failed recently to share information with us in a timely fashion on a reported plot against US military personnel. GRPO has been taking steps to increase cooperation through liaison channels; while there has been progress, more is possible.“
„Tunisian cooperation in the intelligence arena has been uneven. On the positive side, we have some successful programs being run through GRPO. We also have good intelligence sharing on Tunisians who are outside the country. On the negative side, however, intelligence sharing on the threat inside Tunisia is thin, although it has improved somewhat in recent months. The improvements are probably in response to a commitment made by President Ben Ali to A/S Welch in February to cooperate on counterterrorism "without reservation."“

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any update on this?

Anonymous said...

This is rather a mystery, never heard of an organization with this abbrevation.

One possible explanation is that this might stand for XXXXXX XXXXXX Program Officer refering to a person or a position within the embassy. Perhaps a person/position present in most embassies with the mission of gathering intelligence and liasing with the TLAs (three letter agencies).

The text in the wikileaks cables supports this because usually GRPO appear to be under some level of control of the embassy official initiating the cable. This is consistent with the GRPO being a person/position inside the embassy but not it being an organization.

This would also explain how the embassy can keep a straight face when they say they have never heard of an organization called GRPO when of course they know exactly what you are refering to. Perhaps if you asked for GRPO as a person you would get a different answer (no comment) as sometimes goverment officials have an aversion to outright lying.

If this hypothesis is correct, then there is some Program called GRP which this GRP Officer in each embassy is part of.

This could also be a general term such as "Goverment Research Program" which would be the embassy term for any intelligence activity. Perhaps they want to avoid mentioning CIA in this context. Perhaps...

Loki

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