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(S//SI) Croats May Hold Key to Vital Intelligence on Montenegro
FROM:
Foreign Affairs Officer in Regional Targets (DP13/S2A)
Run Date: 04/05/2006
(S//SI) The Croatian Intelligence Agency (OA) may have found the golden nugget the US
Intelligence Community has been looking for to fill a high-priority Balkans intelligence gap.
Intelligence on internal Montenegrin political affairs has been long sought after by the US and
has become more important than ever, given that Montenegro's referendum on whether or not
to declare independence from Serbia looms on the horizon this May.
(S//SI) The OA visitors wowed the room at a recent Annual Program Review when they
announced that they have been able to intercept Montenegrin GSM* signals from their Molunat
site in extreme southern Croatia. Even better was the revelation that those signals were being
carried across the PSTN* on a 128 QAM signal, which NSA's Balkans Division has considerable
experience exploiting.
(S//SI) When the partner requested help working the signal, the Balkans Division quickly
offered to support a fast-track ETC (European Technical Center) survey to collect the signal and
to examine the metadata. Time is of the essence, as the hope is to conduct the survey in midMarch, and to have results prior to the May referendum. If Montenegro does vote to secede from
Serbia-Montenegro, having insight into their governmental communications will be invaluable.
(S//SI) The offer from OA was also important in that it is a change in behavior for this partner,
who has traditionally provided SIGINT on the military and security situation in Bosnia and
Serbia. This was one of the first times that the partner came in willing to work outside their
comfort zone. The survey opportunity also represents an invaluable possibility for NSA to
provide vital intelligence in support of a Tier A Priority 2 Intelligence Need that has long proved
problematic to our customers.
*(U) Notes:
GSM = Global System for Mobile Communication
PSTN = Public Switched Telephone Network
(U//FOUO) This article is reprinted from the Foreign Affairs Digest , March edition.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108