Hermes 450 drones, built by Israel's Elbit Systems. Photo: Elbit Systems.

The website WikiLeaks has continued releasing for a third day what it says will eventually be 5 million e-mails sent between July 2004 and late December 2011 by the private intelligence company Stratfor.

An email dated December 17, 2011 refers to Nasser al-Lahham, the Editor -in- Chief of  Ma’an News Agency; which is a Palestinian media organization. A Stratfor staff member, Bayless Parsley, mentioned a meeting with a source described as “a journalist who works for Ma’an.” Bayless Parsley wrote: “Nasser [Ma’an editor in chief Nasr al-Lahham] is the man but he’s a nut” and “He’s a decades long supporter of the Popular Front, was president of the PFLP at Bethlehem Univ. and went to jail six years for it. As a PFLP supporter, he detests organized religion and its mixing in politics (Hamas) just as much as he hates materialism/capitalism/corruption (Fatah).” Parsley concluded “…he is batsh*t insane. Really do love the guy but something is off up there, trust me. He will spout out the craziest theories every once in a while”.

In the same email chain a different Stratfor staff member wrote the following message dated November 29, 2011, referring to a source described as having a “good track record in reporting” and is a “Fatah military source in Lebanon”. This email states: “the PA has damning evidence about the intention of the Syrian regime to cause trouble in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Dozens of Syrian men have in recent weeks moved into major camps… The Syrians appear bent of exploding the security situation in the camps should the security situation in Syria go out of control. This will be part of the Syrian regime’s efforts to hold Lebanon hostage and to use it in order to negotiate a deal with the West. …the Syrians seem to want to use Lebanon to stop the French diplomatic drive against the regime in Damascus. The Syrians arriving into camps in Lebanon belong to al-Saeqa Palestinian guerrilla movement, which is largely seen as an extention of the Syrian army intelligence.”

An email dated February 26, 2009, refers to clandestine Israeli-Russian collaboration. The source is described as a “former Mexican cop, Latam military analyst, writes for Jane’s”; has a reliability rating of A and a credibility rating of 1, the highest possible Stratfor rankings.

The source mentions that Mexican UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones] are better than Israeli UAVs but the Mexican government is buying Israeli UAVs due to corruption. According to the source, Georgia was interested in buying Mexican UAVs “because the UAVs they had bought from Israel had been compromised by the Russians.” But the deal was cancelled because “it would raise a lot of political complications between Mexico and Russia.” The source had also apparently advised against a potential sale of Mexican UAVs to Chavez due to political reasons.

When questioned about “the compromised Israeli UAVs” the source replied “…Israel gave Russia the ‘data link’ code for those specific UAVs; in return, Russia gave Israel the codes for Iran’s Tor-M1s.”

The source predicts that Russia is unlikely to give the S-300 [surface-to-air missile system] to Iran. Israel and Turkey are alleged to be “collaborating very closely” following a S-300 sale from Russia to Greece. The email also lists the following claim: “Turkey has been cracking the S-300 since the … sale and has been sharing intel on the S-300 with the Israelis to ensure that they retain an advantage over Iran should Iran get them from the Russians.”