More details have surfaced regarding sensitive or classified information that the Department of Defense tried to keep from reaching the public as a result of Operation Dark Heart being published. The memoir by Army Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Shaffer revealed in its first edition accounts of U.S. spying and counterintelligence operations in Afghanistan and other countries that prompted the Pentagon to buy up most of the first copies and burn them.

 

But the Army Times has found, by comparing the first edition to subsequent ones, some interesting tidbits that weren’t revealed previously in media accounts about the book.

 

For instance, readers of the second edition won’t learn how U.S. forces thwarted an attempt by Iran’s intelligence forces to establish terrorist cells in the eastern Afghan town of Gardez. Nor will readers find out about the success of American spies who gained valuable intelligence from a retired Afghan general who was “our ticket into the heart of al-Qaeda.”

 

Also, the book originally mentioned the work of Task Force Stratus Ivy’s “penetration of the North Korean clandestine weapons and technology acquisition network” through the use of a phony business, and the task force’s penetration of the Iranian intelligence service.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Censored Book Masks Sensitive Operations (by Sean D. Naylor, Army Times)

Redacted Index for Operation Dark Heart (Federation of American Scientists) (pdf)

Examples of Why Pentagon Burned “Operation Dark Heart” (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)