CIA blames National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden for Paris attacks

AMERICA’S most senior intelligence officers have blamed the Paris attacks on National Security Agency renegade Edward Snowden.

Both the current CIA director John Brennan and his predecessor James Woolsey claimed in separate interviews that leaks by the former contractor taught Islamist terrorists how to use encryption and avoid standard means of electronic communication to evade detection.

This is despite the fact that terrorists are known to have used anti-surveillance techniques since before 9/11 and an independent report last year, which found “no correlation” between updates to jihadist encryption software and Snowden’s leaks.

But according to Mr Brennan: “In the past several years, because of a number of unauthorised disclosures, and a lot of hand-wringing over the government’s role in the effort to try to uncover these terrorists, there have been some policy and legal and other actions that have been taken that make our ability collectively, internationally, to find these terrorists much more challenging.

“There has been an increase in the operational security of a number of operatives of these terrorist networks as they have gone to school on what it is that they need to do in order to keep their activities concealed from the authorities.”

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden sightseeing on a boat in Moscow shortly after fleeing the US. Picture: Life NewsSource:Supplied

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Belgian jihadi suspected of masterminding deadly attacks in ParisSource:AP

Mr Brennan made the comments after giving a speech on national security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Former CIA director R James Woolsey was a little more blunt, telling MSNBC: “I think Snowden has blood on his hands from these killings in France.”

London Mayor Boris Johnson also chimed in, directly linking Snowdon’s actions to the Paris attacks in an article he wrote for the The Telegraph.

“To some people the whistleblower Edward Snowden is a hero; not to me,” Mr Johnson wrote.

“It is pretty clear that his bean-spilling has taught some of the nastiest people on the planet how to avoid being caught; and when the story of the Paris massacre is explained, I would like a better understanding of how so many operatives were able to conspire, and attack multiple locations, without some of their electronic chatter reaching the ears of the police.”

Much has been made of the fact that accused mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud managed

to slip easily between Europe and Syria, despite having been linked to failed terror plots and starring in a number of ISIS propaganda videos.

Snowden copped a tongue-lashing from CIA director John Brennan this week

James Woolsey, who ran the CIA during the Clinton years, says Snowden has ‘blood on his hands’Source:AP

Like Jihadi John before him, the 26-year-old had boasted of his ability to cross borders without getting caught. Abaaoud was able to travel from Syria to Belgium, obtain weapons and set up a safe house in the municipality of Verviers with two other potential jihadists. The plot was exposed when authorities raided the home on January 15. The two other men were killed during the operation but officers could find no trace of Abaaoud.

Despite a massive operation to track him down, including further raids in Greece where his cell phone was tracked, Abaaoud said he was able to give authorities the slip and return to Syria.

“Allah blinded their vision” he said of the failure of European intelligence agencies to stop him.

“My name and picture were all over the news yet I was able to stay in their homeland, plan operations against them, and leave safely when doing so became necessary.”

He managed to do this despite Europe being on high alert after the Charlie Hebdo attack in France and the raising of the terror level in Belgium following the Verviers raid.

Last year private security firm Flashpoint Global Partners examined the frequency of releases and updates of encryption software by jihadi groups. It found no correlation to Snowden’s leaks about the NSA’s surveillance techniques, which became public from June 5, 2013.

“Prior to Edward Snowden, online jihadists were already aware that law enforcement and intelligence agencies were attempting to monitor them,” the report said

“The underlying public encryption methods employed by online jihadists do not appear to have significantly changed since the emergence of Edward Snowden.”