Scoop: A long-awaited report by the US intel community concludes ‘Havana Syndrome’ was not caused by an energy weapon or foreign adversary, shattering a widespread theory that a secret device debilitated scores of spies & diplomats. By @shaneharris & me washingtonpost.com/national-secur…
The report caps a years-long effort by the intelligence community to explain why US personnel experienced what they described as strange and painful acoustic sensations
Many of the afflicted personnel say they were the victims of a deliberate attack — possibly at the hands of Russia — a claim that the report contradicts in nearly every respect, officials said.
7 intel agencies participated in the review of roughly 1k cases. 5 agencies found it was “very unlikely” that a foreign adversary was responsible for the symptoms, either as the result of a directed energy weapon or as the byproduct of something else like electronic surveillance
1 agency abstained in its conclusion regarding a foreign actor. But when asked, no agency dissented from the conclusion that a foreign actor did not cause the symptoms, an official said.
Officials said they found no pattern or common set of conditions that could link individual cases. They also found no forensic information or geolocation data that would suggest an adversary had used a form of directed energy such as radio waves or ultrasonic beams.
There was no intelligence that foreign leaders had any knowledge of or had authorized an attack on U.S. personnel that could explain the symptoms, an official said.
In some cases, there was no “direct line of sight” to affected personnel working at U.S. facilities, further casting doubt on the possibility that a hypothetical energy weapon could have been the culprit, one of the officials said.
Despite the new conclusions, Secretary of State Blinken remains of the view that something happened to those employees who have reported significant ailments, and he is committed to making sure they are cared for, per source. Blinken has long doubted the mass hysteria theory
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