Intelligence stations at embassies

The Bangkok Post, 30 July 1998

Signals at Burma embassy

Burma is operating a major signals intelligence station at its embassy in Bangkok and has similar capabilities in Bangladesh and at least one other overseas diplomatic mission, Jane's Defence Weekly reported yesterday.

The station's main targets include international telephone conversations, facsimile traffic, satellite-telephone transmissions, E-mail messages on the Internet and radio broadcasts, AP quoted the respected military magazine as saying in a report from London.

The Bangkok station, controlled by the Directorate of Defence Services Intelligence, is located in a compound housing the office of Burma's military, naval and air attaches in the diplomatic district, Jane's said.

There are at least nine antennas on the roof of a five-storey apartment-style building in the compound, most of them probably ordinary TV antennas, a high-frequency system and two satellite communications dishes, the magazine said. It published photographs of two satellite dishes and an aerial which it said appears to be a high-frequence mast.

The high-frequency antenna allows the Bangkok station to monitor short-wave or high-frequency radio broadcasts and the satellite dishes are used to monitor international telecommunications in Bangkok and the surrounding area, Jane's said.

The magazine quoted sources familiar with the intelligence directorate's operations as saying Burma installed a similar system in neighbouring Bangladesh. The location of a third signals intelligence station is not known with certainty but some sources suspect it may be in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, Jane's said.