Ecuador alleges 'clear' signs of CIA infiltration

An Ecuadorean presidential commission has concluded that U.S. intelligence services infiltrated the Andean nation's military and police and supported a cross-border incursion by Colombian troops that killed a top rebel commander. Following the attack on a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia camp inside Ecuador on March 1, President Rafael Correa accused the CIA of infiltrating his nation's intelligence services and appointed a commission to investigate. The body alleged in its report, made public Thursday, that the CIA bought information from Ecuador's military and had prior knowledge of the raid, said Defense Minister Javier Ponce, who read highlights of the findings to reporters. No one at the U.S. Embassy was immediately available to comment. "The CIA had full knowledge of what was happening," the commission's report said. It cited as evidence an alleged phone call from the CIA announcing the attack to an unidentified person in Ecuador; purported calls from a former colonel in Ecuador's military intelligence to Colombian intelligence services; and the arrival of a CIA airplane at a U.S. anti-drug base in Ecuador in late February. The report also said that a special unit of Ecuador's police was "practically financed and controlled by the U.S. Embassy." Interior Minister Fernando Bustamante said Ecuador would "carefully review all of its agreements" with the United States following the report. Ecuadorean officials have said previously that the government would not break off relations with Washington over the alleged CIA infiltration.