Friends and Foes by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

{1} ISIS : Islamic State in Syria and the Levant.  Is trying to form a modern day Islamic caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

{2} U.S. Navy S.E.A.L.s : For Sea, Air, Land.  The special forces component of the American Navy and considered to be one of the top elite military units in the World, if not the top.  

{3} Chief of Station : Title given by the CIA to its senior agent in command of a clandestine network in a given country or location.

{4} COMNAVACTSPAIN : Commander, U.S. Naval Activities Spain.

{5} ONS : Officina Nacional de Seguridad.  The Spanish government’s security apparatus.

{6} INTERPOL : International Police.  An international organization linking the polices of numerous countries around the World and that prosecutes cases across international borders at the request of its member countries.  Based in France.

{7} SVR : Sluzhba vneshney razvedki, the foreign intelligence service of the Russian Federation.  The successor with the FSB (Russian Federal Security Service) to the defunct Soviet KGB.

{8} Danke : Thank you in German.

{9} NATO : North Atlantic Treaty Organization.  Founded after World War 2 to oppose the Soviet threat against Western Europe.  Led by the United States and comprised of most countries in Western Europe, plus the United States and Canada.

{10} Exo : Short for Executive Officer, the title for the officer who is second in command on a U.S. Navy warship.

{11} Black ass : A common pejorative term used by Russians to describe non-Caucasians they deem inferior.

{12} GRU : Glavnoye Razvedyavel’noye Upravleniye, or Main Intelligence Directorate of Russia.

{13} Mossad : Israeli intelligence service.