The so-called Havana syndrome is not result of a deliberate global campaign by any US adversary or hostile power although in some cases there is a possibility of foreign involvement, the interim report of the CIA says.
A senior CIA official has said that the agency sees no global campaign by a foreign actor aimed at harming or collecting intelligence on hundreds of American diplomats abroad.
The official said that, however, after finding a convincing and plausible explanation for Havana syndrome in hundreds of cases, they would definitely not rule out the possibility of foreign-actor or a sophisticated weapon involvement in some of the cases and noted that there are still about two dozen cases that remain unresolved since the agency cannot yet attribute to a specific source.
Meanwhile, the CIA continues to investigate if any country or power stands behind such unrelated symptoms in a number of mysterious incidents that have baffled US officials for over five years.
Havana Syndrome was first diagnosed at US diplomats – experiencing piercing sounds that have caused longer-term health effects – in Cuba in 2016 and then in China in 2018, followed by similar complaints by US diplomats in Austria, Russia, Tajikistan, and several African countries with the most recent cases reported in Switzerland and France last year.
According to Wall Street Journal’s article published last week, US diplomatic missions in Geneva and Paris may have been affected by Havana Syndrome during the summer after which at least one diplomat was evacuated to the US for treatment.
The broader intelligence community has backed this report with varying degrees of confidence even though CIA-led probe into the cause of symptoms continues, but CIA statements have caused huge disappointment among those affected by the syndrome who called the assessment internal since it was made without coordination with other US agencies.
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