WASHINGTON—Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will order a special panel to investigate the U.S. response to mysterious illnesses that have stricken American diplomats and their relatives in Havana.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the State Department have been probing the incidents in recent months after the administration said they resulted from attacks. </s> WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will convene a new high-level investigation into the harm that Washington says US diplomats in Havana suffered in unexplained health attacks, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday (Jan 9).

Tillerson has decided to convene an Accountability Review Board, a special panel that evaluates cases in which US diplomatic personnel or facilities have been damaged abroad, Francisco Palmieri, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, told a Senate hearing.

The new probe will be in addition to other US government investigations already under way, including one by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The Cuban government has denied any role in the incidents, which Washington says injured 24 diplomats and family members, and is conducting its own investigation. </s> U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will convene a new high-level investigation into the harm that Washington says U.S. diplomats in Havana suffered in unexplained health attacks, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday.

READ MORE: Rex Tillerson says Cuba still risky despite FBI doubts over sonic attack

Tillerson has decided to convene an Accountability Review Board, a special panel that evaluates cases in which U.S. diplomatic personnel or facilities have been damaged abroad, Francisco Palmieri, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, told a Senate hearing.

The new probe will be in addition to other U.S. government investigations already under way, including one by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Cuban government has denied any role in the incidents, which Washington says injured 24 diplomats and family members, and is conducting its own investigation. </s> FILE PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson takes part in a news conference with Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland (not shown) on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, December 19, 2017. REUTERS/Blair Gable

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will convene a new high-level investigation into the harm that Washington says U.S. diplomats in Havana suffered in unexplained health attacks, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday.

Tillerson has decided to convene an Accountability Review Board, a special panel that evaluates cases in which U.S. diplomatic personnel or facilities have been damaged abroad, Francisco Palmieri, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, told a Senate hearing.

The new probe will be in addition to other U.S. government investigations already under way, including one by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Cuban government has denied any role in the incidents, which Washington says injured 24 diplomats and family members, and is conducting its own investigation. </s> US investigators are looking at a range of theories, including the possibility of a “viral” attack, to explain what sickened American diplomats last year who were stationed in Havana, the State Department said on Tuesday. A new investigation will also be orderd by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

American experts have yet to determine who or what was behind the mysterious incidents, which left diplomats with symptoms indicative of a “mild brain injury”.

But they saw no evidence it was a case of “mass hysteria” among the 24 affected US personnel and family members, a senior State Department medical official told a Senate hearing.

State Department officials testified that it was “incomprehensible” that Cuba’s Communist government would not have been aware of what occurred or who was responsible, though they stopped short of assigning direct blame to Havana.

Cuban officials, who are conducting their own investigation, have denied any involvement or any knowledge of who or what was behind it.

The administration of President Donald Trump, which has partly rolled back a detente with Cuba, responded last year by sharply drawing down US embassy staff in Havana and expelling some Cuban diplomats.

Francisco Palmieri, acting Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said the Cuban government was responsible for the security of US diplomatic personnel on the island “and they have failed to live up to that responsibility.”

Asked whether it was possible that the Cuban government would have been unaware of any attacks, he said: “I find it very difficult to believe that. Cuba is a security state, the Cuban government in general has a very tight lid on anything and everything that happens in that country.”

Cuban investigators say US allegations of sonic attack are ‘science fiction’

The Cuban government has accused the Trump administration of slander for saying Havana was holding back information.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will open a new high-level investigation into the matter, Palmieri said. He is convening an Accountability Review Board, a panel that evaluates cases where US diplomatic personnel or facilities have been damaged abroad.

The new probe will be in addition to other US government investigations already under way, including one by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Todd Brown, diplomatic security assistant director at the State Department, said that as well as the possibility of a acoustic or sonic attack, US investigators were also considering whether people might have been deliberately exposed to a virus. But he offered no details.

“I do know other type of attacks are being considered in a connection with this,” he said. “There’s viral, there is ultrasound, there’s a range of things that the technical experts are looking at.”

Experts have argued that an acoustic attack seems implausible, given that would have caused an extremely loud noise in the neighbourhood, which was not the case.

Cuban officials have dismissed as “science fiction” the notion that some kind of sonic weapon was used and have accused the Trump administration of politicising the matter.

Symptoms suffered by the diplomats have included hearing loss, tinnitus, vertigo, headaches and fatigue, a pattern consistent with “mild traumatic brain injury,” said Charles Rosenfarb, medical director of the State Department’s Bureau of Medical Services.

A US official said earlier on Tuesday that the government will not send staff back to the US embassy in Havana yet. The United States pulled out more than half of its personnel there last autumn, citing safety fears.

“I don’t think we can say categorically that we can guarantee that they would be safe from this (if staffers return),” Brown told the hearing.

It was chaired by Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American and strong critic of Cuba’s communist government.

After decades of hostility between the United States and Cuba, the US embassy reopened in 2015 as part of moves by former President Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro, to mend ties.

Relations have been strained since Trump took office last year, with the new administration saying Obama made too many concessions to Havana and reversing some of the measures taken under the rapprochement. </s> The Accountability Review Board is an internal State Department mechanism to review security incidents involving diplomatic personnel. The most well-known recent review board came after the deadly attack on a diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.

Bodde was most recently the US ambassador to Libya between November 2015 and his retirement at the end of last year. He has also served as ambassador to Nepal and Malawi. He joined the Foreign Service in 1981.

Officials acknowledged Bodde's panel will have a difficult mission painting a picture of events in Havana with little evidence beyond the health problems of the 24 diplomats and their family members affected.

"We don't know what happened, how it happened or who did it," one of the officials said. "All we know are the consequences. It's going to be tricky."

This official said that a debate exists within the US government as to whether technology even exists that can cause the symptoms suffered by the diplomats, but added the fact that only diplomats in certain houses and hotel rooms were affected has left little doubt that the diplomats were targeted. "Unless aliens beamed in from Venus, they were attacked," the official said. Officials say the Cuban government has cooperated and with the FBI investigation, with another official describing Havana's cooperation as "forthcoming." Texas Rex stands his ground in the face of Trump administration chaos "They did exactly what we would have done in this situation," the second senior State Department official said. Although the US doesn't believe the Cuban government directed the attacks, the officials said there is a strong suspicion some rogue elements of the Cuban security apparatus must have been involved. "This took place while people were sleeping," this official said. "Whoever was doing it knows where these people's bedrooms were or what hotel room they were in. But because we can't identify the technique or technology used, it allows the Cubans to say they are not involved and that the Americans don't have any idea what happened." Indeed, after Tuesday's hearing on Capitol Hill, in which the State Department and federal investigators said have been unable to attribute the source or cause of the ailments, the Cuban foreign ministry issued a statement saying, "months of thorough probes have proven that there has been no attack." The Department of State has no evidence whatsoever that allows it to affirm that there has been attacks against its diplomats in Havana, or that Cuba could be responsible for or be aware of actions carried out by third-parties wrote Josefina Vidal Ferreiro, Cuba's Director General for US Affairs. "I categorically reiterate that the Cuban government has no responsibility whatsoever in the health conditions reported by US diplomats." Secretary of State Rex Tillerson: 'I intend to be here for the whole year' Officials say they suspect if and when the Cubans do find out what happened, they will put a stop to the attacks, but will not tell the US or make the revelations public because they don't want to admit they have rogue elements in the ranks. "We just have to see a long period of no attacks," the first official said. Although the last known incident occurred last August, the official noted: "These symptoms sometimes have a period to emerge so we can't say yet that it's over. Until then it would be irresponsible to send our diplomats back." </s> The United States is to review how the State Department has responded to alleged attacks on the health of 24 diplomats and family members in Havana, officials said Tuesday.

The State Department had come under renewed pressure to form an "accountability review board" as the mystery surrounding the brain trauma suffered by the envoys has only deepened.

Initially officials suggested the Americans had been targeted by some sort of acoustic weapon, although news reports now say the FBI has been unable to confirm this theory.

Nevertheless, summoned to appear before a Senate panel to brief perplexed US lawmakers, State Department officials insisted the evidence still points to some kind of attack.

"This was not something conducted by a fly-by-night operation," Senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American Republican, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"Whatever happened to these people happened as a result of some sophisticated technology that quite frankly is so sophisticated that we don't understand it," he said.

Both the State Department officials and Rubio agreed that Cuba, with its powerful surveillance state, must have either been behind the attacks itself or at least know who was.

"The Cuban government knows who it was, because they watch them every day," Rubio told reporters.

"They just won't say who it was because it was either rogue elements in the regime, or a third party country."

Havana has fiercely denied this, accusing the Americans of withholding information about the victims of the incidents that would allow it to fully investigate.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's State Department has insisted that it will protect the medical privacy of its personnel and warned Cuba it will be held responsible.

Officials told Rubio's panel that Tillerson decided last month to launch a review into how his department had responded to the mystery, and had planned to inform Congress in the coming days.

The first suspected attack was traced back to November 2016, and the last two took place in mid-August 2017, after Washington had protested to Havana and withdrawn some staff.

Charles Rosenfarb, a doctor and director of the State Department bureau of medical services, told senators the symptoms were mixed but consistent with brain trauma.

The victims -- at least 24 Americans, a mix of US embassy personnel and their dependants -- suffered headaches, hearing loss, disorientation and some loss of cognitive ability.

Some recovered from the most acute symptoms, Rosenfarb said, but the severity, range and recovery time was mixed and its not yet clear whether any have suffered permanent injury.

"They associated the onset of these symptoms with unusual sounds or auditory sensations," Rosenfarb said.

"Various descriptions were given; a high-pitched sound, an incapacitating sound, a buffeting sensation akin to driving with one window open or just an intense pressure in one ear."

Medical experts and FBI agents launched investigations and high-frequency recording devices were installed in diplomatic residences, allowing a mystery sound sample to be captured.

But US scientists have no idea what kind of weapon or agent could cause the symptoms, or whether the sounds heard were a by-product of the attack or its means of delivery.

Rosenfarb said the only similar case he was aware of were suspicions during the Cold War before 1976 that US diplomats in Moscow were hurt by Russian microwave transmitters.

But acting assistant sectary of state Francisco Palmieri refused to say in an unclassified hearing whether Washington has approached the Russians over the Cuba incident.

"There is a long history and pattern of Cuban harassment of diplomats in Havana," Palmieri said, declining to speculate on why or if Raul Castro's regime had chosen to escalate.

"In whatever case they are responsible for the safety and security of US diplomats stationed in Havana ... and they have failed to live up to that responsibility," he said. </s> (CNN) The US State Department is pulling out all families of employees and nonessential personnel from Cuba, after a string of mysterious attacks against US diplomats.

Several US officials tell CNN that 21 US diplomats and family members became ill after apparent sonic attacks. The American embassy will continue to operate with a 60% reduction in staff. The officials said the US will stop issuing visas in Cuba effective immediately because of the staff reductions and the decision is not described as a retaliatory measure. Officials say there will still be consular officials in the embassy available to assist US citizens in Cuba.

The State Department is also issuing a travel warning, urging Americans not to travel to Cuba because they could also be at risk as some of the attacks against diplomats have taken place at hotels where Americans stay, a senior State Department official told reporters Friday.

"The decision to reduce our diplomatic presence in Havana was made to ensure the safety of our personnel," said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a written statement. "We maintain diplomatic relations with Cuba, and our work in Cuba continues to be guided by the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States."

In a statement Friday, the Cuban foreign ministry called the decision "hasty" and one that "will affect bilateral relations."

Josefina Vidal Ferreiro, the director general of the ministry's US division, said, "the Government of Cuba has no responsibility for the alleged acts and is seriously and rigorously complying with its obligations under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961, as regards the protection of the integrity of diplomatic agents accredited in the country and their families, without exception."

The statement reiterated "Cuba's willingness to continue an active cooperation between the authorities of the two countries, for the full clarification of these facts, for which a more efficient US involvement will be essential."

One senior US official said they expect the United States to ask Cuba to further draw down their personnel in Washington to voice US displeasure over the issue, but no decisions have been made.

The decision came after an exhaustive review of US diplomats' safety in Havana and discussions with the Cuban government, which has vociferously denied any involvement in the attacks.

In a meeting with Tillerson Tuesday, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez denied that Cuba was involved in attacks on diplomats and said the United States was politicizing the incidents. He said his government would continue to work with US authorities investigating the attacks.

"The secretary told him independent of who is doing it, the Cubans have a responsibility for the safety and well being of our people," a senior State Department official told CNN.

At least 21 US diplomats and family members have been affected by the incidents that began in November, causing a baffling array of maladies from hearing loss to dizziness to concussions.

US officials say there may have been as many as 50 attacks, a senior US official told CNN, the most recent in August. Some victims have had long lasting symptoms and, in at least one case, permanent hearing loss.

Despite the harassment, some US diplomats told CNN they did not want to depart, saying the reductions likely played into the hands of whoever was behind the attacks and would leave the embassy understaffed during a crucial period where Raul Castro is expected to step down as president of Cuba.

Barbara Stephenson, president of the American Foreign Service Association, said the organization that represents diplomats is against the drawdown.

"Our view is that American diplomats need to remain on the field and in the game," Stephenson told CNN. "We have a mission to do and we're used to operating around the globe with serious health risks. We are not saying there aren't health hazards there. But there are health hazards everywhere and we want the same choice. "

Investigators haven't determined the cause of the incidents, but US officials told CNN they are convinced someone has targeted American diplomats in Havana with a sophisticated device never deployed before, at least not against US personnel.

Canadian diplomats have suffered similar health problems, according to US and Canadian officials.

But seven months after complaints to Cuban officials and assurances from Castro that the incidents would be investigated, US officials are frustrated by the lack of progress and have considered a range of options from scaling back the embassy to limiting the number of people who risk exposure to a full-on shuttering of the embassy, three senior US officials told CNN.

"We have to consider it. We thought we had corralled this, and then the two cases in August took place," a senior US official said. "It is not as if the attacks address individual personnel officers. Our personnel is broadly at risk. So we have to consider next steps because we need to protect our people."

A setback to US-Cuban relations

The removal of the diplomats is a setback to US-Cuban relations following the "new beginning" heralded by former President Barack Obama when he and Castro agreed to restore full diplomatic relations and to try to move past decades of Cold War tensions and mistrust. It comes at a crucial moment as Castro prepares to step down as President in February and Washington needs eyes and ears on the ground.

The Obama administration relaxed restrictions on US citizens visiting the island and, for the first time in over 50 years, re-established direct flights as well as allowing US cruise ships to travel to the island.

The State Department removed Cuba from its list of countries that support state terrorism and Obama visited the island in 2016, the first sitting US president to do since the Cuban revolution.

Some hard-liners in Cuba, including the late Fidel Castro, criticized the opening with the United States, but many Cubans rejoiced as Americans returned to the island in large numbers for the first time in a half century.

Even though he had explored opening hotels in Cuba, during the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump vowed to close the embassy if Cuba didn't agree to "a better deal" with the US.

In June, before a crowd of anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami, President Trump vowed to tighten restrictions on traveling and doing business with Cuba unless Havana stopped repressing human rights and political freedoms.

Trump blasted the island's government again in September in his speech before the UN General Assembly.

"The United States has stood against the corrupt and destabilizing regime in Cuba and embraced the enduring dream of the Cuban people to live in freedom," Trump said. "My administration recently announced that we will not lift sanctions on the Cuban government until it makes fundamental reforms."

More questions than answers

In November, following the US presidential election, American diplomats began to experience a series of strange incidents. As CNN first reported in August, diplomats were awoken late at night in their homes feeling unwell and hearing sounds that resembled insects or metal dragging across the floor.

They were unable to determine the source of the sound, but when they left the room or area they were in the incidents stopped immediately, two US government officials said.

By February, the State Department had concluded their diplomats were the targets of a campaign of harassment and they needed to raise the issue with Cuban officials.

The devices used in the incidents have never been found, two US officials said, but appeared to be a type of sonic weapon that emitted sound waves capable of inflicting physical harm.

But the physical symptoms that people exhibited varied greatly, preventing doctors consulted in the United States from reaching a conclusion about what caused the trauma, two US officials said.

US government technical experts were also baffled. Some affected diplomats had lines of sight to the street in their homes, while others had shrubbery and walls that blocked views of their homes. Some heard loud sounds when the incidents took place, while others heard nothing.

It does not appear either the US Embassy or the ambassador's residence were ever targeted, three senior US officials told CNN.

"Following instructions from the top level of the Cuban government, a priority investigation was opened as from the moment these incidents were first reported and additional measures were adopted to protect the US diplomats and their relatives," said a statement released by the Cuban Foreign Ministry on Tuesday. Speaking at the UN General Assembly in New York, Cuba's foreign minister Rodríguez said his government "has taken into account the data contributed by the US authorities and so far has found no evidence whatsoever that could confirm the causes or the origin of the health disorders referred to by US diplomats and their relatives."

US officials said Raul Castro denied the attacks and authorized FBI teams to travel to the island to help with the investigation, which is being led by Cuba's Interior Ministry.

Additional Cuban security guards were stationed in the neighborhoods in Havana where US diplomats live and responded within minutes when the diplomats reported a suspected attack.

US officials felt Castro would not have personally assured the Americans that Cuba had no part in the incidents if it had been a Cuban operation, a US official told CNN.

Still, US officials said the Cubans' denials strain credibility as the incidents took place in the diplomats homes and in hotels, locations that Cuba's extensive intelligence apparatus are known to closely monitor. The officials said they believe even if the Cubans didn't know about the incidents at the beginning of the investigation, they must have a clearer idea of what transpired than they are letting on.

Many diplomats live in Havana's upscale Siboney neighborhood, which has surveillance cameras and Cuban security guards posted in front of many diplomats' homes.

Top Cuban officials -- including Raul Castro -- have houses in the same area and are heavily guarded.

Other incidents took place in hotels in Havana where US diplomats were staying, said three senior US officials, also locations that Cuban intelligence services closely monitor.

"It is increasingly apparent the Cubans are involved in some way," a senior US official said. "The Cubans are all over our people while they are down there. If it was a few attacks, you could say that maybe it was the Russians or Iranians screwing with us, but when it happens so many times, especially in the same hotel, it is hard for us believe someone can get close enough to our people so many times. Unless these are beams from outer space."

After several employees who suffered attacks had to leave Havana due to health concerns, the State Department asked the Cuban embassy to send two of its diplomats home as a reciprocal measures. Earlier this month, Republican Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Florida; Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas; Richard Burr, R-North Carolina; John Cornyn, R-Texas; and James Lankford, R-Oklahoma; called on Tillerson, to declare all accredited Cuban diplomats in the United States persona non grata and, if Cuba does not take tangible action to stop the threats against American diplomats, to close the US Embassy in Havana. Rubio was a staunch opponent to the opening with Cuba under Obama and has supported Trump overturning the measures.

But State Department officials said the decision to pull out diplomats was purely a safety issue and unrelated to Washington's relationship with Cuba.

The reductions in staff will further hobble the US embassy, which is still recovering from flooding caused by Hurricane Irma. Consular services, including the issuing of visas to Cubans traveling to the US and American citizen's services department, have been closed as repairs were being made.

Several of the families of the 50 diplomats stationed at the embassy evacuated ahead of the storm and have yet to return to the island. </s> Republican Sen. Jeff Flake says the U.S. has found no evidence that American diplomats in Havana were the victims of attacks with an unknown weapon.

Flake, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee member and a longtime leading advocate of detente with Cuba, met Friday with high-ranking Cuban officials including Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez and officials from the Interior Ministry, which oversees domestic security and works with foreign law-enforcement agencies.

The Cubans told Flake the FBI has told them that, after four trips to Cuba, its agents have found no evidence that mysterious illnesses suffered by U.S. diplomats were the result of attacks. Flake told The Associated Press on Saturday morning that classified briefings from U.S. officials have left him with no reason to doubt the Cuban account, although he declined to discuss the contents of those briefings.

Cuban and FBI officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday. CBS News has reached out to Flake's communications director for further comment.

The U.S. federal government says roughly two dozen U.S. officials and spouses fell ill in Havana in their homes and some hotels starting in 2016. But one of the medically confirmed Americans injured has said the U.S. response was handled "poorly," and their complaints were ignored by senior embassy leadership and key State Department officials in Washington for months. The U.S. staffers said they heard loud, strange bizarre before falling ill, prompting speculation that they were targeted by sonic devices.

An incident reported last year by a USAID officer based at the American embassy in Uzbekistan is raising suspicions Russia may have been involved and could have had a hand in bizarre attacks targeting U.S. diplomats in Cuba, American sources have told CBS News. In September, the officer and his wife reported, according to one source familiar with the incident, what may have been at least one acoustic attack similar to those experienced by the diplomats in Havana.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said he's "convinced these were targeted attacks," but the U.S. doesn't know who's behind them. The U.S. has withdrawn most of its diplomats from Havana, citing a health risk, and forced many Cuban diplomats to leave Washington.

Cuba has decried the reductions as an unjustified blow to U.S.-Cuban relations that were restored under President Barack Obama.

"The Cuban Interior Ministry is saying the FBI has told them there is no evidence of a sonic attack, even though that term is being used, attack, there is no evidence of it," Flake told the AP. "There's no evidence that somebody purposefully tried to harm somebody. Nobody is saying that these people didn't experience some event, but there's no evidence that that was a deliberate attack by somebody, either the Cubans or anybody else.

"As I said, I won't talk about what I have seen in a classified setting, but nothing is inconsistent with what the Cubans have said, and I think the FBI would say that."

Flake, one of President Trump's toughest Republican critics, announced last year that he would not seek re-election. He has not ruled out running against Mr. Trump in 2020.

Several of the U.S. diplomats and spouses reported hearing loud, mysterious sounds followed by hearing loss and ear-ringing, leading some U.S. officials to describe the incidents as "sonic attacks." But officials are now carefully avoiding that term.

Medical testing has revealed that some embassy workers had apparent abnormalities in their white matter tracts that let different parts of the brain communicate, several U.S. officials said, and acoustic waves have never been shown to alter those tracts.
An anonymous senior State Department official says that United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson decided to convene a special-panel Accountability Review Board to further investigate the "attacks" at the U.S. embassy in Havana.