Not sure why this is a surprise? They're in the business of understanding information from all over the world, in all languages... and are undoubtedly interested in things like "this accent means this person came from this part of the country" too.
It could be a surprise because they always blame translation difficulties whenever they fail to predict important events e.g. fall of USSR, 9/11, no WMDs, 12-hour Taliban flash-takeover of Afghanistan, etc. One almost suspects that they don't particularly care to get "intelligence" right since they have other priorities.
Not sure why this is a surprise? They're in the business of understanding information from all over the world, in all languages... and are undoubtedly interested in things like "this accent means this person came from this part of the country" too.