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. British spooks regain a 'Licence to kill'
~ 09/02/03:
The world of counter-terrorism is certain to take a
further step into the downward spiral of hit-teams
and assassination as the Western Intelligence services try to find the
means to defeat Al Qa'ida and its myriad of extremist offshoots. The CIA
and MI6 freed of many of the political and legal shackles imposed in the
latter years of the Cold War are expanding their covert capability and
the means to use 'executive action', a euphemism for assassination, to
defeat the greatest threat to democracy since the collapse of Communism.
The main source of the experience and influence on operational
tactics is perhaps one of the more surprising aspects of these
developments. ~ Israel
has played a significant and largely secret role within the dark world
of Britain's covert operations against terrorist groups.
As long ago as the very early 1970's Rafael Eitan, the then
head of the Israeli hit-squad known as the 'Kidon' toured Northern
Ireland and later the SAS base in Hereford. Rumour has it that Eitan was
less than impressed with British training, tactics or their 'kill' rate.
Within months of his visit there began a number of fundamental
changes in security policy and operations in the province. More
SAS were to be posted to the province and a number of
specialized anti-terrorist groups would eventually be formed
ranging from the 14th intelligence and Security company, once described
as the 'Thinking Mans SAS' to the Mobile Reconnaissance Force or
MRF which would later become the Force Reconnaissance
Unit . The FRU were to be later involved in the
targeting of suspected Republicans for assassination by the infamous Loyalist
Death Squads. ~ Indeed
Britain's overall counter-terror organization was held in such poor
esteem by the experienced Israeli's that Mossad's Kidon hit-team
took the law into their own hands by assassinating two of the
Palestinian terrorists suspected of involvement in the Black September
Massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics. One was found dead in his
London hotel room, while the second fell under the wheels of a car in
High Holborn, much to the annoyance of MI5 and the fury of Whitehall. The
1988 killing of three IRA members in Gibraltar by the SAS was reportedly viewed
as a bungled operation by Mossad who had originally tracked the Irish
terrorists who they suspected of running guns from the Lebanon. Wishing
to avoid further problems with London by not attempting
to kill or capture them on British soil, the surveillance
operation was handed over to MI5 and of course later to the SAS
whose heavy handed approach finally prevented the
interrogation of the suspects. ~ Under
Tony Blair, Britain's official approach is far more co-operative and
Mossad have apparently met with little opposition to their clandestine centre operating in
London with some 15 intelligence officers and 2 or 3 members
of the Kidon. The Israeli's are thought to have a hit-list of around50
Islamic and Palestinian terrorists believed to be currently
living in Britain. Most of these radical's are, to use Israeli parlance,
to be 'disposed of' and it is believed that a number have either
fled the country or gone under deep cover in consequence.
According to Gordon Thomas, one of the world's leading experts on
Israeli and British intelligence in particular, the highly
effective Kidon is directly controlled by the Israeli
Intelligence Service, Mossad. It has some 38-40 highly trained
assassins and includes at least four women. They operate throughout the
world and where-ever a potential or actual threat exists to the
interests of Israel or its people. David Kimche, a 30-year veteran of Mossad
and its Deputy until his resignation in 1980 was largely responsible for
the formulation of the Kidon philosophy that it must be 'Israel
first, last and always' ~ It
is this deadly capability that both the CIA and now MI6 are apparently
seeking to emulate as they face the growing menace of Islamic terrorism.
Though the CIA had a long track record of assassinations its claws were drawn
by successive US administrations with their fear of damaging
publicity and international anger, ending with a legal ban on such
action which has only recently been lifted. Britain on the other hand
has no such legal complications, as long as the killing takes place
on foreign soil. Under the Intelligence Services Act of 1994, MI6
officers have immunity from prosecution for crimes committed outside
Great Britain. Although The Criminal Justice Bill of 1998 makes it
illegal for any organization in Great Britain to conspire to commit
offenses abroad, Crown agents still have immunity. With the end of
World War Two the SOE (Special Operations Executive) undoubted
ability in both subversion and assassination was absorbed into the Secret
Intelligence Service and for many years afterwards Britain is
believed to have made regular, if sparing use of assassination
to further its foreign policy aims. ~ George
Young in 1956, at the time Deputy Chief of MI6, quite openly advocated
the killing of the Egyptian leader Colonel Nasser and in September
1960 the senior foreign office official, Howard Smith who was later
to become the Director General of MI5 argued in an official documentfor
the assassination of the young Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba "I
see only two possible solutions to the [Lumumba] problem. The first is
the simple one of ensuring [his] removal from the scene by killing
him.". Closer to home the Littlejohn Brothers were recruited
in 1972 by John Wyman of MI6 who handled a number of agents in Northern
Ireland and paid them substantial sums of tax payers money to
infiltrate the IRA and to act as agent provocateurs, organising and
conducting bank robberies and bomb attacks in the Republic of Ireland.
Wyman told them that there was "going to be a policy of political
assassination" for which they were to make themselves available.
"If I was told about any illegal act before it happened, I would
always discuss it with London. I was always told to go ahead" said
Kenneth Littlejohn who went on to claim that the MI6 Officer told
him 'If there is any shooting, do what you've got to do'."
Wyman indeed gave the Littlejohn's a list of IRA leaders to
assassinate; these included Seamus Costello, Sean Qarland and Sean
McStiofain. After Littlejohn passed on the name of Joe McCann, a
leading Republican, to his MI6 handler, McCann was shot dead by
British paratroopers a few days later as he walked, apparently
unarmed, through the Belfast market area. In
more recent times the maverick former MI5 Officer David Shayler and
Richard Tomlinson of MI6 have both vigorously argued that Britain's
Intelligence Services had attempted to assassinate Libya's Colonel
Gadaffi in February 1996 in a plot organized by MI6 officers
DAVID WATSON and RICHARD BARTLITT and had planned a similar fate
for both the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in 1991 and Serbia's Slobodan
Milosovic in 1992. Whatever one may think of such claims, there is now
at least official confirmation from the Steven's Inquiry into the 'Shoot
to Kill' policy in Northern Ireland that British security officials were
indeed deeply involved in the assassination of a number of Catholics in
the province. The Guardian in April 28th 2001, headlined its
article Sinister role of secret army unit: Police investigate claims
of collusion with paramilitaries describes the organisations involved in
covert British operations in Ireland “The FRU was one of three
army-sponsored undercover intelligence squads in Northern Ireland. The
others were 22 Squadron(sic) SAS, and 14 Company. The FRU, which was set
up in Northern Ireland in 1980, dealt with recruiting and handling
agents in paramilitary organisations.“14 Company specialised in
surveillance while 22 SAS undertook 'executive actions'. 'That means
they killed people,' said an army source. Many outside observers remain
convinced that this is merely the tip of an iceberg and much is still
being hidden by an ongoing official cover-up. ~ Another advantage for SIS is that they have a number of SAS personnel trained to work with the intelligence service and always available for any its needs. This group known as 'The Increment' and is used for assassinations, sabotage or other dangerous jobs, such as arresting war criminals in the Balkans said James Dunnigan, the renowned author of 'How to Make War' (now in its Fourth Edition), adding that every SIS Station chief has a direct line to the SAS headquarters at the Duke of Yorks Barracks in West London and a good working relationship with these covert action experts. Ex-SAS mercenaries have also been blamed for several assassinations on the African continent and a purported former member of the Regiment, Tyrone Chadwick, was imprisoned in South Africa after admitting to a London-based journalist his and other former SAS mercenaries’ leading role in several murders during the apartheid era according to a commentary on the Strategy Pagein June 2003. SIS has developed a reputation for going outside the agency and its military executive arm to hit some targets. Friendly foreign intelligence agencies have been used on a number of occasions and MI6 has shown a willingness to 'sub-contract it to Mossad' according to a former British agent quoted by Peter Hillmore and Ed Vulliamy in 'Spies: the Beautiful and the damned' (The Observer 12th October 1997), adding that the assassination in Belgium of the British inventor of the Iraqi 'Supergun', Gerald Bull, is widely believed to have been just such an act. While yet further speculation still surrounds the 'suicide' of Jonathan Moyle, the twenty-eight-year-old editor of the British trade journal Defence Helicopter World. In March 1990, he was found hanging in a closet in a hotel room in Santiago, Chile. Intelligence sources have long suggested that there was an SIS involvement in Moyle's death as his 'Iraqgate' investigations were believed to be uncovering highly embarrassing facts for the senior management at Century House, then the headquarters for MI6 and the Conservative Government of Magaret Thatcher.
Last
year Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon appointed General Meir
Dagan, his friend and close colleague to head the Mossad. Security
sources confirm that Dagan, a noted hawk, had served in
the 1970's as head of the 'Rimon'undercover anti-terrorist unit which is
widely suspected of killing militants wanted by Israel. Following his
retirement from the Army in 1995 Dagan became Mossad's deputy
Chief. His appointment and past track record suggest
that while the Sharon Government may be publicly willing to sign up to
President Bush's 'road-map' for a Middle East peace it will be
allied to a deadly new secret campaign to destroy the terrorist
infrastructure and eliminate its leadership. Leading Israeli
politician Moshe Arens said.“Dagan is one of the old Sharon’s
assets. They got to know each other 33 years ago when Sharon, then head
of Southern Command, cleared Gaza of ‘terrorists.’ Dagan led a
commando unit called ‘Rimon’ which was known, how shall I put it,
for its unconventional methods.” General Dagan is known to
be keen to promote the Israeli-way of dealing with terrorism and
quicklypaid an official visit to the CIA Director George Tenet in
September last year and before his promotion had even been
confirmed. According to usually reliable intelligence sources, it
can be taken as highly significant that the CIA formally
established an assassination team in November, less than two
months later. This may be seen as not only a positive US
response to the sharing of Israeli experience and expertise, but also
as a direct result of the recent lifting of the US
Presidential ban on 'executive action' following the Al
Qa'ida attacks of 9-11. ~ General Dagan and Mossad's growing influence on the Western Intelligence Community was further strengthened by meetings held in Britain in January of this year with Eliza Manningham Buller, the Director General of MI5 and more importantly with Richard Dearlove, Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service. It now seems likely that in the wake of these discussions Britain's MI6 was further encouraged to rebuild its muscle power through the expansion of its Special Operations Directorate to include a genuine anti-terrorist 'Hunter-Killer' capability. Though 'C' has been traditionally able to call upon the services of the SAS and 'The Increment', a small Special Forces unit dedicated to secret intelligence, an ever increasing number of covert and potentially politically explosive operations required the use of contracted 'retired' officers operating within commercial paramilitary companies; organized crime assets or even 'friendly' foreign intelligence agencies. The SIS has apparently decided that it must have its own operatives to do much of the 'dirty work' . In common with their colleagues at the CIA, the senior management at Vauxhall Cross are now busily returning the service to the bad old days of 'Political Action' and assassination as the official, though of course deniable, policy for dealing with external threats. It now seems certain that a limited number of selected and highly trained MI6 officers once again have a 'licence to kill' and perhaps courtesy of the Israeli Secret Service.
THIS ARTICLE TO BE GREATLY EXPANDED LATER IN SEPTEMBER 2003 WITH A LARGE AMOUNT OF NEW INFORMATION RECENTLY OBTAINED FROM BRITISH AND US SOURCES ON ACTUAL OR RUMOURED ASSASSINATIONS BY THE SAS OR SIS - Dr James Hawker for AFI Research
A leading source of specialist Intelligence, Defence, Terrorism, Conflict and Political analysis, expert information, research, consultancy and risk forecasting for the Worlds News Media ~ ~ (C)
Richard Bennett Media 2003
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