News you may have missed #817 (assassinations edition)

December 19, 2012 by 1 Comment

Patrick FinucaneBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►British PM apologizes in killing of IRA lawyer. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, has apologized after a government report found that British intelligence officials had colluded with loyalist paramilitaries in the 1989 killing of lawyer Patrick Finucane in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Finucane, who had represented members of the Irish Republic Army in court, was shot dead by two gunmen from a Protestant paramilitary group while having a Sunday dinner at his home with his wife and three children.
►►Behind the plot to kill Afghanistan’s spy chief. On December 11, we reported that the Afghan government accused Pakistani intelligence of having played a role in the assassination of Assadullah Khaled, who heads Afghanistan’s National Directorate for Security. But how was the attempt on Khaled’s life carried out, and how did the aspiring assassins get so close to the controversial intelligence chief? Time magazine reports that it was Khaled’s self-confidence “bordering on recklessness” that almost got him killed. Sources say that, even after taking over the NDS, Khalid frequently drove around without bodyguards.
►►How Mossad bid to kill Hamas leader ended in fiasco. Khaled Mashal’s recent presence in the Gaza Strip will have rudely reminded Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, of one of the greatest fiascos in the history of special operations, writes The Daily Telegraph‘s David Blair. Fifteen years ago, Netanyahu authorized a risky attempt to assassinate Mashal in the Jordanian capital, Amman. Everything went wrong. The Jordanian security forces responded to this brazen daylight attack, arresting two of the Israeli operatives and forcing three to hide in their country’s embassy, which was promptly surrounded by troops.

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Irish government ‘refused cooperation’ with probe into IRA attack

March 15, 2012 by Leave a comment

Warrenpoint ambushBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS| intelNews.org |
The government of the Republic of Ireland allegedly ordered senior police officials not to assist an investigation into a 1979 attack by the Provisional Irish Republican Army that killed 18 British soldiers in the UK province of Northern Ireland. The attack, known as the Warrenpoint ambush, took place in the afternoon of August 27, when a British military convoy was blown up by a remote-controlled 500-pound fertilizer bomb hidden in a lorry loaded with straw bales. It was soon followed by a second massive bomb blast at a nearby house, and resulted in the British Army’s greatest loss of life in a single incident during the Northern Ireland Troubles. Now a retired officer of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), as the British police body in Northern Ireland was then known, has told an official government inquiry that the Irish government refused to collaborate with the investigation into the Warrenpoint ambush, and even ordered its senior police officers to distance themselves from it. The man, who testified behind closed doors through a video link from Belfast, cannot be named and is instead referred to in tribunal documents as ‘Witness 68’. All that is known about him is that he is a retired detective and retired from the RUC with a rank of Deputy Assistant Chief Constable. He told the Smithwick Tribunal that the government of the Republic of Ireland instructed its intelligence and law enforcement personnel to view the Warrenpoint ambush as a political crime and to abstain from the British-led criminal investigation into the killings. Consequently, in April 1980, when British RUC officials met with senior officers from the Garda’s (Irish police) Criminal Intelligence Division in Dublin, the Irish delegation informed British officials that the Irish Prime Minister, Jack Lynch, had given specific instructions that “no assistance would be given to the RUC”. Subsequently, the RUC discovered that a site located in the Republic of Ireland, which the British suspected had been used to detonate the bomb that exploded a few yards away at Warrenpoint, had been destroyed before forensic teams were able to examine it. Read more of this post

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US gave N. Ireland police weapons, spy equipment, despite Congress ban

January 4, 2012 by 4 Comments

Royal Ulster Constabulary forces in the 1980sBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
Declassified documents show that thousands of American-made weapons, as well as spy equipment, ended up in the hands of Northern Ireland’s police force in the 1980s, despite a strict ban enacted by Congress. The ban was passed in 1979, following strong pressure by organized groups in the Irish-American community. The latter accused Northern Ireland’s police, known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), of severe human rights violations and systematically excluding Catholic recruits. But internal government documents released in Northern Ireland this week, reveal that thousands of pieces of American-made weaponry, as well as surveillance equipment, continued to get into the hands of the RUC, despite the official ban. According to the documents, which were released under the UK’s 30-year declassification rule, the RUC eventually managed to collect all 6,000 Ruger revolvers it had ordered from American manufacturers before 1979, when the Congressional ban was enacted. The weapons continued to be shipped to Northern Ireland by way of “third-party suppliers”, who sent them secretly and in small quantities, so as not to arouse suspicion. The documents also state that the RUC was able to “receive [from the United States] some US equipment for surveillance work which is arguably more sensitive than guns”. The documents do not specify if the White House was aware that the Congressional ban against selling weapons to the RUC was being broken, or if the weapons were being surreptitiously smuggled by the British government, which hid the shipments from Washington. But The Belfast News Letter, which accessed the declassified documents, said it spoke to “one former senior RUC officer” who said that “the Reagan Administration was aware of the shipments” and had “turned a blind eye to the issue”. Read more of this post

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Half of all IRA leaders were government spies, report claims

December 26, 2011 by 1 Comment

Ian HurstBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A report to be presented before an Irish government inquiry states that nearly half of the leadership of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) during the ‘Troubles’ of the 1960s and 1970s consisted of informants working for British or Irish intelligence services. The 24-page report is part of a larger dossier of evidence that is soon to be presented before the Smithwick Tribunal, a judicial inquiry into the 1989 killing by the Provisional IRA of two police officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (see previous intelNews coverage here). The evidence dossier has reportedly been prepared by Ian Hurst, former member of the Force Research Unit (FRU), a secretive body within the British Army’s Intelligence Corps, tasked with running agents inside militant groups. Hurst, who worked in the Intelligence Corps from 1981 to 1990, was responsible for handling informants and agents inside Irish paramilitary groups, including the Provisional IRA. He is believed to be the first-ever member of the FRU to have spoken publicly about his experience. In the report, which was leaked to The Belfast Telegraph, Hurst suggests that approximately one in every four volunteers of the Provisional IRA was an agent of an intelligence organization, and that among leading members this number increased to one in two. Among them was allegedly the British agent codenamed STAKEKNIFE, identified by some as Freddie Scappaticci, a senior member of the Provisional IRA Northern Command’s Internal Security Unit (ISU), tasked with counterintelligence operations (Scappaticci denies these claims). Read more of this post

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Inquiry examines whether IRA had mole inside Irish police

November 16, 2011 by Leave a comment

Provisional IRA muralBy JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
An Irish government investigation has unearthed intelligence reports claiming that an informant within the Irish police, the Garda, helped the Provisional Irish Republican Army plan the killings of a judge and two senior British police officers in the 1980s. Sir Maurice Gibson, a Lord Justice of Appeal for the British Crown, was killed along with his wife, by a remote-controlled car bomb, as they drove over the Irish border back into Northern Ireland on 27 April 1987, following a holiday. A little less than two years later, on March 20, 1989, Royal Ulster Constabulary officers Harry Breen and Robert Buchanan, were killed in an IRA road ambush in South Armagh. The two RUC officers, who were killed as they drove back from a meeting with Garda officers in the Republic of Ireland, were targeted despite the fact that they were riding in an unmarked car. This has sparked rumors that the victims’ travel itinerary had been supplied to the IRA by an inside source, possibly an officer in the Garda. In 2000, Jeffrey Donaldson, a British Member of Parliament, told the House of Commons that Garda Detective Sergeant Owen Corrigan was the IRA mole that leaked the itineraries of Judge Gibson and the two RUC officers. The Smithwick Tribunal in Dublin, which was set up in response to Mr. Donaldson’s allegations, is scheduled to conclude at the end of this month, following public testimony by several individuals. One of those is Detective Superintendent Brian Burton, of the Dundalk Garda station, the very same station in which Det. Sgt. Corrigan served at the time of the IRA killings. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #433

September 22, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • White House quiet on Pollard release speculation. The Barack Obama administration is staying silent on a reported offer from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend a settlements freeze in the occupied areas, in exchange for the release of Jonathan Pollard, currently held in a US prison for spying on America for Israel.
  • ‘The Secret History of MI6′ published. An authorized history of the first forty years of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, has been published by Bloomsbury. The book is written by Professor Keith Jeffery, of Queen’s University, Belfast, based on his unrestricted access to SIS archives of the period.
  • Pakistan accuses Briton of spying. Authorities in Pakistan are holding a 70-year-old Briton on suspicion of spying for almost a month in the country’s lawless tribal areas. Nicholas Bain, who claims he is an author researching a book, is suspected of “working for a British intelligence agency”, according to a Pakistani official.

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British informant sues MI5 for breach of contract

September 16, 2010 by Leave a comment

RIRA gunmen

RIRA gunmen

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
An informant, who was used by British intelligence to infiltrate an Irish Republican dissident group, is suing the British government claiming he was forced to give evidence in court despite his will. The case, which is believed to be the first of its kind in British legal history, has been brought before the court by a man identified only as “Amir”. Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, MI5, has admitted recruiting Amir in 2004, and using him to infiltrate the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA), a Provisional IRA splinter group that continues its armed campaign against British presence in Northern Ireland. But the informant claims that he accepted payment from MI5 on condition that he would never be expected to testify as a witness in court. Read more of this post

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Irish republicans used cameras to spy on MI5

September 13, 2010 by 1 Comment

Palace Barracks

Palace Barracks

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
British government officials in Northern Ireland have ordered 20 trees cut down outside a spying installation, after a number of surveillance cameras were discovered hidden among the tree branches. The trees are located around a multimillion-dollar spying base belonging to MI5, Britain’s primary domestic intelligence organization. The base, which serves as MI5’s headquarters in Northern Ireland, is located in Holywood, County Down, inside a British Army installation named Palace Barracks. Eyebrows were raised on April 12, when a dissident republican group managed to detonate a massive car bomb inside the maximum-security base. The bomb was carried into the base by a local taxi driver, who had been forced by paramilitaries at gunpoint to smuggle it into the facility. British media initially attributed the attack to the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA), but it was later blamed on Óglaigh na hÉireann (ONH), which split from the Continuity Irish Republican Army (CIRA) four years ago. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #331

April 16, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • CIA deputy director to step down. The Agency has denied it for months, but now the longtime rumor that its powerful deputy director, Stephen R. Kappes, was planning to resign has came true. Jeff Stein reports that “recently, grumbling about Kappes from within the CIA and without, on issues ranging from his nit-picking management style to his ties to the old order, has gotten louder. And now, apparently, Kappes has heard enough”.
  • US eyes cash deal for Kyrgyzstan base. How will the recent coup in Kyrgyzstan affect US-Kyrgyz arrangements on the Manas Air Base? A lot will depend on oil purchase deals between the US military and Kyrgyz autocrats.
  • Court case may reveal IRA spy’s role. Freddie Scappaticci, an IRA spy alleged to be the British army agent ‘Stakeknife’ could be forced into court by the wife of another IRA informer, who claims she suffered nervous breakdown after being kidnapped by him.

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News you may have missed #328 (breaking)

April 12, 2010 by 1 Comment

  • Breaking: Real IRA admits NI MI5 base bomb. The Real IRA has admitted it was behind a car bomb which exploded shortly after midnight local hour, outside the Palace Barracks army base, in Holywood, County Down, which houses MI5′s Northern Ireland headquarters. Police said no warning was given.
  • Venezuela releases 4 of 8 alleged spies. Four of the eight Colombians arrested by Venezuela on espionage charges last week have been released, after a judge found there was not enough evidence to take them to trial. Meanwhile Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez has said that the alleged spy ring used “secret or semi-secret codes”.
  • Analysis: Security services will determine fate of Kyrgyz uprising. Unlike the 2005 so-called Tulip Revolution, this time the anti-government protesters in Kyrgyzstan are armed. But the real question may be whether they have the support of (and control over) the Internal Security Services and the military.

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News you may have missed #0284

February 12, 2010 by Leave a comment

  • Real IRA faction killed MI5 informant, says Irish police. The Gardai have concluded that a Real IRA faction executed Denis Donaldson, a former Sinn Fein official who turned informer for MI5 and the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Last year, the Real IRA took responsibility for the 2007 killing.
  • NATO spy station up for sale. A Canadian NATO spy station in Nova Scotia that operated between 1983 and 2006 is for sale for US$1.4 million. It appears that the site’s current owner, who doesn’t want to be identified, bought it from the Canadian Defense Department after the base was closed down.
  • Analysis on the Binyam Mohamed disclosures and UK-US spy cooperation. This analysis, by Michael Clarke, director of Britain’s Royal United Services Institute, is probably the best synopsis of the meaning of the recent court order to disclose Binyam Mohamed’s torture records, which has complicated US-UK spy relations.

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News you may have missed #0228

December 21, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • Irish nationalists planting honey traps on British troops? The Belfast Telegraph reports that British Army personnel have been “warned about the recruitment by dissidents of attractive females to identify soldiers at popular nightspots and lure them into ambushes” in Northern Ireland. This is highly unnecessary. Usually British troops in the North are easily identifiable by their haircuts, accents, even by their choice of beer!
  • Egyptian spy chief meets Israeli defense minister. Ehud Barak and Omar Suleiman, director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Services, met in Jerusalem on Sunday. The meeting included a “private 30-minute session” between the two men (and the eavesdroppers on either side, presumably –ed.).
  • Terror suspect David Headley was ‘rogue US secret agent’. The London Times has woken up to the rumors circulating about David Headley, a full month after Indian media began reporting them, and nearly three weeks after intelNews alerted its readers. Nice of them to catch up.

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Protestant alleges links between N. Ireland loyalists and British state

December 21, 2009 by 3 Comments

Raymond McCord

Ray McCord, Sr.

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
On November 9, 1997, Royal Air Force officer Raymond McCord Jr. was beaten to death in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by members of the Mount Vernon branch of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). McCord’s beating was one of many instances in which Northern Ireland’s most violent loyalist gang targeted members of its own Protestant community. The difference in McCord’s case was that his father, Raymond McCord Sr., decided to come forward and speak out about the decades-old collusion between Northern Irish loyalist paramilitaries and Britain’s security services. Despite repeated death threats and intimidation, McCord’s campaign prompted an official investigation into the matter by Northern Ireland’s police ombudsman Nuala O’Loan. Her 2007 report confirmed that the leader of the Mount Vernon UVF, Mark Haddock, had been repeatedly protected by police authorities, despite being routinely implicated in extortion, blackmail, drug dealing and arson, as well as in dozens of paramilitary-style attacks that resulted in 16 murders and 10 attempted murders. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #0200

November 30, 2009 by Leave a comment

  • New N. Ireland justice minister wants MI5 to share data. David Ford, who appears to be the preferred choice for Northern Ireland’s justice minister, says he will “insist that MI5 share all intelligence on republican dissidents with the Police Service of Northern Ireland”.
  • Prisoners remain in CIA black site. A US military detention camp in Afghanistan is still holding inmates, sometimes for weeks at a time and without access to the Red Cross, according to human rights researchers and former detainees held at Bagram Air Base.

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Suspected IRA militant charged in undercover agent’s killing

November 14, 2009 by Leave a comment

Robert Nairac

Robert Nairac

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A man suspected by British authorities to be a former member of the Irish Republican Army has been charged with participating in the killing of a British army undercover agent, who tried to infiltrate the IRA in the 1970s. Robert Nairac, a captain of the British Army’s Intelligence Corps, was among numerous British government agents who attempted to infiltrate the IRA from the 1960s onwards. Although educated at Oxford, Nairac studied Irish republican culture and put on a convincing Northern Irish accent in order to carry out the infiltration. His activities centered on patronizing various pubs in Catholic stronghold areas of Belfast, using the cover name “Danny McErlaine”, and pretending to be a member of the Official IRA (an IRA splinter faction) from north Belfast. But on May 14, 1977, a group of IRA members abducted Nairac from a pub in South Armagh and drove him to a remote location, where they interrogated him prior to executing him. Read more of this post

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