Dirty war

MI-5’s collaboration with Al-Qaeda terrorists contributed to the success of the 11-September terror attacks.

2 January 2002: Those people who like spy lore would know about the history and exploits of Britain’s security service MI-5. It was established in 1909, contributed greatly to the destruction of the German war machine in the two world wars, battled the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and, in the 1990s, helped to contain Irish Republican terrorism in the British mainland.

But like all covert services, MI-5 prosecuted “dirty wars”. It spied on British citizens. It put surveillance on Harold Wilson when he was prime minister. It kept the lid on the British traitor Kim Philby who defected to the Soviet Union. It hid the fact that the Keeper of the Queen’s pictures, Anthony Blunt, was a Soviet mole. It bugged and burgled its way through England, and certainly authorised eliminations in its war against IRA terror.

There is more infamy coming its way. We reported yesterday (Intelligence, “MI-5 knew of Al-Qaeda activities,” 1 January 2002) that the MI-5 encouraged and collaborated with Al-Qaeda terrorists and Islamists since at least 1995. The collaboration started as a means to penetrate these terrorist groups to understand them and eventually to contain them.

But somewhere along the way, the line dividing collaboration and encouragement was erased. MI-5 raised funds for Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, recruited for them, and spread their propaganda. The aim was no longer to destroy these groups. It was to protect British interests, businesses and tourists on one hand. And, on the other, it was to destabilise Arab states perceived to be anti-UK.

Those who are in the intelligence business won’t be surprised by these revelations. Nor is MI-5 the only covert service with a dirty-tricks department. Everyone knows about Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. The French have been murderous in Algeria. Soviet Russian intelligence committed unspeakable atrocities. And a former FBI director, J.Edgar Hoover, is reputed to have compiled dossiers on prominent Americans including his own president, John F.Kennedy.

But nothing has come back to haunt the West as much as MI-5’s collaboration with Al-Qaeda terrorists. MI-5 agents taught them how to code messages on the internet, revealed mindsets of Western security services, and gave them enough proficiency to launder money without leaving a trail. Indian and Afghan interrogators of captured Al-Qaeda terrorists say that MI-5 training enabled the 11-September terror plan to be carried out without a hitch.

The MI-5-Al-Qaeda collaboration compares with the US CIA’s training to Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden. We reported (Intelligence, “CIA used Osama against Arab states,” 15 September 2001) that the CIA employed Bin Laden against “hostile” Arab states after his usefulness in Afghanistan was deemed to be over with the Soviet withdrawal and the imminent collapse of the Najibullah regime.

The CIA-Bin Laden link was discovered by Russian intelligence while trawling old KGB files. Russia brought in Iran since the files indicated a secret CIA base on the Iran-Afghanistan border set up during the Shah’s regime. Iranian intelligence came upon a treasure trove of coded CIA files which were broken with Pakistani intelligence help. Those files, among other things, revealed CIA’s use of Bin Laden against Sudan, Yemen and some other countries.

It becomes difficult to blame everything on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda terrorists after such disclosures. If Muslims all over the world are sceptical about the crimes heaped on Bin Laden and the others, should you be surprised? If an Al-Qaeda activist is a terrorist because he exploded a bomb, why spare the man who taught him? Why exonerate MI-5’s Al-Qaeda collaborators who taught the terrorists to code, raised money for them, and pushed British students into their fold?

It is not enough to hunt down Osama Bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda terrorists. Western intelligence services must clean up sections that have collaborated with Al-Qaeda terrorists and Islamists with a false sense of protecting national interests. Britain must pay particular attention to the MI-5 that had information against the American Airlines shoebomber, Richard Reid, from his imam in the Brixton mosque, Abdul Haqq Baker, but was unable – or unwilling – to act.

The UK has increased external oversight of MI-5 but its collaboration with the Al-Qaeda suggests that its roguery remains uncontained. The war against terror will be merely Western rhetoric if its covert services are exempt from it.