Caught red-handed: BRITISH UNDERCOVER OPERATIVES IN IRAQ

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" Dan Stafford " <aqmstaffo

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 15:55:38 -0500

Caught red-handed: BRITISH UNDERCOVER OPERATIVES IN IRAQ

Caught red-handed

 

 

 

Nafeez Ahmed

 

BRITISH UNDERCOVER OPERATIVES IN IRAQ

 

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/CAUGHT_RED__0923.html

 

 

Zarqawi Eat Your Heart Out

 

Basra is relatively stable compared to central Iraq where violence

involving insurgents, civilians and coalition forces is a daily

routine. The city has rarely been a site of clashes between insurgents

and coalition troops, nor is it a victim of regular terrorist attacks.

This week, however, things changed, but not thanks to Zarqawi and his

al-Qaeda ilk.

 

On Monday, two British soldiers were arrested and detained by Iraqi

police in Basra. Within a matter of hours, the British military

responded with overwhelming force, despite subsequent denials by the

Ministry of Defence, which insisted that the two men had been

retrieved solely through " negotiations. "

 

British military officials, including Brigadier John Lorimer, told BBC

News (9/20/05) that the British Army had stormed an Iraqi police

station to locate the detainees. Ministry of Defence sources confirmed

that " British vehicles " had attempted to " maintain a cordon " outside

the police station.

 

After British Army tanks " flattened the wall " of the station, UK

troops " broke into the police station to confirm the men were not

there " and then " staged a rescue from a house in Basra " , according a

commanding officer familiar with the operation. Both men, British

defence sources told the BBC's Richard Galpin in Baghdad, were

" members of the SAS elite special forces. " After their arrest, the

soldiers were over to the local militia.

 

What had prompted this bizarre turn of events? Why had the Iraqi

police forces, which normally work in close cooperation with coalition

military forces, arrested two British SAS soldiers, and then handed

them over to the local militia? A review of the initial on-the-ground

reports leads to a clearer picture.

 

Fancy Dress and Big Guns Don't Mix

 

According to the BBC's Galpin, reporting for BBC Radio 4 (9/20/05, 18

hrs news script), Iraqi police sources in Basra told the BBC the " two

British men were arrested after failing to stop at a checkpoint. There

was an exchange of gunfire. The men were wearing traditional Arab

clothing, and when the police eventually stopped them, they said they

found explosives and weapons in their car…It's widely believed the two

British servicemen were operating undercover. "

 

Undercover? Dressed as Arabs? What were they trying to do that had

caught the attention of their colleagues, the Iraqi police?

 

According to the Washington Post (9/20/05), " Iraqi security officials

on Monday variously accused the two Britons they detained of shooting

at Iraqi forces or trying to plant explosives. " Reuters (9/19/05)

cited police, local officials and other witnesses who confirmed that

" the two undercover soldiers were arrested after opening fire on Iraqi

police who approached them. " Officials said that " the men were wearing

traditional Arab headscarves and sitting in an unmarked car. "

 

According to Mohammed al-Abadi, an official in the Basra governorate,

" A policeman approached them and then one of these guys fired at him.

Then the police managed to capture them. "

 

Booby-trapped Brits?

 

In an interview with Al Jazeerah TV, the popular Iraqi leader Fattah

al-Sheikh, a member of the Iraqi National Assembly and deputy official

in the Basra governorate, said that police had " caught two non-Iraqis,

who seem to be Britons and were in a car of the Cressida type. It was

a booby-trapped car laden with ammunition and was meant to explode in

the centre of the city of Basra in the popular market. " Contrary to

British authorities' claims that the soldiers had been immediately

handed to local militia, al-Sheikh confirmed that they were " at the

Intelligence Department in Basra, and they were held by the National

Guard force, but the British occupation forces are still surrounding

this department in an attempt to absolve them of the crime. "

 

The Special Reconnaissance Regiment and British Covert Operations

 

British defence sources told the Scotsman (9/20/05) that the soldiers

were part of an " undercover special forces detachment " set up this

year to " bridge the intelligence void " in Basra, drawing on 'special

forces' experience in Northern Ireland and Aden, where British troops

went 'deep' undercover in local communities to try to break the code

of silence against foreign forces. "

 

These elite forces operate under the Special Reconnaissance Regiment

and were formed last year by then defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, " to

gather human intelligence during counter-terrorist missions. "

 

The question, of course, is how does firing at Iraqi police while

dressed as Arabs and carrying explosives constitute " countering

terrorism " or even gathering " intelligence " ?

 

The admission by British defence officials is revealing. A glance at

the Special Reconnaissance Regiment gives a more concrete idea of the

sort of operations these two British soldiers were involved in.

 

The Regiment, formed recently, is " modelled on an undercover unit that

operated in Northern Ireland " according to Whitehall sources. The

Regiment had " absorbed the 14th Intelligence Company, known as '14

Int,' a plainclothes unit set up to gather intelligence covertly on

suspect terrorists in Northern Ireland. Its recruits are trained by

the SAS. "

 

This is the same Regiment that was involved in the unlawful July 22

execution - multiple head-shots - of the innocent Brazilian, Mr. Jean

Charles de Menezes, after he boarded a tube train in Stockwell

Underground station.

 

According to Detective Sergeant Nicholas Benwell, member of the

Scotland Yard team that had been investigating the activities of an

ultra-secret wing of British military intelligence, the Force Research

Unit (FRU), the team found that " military intelligence was colluding

with terrorists to help them kill so-called 'legitimate targets' such

as active republicans... many of the victims of these

government-backed hit squads were innocent civilians. "

 

Benwell's revelations were corroborated in detail by British double

agent Kevin Fulton, who was recruited to the FRU in 1981, when he

began to infiltrate the ranks of IRA. In his role as a British FRU

agent inside the IRA, he was told by his military intelligence

handlers to " do anything " to win the confidence of the terrorist group.

 

" I mixed explosive and I helped develop new types of bombs, " he told

Scotland's Sunday Herald (6/23/02). " I moved weapons… if you ask me if

the materials I handled killed anyone, then I will have to say that

some of the things I helped develop did kill… my handlers knew

everything I did. I was never told not to do something that was

discussed. How can you pretend to be a terrorist and not act like one?

You can't. You've got to do what they do… They did a lot of murders… I

broke the law seven days a week and my handlers knew that. They knew

that I was making bombs and giving them to other members of the IRA

and they did nothing about it… The idea was that the only way to beat

the enemy was to penetrate the enemy and be the enemy. "

 

Most startlingly, Fulton said that his handlers told him his

operations were " sanctioned right at the top… this goes the whole way

to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister knows what you are doing. "

 

Zarqawi, Ba'athists and the Seeds of Discord

 

So, based on the methodology of their Regiment, the two British SAS

operatives were in Iraq to " penetrate the enemy and be the enemy, " in

order of course to " beat the enemy. " Instead of beating the enemy,

however, they ended up fomenting massive chaos and killing innocent

people, a familiar pattern for critical students of the British role

in the Northern Ireland conflict.

 

In November 2004, a joint statement was released on several Islamist

websites on behalf of al-Qaeda's man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,

and Saddam Hussein's old Ba'ath Party loyalists. Zarqawi's network had

" joined other extremist Islamists and Saddam Hussein's old Baath party

to threaten increased attacks on US-led forces. " Zarqawi's group said

they signed " the statement written by the Iraqi Baath party, not

because we support the party or Saddam, but because it expresses the

demands of resistance groups in Iraq. "

 

The statement formalized what had been known for a year already –

that, as post-Saddam Iraqi intelligence and US military officials told

the London Times (8/9/2003), " Al Qaeda terrorists who have infiltrated

Iraq from Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries have formed an

alliance with former intelligence agents of Saddam Hussein to fight

their common enemy, the American forces. " Al Qaeda leaders " recruit

from the pool " of Saddam's former " security and intelligence officers

who are unemployed and embittered by their loss of status. " After

vetting, " they begin Al-Qaeda-style training, such as how to make

remote-controlled bombs. "

 

Yet Pakistani military sources revealed in February 2005 that the US

has " resolved to arm small militias backed by US troops and entrenched

in the population, " consisting of " former members of the Ba'ath Party "

– the same people already teamed up with Zarqawi's al-Qaeda network.

 

In a highly clandestine operation, the US procured

" Pakistan-manufactured weapons, including rifles, rocket-propelled

grenade launchers, ammunition, rockets and other light weaponry. " A

Pakistani military analyst noted that the " arms could not be destined

for the Iraqi security forces because US arms would be given to them. "

Rather, the US is playing a double-game to " head off " the threat of a

" Shi'ite clergy-driven religious movement " – in other words, to

exacerbate the deterioration of security by penetrating, manipulating

and arming the terrorist insurgency.

 

What could be the end-game of such a covert strategy? The view

on-the-ground in Iraq, among both Sunnis and Shi'ites, is worth

noting. Sheikh Jawad al-Kalesi, the Shi'ite Imam of the al-Kadhimiyah

mosque in Baghdad, told Le Monde: " I don't think that Abu Musab

al-Zarqawi exists as such. He's simply an invention by the occupiers

to divide the people. "

 

Iraq's most powerful Sunni Arab religious authority, the Association

of Muslim Scholars, concurs, condemning the call to arms against

Shi'ites as a " very dangerous " phenomenon that " plays into the hands

of the occupier who wants to split up the country and spark a

sectarian war. " In colonial terms, the strategy is known as " divide

and rule. "

 

Whether or not Zarqawi can be said to exist, it is indeed difficult to

avoid the conclusion that this interpretation is plausible. It seems

the only ones who don't understand the clandestine dynamics of

Anglo-American covert strategy in Iraq are we, the people, in the

west. It's high time we got informed.

 

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for

Policy Research & Development, London. He teaches courses in political

theory, international relations and contemporary history at the School

of Social Sciences and Cultural Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton.

 

Ahmed is the author of The War on Freedom: How & Why America was

Attacked, September 11, 2001 and Behind the War on Terror: Western

Secret Strategy and the Struggle for Iraq.

 

His latest book is The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation and the

Anatomy of Terrorism.

 

Reuters photos of weapons found by Iraqi police on the arrested

operatives are viewable here.

 

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