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http://www.williambowles.info/ini/ini-0365.html

 

 

 

Agents Provocateurs?

 

by William Bowles • Wednesday, 21 September 2005

 

Fascinating. No really, the `evolution' of state disinformation has

probably never been better displayed than in the case of the two (more

than likely) SAS soldiers who were `liberated' after being arrested by

the Iraqi police on 19 September by a phalanx of tanks and helicopter

gunships that stormed the police station where the two undercover

soldiers were being held after they allegedly failed to stop at an

Iraqi police roadblock and subsequently opened fire on the Iraqi

police, killing one and wounding another.

 

SAS WeaponsThe car they were travelling in was loaded with weapons

including allegedly, assault rifles, a light machine gun, an anti-tank

weapon, radio gear and a medical kit ('standard' SAS issue according

to the BBC). According to at least two reports, the car they were

traveling in (A Toyota Cressida) was " booby-trapped " .

 

Subsequent accounts vary according to the source but according to the

initial story broadcast on the BBC (19/9/05), the two men wore

traditional Arab dress but then this changed to " civilian dress " (BBC

TV News).

 

SAS DisguiseAs more information trickled out, a BBC story reported

that the men were freed after the police station had been attacked by

British tanks, a report that the British government initially denied

saying that " the release of the soldiers had been negotiated " (BBC

Website 20/0/05).

 

Britain's Ministry of Defence says the release of the two soldiers had

been negotiated and it did not believe the prison had been stormed.

 

" We've heard nothing to suggest we stormed the prison, " a ministry

spokesman said.

 

" We understand there were negotiations. "

 

Lisa Glover, spokeswoman for the British embassy in Baghdad, says

three people have been wounded in the operation to free the soldiers.

 

She did not give further details of how the soldiers were freed.

 

Then the story changed yet again, only now the `official' story,

dutifully reported by the British State Broadcasting Company (BSBC),

was that " negotiations broke down " and that the two men were in the

hands of the Mehdi Army in another building, in which case, why was

the police station stormed?

 

Then yet another version was issued by the British government only now

the police station was indeed attacked but only after " negotiations

broke down " . So were the two SAS men in the police station or not?

 

According to yet another BSBC report, after breaking into the police

station, the Brits discovered that they had been moved to a Mehdi Army

house for " interrogation " . Yet subsequent accounts revealed that they

had in fact, been in the police station all along and, according to a

CNN report, were being questioned by an Iraqi judge, not, as the

British government alleged, by the `insurgents'.

 

By now, in a classic disinformation campaign, so many stories were

being circulated that sorting out the truth from fiction was virtually

impossible unless one is prepared to dig and dig deep.

 

What is clear is that the two SAS " undercover operatives " had been

caught red-handed by the British government's alleged allies, the

Iraqi police, dressed as Arabs, replete with wigs and armed to the

teeth and in a car which according to one report, was packed with

explosives (the car by the way, has been taken away by the British

occupation forces).

 

The question the BSBC was not and still is not asking, is what were

they up to, creeping around dressed up as Iraqis in what is meant to

be a relatively peaceful Basra?

 

Once more the BSBC answered the question, sort of, courtesy yet

another `official' story, one that was to emerge only after a very

angry crowd attacked two British armoured vehicles, setting at least

one on fire. The " mob " , as the BSBC described them, were according to

the report, angry over the arrest of two Mehdi Army members, also on

19 September, and that it had nothing to with the freeing of the two

SAS. In reality of course, the `mob' had already been informed about

the two SAS undercover guys and were understandably upset.

 

So now, the two undercover SAS men were, it is imputed, searching for

`insurgents' as part of a counter-insurgency operation, which if true,

what were they doing dressed as Iraqis?

 

Were they on some kind of provocative operation? According to one

report, this is exactly what they were up to. Fattah al-Shaykh, a

member of the Iraqi National Assembly told this account to al-Jazeera

 

If you really want to look for truth, then we should resort to the

Iraqi justice away from the British provocations against the sons of

Basra, particularly what happened today when the sons of Basra 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. However, the sons of the city of Basra arrested them. They

[the two non-Iraqis] then fired at the people there and killed some of

them. The two arrested persons are now 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.

 

And in yet another report from Syrian TV we read

 

[Al-Munajjid] In fact, Nidal, this incident gave answers to

questions and suspicions that were lacking evidence about the

participation of the occupation in some armed operations in Iraq. Many

analysts and observers here had suspicions that the occupation was

involved in some armed operations against civilians and places of

worship and in the killing of scientists. But those were only

suspicions that lacked proof. The proof came today through the arrest

of the two British soldiers while they were planting explosives in one

of the Basra streets. This proves, according to observers, that the

occupation is not far from many operations that seek to sow sedition

and maintain disorder, as this would give the occupation the

justification to stay in Iraq for a longer period.

 

When viewed in the context of all the stories that have been

circulating about the mythical `al-Zarqawi' and the alleged role of

al-Queda, the events in Basra are the first real evidence that we have

of the role of occupation forces in destabilising Iraq through the use

of agents provocateurs masquerading as `insurgents'.

 

And, as I have long alleged here, it is now almost certain that

`al-Zarqawi' is probably long dead. An AFP story tells us

 

[The] Imam of Baghdad's al-Kazimeya mosque, Jawad al-Kalesi said,

that " al-Zarqawi is dead but Washington continues to use him as a

bogeyman to justify a prolonged military occupation…He's simply an

invention by the occupiers to divide the people. " Al-Kalesi added that

al-Zarqawi was killed in the beginning of the war in the Kurdish north

and that " His family in Jordan even held a ceremony after his death. "

 

And indeed, last year, in a piece I wrote about `al-Zarqawi', I

referred to a report about `al-Zarqawi' being killed when the US

flattened the `base' of his group Ansar al-Islam in northern Iraq in

early 2003, a report that actually originated with the US government.

 

Yet the BSBC, along with the rest of the Western media continues to

put out endless reams of disinformation about `al-Zarqawi' and his

connection to the fictitious `al-Queda in Iraq'. Given the long-held

assertion by the West that goes back to 2003, that Iraq was on the

verge of `civil war', it's instructive to note that as the military

situation of the occupation forces has deteriorated, so too has the

level of so-called al-Queda operations increased, in a transparent

attempt to divide the Iraqi national resistance, thus the increasing

stories about impending civil war and the wave of `suicide' bombings.

 

The exposure of the undercover SAS operations will only add to the

resolve of Iraqi resistance forces to step up their campaign to expel

the occupiers regardless of what kind of blatant propaganda line the

UK government puts out.

 

It furthermore exposes the untenable position of the Iraqi

`government' which is now being squeezed by both sides, thus we get

contradictory positions from the Iraqi `government', with one denying

that the SAS operatives had been handed over to `Shiite militia' and

the other trying desperately to tread an almost invisible line between

condemning the actions of the British government whilst blaming the

actions of the Iraqi police in Basra on `insurgents' who have

`infiltrated' the police force. Yet it is a fact that at best, perhaps

only 25% of the Iraqi military can be relied upon to serve their

colonial masters.

 

Continuing to call them insurgents is itself an admission that the

majority of Iraqis are opposed to the occupation and indeed, the bulk

of the fighting is being carried out by the Kurdish Peshmerga as Iraqi

forces simply cannot be relied on. It's a classic situation that the

US and UK military top brass know only too well having `been there and

done that' before.

 

Thus the occupiers become more desperate to destabilise the situation

and no doubt we'll see more SAS and US provocations revealed over the

coming weeks as the situation continues to deteriorate.

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