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The Shaylergate Files

The Shayler Affair

"This tragic episode is fast becoming British Watergate..... As the head of Britain's intelligence services, Tony Blair now has a simple - and honourable - choice. To expose the truth."
David Shayler, ex- M15 counter-terrorism officer, on British state-sponsored terrorism
'Don't shoot the messenger'
Observer, 27 August 2000

"British intelligence paid large sums of money to an al-Qaeda cell in Libya in a doomed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi in 1996 and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.... two French intelligence experts ......reveal that the first Interpol arrest warrant for bin Laden was issued by Libya in March 1998. According to journalist Guillaume Dasquié and Jean-Charles Brisard, an adviser to French President Jacques Chirac, British and US intelligence agencies buried the fact that the arrest warrant had come from Libya ....... Five months after the warrant was issued, al-Qaeda killed more than 200 people in the truck bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.... The Libyan al-Qaeda cell included Anas al-Liby, who remains on the US government's most wanted list with a reward of $25 million for his capture. He is wanted for his involvement in the African embassy bombings. Al-Liby was with bin Laden in Sudan before the al-Qaeda leader returned to Afghanistan in 1996. Astonishingly, despite suspicions that he was a high-level al-Qaeda operative, al-Liby was given political asylum in Britain and lived in Manchester until May of 2000..... The Observer has been restrained from printing details of the allegations during the course of the trial of David Shayler, who was last week sentenced to six months in prison for disclosing documents obtained during his time as an MI5 officer..... Shayler claims he was first briefed about the plot during formal meetings with colleagues from the foreign intelligence service MI6 when he was working on MI5's Libya desk in the mid-Nineties. The Observer can today reveal that the MI6 officers involved in the alleged plot were Richard Bartlett, who has previously only been known under the codename PT16 and had overall responsibility for the operation; and David Watson, codename PT16B. As Shayler's opposite number in MI6, Watson was responsible for running a Libyan agent, 'Tunworth', who was was providing information from within the cell. According to Shayler, MI6 passed £100,000 to the al-Qaeda plotters.... Shayler, who conducted his own defence in the trial, intended to call Bartlett and Watson as witnesses, but was prevented from doing so by the narrow focus of the court case.... During the Shayler trial, Home Secretary David Blunkett and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw signed Public Interest Immunity certificates to protect national security. Reporters were not able to report allegations about the Gadaffi plot during the course of the trial.... These restrictions have led to a row between the Attorney General and the so-called D-Notice Committee, which advises the press on national security issues..... Members of the committee, who include senior national newspaper executives, are said to be horrified at the unprecedented attempt to censor the media during the trial."
MI6 'halted bid to arrest bin Laden'
Observer, 10 November 2002

"Michael Tugendhat, QC, appearing for various national newspapers, is expected to argue that the Government has provided no evidence that national security will be threatened by the trial and will underline the importance of open justice..... Shayler will be defending himself during the trial. He is expected to claim that British secret service agents paid up to £100,000 to al Qaeda terrorists for an assassination attempt on Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffy in 1996. He is seeking permission to plead a defence of 'necessity' - that he acted for the greater good by revealing wrongdoing by the security service... "
Calls for secret Shayler trial
London Evening Standard, 7 October 2002

"...Brisard and Dasquié discovered that the first country to issue an international arrest warrant against bin Laden was not the US, but Moamar Gadafy's Libya, in March 1998.... Bin Laden supported a fundamentalist group called al-Muqatila... Al-Muqatila wanted to assassinate Gadafy, whom it considered an infidel. According to the former MI5 agent David Shayler, British intelligence - also in league with al-Muqatila - tried to assassinate Gadafy in November 1996. It was because of British collaboration with al-Muqatila that the Interpol warrant [for Bin Laden] was ignored, Brisard says..."
US efforts to make peace summed up by 'oil'
Irish Times, 19 November 2001

Libya shows film of 1996 Gaddafi assassination attempt

"....the real criminals in this affair are the British Government and the intelligence services. The Government has a duty to uphold the law. It cannot simply be ignored because crimes are carried out by friends of the Government. In November 1999, I sent the Home Secretary Jack Straw detailed evidence of involvement by MI6 officers in a plot to murder Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi. Although the assassination failed when attempted in 1996, innocent Libyan civilians were killed. In a dossier I presented to Mr Straw, I included the names of those who had also been briefed about the plot within MI5. .....When presented with this compelling evidence these very senior Ministers should, of course, have called in the police immediately. We would never countenance two police officers conspiring to murder a criminal. Why should we accept that two MI6 officers could do the same to Colonel Gaddafi? This week, I will be writing to both the police and the Crown Prosecution Service asking them to investigate the role of the Government in this case.... I am left wondering why Sir Stephen did not perform his clear public duty and call in Special Branch to investigate the Gadaffi plot as soon as he realised that MI6 did not have Ministerial authorisation to plot to assassinate a foreign head of state. In August 1998, I also pointed out publicly that MI5 had evidence of the plot on its file SF754-0168. .... The Government's failure to ensure that two MI6 officers are brought to justice for their part in planning a murder is what I would expect of despots and dictators.... It is corruption. It is sleaze. And sleaze was where New Labour came in as a supposed breath of fresh air after the Conservatives had grown corrupt. ..... This tragic episode is fast becoming British Watergate..... If people want to live in a country where the intelligence services work in absolute secrecy with no respect for the rule of law or basic human rights, they should go and live in Libya, Iraq or Iran..... As the head of Britain's intelligence services, Tony Blair now has a simple - and honourable - choice. To expose the truth."
David Shayler
Don't shoot the messenger
Observer, 27 August 2000

"A police inquiry into a student arrested under the Official Secrets Act in connection with the former MI5 officer David Shayler has been abandoned, the Guardian learned yesterday. Julie Ann Davies, a mature student at Kingston University in Surrey, was taken out of a lecture in March to be arrested by four special branch officers, who removed her computer and other personal belongings while holding her in a cell. Ms Davies had been active in the campaign to have charges against Mr Shayler dropped and for more accountability of the secret agencies. She was questioned about an MI6 report which appeared on the internet that lent credence to Mr Shayler's allegations about MI6 involvement in a plot to kill the Libyan leader, Colonel Gadafy. She had been bailed three times and was recently told to appear again before the police next month."
Charges dropped against student in Shayler case
Guardian, 23 August 2000

"An ex-MI5 officer has joined David Shayler in speaking out about mismanagement in the UK's security service. Jestyn Thirkell-White, who resigned from the service in 1996, said MI5 was in desperate need of reform and modernisation. He said it was 'totally wrong' that no investigations had been launched into Mr Shayler's claims - including one that MI6 colluded in an assassination plot to kill Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi.... 'MI5 and special branch were acting like the very police state they are supposed to be protecting us from.' [said Mr Thirkell-White] Mr Thirkell-White and Mr Shayler served together in the anti-terrorism T Branch of MI5..... John Wadham, director of Liberty, which represents both Mr Shayler and Mr Thirkell-White, said the new revelations confirmed what Mr Shayler had been saying all along. 'It is now time to stop attacking whistleblowers and instead to investigate the allegations they have made about MI5,' he said. Mr Shayler, currently in exile in France, faces attempts in the UK to prosecute him under the Official Secrets Act."
Ex-MI5 agent backs Shayler
BBC Online, 22 July 2000

"The threat of legal action [against Shayler] has led to a dramatic escalation of tensions, with Shayler revealing to the Observer the identity of the two serving intelligence officers who he claims were involved in the alleged plot against Gaddafi. The paper said that for legal reasons it was prevented from publishing the names.... It is now thought that Shayler is also prepared to name others names, including the agent's boss, code-named PT16, who is alleged to have authorized the operation, and his own MI5 line manager, to whom he voiced concerns about what he called a 'Boys' Own' operation.... Shayler said he had embarked on the path of disclosing intelligence operations in a bid to force the government to launch a full inquiry into the security services, which, he claims, are increasingly out of control."
Renegrade MI5 spy threatens: I'll name officer who failed to warn of '94 embassy bombing
Jerusalem Post, 29 February 2000

"We will only know the truth of the matter if we have a full independent enquiry into the plot (and my other disclosures). Without that no one can say hand on heart what happened (apart from me. I was briefed on the plot at the time). Anything less sends out the wrong signal to MI6. Anything less suggests that MI6 is above the law or that MI6 can continue to carry out illegal operations without government interference. I need hardly tell you how that begins to eat away at the rule of law and also to undermine our democracy because unelected intelligence officers decide our foreign policy, not our elected representatives... Many MPs including the Intelligence and Security Committee are now looking negligent and foolhardy for not pursuing my disclosures more vigorously. They shouldn't be caught out a second time or the people will begin to think that parliament and the opposition in general has no credibility whatsoever".
Statement from David Shayler, former MI5 officer, on earlier illegal activities of MI6
15 February 2000

"Former M15 agent David Shayler has said the UK foreign secretary may have been misled over whether British secret services were involved in a plot to assassinate Libyan leader Colonel Muhammar Gaddafi.... Speaking on BBC's Newsnight programme, Mr Shayler said that it was possible that the foreign secretary had not been given the truth. He said the document vindicated his allegations and warranted a full investigation into others made by him. 'It is established that there was certainly a Gaddafi plot, so when Robin Cook unequivocally said I'm perfectly clear these allegations are foundless and it is pure fantasy - he went too far. I accept that in normal circumstances, people would be more inclined to believe a government minister than a whistleblower. But now we have shown that the government has certainly compromised the truth if not outrightly lied about this, then I'm vindicated and I think we have to have a full inquiry now.' The claims will be studied by Parliament's Security and Intelligence Committee, the committee's chairman, Tom King, said. However he pointed out that the document, if genuine, only showed that British agents knew about a plot and did not show they were involved in it. Mr Cook's denial two years ago came after the government sought Mr Shayler's extradition from France. Mr Shayler had alleged that British intelligence paid about £100,000 towards jeeps and weapons for the assassination. The extradition attempt failed but Mr Shayler is effectively exiled to France. The document published on the internet and marked 'UK eyes alpha' alleges that MI6 had been told of the plot two months before it was said to have taken place in February 1996.... Mr Cook refused to confirm whether the document was genuine or a forgery. But despite this, Rear admiral Nick Wilkinson, secretary of the D notice committee which operates an agreed self-censorship system with the media on matters of national security, asked journalists not to publish the document's website address. According to the document, coded CX95/53452 and published on a Yahoo internet site, at least 250 British-made weapons were distributed to the plotters. The document detailed how an uprising was planned for the capital Tripoli and plotters would use vehicles similar to those in the colonel's security service. Shadow foreign secretary Francis Maude said that the documents raised 'serious questions' over Mr Cook's previous comments and demanded an immediate inquiry. And the Liberal Democrat's foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said: 'Knowing that there were plots against Gaddafi is one thing, but being involved in them is something entirely different.' The Libyan government has summoned Britain's ambassador to ask to take part in any investigations over the plot."
Shayler: Cook 'misled' over Gaddafi plot
BBC Online, 15 February 2000

"A top secret report for senior Whitehall officials which linked MI6 to a bomb plot to kill Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi was today believed to have been posted on the Internet. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook denied two years ago that British secret agents had been involved in the assassination attempt which narrowly failed to kill Gaddafi, but killed a number of bodyguards.... The report, coded CX95/53452, detailed when and where the assassination attempt was due to take place and said that 250 British-made weapons were distributed among the plotters. CX reports reportedly summarise MI6's key intelligence findings and are circulated to the Prime Minister, the Cabinet Office and the Joint Intelligence Committee. Whitehall sources confirmed to The Sunday Times that the four page report - which carried a coded header sheet - was genuine. It was headed: 'Libya: Plans to overthrow Gaddafi in early 1996 are well advanced.' The Government's defence, press and broadcasting advisory committee asked for the address of the website on which the report was published to be withheld from publication. In a statement, the Foreign Office declined to state that the intelligence report was a fake. And it conceded that the British Government had known of plots against Gaddafi.... a storm is likely to engulf the Foreign Secretary over the disclosure that British intelligence apparently knew about the plot in advance. Shadow foreign secretary Francis Maude demanded an immediate inquiry. He told The Sunday Times: 'Did Cook conceal the truth? Was it kept from him or did he ignore it?' Claims of British involvement in a plot to kill Gaddafi first emerged when former MI5 officer David Shayler alleged MI6 paid about £100,000 to help purchase jeeps and weapons. The intelligence report leaked on the web was said to have been passed to Sir John Coles, the most senior civil servant at the Foreign Office, and to GCHQ, the Government listening base, MI5, and the Ministry of Defence. It read: 'The coup was scheduled to start at around the time of the next General People's Congress on February 14, 1996. 'Coup will start with unrest in Tripoli, Misratah and Benghazi. The source said that the plotters would have cars similar to those in QADHAFI's security entourage with fake security number plates. They would infiltrate themselves in order to kill or arrest QADHAFI."
'Kill Gaddafi plot report' posted on net
Independent, 13 February 2000

"A top-secret report linking MI6 with a failed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi appeared on an American internet site yesterday, refuting Robin Cook's claim that British intelligence was not involved. The document, marked 'UK Eyes Alpha', details contacts between MI6 and a group of Middle Eastern plotters who tried unsuccessfully to blow up Gadaffi's motorcade. The report, coded CX95/ 53452, was passed to senior Foreign Office officials. It revealed when and where the assassination attempt was due and said that at least 250 British-made weapons were distributed among the plotters. The four-page CX document was published on the California-based Yahoo! website. The Sunday Times has complied with a request by Rear-Admiral Nick Wilkinson, secretary of the government's defence, press and broadcasting advisory committee, not to print the address of the website on which the CX report is published."
Revealed: Cook misled public over Libya plot
Sunday Times, 13 February 2000

"The BBC has broadcast an interview with the former MI5 officier David Shayler in which he spoke about an alleged plot by the UK's Secret Intelligence Service to kill Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi. The interview with Panorama was recorded before his arrest in France at the request of the UK Government. In it, he told how a £100,000 payment to an agent 'Tunworth' funded a militant plot to murder Gaddafi. The film was not broadcast until Friday because the government has an injunction designed, it says, to protect national security. The BBC decided to go ahead with the transmission after parts of the script were submitted to government solicitors, who gave authority to proceed. 'We are talking about tens of thousand pounds of tax-payers' money being used to attempt to assassinate a foreign head of state,' Mr Shayler said. He said he was told that authorisation for the plot by the SIS, the UK's overseas spying service, had come from the very top of the Foreign Office. The revelations, after investigations by BBC journalist Mark Urban, are among the most damaging against the security services for decades and will put further pressure on the government to examine allegations that it has dismissed as 'inconceivable'. .... Mr Shayler joined MI5 in 1994, as part of the G9 section dealing with Libya. At a joint meeting on Libya with the SIS he heard of an agent known as Tunworth. Also at the meeting was PT16B, who controlled Tunworth and detailed Tunworth's collaboration with an extremist group in Libya trying to kill Colonel Gaddafi. However the CX Report, circulated to officals, GCHQ and the Foreign Office, did not say that Tunworth was actively involved in the plot. Mr Shayler later learned that as the assassination plot gathered pace, about £100,000 was given to Tunworth.... In February 1996 a bomb was planted under Gaddafi's motorcade, but it exploded under the wrong car. Several bodyguards were killed and in the ensuing gunbattle three extremists were reportedly killed. Mr Shayler spoke of his surprise when told of the alleged plot.... Mr Urban obtained evidence that meetings did take place with PT16B, that Britian had advance knowledge of the attempt on Gaddafi's life and that Tunworth was a go-between with Islamic militant groups in Libya. However, Foreign Office ministers at the time of the affair said they had not given any authorisation for a murder attempt. Mr Urban concluded that one answer was that security services had acted without any political authority. He said that the BBC had obtained other evidence of SIS activities, but these were withheld for security reasons."
BBC screens Shayler interview
BBC Online, 8 August 1998

Hutton And The Libyan Black Gold Rush - 8 Feb 2004

Why Britain Wouldn't Support
Gadaffi's Interpol Arrest Warrant For Bin Laden

"So 'brave' Muammar Gadafy has agreed on the importance of combating terrorism. A handshake with Tony Blair has sealed his re-entry into the international community, with contracts worth several hundred million pounds for Shell and BAE to follow. His compliance in opening up Libya to nuclear weapons inspectors has been spun as a major triumph in the 'war on terror'. The motives, however, are rather more cynical. Negotiations for a rehabilitated public image for Colonel Gadafy, linked to improved western access to Libyan oil, began to surface in August 2002 with the visit by the Foreign Office minister, Mike O'Brien, to Sirte, near Tripoli. As the BBC said at the time, Libya was keen to re-enter the world economy, and the UK did not want to lose out on potentially lucrative oil contracts.... The problem of access to Libyan hydrocarbons was Gadafy's record of running a state terrorist machine - responsible for arming the IRA, the shooting of PC Yvonne Fletcher and the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. Britain had even, according to the former MI5 agent David Shayler, paid £100,000 to an al-Qaida cell in Libya to assassinate Gadafy in 1996, and then granted asylum to a member of the cell named Anas al-Liby, who lived in Manchester until 2000."
The path to friendship goes via the oil and gas fields
Guardian, 27 March 2004

Gadaffi And Al Qaeda Were Enemies
Which Is Why MI6 Sponsored Al Qaeda To Assassinate Him
And Why Britain Wouldn't Support Gadaffi's Interpol Arrest Warrant For Bin Laden

".... the first country in the world to seek the arrest of Osama bin Laden was Libya...."
Ronald K. Noble, Secretary General of Interpol
PBS, 16 April 2003

"As was seen in Sudan in 1995, diplomatic and political pressure and shortage of resources can threaten the [al Qaeda] network. Similarly, when Libya pressured Sudan, Bin Laden asked Al-Qaeda's Libyan members to leave the group."
Blowback
Jane's Intelligence Review, 26 July 2001

"Far from being soul-mates, Qadhafi and bin Laden have long been at odds; it was Qadhafi who, in March 1998, issued the first Interpol arrest warrant for bin Laden, a fact little known in the West. The warrant was issued in connection with the March 1994 murders of German anti-terrorism agents Silvan and Vera Becker, who were in charge of missions in Africa. Western intelligence agencies for a number of reasons chose to downplay and ignore the warrant; five months later the U.S. embassies in East Africa were bombed.... Ironically, the common thread running through Libya, bin Laden and the U.S. is the 1979-1988 Afghan war. Among the Arab volunteers were several thousand Libyans and in the early 1990s Libyan 'Afghan vets' formed the shadowy Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG,) whose purpose was to overthrow Qadhafi and establish an Islamic state based on sharia law. The following year, they attempted to assassinate Qadhafi when an LIFG group led by Wadi al-Shateh threw a bomb beneath his motorcade. Qadhafi cracked down and many LIFG members fled to Europe and the Middle East. Another LIFG assassination attempt occurred in 1998 when Qadhafi's motorcade was attacked..... On February 24, 2004, Former CIA director George Tenet told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that, 'one of the most immediate threats is from smaller Sunni extremist groups that have benefited from al-Qaida links. They include…the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group,' an assertion Tenet repeated to the 9/11 Commission the following month."
Libya and Al-Qaeda: A Complex Relationship
Terrorism Monitor, Volume 3, Issue 6 (March 24, 2005)

"Brisard and Dasquie have long experience in intelligence analysis. Brisard was until the late 1990s director of economic analysis and strategy for Vivendi, a French company. He also worked for French secret services, and wrote for them in 1997 a report on the now famous Al Qaeda network, headed by bin Laden. Dasquie is an investigative journalist and publisher of Intelligence Online, a respected newsletter on diplomacy, economic analysis and strategy, available through the Internet..... Brisard and Dasquie contend the U.S. government's claim that it had been prosecuting bin Laden since 1998. 'Actually,' Dasquie says, 'the first state to officially prosecute bin Laden was Libya, on the charges of terrorism.' 'Bin Laden wanted [to] settle in Libya in the early 1990s, but was hindered by the government of Muammar Qaddafi,' Dasquie claims. 'Enraged by Libya's refusal, bin Laden organised attacks inside Libya, including assassination attempts against Qaddafi.' Dasquie singles out one group, the Islamic Fighting Group (IFG), reputedly the most powerful Libyan dissident organisation, based in London, and directly linked with bin Laden. 'Qaddafi even demanded Western police institutions, such as Interpol, to pursue the IFG and bin Laden, but never obtained co- operation,' Dasquie says. 'Until today, members of IFG openly live in London.'"
U.S. Policy Towards Taliban Influenced by Oil - Say Authors
Inter Press Service, 15 November 2001

"In the 1990s Islamism found a strong popular following in Libya. Despite its oil wealth, the country has suffered from chronic socio-economic problems brought about by a combination of economic mismanagement, falling oil prices and the international sanctions that were imposed upon Libya in 1992. ..... militant groups also appeared on the scene in the 1990s, made up largely of veterans of the war in Afghanistan. These included the LIFG [Libyan Islamic Fighting Group] and the much smaller and less well known groups that mostly consisted of a leader (emir) and a handful of followers, such as Harakat al-Shuhada' al-Islamiyyah (Libyan Islamic Martyrs Movement), headed by al-Hami; and Ansar Allah (supporters of Allah). The LIFG stood out among these groups because it tried to bring all of the militant groups under its wing to create a more united front against the regime, but to no avail. The exact date of the formation of The LIFG (al-Jama'a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah fi-Libya) is unknown because a formal declaration of its establishment did not come until October 1995. The LIFG traces its origins, to the clandestine jihadist organization established in Libya in 1982, and currently led by Awatha al-Zuwawi. This small organization had contacts with Islamic movements outside Libya, especially in Afghanistan, where many of its members went. Among them was Zuwawi himself, who spent number of weeks in Afghanistan in 1986, before returning to Libya. In Afghanistan these Jihadists honed their fighting skills in guerilla warfare. There, they were also exposed to Islamist scholars such as 'Abdallah 'Azzam, many of whose writings are posted on the group's site.It seems that the Libyan fighters in Afghanistan established the LIFG in 1992. At the same time, the LIFG seems to have formed a basis infrastructure in Libya proper, from which they began to plan activities against the regime of Mu’ammar Qadhafi..... That Britain has not designated LIFG a terrorist organization is significant, as several prominent leaders of the group continue to live and act in London and Manchester..... In June 1995 militants, disguised as members of Qadhafi's Revolutionary Committees, launched an operation to free a detained comrade from a hospital. Weeks later, they stormed a prison in Benghazi and released more of their comrades. Fierce clashes between security forces and LIFG's members erupted in Benghazi in September 1995, leaving dozens killed on both sides. After weeks of intense fighting the LIFG formally declared its existence in a communiqué. This and future LIFG communiqués were issued by Libyan Afghan veterans who had been granted political asylum in Britain, were anti-Qadhafi sentiments stemming from the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, soared. The involvement of the British government in the LIFG campaign against Qadhafi remains the subject of immense controversy. The next big operation of the LIFG was a failed attempt to assassinate Qadhafi in February 1996 that killed several of his bodyguards."
‘The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group’ (LIFG)
Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center, Volume 3 (2005), Number 2 (June 2005)

"Early 1990s - Violence in a number of regions worldwide, including Afghanistan, Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Chechnya, Bosnia, Tajikistan, East Africa, Yemen and Philippines. Groups that would later be a significant international terrorist threat formed eg Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines. Extremist support networks created in the UK and Europe.... 1990s - Radical young men from the UK go to support jihad overseas...."
Annex C - TIMELINE OF THE EVOLUTION OF THE MODERN INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST THREAT
[Home Office] Report of the Official Account of the Bombings in London on 7th July 2005

Libya shows film of 1996 Gaddafi assassination attempt

"Pakistan’s problem is that extremist organisations and training camps, such as those linked to the London bombers, were either created by, or supported and used by, ISI. The camps were set up in the late 1980s with US backing to train fighters for jihad in Afghanistan."
Just whose side is Pakistan really on?
Sunday Times, 13 August 2006

"Trying to unravel where the thousands of British volunteers received training in Pakistan over the past decade is a tortuous business. So, too, is determining how various jihadi groups are tied to al-Qaeda’s leadership, which is believed to be in the mountainous border areas of Waziristan. The training camps have been operating there for more than 15 years, frequently switching location and importing instructors from militant groups from Europe to Indonesia..... Scotland Yard is known to be frustrated by the assistance that the Pakistani intelligence organisation, the ISI, has provided in the hunt for those who assisted the 7/7 bombers."
Top al-Qaeda trainer 'taught suspects to use explosive'
London Times, 12 August 2006

Britain Shelters Anti-Gadaffi Terrorists In UK
Until Deal Is Done

"Over the years, some dissidents suspected by foreign governments of involvement in terrorist acts have been protected by the British government for one reason or another from deportation or extradition.... In the past, terrorism experts say, Britain benefited significantly from its willingness to extend at least conditional hospitality to a wide range of Arab dissidents and opposition figures .... Mustafa Alani, a terrorism expert at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies, a London think tank, said [Anas] al-Liby was probably left in legal limbo by the British government, allowing him to be used or discarded as circumstances permitted.... According to a renegade officer for the British intelligence service MI5, David Shayler, British intelligence plotted with Islamic extremists [including al-Liby] to assassinate Gaddafi in early 1996..."
Britain a Refuge for Mideast Dissidents - Some With Suspected Ties to Bin Laden Resist Extradition
Washington Post, 7 October 2001

Anas al-Liby is affiliated with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) - Click Here

"British intelligence paid large sums of money to an al-Qaeda cell in Libya in a doomed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi in 1996 and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.... two French intelligence experts ......reveal that the first Interpol arrest warrant for bin Laden was issued by Libya in March 1998. According to journalist Guillaume Dasquié and Jean-Charles Brisard, an adviser to French President Jacques Chirac, British and US intelligence agencies buried the fact that the arrest warrant had come from Libya ....... Five months after the warrant was issued, al-Qaeda killed more than 200 people in the truck bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.... The Libyan al-Qaeda cell included Anas al-Liby, who remains on the US government's most wanted list with a reward of $25 million for his capture. He is wanted for his involvement in the African embassy bombings. Al-Liby was with bin Laden in Sudan before the al-Qaeda leader returned to Afghanistan in 1996. Astonishingly, despite suspicions that he was a high-level al-Qaeda operative, al-Liby was given political asylum in Britain and lived in Manchester until May of 2000..... "
MI6 'halted bid to arrest bin Laden'
Observer, 10 November 2002

The Deal

"So 'brave' Muammar Gadafy has agreed on the importance of combating terrorism. A handshake with Tony Blair has sealed his re-entry into the international community, with contracts worth several hundred million pounds for Shell and BAE to follow. His compliance in opening up Libya to nuclear weapons inspectors has been spun as a major triumph in the 'war on terror'. The motives, however, are rather more cynical. Negotiations for a rehabilitated public image for Colonel Gadafy, linked to improved western access to Libyan oil, began to surface in August 2002 with the visit by the Foreign Office minister, Mike O'Brien, to Sirte, near Tripoli. As the BBC said at the time, Libya was keen to re-enter the world economy, and the UK did not want to lose out on potentially lucrative oil contracts.... The problem of access to Libyan hydrocarbons was Gadafy's record of running a state terrorist machine - responsible for arming the IRA, the shooting of PC Yvonne Fletcher and the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. Britain had even, according to the former MI5 agent David Shayler, paid £100,000 to an al-Qaida cell in Libya to assassinate Gadafy in 1996, and then granted asylum to a member of the cell named Anas al-Liby, who lived in Manchester until 2000."
The path to friendship goes via the oil and gas fields
Guardian, 27 March 2004

Now That Things Have Been Patched Up With Gaddafi
Britain Is Rounding Up His Terrorist Enemies That It Had Been
Sheltering In The UK For Years

"Anas Al-Liby recently lived in the United Kingdom, where he has political asylum. He is believed to currently be in Afghanistan. Speaks Arabic and English. Indicted for: conspiracy to kill United States nationals, to murder, to destroy buildings and property of the United States, and to destroy National Defense utilities of the United States. Usama Bin Laden,  Muhammad Atef,  Ayman Al Zawahiri ,  Mustafa Mohammed Fadhil ,  Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam,  Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan ,  Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah,  Saif Al-Adel,  Anas Al-Liby , Ahmed Mohamed Hamed Ali , and Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah ,  and others already in custody are believed to be responsible for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya on August, 7, 1998.  These terrorist attacks indiscriminately killed 224 innocent civilians and wounded over 5,000 others. These terrorist are believed to be part of an international criminal conspiracy headed by Usama Bin Laden.  The U. S. Government is offering a reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction, in any country, of those people listed above."
Wanted, Anas Al-Liby, Up to $5 Million Reward
US Department of Justice, 'Rewards For Justice' web site as at 18 June 2005

Anas al-Liby is affiliated with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) - Click Here

"The British government’s decision in October 2005 to designate the al-Jama'a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah fi-Libya (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, LIFG) as a terrorist organization must have come as welcome news to Colonel Qadhafi, given that at its peak the group represented the strongest challenge the Libyan regime has ever faced. Indeed, Qadhafi had long been complaining that the British were hosting Libyan nationals intent on overthrowing his regime. While the U.S. government placed the LIFG on its list of designated terrorist organizations back in 2004, it appears to have taken the London bombings to push the British to follow suit. Following this designation the British authorities arrested five members of the LIFG and, despite the protestations of human rights organizations, also signed an agreement with the Qadhafi regime that would enable the men to be deported to Libya. The deal marks a major success for the Libyan regime in its victory over the Islamists and, if the men are returned, it is likely to be the final nail in the coffin of what, for all intents and purposes, is a dying organization. The LIFG was set up in Afghanistan in 1990 by a group of jihadists who had travelled to fight the Soviets during the 1980s. After the Soviet withdrawal the Libyans, like many other Arab mujahideen, turned their attention to establishing an Islamic state in their own country. Some of the group’s members returned to Libya in the early 1990s and began preparing themselves to launch an armed struggle against the Qadhafi regime....The regime’s response upon discovering the existence of the LIFG was to embark upon a large-scale liquidation campaign. The group was able to put up enough of a fight to enter into a series of clashes with the security services and to launch an assassination attempt against Qadhafi, but the regime ultimately succeeded in killing or arresting a large number of the group’s members or sympathizers.... Following this crushing defeat, the LIFG existed primarily as a movement in exile. As such, their abilities have always been limited and their members scattered across a range of countries. Some who fled Libya returned to Afghanistan where the Taliban were happy to provide them with refuge and from where they hoped to regroup and focus their attention on taking the jihad to Libya. However, after the bombing of Afghanistan in November 2001 they were once again on the run. Many went to Iran and others fled further a-field to Europe or to Asia but this did not enable them to evade capture.... Accordingly, the arrests of the five men in Birmingham, Cardiff and London in October [2005] look more like a symbolic defeat for the remnants of a fading organization."
LIFG: An Organization in Eclipse
Terrorism Monitor, 3 November 2005

"British police and immigration authorities on Wednesday said they arrested eight people suspected of 'facilitating terrorism abroad' in pre-dawn raids that involved 500 officers from London to Manchester.Police and officials at the Home Office, which is responsible for domestic security, declined to identify those arrested or offer details of the allegations against them, except to say that the allegations did not involve potential attacks in Britain.... U.S. officials, however, have said the group is affiliated with al-Qaeda and has attempted to overthrow the Libyan leader, Moammar Gaddafi. In February, the U.S. Treasury Department formally designated Sanabel a group providing financial assistance to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and froze its assets."
Britain Arrests 8 for 'Facilitating Terrorism Abroad'
Washington Post, 26 May 2006

More British And American Crimes
What They Did Before The Deal With Gaddafi

"Andrew Fulton, a former top M16 spy, has joined Armor Group, the security personnel business that provides bodyguards in Iraq, in a role to bring in new business. Mr Fulton, 62, is reckoned to have risen through the ranks of the Secret Intelligence Services to become Britain's sixth most powerful spy. He was head of station in Washington in his last posting, from 1995 to 1999. Mr Fulton was catapulted involuntarily into the limelight in 2000 when, as a Glasgow university law professor, he was forced to step down as legal adviser to the Lockerbie Commission into the 1998 bombing of an airliner, when his MI6 career was revealed....In 1999, he was among 116 MI6 agents and officers named on the internet by Mr Tomlinson.Mr Fulton was appointed chairman of a leading firm of corporate investigators, GPW, earlier this year.....Mr Fulton was appointed chairman of a leading firm of corporate investigators, GPW, earlier this year. In his role at Armor Group, which is chaired by Tory grandee Malcolm Rifkind, Mr Fulton will have 'a mandate to focus on developing new business opportunities in the security consulting market". In a press release, he is described by Armor simply as a 'former senior diplomat'. In an unrelated spy connection, Armor's chief operating officer stepped down earlier this year in order to return to the CIA to become its deputy director-general. Steven Kappes had joined Armor just six months earlier from the CIA, where he had been director of operations....Armor Group is based in London and employs over 9,000 personnel in 45 countries, with operations across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa."
Former MI6 spy joins Armor Group to hunt down new business
Belfast Telegraph, 21 August 2006

"It's a long way from Rothesay Academy to the art deco HQ of MI6 on the banks of the Thames at Vauxhall Cross. But Andrew Fulton did it. In fact, this gentlemanly, erudite son of a Scottish reverend rose so rapidly through the ranks of the Secret Intelligence Service that he became the sixth most powerful spy in the United Kingdom.  Today, Fulton faces losing his job as co-ordinator of Glasgow University's Lockerbie Trial Briefing Unit following investigations into his MI6 career. Revelations that he was one of the most glittering talents in MI6 have destroyed claims by the briefing unit that its self- appointed task of briefing the world's press over Lockerbie was carried out with the highest standards of impartiality and fairness. Fulton was recruited into '6' while still an undergraduate at Glasgow University by a member of the academic staff. He was posted to Siagon in 1969 where he worked as a junior but operational MI6 officer. In 1992, he took one of the most senior jobs in the Secret Intelligence Service - the Security Officer responsible for eastern European operations - codenamed SBO/T. He was one of the MI6 chiefs handed the plans to kill Serb president Slobodan Milosevic. Fulton's last posting, which he held from 1995-99, saw him installed as head of station for MI6 in Washington - codenamed H/WAS. This is the sixth most powerful position within MI6. Only four MI6 directors and the service's chief, Sir David Spedding, were above him. Fulton officially retired from the Foreign Office in 1999. When questioned by the Sunday Herald, Fulton denied that he had any 'substantial' knowledge of Lockerbie prior to joining the university's briefing unit. One MI6 source described this claim as 'rubbish', saying: 'At one time, Lockerbie would have been right at the top of his agenda. He would have been up to his neck in discussions with the CIA about the bombing, and would have massive inside knowledge about the case.  MI6 chiefs don't retire. They just step down, but they are in constant contact with their former colleagues, passing them information. MI6 has a vested interest in the outcome of this case. We act for Britain and Britain has taken this prosecution. Everything British intelli-gence knew about Lockerbie is contained in Fulton's head.'... Fulton volunteered his services to the unit when he was asked by the university to join as a visiting professor to the School of Law. The work of the unit is funded by the university, although the US Justice Department's Office for the Victims of Crime and the Law Society of Scotland sponsored the production of a trial hand-book co-written by Fulton. The unit has given hundreds of briefings to journalists and coached a variety of news organisations, including the entire Washington press corps, on aspects of the trial. So far its website has received 1.7 million hits. .... Fulton, who has never practised law, is not listed as a certified lawyer in Scotland."
MI6 link to Lockerbie briefings
Sunday Herald, 21 May 2000

"A former Scottish police chief has given lawyers a signed statement claiming that key evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated. The retired officer - of assistant chief constable rank or higher - has testified that the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan for the 1989 mass murder of 270 people.... The officer, who was a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland, is supporting earlier claims by a former CIA agent that his bosses 'wrote the script' to incriminate Libya.... A source close to Megrahi's defence said: 'Britain and the US were telling the world it was Libya, but in their private communications they acknowledged that they knew it was the PFLP-GC [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command]'. 'The case is starting to unravel largely because when they wrote the script, they never expected to have to act it out. Nobody expected agreement for a trial to be reached, but it was, and in preparing a manufactured case, mistakes were made.'"
Police chief- Lockerbie evidence was faked
Scotsman, 28 August 2005

"Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, the former lord advocate who issued the arrest warrant for the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, has cast doubt on the reliability of the main witness in the trial..... His intervention is the most significant yet in a series of developments that have cast doubt on the safety of the conviction against Megrahi..... Lawyers acting for the former intelligence officer and head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines have since claimed to have uncovered anomalies suggesting that vital evidence presented at the trial came from tests conducted months after the terror attack. The new evidence is due to be presented in an appeal to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission next year. Earlier this month it was reported that officials from Britain, America and Libya had met to discuss moving Megrahi back to Libya on the condition that the appeal is dropped. A key plank in the case against Megrahi was provided by Gauci who claimed that he sold Megrahi clothes that were believed to have been wrapped around the bomb. Fraser said that he believes Gauci was a 'weak point' in the case and has expressed concern that he was a 'simple' man who might have been 'easily led'.... Jim Swire, spokesman for the families of victims and who lost his daughter Flora in the atrocity, said: 'Lord Fraser had detailed knowledge of events and I think we have to take seriously anything he says now that is relevant to those who gave evidence at Zeist. It is significant that a man who has been as close as he has to the investigation should be making comments like this.' "
Fraser: my Lockerbie trial doubts
Sunday Times, 23 October 2005

"New doubts have been cast over the testimony of Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, whose testimony was a key factor in the conviction of Lockerbie bomb suspect Abdelbasset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi. In comments to the Sunday Times of London, the former Lord Advocate who issued the arrest warrant for the Libyan, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie, described Gauci as 'not quite the full shilling' and 'an apple short of a picnic'. ... the admissions have clearly attracted grave reactions from other parties, especially following a former Scottish police chief’s claims that key evidence in the bombing trial had been fabricated by the CIA. In a signed statement to Megrahi’s lawyers, the retired officer said the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting the Libyan. The evidence will be crucial for Megrahi who is attempting to get a retrial ordered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC)."
Lockerbie returns to haunt 'tricky' Malta witness
Malta Today, 23 October 2005

"A senior Scottish police officer, now retired, claims that American intelligence agents planted one of the fragments of the cassette-player in order to implicate the Libyans. Doubts have been cast on the reliability of an expert forensic scientist who gave evidence about the detonating of the bomb — three other convictions in which he gave testimony have been quashed. And it now seems that tests on the suitcase may have been misrepresented to the court. All this might easily be dismissed as the conspiracy fog that tends to gather around cases of this kind. Except that last weekend Lord Fraser himself, who was in charge of the Crown evidence, suggested that he too had begun to have doubts. In an interview with The Sunday Times he said that the Maltese shopkeeper, Tony Gauci, whose identification of the two Libyans was central to the prosecution case, might not have been a reliable witness.... Gauci’s evidence was critical in linking al-Megrahi to the attack. Without it, al-Megrahi would certainly have walked free. Lord Fraser’s remarks have been described as 'an extraordinary development' by Tam Dalyell, who was a key figure throughout the investigation. Senior legal experts in Scotland have expressed amazement at his comments. And William Taylor QC, al-Megrahi’s defence advocate, has called for a review of the case....Does any of this matter now, so many years after the event? After all, there have been no noticeable protests from the Libyan Government. So long as al-Megrahi is allowed to serve the rest of his sentence in Libya, rather than in Scotland, it is unlikely to want to resurrect a case that could undermine its newly established relationship with the West."
It's time to look again at Lockerbie
London Times, 26 October 2005

No Noticable Protests From Libya About These Revelations?
The 2004 Gadaffi Oil Deal Is The Reason Why

MI6 2004 Deal With Gadaffi
'It's The Oil Stupid'

"In the long run, we're not safer because we're still operating on the assumption that we're hated because of our freedoms, when in fact we're hated because of our actions in the Islamic world. There's our military presence in Islamic countries, the perception that we control the Muslim world’s oil production, our support for Israel and for countries that oppress Muslims such as China, Russia, and India, and our own support for Arab tyrannies. The deal we made with Qadaffi in Libya looks like hypocrisy: we'll make peace with a brutal dictator if it gets us oil. President Bush is right when he says all people aspire to freedom but he doesn't recognize that people have different definitions of democracy. Publicly promoting democracy while supporting tyranny may be the most damaging thing we do. From the standpoint of democracy, Saudi Arabia looks much worse than Iran. We use the term 'Islamofascism'—but we're supporting it in Saudi Arabia, with Mubarak in Egypt, and even Jordan is a police state. We don't have a strategy because we don't have a clue about what motivates our enemies.... We need to acknowledge that we are at war, not because of who we are, but because of what we do. We are confronting a jihad that is inspired by the tangible and visible impact of our policies. People are willing to die for that, and we're not going to win by killing them off one by one. We have a dozen years of reliable polling in the Middle East, and it shows overwhelming hostility to our policies—and at the same time it shows majorities that admire the way we live, our ability to feed and clothe our children and find work. We need to tell the truth to set the stage for a discussion of our foreign policy. At the core of the debate is oil. As long as we and our allies are dependent on Gulf oil, we can't do anything about the perception that we support Arab tyranny—the Saudis, the Kuwaitis, and other regimes in the region. Without the problem of oil, who cares who rules Saudi Arabia? If we solved the oil problem, we could back away from the contradiction of being democracy promoters and tyranny protectors. We should have started on this back in 1973, at the time of the first Arab oil embargo, but we've never moved away from our dependence. As it stands, we are going to have to fight wars if anything endangers the oil supply in the Middle East. What you want with foreign policy is options. Right now we don't have options because our economy and our allies' economies are dependent on Middle East oil."
Michael Scheuer, former chief of the CIA's Bin Laden unit
Six Questions for Michael Scheuer on National Security
Harper's Magazine, 23 August 2006

"Libya has said it is willing in principle to pay compensation for the Lockerbie bombing, which killed 270 people in 1988. Speaking after talks between Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi and UK Foreign Office Minister Mike O'Brien, Libya's foreign minister said the government also wanted to formalise relations with the United States.....After three hours of talks at Sirte, a coastal town about 320km (200 miles) east of Tripoli, Mr O'Brien was cautiously optimistic.... Libya is keen to re-enter the world economy and the UK does not want to lose out to other European nations already jostling for advantage when it comes to potentially lucrative oil contracts."
Libya hints at Lockerbie pay-out
BBC Online, 8 August 2002

"The world's biggest energy companies are preparing to fight it out for a stake in Libya's alluring oil and gas industry. Of 122 companies that registered to apply for oil and gas exploration permits under the latest government licensing programme, 63 have been given the green light to submit bids, says Tarek Hassan-Beck, a top executive at the Stateowned National Oil Corporation (NOC). The list is a roll-call of the world's top oil firms. BP, Royal Dutch/Shell, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil are in the running, as well as smaller explorers such as Marathon Oil. Industry insiders expect China's State-owned energy companies to provide US and European rivals with stiff competition.  Tripoli's exploration drive will open the floodgates to billions of pounds in foreign investment in the oil and gas industry, which badly needs capital and modern technology if the authorities are to meet their ambitious target of almost doubling oil output to three million barrels a day by 2010.... The Libyan investment climate has changed radically as the country has restores links with the West. Although some restrictions remain on the export of US equipment, sanctions have been lifted and Gaddafi has instigated a raft of free-market reforms."
Race begins for Libya's oil
Evening Standard, 7 December 2004

"Qadhafi seeks about $30 billion in foreign investment to advance his desert nation to the booming production levels of the 1970s. According to the US Energy Information Administration, enhanced recovery technologies and new drilling techniques should ramp up production capacity at major oil fields, including Libya's largest, Bouri, which produces some 60,000 bpd, or half its 1995 output.... Tripoli's removal from the US State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism comes nearly two decades after it was implicated in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people. Still, surging energy demands in Asia and volatile climates in the Middle East and Latin America have prompted the Bush administration to take a long view, designating African oil a 'strategic national interest'. US energy officials hope that the Gulf of Guinea region, anchored by Nigeria, will meet a quarter of energy demands by 2010, and US companies are prowling the continent for new prospects. Libya is an ideal supplier for its light sweet crude, which is easily refined into gasoline, accessibility to US tankers and safe distance from Middle East turmoil."
Analysis: US eyes Libya's buried prize
United Press International, 19 May 2006