Friends of Ulster- USA - IRA passes US intelligence to Al Qaeda Iraq Saddam Hussein Osama Bin Laden

Various articles howing how the IRA`s spy ring and intelligence gathering spans from Stormont / The Northern Ireland Assembly to spying on Policemen, Prison Officers, Orangemen, Loyalists, Apprentice Boys, British Politicians, Northern Ireland politicians, Irish Politicians in the Irish Government and passing on Us intelligence to Iraq and Al-Qaeda (directly or indeirectly - the result is still the same).

The North Ireland Executive has been suspended for the fourth time since devolution in the aftershock set off by the disclosure of a spy ring which operated out of the Stormont offices of the Irish Republican Army’s political wing for two and a half years.

Our intelligence sources report that the October 5 police raid that smashed the ring lodged in the home of Ulster democracy touched off a multi-pronged undercover manhunt in Britain, Northern Ireland, Eire, Cyprus and Lebanon, as well as Northern Iraq. Its targets are Irish, Palestinian, Cypriot, Greek, Lebanese and Iraqi agents or go-betweens, who may have bought or mediated the transfer of security secrets stolen by members of the IRA spy ring.

The raid caused the breakdown of the province’s fragile interim power-sharing agreement between Unionists and the IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein, amid bitter recriminations from Unionist leaders.

It also brought a vast haul of thousands of secret documents purloined by the network, largely for sale or barter with foreign terrorist groups with whom Irish republican extremists have been long associated. The spies got hold of transcripts of confidential telephone conversations on secure lines between Tony Blair and President Bush, sending them to Belfast by means of ring members that included British civil servants and Irish Catholic politicians.

Their activities were not confined to top-secret briefing materials laid before Blair on the political and military situation in Northern Ireland. They also went after intelligence memos and encrypted messages passing between the British and American leaders in their exchanges on military and intelligence preparations for the Afghan War, the campaign against Iraq, the post-Taliban situation in Kabul and highly sensitive data pertaining to the global war on terror, including anti-al Qaeda tactics.

The recovered documents cover a period running from April 1, 2000, five months before the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, up until October 4, 2002. The Irish spy ring therefore operated undisturbed for 30 months at least, up until the security-police raid at the home of Ulster democracy.

Immediately after that raid, the British prime minister made a grim report to President Bush who, thereupon sent a special CIA team to London for an initial independent assessment of the damage to American security interests. Our sources add that last week’s London trip by the American Homeland Minister, Tom Ridge, was also connected with the affair. It came on the heels of several discreet rounds of inquiries by the CIA director George Tenet in London, Belfast and Dublin.

The most urgent purpose of the parallel probes is to track down the recipients of the secret documents. It is believed that some materials reached interested parties in the Middle East. Thus far, two such parties have been identified as Palestinian agents based in Cyprus and Lebanon and Greek Cypriot agents who work the region. Both groups have longstanding ties both with the IRA and with Lebanese and Palestinians associated with Iraq and al Qaeda operatives in Lebanon and the Persian Gulf.

Our intelligence experts note that, if indeed these sensitive papers are shown to have reached Iraqi or al Qaeda hands, it will mean that elements of America’s most secret war plans have been compromised. US security authorities fear the IRA ring has blown to Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda agents and supporters data on US war plans against Saddam Hussein and on undercover operations still afloat against al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Persian Gulf and the Middle East.

Denis Donaldson, Sinn Fein’s chief administrator has been charged with five counts of possessing documents useful to terrorists in carrying out acts of violence. Fiona Ferrelly, a republican community worker, faces two similar charges. William Mackessy faces two charges of aiding terrorists while working at the Northern Ireland Office in Belfast.

Those three arrests are just the beginning. The IRA is suspected of running a network of spies in many areas of government, some employed in unobtrusive jobs as clerks, clerks and chauffeurs. British and American agents need to lay hands on many more informants in and outside Ireland and the UK to be able to evaluate the amount of damage wrought by the Stormont Ring.

SINN FEIN/IRA has conducted an espionage operation against a number of Fianna Fail politicians, including Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy, the Sunday Independent can reveal.

Sensational evidence, which proves that the terrorist organisation and its political wing has been spying on elected politicians, was found by gardai in a raid on the home of a man said to be an IRA intelligence officer.

Gardai now also suspect Sinn Fein/IRA may have been spying on other Government figures in Dublin in the same way it was operating a spy ring in the Stormont Assembly.

The raid was carried out on the home of a man, described by gardai as an IRA intelligence officer, in south Dublin in December. The man is an election worker for Sinn Fein.

The raid was part of a garda follow-up to an investigation into the suspected attempted hijacking of a container lorry in Co Wicklow in October.

It has also been learned that a prominent Sinn Fein figure telephoned a garda station apparently under the misapprehension that the man had been arrested and asked for him by name.

At that stage gardai had no indication of the man's involvement in the planned hijacking. In a follow-up to the investigation, they raided the man's house and discovered documents relating to members of Government and Fianna Fail.

According to garda sources, some of the documents seized contained details about three Fianna Fail TDs which suggested they had been under surveillance by the IRA.

The purpose of the spying operation is not known. It is understood the information gathered by Sinn Fein/IRA was diverse and even related to TDs visiting pubs or, in one instance, a bookmakers.

According to sources, the IRA figure at the centre of the operation was trying to build up dossiers on politicians, particularly on TDs in the Louth and Dublin Central constituencies in which Fianna Fail hold second seats.

In Dublin Central, the Taoiseach's constituency, Fianna Fail narrowly beat Sinn Fein to win the fourth seat in the last General Election.

The man whose home was raided is known previously to have gathered intelligence for the IRA. Documents were found in the house two years ago by detectives investigating the murder in April 2000 of Dublin man Patrick Neville.

According to gardai, the IRA has continued to run its intelligence gathering operations regardless of the fact that it is supposed to be on ceasefire.

The extent of its spying operations in the Republic is uncertain as in the aftermath of the ceasefire the Government directed that Garda Special Branch surveillance operations on the IRA be scaled down. This followed complaints by senior Sinn Fein figures that the Special Branch were "harassing" IRA people.

During the decommissioning process over the past two years, the Garda Siochana was directed not to carry out any surveillance that might affect the contacts between the IRA and the decommissioning officials.

In recent years, the gardai have directed most of their surveillance operations on 'dissident' republicans in the Real and Continuity IRA.

However, PSNI operations in Belfast over the past year have discovered that the IRA continued to build up a huge database of names and personal details through its spying operations at Stormont.

According to security sources in the North, the PSNI recovered the names and personal details of thousands of people from the hard drive of a computer seized after the IRA spy ring at Stormont was uncovered in October.

The names included details of police and prison officers, civil servants, court officers and of dozens of loyalists. The discovery of the details of the loyalists led to the collapse of the Stormont Assembly.

Also, last week the Ulster Volunteer Force announced that it was pulling out of contact with the North's decommissioning body headed by General John de Chastelain.

The UVF was angered by the discovery that the IRA had dossiers on several members of its political wing, the Progressive Unionist Party. Some details had come from the Stormont spying operation. But it was also discovered that PUP members who had been taking part in cross-community peace initiatives were being spied on. It emerged Sinn Fein members were passing back information to the IRA about the loyalists.
JIM CUSACK, EXCLUSIVE

IF PAST experience is a good guide to future behaviour then, regrettably, there are more grounds for pessimism than optimism in Northern Ireland, particularly in relation to IRA statements and actions. Its nominal intention, to turn swords into plough shares (as the terms of the Good Friday Agreement have required it to do since 1998), remains at odds with its role in Colombia, in Castlereagh, and in the alleged spy ring at Stormont.

The IRA has neither disarmed nor disbanded, nor disengaged from acts of passive terrorism. The IRA, instead, has re-armed. It continues to recruit members. And it continues to engage in covert operations, such as punishment beatings, intelligence-gathering, and the surveillance of a range of chosen targets human, rather than military.

Sinn Fein, in the form of its President, Gerry Adams, may speak softly but the party's terrorist wing continues to wield the big stick. The IRA now prosecutes its terrorist cold war by largely non-military means, thereby avoiding any formal breach of its own ceasefire. And it does so by spying, by intimidation, and by targeting individuals for continuing surveillance, whether prison or police officers, whether public servants or politicians.

It now, however, seems that the IRA draws no distinction between intelligence-gathering activities conducted north or south of the border. Indeed, it has engaged in the same sinister shadowing exercises in this State, by snooping and spying on public figures here.

In this regard, the report in this paper by Jim Cusack, a highly experienced security correspondent, marks a very disturbing development in security terms. His story, which is written on good authority, indicates that IRA operatives have been tracking the movements of a number of senior politicians. These include the Minister for Finance, Charlie McCreevy, and some Fianna Fail backbenchers.

It raises some obvious questions. Why, and to what purpose? Is the information gathering a prelude to covert attempts at character assassination, by smearing the public reputations of these people?

Or is it, perhaps, a crude attempt to blackmail political opponents, by exploiting any incriminating evidence that might be found by the IRA snoopers and spies? And could all this be designed to help Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing, take some extra Dail seats next time? The republican movement moves in mysterious ways.

As yet one can only speculate on the IRA's motivation, and take some reassurance from two things: first, that it has been detected and, hopefully, stopped. And second that no incriminatory evidence was found. Nevertheless, there are clear grounds for serious concern.

Such practices, whether the IRA engages in them either north or south of the border, represent an attempt to subvert democracy. The instigators are an illegal organisation that once had (and may indeed still have) the declared aim of overthrowing this State by military means.

Nevertheless, our sense of indignation about what has happened here should not diminish our concern about what continues to occur on a far wider scale in Northern Ireland. Most recently, it was revealed the IRA had targeted loyalist community workers.

It confirms once again what many have long suspected, that Sinn Fein/IRA, at heart, are provisional converts to democracy. They are content to use the leverage of the threat of violence to advance their overall negotiating position in political talks. And they have done so very successfully since 1994, when the IRA first announced a ceasefire or a "cessation of military operations". For the last decade, however, they have engaged in token disarmament, despite securing huge political concessions, while ignoring the obligations of the Agreement.

"All duck or no dinner this time," said the Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble last week, as political leaders try to reach agreement on the restoration of the Northern Ireland Assembly. It means no half measures on disarmament. In the past the UUP has twice made an act of faith in IRA intentions, only to find promises made were not delivered on.

Mr Trimble has sat down to dinner too many times with IRA duck on the political menu, only to find no duck on his plate when the meal was finally served. "All duck or no dinner" should be the negotiating line taken by all parties to the Good Friday accord to ensure the republican movement meets its obligations under the Agreement, by finally, and unequivocally, complying with its terms.

Up to sixty million pounds will have to be spent relocating hundreds of prison officers and their families in Northern Ireland because their personal details are in the IRA's hands.

The Observer has learnt that the IRA has obtained the names and addresses of almost all of the 2,000 staff currently working for the Northern Ireland Prison Service.

The information on prison officers and clerical workers in the service was found during investigations last week into an alleged IRA spy ring at Stormont.

Meanwhile four Sinn Fein activists are understood to be among five men being questioned by Irish police this weekend over an aborted bank raid in the Republic. The five, who have suspected IRA links, were being questioned by gardai after a raid by officers in Bray, Co Wicklow on Friday evening.

Dr John Reid, the Northern Ireland Secretary, will officially suspend devolution in the Province tomorrow morning after unionists threatened to walk out of the powersharing government in Belfast.

David Trimble's Ulster Unionists said they could no longer share power with Sinn Fein after revelations of the alleged IRA spying operation at the heart of government. Sinn Fein has countered by accusing unionists of using the raids as an excuse to block radical reforms.

A senior officer in the Police Service said practically every man and woman who worked in the prisons since the 1981 IRA hunger strike was discovered among 1,000 classified files stolen from Stormont.

'There are 1,600 prison officers and around 400 clerical staff in the prison service. On top of that there are the retired officers whose names and addresses were found on these files. If even one thousand of these people ask to be relocated then the costs of moving them will be massive.

'The bottom line costs for moving one individual is £20,000 which means the basic costs are £20 million. Then the government has to buy the houses vacated by those that feel under threat and sell them. A conservative estimate of the cost is around £60m,' the officer said.

The taxpayer has already had to pay out £30m to relocate hundred of police officers whose personal details fell into IRA hands after the break-in at Northern Ireland Special Branch headquarters on St Patrick's Day this year. The raid on Castlereagh police station in east Belfast was one of the worst security breaches in postwar history. Files containing the names, addresses, car registration numbers and other personal details of Special Branch operatives were stolen. According to the PSNI's internal inquiry the IRA remains the prime suspect for the break-in.

Under the Government's special purchase of evacuated dwellings, known as the Sped scheme, houses belonging to security personnel under threat from terrorists can be bought by the state. Hugh Orde, the PSNI's first Chief Constable, will have to sign every individual application by prison officers who feel under threat.

The PSNI officer added that the special police unit set up to inform all those prison service staff on the missing files had begun to visit households on the list this weekend. 'It's a mammoth task and will take weeks to complete but by the end of it we could have hundreds of families having to re-locate,' he said.

Finlay Spratt, the spokesman for the Prison Officers Association in Northern Ireland, confirmed that almost all his members are understood to be on the missing files.

'This is a major mess, it's a week after the raid on Stormont and only now are our members being informed if they are on the missing lists or not. The real question, however, is that if these allegations are true, what the hell were Sinn Fein doing with the names and addresses of our members, at a time when there was meant to be peace?' Spratt said last night.

The security operation in the Republic uncovered replica police uniforms, two-way radio sets, pickaxe handles, sledgehammers, plastic ties, balaclavas and gloves. The men in custody were held under the terms of Irish anti-terrorist legislation permitting them to be questioned for up to 72 hours before being either charged or released.

At least four of the group were reckoned to have connections with the Provisional republican movement and police believe they were plotting a major crime at the time of the raid. The development was being seen as adding to current pressure on Sinn Fein, the IRA's political allies.

A group of Protestant community workers is to announce a withdrawal from all talks with republicans after being told their details have been found on IRA files.
It is understood further details will be given at a news conference in Belfast on Monday.

It has been organised by a group calling itself the Protestant Community Workers' Association.

Last year, the PSNI said it had broken up a major IRA intelligence gathering operation in Belfast.

Several people were arrested and charged in connection with the police operation.

Thousands of documents and hundreds of computer disks were taken away for examination by detectives.

Among those attending will be loyalist William Smith, a member of the Progressive Unionist Party who has been involved in cross-community work across Belfast.

He is one of about 20 people who have been informed that their details have been found on republican files, which were uncovered as part of the investigation into alleged IRA intelligence gathering at Stormont.

The workers are expected to announce a withdrawal of all future cross-community work involving people with links to the Provisional republican movement.

One source told the BBC there was evidence that confidential conversations had been noted and logged, and evidence that the IRA was profiling Protestant community workers.

Northern Ireland's power-sharing executive was suspended on 14 October following a row over allegations of IRA spying within the Northern Ireland Office.

The Times
January 19, 2003
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2765-547542,00.html
IRA death list sparks new spying claims
Liam Clarke

COMMUNITY workers in loyalist areas are set to break off contacts with republicans after their details turned up on IRA death lists. Loyalists now suspect that cross-community meetings were used as a cover for IRA intelligence-gathering.
The allegation is due to be made at a press conference on Belfast’s Shankill Road tomorrow. Details of IRA intelligence documents given to loyalist community workers by police will be made public to substantiate the claims.

One loyalist source said: “When your details turn up on a paramilitary list, the police tell you so that you can take precautions. In many cases the details recorded (in the IRA documents) can be traced back to conversations at cross-community meetings. It is not just happening in one or two cases, it is quite systematic.”

A Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) source confirmed that the IRA documents contained details linked to the meetings. He said: “In some cases it was clear from the files that something had been said at a meeting. In those cases, detectives asked the loyalists if they could remember who had been present.”

The officer confirmed that those under threat were given a letter outlining the danger in as much detail as possible.

The IRA files to which the police warnings refer were seized as part of last year’s “Stormontgate” spying investigation which led to the collapse of the power-sharing administration. The suggestion of systematic spying at community meetings, which are intended to ease tension, is likely to undermine unionist confidence further and could make it more difficult to revive the administration. Some nationalist and loyalist community workers are ex-prisoners with terrorist records. Their input was considered essential to easing hostilities at sectarian interfaces.

Last night Liam Maskey, a leading nationalist community worker in north Belfast, appealed for calm and dialogue. A brother of Alec Maskey, the Sinn Fein mayor of Belfast, he is not under any suspicion and has wide experience of cross-community work with loyalists.

Maskey said: “I would urge caution. Even if political problems are hot and heavy, we should go on working together. I will be shocked if people have a total block on cross community development.”

Asked about the spying allegations he said he was not aware of any of such activity. “Before I would comment I would need to see and hear the details,” he said. “However it would be seriously detrimental to long-term stability if cross-community dialogues stopped. It would be a waste of the time, energy and dedicated work that has taken place over the years if people were to lose those connections now.”

A loyalist community source said: “Some trust was growing up and now people feel violated. These republicans were the people who urged us to come and talk to them when there was very little contact but now that there has been contact and cordial relations we find that it has been abused.”

THE names of four Portadown Orange District officers are in the IRA files
following the recent PSNI raids on Stormont, according to a statement issued
yesterday. The District statement refused to name the officers on the
so-called 'spy ring list', but said they were additional to that of
Councillor David Jones, who - along with Alderman Arnold Hatch - told the
borough council his name was on the list.
A spokesman for the District said, "We find it most disconcerting that more
and more names are coming to light.
"The officers were visited this week by police personnel, and while they
were shocked, they weren't really surprised."

"When you consider that Alderman Hatch's confidential talks with the Parades
Commission have been leaked to Smn Fein-IRA and that the names of bands were
leaked at an earlier dale in relation to an Orange march in North Antrim, it
is little wonder we have nothing to do with the commission."
The District is also challenging the Secretary of State to investigate the
leaks from the commission, "given that it's supposed to be a private body".
The spokesman went on, "This raises the prospect that Sinn Fein controlled
residents' groups may have been given vital information on contentious
parades throughout Northern Ireland, leaving the organisers of marches at a
distinct disadvantage.
"Maybe the general public will now under-stand now why we want nothing to do
with this quango. Its demise cannot come soon enough."

THE two Craigavon unionist councillors 'targeted' in the so-called Sinn Fein
'spy ring' said last night they were reviewing their personal safely.
Alderman Arnold Hatch and Councillor David Jones told the council they had
been warned by police that they were on the 'spy list' following the October
raid at Stormont by the PSNI.
It led to the council being adjourned on Monday night for a week - and to
Sinn Fein Councillor John O'Dowd (Craigavon Sinn Fein councillor) leading a
party walk-out aflcr he was banned from speaking.
Councillor O'Dowd confirmed yesterday he was taking legal advice, "after
being denied my rights to freedom of speech".
Monday's bad-tempered debate lucked off with Mayor Jonathan Bell informing
the council that the police had called with the councillors, telling them
that their personal details and movements had been discovered during the
raid on Sinn Fein offices.
O'Dowd - "No, they weren't."

The Mayor added he was deeply disappointed by a party which was invariably
calling for equality for all.
It was Councillor Jones who proposed the adjournment, at the same lime
making a stinging attack on Sinn Fein.
"it's galling having to sit with them in this chamber," he said. "Their
policy of the ballot box and the armalite is contrary to all democratic
principles.
"Their military wing carried out death and destruction for 30 years, killing
innocent men, woman and children.".
He added that at least 20 other people in public life in Craigavon had
received similar visits from the PSNI, and coupled in his proposal a call
for the Secretary of State to order an inquiry into the claim from

Assistant Chief Constable Bill Lowry lhat he had been forced out of his post
as head of Special Branch.
Councillor Tones said later that he had been furnished with details of his
personal movements and with claims tha! he was "a Drumcree activist".
"It's very disturbing," he added. "It's worrying to myself and to my
family."

Alderman David Simpson accused Sinn Fein of hypocrisy in view of their
recent "smears of racism against other parties over the plans to build a
rnosque in Bleary",
He added, "Some 1,250 people are on these spy lists, and a lot of people in
Craigavon are being contacted - including councillors who are doing their
best to serve the public and keep democracy alive."
Alderman Hatch - the second councillor contacted by the police - said he was
deeply disturbed that a meeting of the Parades Commission which he attended
"was reported to me almost verbatim via the police information after the
raids on the offices of Sinn Fein".
"These meetings are supposed to be strictly private - the Secretary of State
isn't even supposed to have access to them, but it seems open house," he
added.
"The meeting in question was on Drumcree in 2000, and the points made by
myself and other people were also revealed through the spy ring."

Councillor O'Dowd (Sinn Fein Councillor) responded that there was nothing of
a subversion nature on the discs seized by the PSNI and they had been
returned with an apology.
He added that all parties thrived on leaks, with DUP and Dr Paisley the main
culprits.
On the subject of Bill Lowry, he claimed he had been head of Special Branch
"which was involved in murder and assassinations".

This led to uproar in the council, but Councillor O'Dowd continued that
there was police collusion in the murders of solicitors Pat Finucane and
Rosemary Nelson.
The Mayor insisted that "no corporate bodies" were involved in any such
murders and ordered the councillor to withdraw the remark - which he
refused.
Then Councillor Jones tabled a motion that the SF man "be no longer heard"
and after further cross-talk this was passed on a 13-11 majority.

At this stage Councillor O'Dowd led the SF walk-out, telling the Mayor,
"I'll see you in court."
The Mayor commented, "This is most unfortunate against the RUC-GC and I
won't accept that any agency of the police was involved.
Councillor Stephen Moutray pointed out that not only public servants, hut
also members of the security forces had to review their security, adding,
"There is no ceasefire."
And Councillor Dolores Kelly commented, "I condemn the targeting of anyone,
hut it is galling that these people are allowed to disrupt democracy and
lives to such an extent."
The Deputy Mayor Sidney Anderson said, "The peace process doesn't exist -
these people simply infiltrate Stormont and the NIO for easy picking and
then intimidate their political opponents.
"Then they mouth hypocrisy about equal rights for all."
After further debate, it was decided on a 12-0 vote to adjourn Ihe meeting,
with Unionists supporting, SDLP abstaining and Sinn Fein long gone from the
council chamber.

Note - David Jones is one of Portadown District's spokesmen and a
independent councillor. Arnold Hatch is also a member of Portadown District
as well as being a UUP councillor.

APPRENTICE Boys leaders have demanded the immediate suspension of the Parades Commission following confirmation that personal details of their members are in the hands of the IRA.

After police warned some members about their personal security, the organisation wants urgent talks with Secretary of State Paul Murphy.

The end of dialogue with the Commission came as the PSNI continued its investigation into how personal details and the contents of discussions between the Commission and the loyal orders were obtained by the IRA.

Last week, police advised Orange Order leaders in Portadown about the information in possession of the IRA and, earlier this week, Protestant community

leaders broke off discussions with nationalist groups in Belfast after it was claimed the Provos had obtained their personal details and had been spying on their movements.

They said: “A significant common factor in the source of IRA information has been the internal documentation of the Parades Commission."

The PSNI advised the Apprentice Boys members of the potential threat to their lives before Christmas but the organisation only revealed the information last night.

targeting by the IRA of persons prominent in the parades issue from within and throughout the Protestant community has been shocking – Newry and Mourne, Portadown, Belfast, Lurgan, Castlederg, Londonderry."

“We would be surprised if the Parades Commission were not made aware of the police investigation at an early stage. In recent weeks, the Parades Commission has urged further dialogue on parades. In the circumstances, this is requesting a course of action that would further endanger our members.

“There have been promises of security and confidentiality by the Parades Commission in the past. Those words have been shown to be totally meaningless.

“In all conscience we cannot ask our membership to enter dialogue knowing that the parades issue has been deliberately and systematically used by the republican movement to target leaders from within the Protestant community generally, and our members in particular.

“We accept the sad fact of life in Northern Ireland that leadership brings with it risks."

The Apprentice Boys’ hard-hitting statement added: “It is the view of the General Committee that the Parades Commission has been completely compromised and that it should be suspended forthwith, pending the outcome of the police inquiry. We are urging the Secretary of State to revise parades legislation with the utmost urgency.”

They said the institutionalised diminishment of the Protestant culture, the backroom deals and the shroud of secrecy that enables IRA targeting must be ended.

Also last night, the Apprentice Boys of Derry gave a cautious welcome to the Quigley report. In particular they welcomed Sir George’s “pursuit of simplicity and openness in matters relating to parades in Northern Ireland”.

But they claimed that aspects of Sir George’s ideas for moving forward were complex and likely to be unworkable in practice.


By Brian Rowan BBC Northern Ireland security editor

It happened on Saint Patrick's Day and it was the most embarrassing security breach of the past 30 years.

Thursday, 5 September, 2002, 12:01 GMT 13:01 UK

The complex is the PSNI's Belfast headquarters

By Brian Rowan
BBC Northern Ireland security editor

It happened on Saint Patrick's Day and it was the most embarrassing security breach of the past 30 years.The scene was the Belfast Headquarters of the Police Service of Northern Ireland at Castlereagh.

On a Sunday night, almost six months ago, the secrets of the Special Branch were stolen from an office there - from room "2-20".

In the period since, more than 100 Special Branch officers have had to move home and others have had to fortify their houses.

According to a senior police source, the raiders did not get the "crown jewels", but clearly they got enough to cause this major security scare.

It is staffed round the clock and, behind its door, sensitive information is kept - an alphabetical list of Special Branch officers and their telephone numbers, the codenames of their agents and the names of their police handlers and a log of "addresses of interest".

On the night of the break-in, "Tommy", who was the branch man on duty, was assaulted and his office left bare.

According to security sources, it was the IRA and, according to the IRA, it was an element of British Intelligence.

For the past six months or so, a team of 40 detectives headed by Chief Superintendent Phil Wright has been investigating this case.

They have been looking at a former chef at the Castlereagh complex - an American Larry Zaitschek - and at a link to the IRA.

This has been the major line of the investigation, the part of inquiry, to use the words of one source, where "the evidence talks to you", but there are other lines which detectives continue to "explore" and "dissect".

That said, Mr Wright's team is about to make its case for the extradition of Larry Zaitschek.

If the police assessment is correct and if it can be proven, then there will be political implications

Detectives have been looking wider than Castlereagh and, to quote one senior officer, have been investigating "the totality of Larry Zaitschek's activities" - his life, his finances, his travel and the people he associates with.

The chef's wife, from whom he is separated, is now a witness in the police case and is on a witness protection programme.

The initial report of the investigating team, which runs to more than 1,000 pages, has been completed and will be passed to the Director of Public Prosecutions next week.

Senior police sources in Northern Ireland are confident they can connect the chef to the break-in and to other intelligence gathering activities linked to the IRA.

He was in the Castlereagh complex on the day of the robbery even though he no longer worked there and returned to the United States soon after the break-in.

The decision on whether to proceed with the extradition case will be a matter for the DPP and the attorney general once they have assessed the police evidence.

Detectives involved in the Castlereagh investigation have had their work double checked.

A team from the Metropolitan Police, headed by a chief superintendent from special operations, has been reviewing the PSNI investigation.

That report is due soon and is not expected to produce anything that will challenge or query the major line being pursued in the investigation.

If the police assessment is correct and if it can be proven, then there will be political implications.

The British Government may have moved at the end of July to create a new beginning for the ceasefires, to wipe the slate clean in terms of past wrongs, but that will not be the unionist approach.

If the Special Branch robbery can be placed at the door of the IRA - if that organisation was really behind the theft of its "enemy's" secrets - then that will be viewed as a clear breach of the "complete cessation of military operations".

That was the morning officers arrived in force at the home of Northern Ireland's power-sharing government to search a Sinn Fein office.

" The arrests and searches happened in early October, but this operation had been in the making long before then "

We were told it was part of an investigation into IRA intelligence gathering, but nothing of an incriminating nature was found.

The police went to Parliament Buildings after arresting Sinn Fein's head of administration at the now suspended Stormont Assembly.

He is one of four people charged as part of Operation Torsion which has uncovered IRA intelligence gathering at the heart of government in Northern Ireland.

The arrests and searches happened in early October, but this operation had been in the making long before then.

An impression was allowed to develop that the police investigation came after a former Northern Ireland Office employee was caught photocopying an Army document some 14 months ago, but that is not the case.

The former messenger at Castle Buildings - the headquarters of the Northern Ireland Office - was spotted by a police officer, one of the then Secretary of State John Reid's bodyguards.

The matter was dealt with internally, within the Civil Service, and was not reported to the police at that time.

In fact, the police lead came after the Special Branch robbery at Castlereagh in March this year and the information which triggered Operation Torsion was provided by one of their sources deep within the IRA itself.

"This was brought about by the raid on Castlereagh," a security source told me. "It would never have happened if Castlereagh had not happened."

By the summer, John Reid had authorised a major bugging and surveillance operation targeting the IRA.

As part of this, Special Branch sought and was given assistance by the UK's national intelligence service MI5.

It was around the same time - on 24 July to be precise - that Dr Reid gave the IRA a final warning: All activities, including targeting, had to cease.

I understand Prime Minister Tony Blair was briefed by John Reid in September, by which time the investigation had reached a critical phase.

On the police side, only a handful of senior officers were kept informed - the then Acting Chief Constable, Colin Cramphorn, senior Special Branch officers Chris Albiston and Bill Lowry, and the senior Belfast detective Phil Wright, who is also heading the Castlereagh break-in investigation.

Before Operation Torsion "went live", Chief Constable Hugh Orde had been fully briefed and the most senior uniformed officer in Belfast, Alan McQuillan, had been brought into the picture.

The operation spanned a period of months and, according to one source, the main target was the IRA's so-called director of intelligence - a prominent west Belfast republican.

Four arrests were eventually made on 4 October and three men and a woman were subsequently charged. In the search operation, hundreds of documents and a lap top computer were seized.

But, I understand that long before this date, the police were already aware that the IRA had obtained copies of sensitive government documents as well as details on prison officers - the latter may have been copied from a human resources computer database at Prisons Control.

An assessment was made that the prison officers were under no threat from the IRA and Operation Torsion was allowed to run.

All the sensitive information recovered during Operation Torsion may still be in the hands of the IRA - sources believe the organisation may have copied it onto a computer system across the border in the Republic of Ireland.

The damage done to the IRA's intelligence gathering machine is still being assessed.

But what is certain is that much damage has been caused to the political process and Tony Blair believes the only way power-sharing will be restored is if the IRA ceases all activities and steps off the stage.

He wants the IRA to disband, but it has already dismissed that as an un-realisable demand.

BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/default.stm
Friday, 17 January, 2003, 10:16 GMT
UVF pulls out of weapons talks
The loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force has suspended all contacts with the arms decommissioning body headed by General John de Chastelain.

The decision was announced by the political party aligned with the UVF, the Progressive Unionist Party, in Belfast on Friday.

Party leader David Ervine said the continuing targeting of unionists by the IRA was causing disquiet with loyalism.

He said there would be further evidence of the extent of the IRA's targeting in the coming days.

Mr Ervine also said that until there was a "clear appreciation from the republican movement of their honourable intent towards the unionist people, the PUP would be breaking off all contact with Sinn Fein".

The PUP assembly member said the UVF's decision was "confirmation of the degree of dismay within the unionist community".

It follows a statement from the leadership of the UVF and associated loyalist paramilitary group, the Red Hand Commando, blaming the IRA for what it called "the current dearth of confidence in the process".

The UVF statement accused the IRA of "the wholesale targeting of the pro-union population" - a reference to alleged intelligence gathering in recent months.

A UVF source said: "We feel that loyalists have been airbrushed out of the process by the two governments and republicans - in other words we don't matter."

Northern Ireland's Chief Constable, Hugh Orde, described the UVF's statement as a "worrying development".

But Mr Orde said he had no specific intelligence to suggest the UVF ceasefire was under threat.

"Any organisation that is currently on ceasefire, and the UVF have been on ceasefire and they have behaved as well as any other organisation on ceasefire, to talk of walking away from it causes me concern," he said.

Sammy Wilson of the Democratic Unionist Party said the move was evidence of Protestant disenchantment with the way the process has been going.

"The disillusionment is a result of the reality that this has been a one way process to appease republican violence," he said.

Ulster Unionist assembly member Michael McGimpsey said the UVF was being sidelined.

Friday's developments came a week after the PUP withdrew from talks aimed at restoring devolution to the province.

David Ervine said the governments were excluding him from the real negotiations.

Following the collapse of power-sharing at Stormont, current legislation dictates that the British and Irish Governments must review the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement on which devolution was based.

Both the governments have stressed that there will be no re-negotiation of the Agreement.

UTV
MONDAY 18/11/2002 15:14:06
Sinn Fein chief on spy charge

Sinn Fein's administration chief at Stormont is at the head of the IRA's intelligence unit establishing world-wide links with other terror groups, a court heard today.

Denis Donaldson, 52, was remanded in custody after a police probe into alleged Provisional espionage inside the government seized more than 1,000 documents during raids at Parliament Buildings, Belfast, and republican homes in the west of the city last month.

But at his bail application in the High Court today, it was claimed that Donaldson has forged close relationships with groups including ETA and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation during trips to Spain and Beirut as well as El Salvador and Italy.

A lawyer for the Crown said: ``The applicant is believed to be an active member of the Provisional IRA`s general headquarters intelligence unit.``

The court was told Donaldson was one of a ``tightknit group`` consisting of no more than six people who would have access to the intelligence materials stolen from the Government`s main Belfast offices.

More than 1,200 pages of documents were found in a bag at Donaldson`s home in Aitnamona Crescent in West Belfast.

The court was told that about 700 of these came from the Northern Ireland Office and included top secret correspondence from 10 Downing Street, the Irish Prime Minister`s office, the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, the Ministry of Defence, police and political parties in Northern Ireland, including the Ulster Unionists and the Nationalist SDLP.

The bail application was adjourned until tomorrow

Tuesday, 12 November, 2002, 22:48 GMT
'Spy' probe triggered by police source
The security operation which uncovered alleged republican intelligence gathering in government in Northern Ireland was triggered by a police source within the IRA, the BBC has learned.

It is now known that long before last month's raids on the Northern Ireland Assembly and elsewhere, the police, MI5 and the Northern Ireland Office already knew the IRA had obtained sensitive government documents as well as the personal details of hundreds of prison officers.

According to a senior security source the main target of the police operation was the IRA's so-called director of intelligence - a prominent west Belfast republican.

Operation Torsion - as it was called - was a follow-on investigation after the robbery at Belfast's police headquarters at Castlereagh in March this year.

It is understood the investigation was prompted by information which came from a police source inside the IRA.

During the summer, warrants for a major bugging and surveillance operation targeted at the republican group were signed by the then Secretary of State, John Reid.

As he spoke in parliament, John Reid knew that the IRA had infiltrated the Northern Ireland Office and he had a detailed knowledge on what Operation Torsion was all about.

In a major undercover investigation, the special branch sought and was given assistance by the national intelligence service, MI5.

And, long before the arrests and charges came in October, it was known that the IRA had obtained personal details on hundreds of prison officers.

An assessment was made that they were under no threat from the IRA and Operation Torsion was allowed to run.

Earlier on Tuesday, a senior Ulster Unionist called for a public inquiry into allegations of IRA intelligence gathering at Stormont.

Former culture minister Michael McGimpsey said he believed the spy ring had "penetrated to the very heart of the security situation in the Northern Ireland Office".

Mr McGimpsey made the comments after Acting Deputy Chief Constable Alan McQuillan said on Monday that the police had broken up a major IRA intelligence gathering operation in Belfast during their investigation.

Four people, including Denis Donaldson, head of Sinn Fein's administration at the Northern Ireland Assembly, were charged last month after police seized documents in raids on republican homes.

A civil servant who had access to the offices of the first and deputy first minister was arrested last week, but was released without charge. He has been suspended on full pay.

However, Sinn Fein chairman Mitchel McLaughlin said while people were facing charges, none of the allegations had been proven.

He said the important point was that Sinn Fein's project was a political one and while the row over the allegations continued "politics is in paralysis and that it not good for anyone".

On Monday, the acting deputy chief constable said the breakthrough followed the investigation into the break-in at Belfast's police headquarters in Castlereagh in March.

Mr McQuillan said the investigation had taken the police "into the very heart of the Provisional IRA".

Thousands of documents and hundreds of computer disks are being examined by 40 detectives who are working on the Castlereagh case and the alleged IRA intelligence gathering operation at Stormont.

Mr McQuillan alleged some of them had been copied in the Northern Ireland Office, while some had been "originated within the IRA".

But he said he had nothing to suggest the IRA had any intention to use the information from Stormont in any offensive way.

New York Times
I.R.A. TO AL QAEDA
Where Threats Are Always Orange
By SARAH LYALL

LONDON — New York is still enduring the jangly fear that pervades the city every time a new terror alert takes effect. But Londoners have lived under terrorism's shadow for decades. For roughly 30 years, beginning in the early 1970's, as the British mainland was a target of Irish Republican Army bombers, London's residents slowly became used to the idea that their lives had been radically altered.

Some changes were emotional. It requires an enormous mental adjustment to imagine that a bomb can go off near you at any time.

But other changes were practical, affecting everything from how to dispose of trash while on public transportation to how to plan for the traffic delays caused by road closings. There also was an acceptance that, whatever you were doing in public, a closed-circuit television camera might be watching.

For years, Londoners have accepted the absence of garbage cans in subway or train stations. They were removed to prevent would-be terrorists from dropping package bombs in them.

Befitting Britons' reputation for tidiness, the stations are not cesspits of refuse, for most passengers take their papers and coffee cups out of the stations with them, to discard elsewhere.

Londoners who ride the subways or drive on the roads are also used to the ever present security alerts, which close down parts of the transportation network on a depressingly regular basis. They usually occur because of telephoned threats.

"You can disrupt the whole of London without setting a bomb off, if your threat is seen as possibly genuine," said Jeremy Maciejewski, a spokesman for the British Transport Police. Or if bags or packages are left alone.

In the London subways, as at airports, any unattended bag is regarded as a possible weapon. Specialist units with X-ray equipment are called in whenever such an object is discovered and, more often than not, the station is closed while the officers examine it.

Because this happens so frequently, the stations generally reopen after about 10 or 15 minutes, and passengers regard the delays as annoying, but inevitable. "It's been going on for many, many years now," Mr. Maciejewski said. "We've had a lot of time to perfect what we do. In a way, you don't see it because it's done all the time. People have got used to it."

This is now basic to the fabric of urban life. In a similar mundane fashion, at the London Eye, the huge ferris wheel in the center of the city, each compartment is swept for explosives after each set of passengers finishes their ride.

In the mid-1990's, in response to I.R.A. threats, security officials set up the "ring of steel" around the City of London, the financial district. Cars driving into a huge swath of the area routinely pass through checkpoints staffed by armed guards and equipped with closed-circuit cameras and license plate recognition systems. Suspect cars are searched.

"In London, people are more nervous than they are in the rest of the U.K.," said David Capitanchik, a researcher in terrorism at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland. "But people have less inclination or tendency to panic than they do in the U.S."

Perhaps that is why the latest manifestation of heightened security here — 70 concrete blocks placed around the Houses of Parliament two weeks ago to deter potential suicide bombers — is less alarming to the public than a similar fortification might be in New York. While the authorities warned last week of an increased threat, they added that it was merely a general alert and that the new security was precautionary.

Nor does Britain have a color-coded system for terrorist threats, as the United States does. Government buildings in London have their own colored-alert system, in place since the I.R.A. days, but it refers only to the threat to that building on any given day, a spokesman for the Home Office said.

"We shy away from having an alert system," he said. "You could say, for example, `We're on yellow alert now,' but after three weeks, people no longer take it on board — they fall into a normal pattern." The government, he explained, prefers a more low-key approach.

In February, when security at Heathrow Airport was drastically increased — complete with tanks — in response to speculation about an attack from Al Qaeda, The Guardian newspaper interviewed prominent Britons about their fears. Most responded with a quintessentially British stoicism.

"My level of anxiety has returned to the level it was when the I.R.A. was bombing London," Julian Barnes, the writer, told the newspaper. "I am sure something terrible will happen but I don't plan to change my behavior. I take the `Appointment in Samarra' line on death: If you change your plans to avoid it, you will find that it has already changed its plans and will meet you in the new location."

One salutary effect of the rise of Al Qaeda is that it has given terrorism an even worse name than it had before the Sept. 11 attacks. For the "new" terrorists of Al Qaeda and its affiliates, apocalyptic terrorism is an indispensable means to a total, violent victory for radical Islam over the West.

But for "old" terrorist groups, terrorism has historically been used selectively, as a means of getting a place at a negotiating table to achieve nationalistic, ethnic or ideological ends that are geographically circumscribed. Such groups, including the Basque separatist group E.T.A. in Spain and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, have been compelled to distance themselves from Al Qaeda and its affiliates by refraining, in at least some measure, from violence. This development has given the governments they oppose an opening to resolve conflicts.

The same has been true with the Irish Republican Army in Ulster. But last week's elections, in which hardliners on both sides prevailed, show that extremism is gaining strength in the province. Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain has taken advantage of the I.R.A.'s softening by attentively engaging its political arm, Sinn Fein. But to enlarge the political middle ground, he must extend robust political support to moderate unionists, who want Northern Ireland to remain British.

The mainly Catholic I.R.A. spent a quarter-century trying to unite the province with Ireland by way of a terrorist guerrilla campaign against the largely Protestant unionist majority and Britain itself. But in 1998, the two sides decided to share power through a devolved government under the Good Friday agreement. That government was suspended in 2002 over the I.R.A.'s refusal to disarm. This October, the I.R.A. put what was reported to be an unprecedented quantity of arms "beyond use" in an effort to advance the peace process.

Before 9/11, the I.R.A. would not have been so delicate. When I.R.A. members grew impatient in February 1996, they detonated a car bomb at Canary Wharf in London, killing two civilians and causing property damage of more than $100 million.

Even so, the old groups are unwilling to relinquish the fallback threat of violence. The I.R.A. has maintained its revolutionary vocation by retaining the vast bulk of its arms, advising Colombian rebels, and probably tacitly encouraging dissident republican terrorist activity. In Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers have resupplied and continued to recruit during the nearly two-year-old cease-fire. In Spain, E.T.A.'s terrorist campaign has abated somewhat since 9/11, but the group has shied away from political initiatives since ending a 14-month cease-fire in 1999. Having rejected the terms offered by Israel at Camp David and Taba, secular groups loyal to Yasir Arafat have encouraged and, with some thin deniability, perpetrated terrorism during the second intifada.

On this evidence, shying away from extreme violence is merely tactical, a way for terrorist groups to distance themselves from bin Ladenism. Terrorism, like legitimate forms of power, abhors a vacuum. Were the global counterterrorism coalition to defeat, or even decisively contain, Al Qaeda, old-style terrorists would probably consider that political burden to have been lifted. They would feel freer to go back to their old ways. Having preserved their arsenals and their networks of recruits, they would be readily able to do so.

Mr. Blair could hardly be called soft on the new terrorism since 9/11. But he seems to understand that the window of opportunity to tame the I.R.A. may narrow when Al Qaeda loses potency. Consequently, Mr. Blair has stayed engaged in Northern Ireland even when preoccupied by the more dire Qaeda threat and the Iraq crisis.

Yet he has underappreciated how much Al Qaeda has increased his leverage over the I.R.A. Mr. Blair's habit has been to placate the group when the peace process has dragged, without exacting the quid pro quo of meaningful disarmament that unionists believe the Good Friday agreement demands. London has, for example, extended police reforms that were painful to unionists, offered amnesty for I.R.A. fugitives, and accorded full official privileges to the members of Parliament belonging to Sinn Fein, even though they refuse to participate in national government.

Unionists increasingly associate David Trimble, the Nobel Peace laureate who is the moderate leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, with what they regard as London's excessively conciliatory stance toward the I.R.A. For decades, the Ulster Unionists have been the province's most popular party. But in the elections last week for the 108-member devolved assembly, the Rev. Ian Paisley's extreme Democratic Unionist Party overtook the Ulster Unionists to become the biggest bloc. On the nationalist side, Sinn Fein also gained, surpassing the more moderate nationalist group, the Social Democratic and Labour Party. Under the Good Friday agreement, the Democratic Unionists are supposed to govern with Sinn Fein, but they refuse to do so unless the I.R.A. completely disarms; instead the Democratic Unionists are calling for the renegotiation of the accord.

Moderate, pro-agreement unionists needed London's political support most before last Wednesday's elections, but late is better than never. The moderate unionists' complaints are essentially two. First, the I.R.A. has not allowed the independent disarmament commission in charge of decommissioning to state specifically what arms have been decommissioned. Until the I.R.A. does this, its motives will always be held suspect by the unionist community. Second, the I.R.A. has not unequivocally declared an end to its armed campaign. Mr. Blair has political leeway to pressure the I.R.A. to satisfy these demands.

The specter of Al Qaeda may keep the I.R.A. at bay for a while — but probably not indefinitely. In general, Al Qaeda has made political initiatives for taming old terrorist groups more promising. By the same token, those initiatives could accomplish more by demanding more of the terrorists.

Jonathan Stevenson is senior fellow for counterterrorism at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Welcome

Home of the Ulster-Scots / Scotch-Irish in America.