(francais / english)

From Gladio to Al-Qaida through NATO and CIA

1. NATO's secret armies linked to terrorism?
By Daniele Ganser for ISN Security Watch (ETH Zürich, 15/12/04)

2. Turkish Intelligence: Al-Qaeda is a U.S. Covert Operation
By Kurt Nimmo

3. DES CORPS D'ARMEE SECRETS DE L'OTAN LIES AU TERRORISME
par Daniele Ganser / liste alerte_otan


=== 1 ===

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=10373

NATO's secret armies linked to terrorism?

At a time when experts are debating whether NATO is suited to deal
with the global "war on terror", new research suggests that the
alliance's own secret history has links to terrorism.
ISN

By Daniele Ganser for ISN Security Watch (15/12/04)

Editor's Note: This report written by Daniele Ganser is based on
excerpts from his newly released book, "NATO's Secret Armies.
Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe", released this week
by Frank Cass in London. The book describes NATO's clandestine
operations during the Cold War. The research was prompted by a story
that made world headlines in 1990 but quickly disappeared, ensuring
that even today, NATO's secret armies remain just that - secret. Until
now, a full investigation of NATO's secret armies had not been carried
out - a task that Ganser has taken on single-handedly and quite
successfully.

In Italy, on 3 August 1990, then-prime minister Giulio Andreotti
confirmed the existence of a secret army code-named "Gladio" - the
Latin word for "sword" - within the state. His testimony before the
Senate subcommittee investigating terrorism in Italy sent shockwaves
through the Italian parliament and the public, as speculation arose
that the secret army had possibly manipulated Italian politics through
acts of terrorism. Andreotti revealed that the secret Gladio army had
been hidden within the Defense Ministry as a subsection of the
military secret service, SISMI. General Vito Miceli, a former director
of the Italian military secret service, could hardly believe that
Andreotti had lifted the secret, and protested: "I have gone to prison
because I did not want to reveal the existence of this super secret
organization. And now Andreotti comes along and tells it to
parliament!" According to a document compiled by the Italian military
secret service in 1959, the secret armies had a two-fold strategic
purpose: firstly, to operate as a so-called "stay-behind" group in the
case of a Soviet invasion and to carry out a guerrilla war in occupied
territories; secondly, to carry out domestic operations in case of
"emergency situations". The military secret services' perceptions of
what constituted an "emergency" was well defined in Cold War Italy and
focused on the increasing strength of the Italian Communist and the
Socialist parties, both of which were tasked with weakening NATO "from
within". Felice Casson, an Italian judge who during his investigations
into right-wing terrorism had first discovered the secret Gladio army
and had forced Andreotti to take a stand, found that the secret army
had linked up with right-wing terrorists in order to confront
"emergency situations". The terrorists, supplied by the secret army,
carried out bomb attacks in public places, blamed them on the Italian
left, and were thereafter protected from prosecution by the military
secret service. "You had to attack civilians, the people, women,
children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any
political game," right-wing terrorist Vincezo Vinciguerra explained
the so-called "strategy of tension" to Casson. "The reason was quite
simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public,
to turn to the state to ask for greater security. This is the
political logic that lies behind all the massacres and the bombings
which remain unpunished, because the state cannot convict itself or
declare itself responsible for what happened."

No comment from NATO or the CIA

How strongly NATO and US intelligence backed and supported the use of
terror in Italy in order to discredit the political left during the
Cold War remains subject of ongoing research. General Gerardo
Serravalle, who had commanded the Italian Gladio secret army from 1971
to 1974, confirmed that the secret army "could pass from a defensive,
post-invasion logic, to one of attack, of civil war". The Italian
Senate chose to be more explicit and concluded in its investigation in
2000: "Those massacres, those bombs, those military actions had been
organized or promoted or supported by men inside Italian state
institutions and, as has been discovered more recently, by men linked
to the structures of United States intelligence." Ever since the
discovery of the secret NATO armies in 1990, research into stay-behind
armies has progressed only very slowly, due to very limited access to
primary documents and the refusal of both NATO and the CIA to comment.
On 5 November 1990, a NATO spokesman told an inquisitive press: "NATO
has never contemplated guerrilla war or clandestine operations". The
next day, NATO officials admitted that the previous day's denial had
been false, adding that the alliance would not comment on matters of
military secrecy. On 7 November, NATO's highest military official in
Europe, Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) US General John
Galvin, together with NATO's highest civilian official,
Secretary-General Manfred Wörner, briefed NATO ambassadors behind
closed doors. "Since this is a secret organization, I wouldn't expect
too many questions to be answered," reasoned a senior NATO diplomat,
who wished to remain unnamed. "If there were any links to terrorist
organizations, that sort of information would be buried very deep
indeed." Former CIA director William Colby confirmed in his memoirs
that setting up the secret armies in Western Europe had been "a major
program" for the CIA. The project started after World War II in total
secrecy, and access to information was limited "to the smallest
possible coterie of the most reliable people, in Washington, in NATO"
and in the countries concerned. Yet when in Italy in 1990 former CIA
director Admiral Stansfield Turner was questioned on television on
Gladio, he strictly refused to answer any questions on the sensitive
issue, and as the interviewer insisted with respect for the terror
victims, Stansfield angrily ripped off his microphone and shouted: "I
said, no questions about Gladio!", whereafter the interview was over.

Protest from the EU

If there had been a Soviet invasion, the secret anti-communist
soldiers would have operated behind enemy lines, strengthening and
setting up local resistance movements in enemy-held territory,
evacuating shot down pilots, and sabotaging the supply lines and
production centers of occupation forces. Upon discovery of the secret
armies, the European Parliament responded with harsh criticism,
suspecting it to have been involved in manipulation and terror
operations. "This Europe will have no future," Italian representative
Falqui opened the debate, "if it is not founded on truth, on the full
transparency of its institutions in regard to the dark plots against
democracy that have turned upside down the history, even in recent
times, of many European states." Falqui insisted that "there will be
no future, ladies and gentlemen, if we do not remove the idea of
having lived in a kind of double state - one open and democratic, the
other clandestine and reactionary. That is why we want to know what
and how many "Gladio" networks there have been in recent years in the
Member States of the European Community." The majority of EU
parliamentarians followed Falqui, and in a special resolution on 22
November 1990 made it clear that the EU "protests vigorously at the
assumption by certain US military personnel at SHAPE and in NATO of
the right to encourage the establishment in Europe of a clandestine
intelligence and operation network", calling for a "a full
investigation into the nature, structure, aims, and all other aspects
of these clandestine organizations or any splinter groups, their use
for illegal interference in the internal political affairs of the
countries concerned, and the problem of terrorism in Europe".

Secret armies across Western Europe

Only the parliaments in Italy, Switzerland, and Belgium had formed a
special commission to investigate the national secret army, and after
months or even years of research, presented a public report. Building
on this data and secondary sources from numerous European countries,
"NATO's Secret Armies" confirms for the first time that the secret
networks spread across Western Europe, with great details on networks
in Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Luxemburg, Belgium,
Denmark, Norway, Italy, Greece, and Turkey, as well as the strategic
planning of Britain and the US. The stay-behind armies were
coordinated on an international level by the so-called Allied
Clandestine Committee (ACC) and the Clandestine Planning Committee
(CPC), linked to NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe
(SHAPE). And they used cover names such as "Absalon" in Denmark, "P26"
in Switzerland, "ROC" in Norway or "SDRA8" in Belgium. Interestingly,
large differences existed from country to country. In some nations the
secret armies became a source of terror, while in others they remained
a prudent precaution. In Turkey, the "Counter-Guerrilla" was involved
in domestic terror and torture operations against the Kurds, while in
Greece, the "LOK" took part in the 1967 military coup d'état to
prevent a Socialist government. In Spain, the secret army was used to
prop up the fascist dictatorship of Franco, and in Germany, right-wing
terrorists used the explosives of the secret army in the 1980 terror
attack in Munich. In other countries, including Denmark, Norway, and
Luxemburg, the secret soldiers prepared for the eventual occupation of
their home country and never engaged in domestic terror or
manipulation. In the context of the ongoing so-called war on terror,
the Gladio data promotes the sobering insight that governments in the
West have sacrificed the life of innocent citizens and covered up acts
of terrorism in order to manipulate the population. Allegations that
NATO, the Pentagon, MI6, the CIA, and European intelligence services
were linked to terror, coups d'état, and torture in Europe are
obviously of an extremely sensitive nature, and future research is
needed in the field. In the absence of an official investigation by
NATO or the EU, ongoing international research into terrorism is about
to tackle this difficult task, the first step of which I hope to have
promisingly taken with "NATO's Secret Armies".

Dr Daniele Ganser is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Security
Studies at the ETH in Zurich.

For more information on the topic, compare the research of the Center
of Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich:
» Reference links
» External website
» Current issues links
» Earlier news


=== 2 ===

http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14671&s2=16

Turkish Intelligence: Al-Qaeda a U.S. Covert Operation

Kurt Nimmo, Another Day in the Empire
August 15, 2005

Consider the following, published in Zaman , the fifth largest
newspaper in Turkey: "Amid the smoke from the fortuitous fire [i.e.,
the capture of Louai Sakra, said to be the al-CIA-duh regional boss in
Turkey] emerged the possibility that al-Qaeda may not be, strictly
speaking, an organization but an element of an intelligence agency
operation. Turkish intelligence specialists agree that there is no
such organization as al-Qaeda. Rather, Al-Qaeda is the name of a
secret service operation. The concept `fighting terror' is the
background of the `low-intensity-warfare' conducted in the mono-polar
world order. The subject of this strategy of tension is named as
`al-Qaeda.'" Note the use of the phrase "strategy of tension," an
obvious reference to Gladio, the state-sponsored terrorist operation
in Italy (basically a series of fascist false flag operations, or "low
intensity warfare," blamed on leftists). It is interesting that
Turkish intelligence would admit that the neocon "war against
terrorism" is an entirely artificial construct.

Moreover, according to Turkish intelligence, "Sakra has been sought by
the secret services since 2000. The US Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) interrogated him twice before. Following the interrogation CIA
offered him employment. He also received a large sum of money by CIA.
However the CIA eventually lost contact with him." It is curious how
alleged key people in the al-CIA-duh network end up working for the
CIA and other intelligence agencies.

For instance, Abdurahman Khadr, who (according to ABC News Online
[http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1060367.htm%5d) "lived
side-by-side with Osama bin Laden," was a "double agent, sent to spy
on Al Qaeda fighters at Guantanamo Bay and in Bosnia." Ali Mohamed, a
former U.S. Army sergeant who trained Osama bin Laden's bodyguards and
helped plan the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya, worked for
the FBI (Mohamed, obviously with the grace of the feds, brought Ayman
al-Zawahiri to San Francisco on a covert fund-raising mission),
according to the San Francisco Chronicle
[http://prisonplanet.com/terrorist_worked_with_fbi.html%5d. Hamid Reza
Zakeri claimed (during the trial of Abdelghani Mzoudi, a Moroccan
accused of helping the nine eleven hijackers) that "Iran's secret
service had contacts with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network ahead of
the September 11 attacks," according to Reuters
[http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2004/reuters012204.html%5d.
It just so happens Zakeri claims the CIA owes him $1.2 for services
rendered as a double agent. Mullah Krekar
[http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_020403_general1.html%5d, the
leader of Ansar al-Islam, told al-Hayat newspaper in 2003 he had "a
meeting with a CIA representative and someone from the American army
in the town of Sulaymaniya (Iraqi Kurdistan) at the end of 2000. They
asked us to collaborate with them," an offer Krekar said he refused.
Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, aka Abu Omar, "a dangerous terrorist who
once plotted to kill the Egyptian foreign minister," according to the
Chicago Tribune
[http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/chi-0507030272jul03,1,7388165.story?coll=chi-newsspecials-hed],
was such a valued CIA asset it was deemed necessary to kidnap him off
the streets of Milan after he had second thoughts about his work. And
then there was Muhammad Naeem Noor Khanm, the al-Qaeda "computer
engineer" who "became part of a sting operation organized by the CIA,"
according to the Washington Post
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6679-2004Aug16.html%5d.

Of course, all of this CIA funny business is coincidental. Remember,
the CIA is ineffectual, even if it did create Islamic terrorism—the
agency actually boasts about this, says the Afghan Mujahideen (aka
"al-Qaeda") was its most successful operation to date—and it was
"intelligence failures" that caused nine eleven.


:: Article nr. 14671 sent on 16-aug-2005 08:06 ECT
:: The address of this page is : www.uruknet.info?p=14671
:: The incoming address of this article is :
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=== 3 ===

DES CORPS D'ARMEE SECRETS DE L'OTAN LIES AU TERRORISME

Au moment où les experts s'interrogent pour savoir si l'OTAN offre un
cadre approprié à la conduite de la "guerre contre la terrorisme" dans
le monde, une nouvelle étude suggère que l'histoire secrète de
l'alliance a des liens avec le terrorisme. En Italie, le 3 Août 1990,
le Premier Ministre Giulio Andreotti a confirmé l'existence d'une
armée secrète d'Etat, dont le nom de code est "Gladio" (en latin :
épée): Son témoignage, divulgué avant la conduite d'une enquête sur le
terrorisme par une sous-commission du Sénat italien, a causé une onde
de choc au sein du Parlement et de l'opinion publique, amplifiée par
la spéculation d'une manipulation de la politique italienne au moyen
d'actes de terrorisme perpétrés par ce corps secret. Andreotti révèle
que l'existence de la Gladio a été cachée au sein du Ministère de la
Défense sous la couverture de sous-section du SISMI, les services
secrets militaires. Selon un document de 1959 du SISMI, les armées
secrètes avaient un double objectif stratégique en Europe : tout
d'abord, opérer comme un pseudo groupe "arrière" dans le cas d'une
invasion soviétique et conduire la guérilla sur les territoires
occupés, et mener à bien certaines opérations nationales pour répondre
aux "situations d'urgence".

Felice Casson, le premier juge italien ayant découvert l'existence de
la Gladio au cours de ses enquêtes sur le terrorisme d'extrême droite,
a constaté que l'armée secrète s'était alliée avec les terroristes
d'extrême droite dans ces "situations d'urgence". Ces terroristes,
armés par l'armée secrète, réalisèrent sur des sites publics des
attentats à la bombe dont la responsabilité fut rejetée sur la gauche
italienne et furent ensuite protégés des poursuites judiciaires par
les services secrets de l'armée.

"Le but en était très simple: pousser l'opinion italienne à se tourner
vers l'Etat pour demander une sécurité accrue. Cette logique politique
est à la source de tous les attentats à la bombe restés impunis ainsi
qu'expliqua Vincezo Vinciguerra, ancien terroriste de droite au sujet
de la "stratégie de la tension" au juge Casson.

Le Sénat Italien choisit d'être plus explicite et conclut dans son
enquête en 2000 : "Ces massacres et ces attentats sont des actions
militaires organisées, favorisées ou soutenues par des hommes oeuvrant
au sein même des institutions de l'Etat italien et, comme il l'a été
découvert plus récemment, par des hommes liés aux structures des
services de renseignements américains."

A la découverte de l'existence de ce type de corps secrets d'armée, le
Parlement européen a émis une sévère critique, les suspectant d'avoir
été impliquées dans les manipulation liées aux opérations de
terrorisme en Europe.

'Le Dr Daniele Ganser, éminent chercheur au Centre for Security
Studies de l'ETH à Zurich et auteur de "NATO's Secret Armies" confirme
pour la première fois que des réseaux de renseignements à travers
l'Europe de l'Ouest, y compris en Allemagne, en France, en Espagne, au
Portugal, en Hollande, au Luxembourg, en Belgique, au Danemark, en
Norvège, en Italie, en Grèce et en Turquie, ont nécessité une
planification stratégique issue de Grande Bretagne et des USA. Les
armées de "l'arrière" étaient coordonnées à un niveau international
par le prétendu Comité Clandestin Allié (ACC) et le Comité
d'Organisation Clandestine (CPC) affilié au QG suprême des forces de
l'OTAN en Europe (SHAPE).
Elles utilisaient des noms de couverture tels que "Absalon" au
Danemark, "P26" en Suisse, "ROC" en Norvège et "SDRA8" en Belgique. II
est intéressant de noter que de grandes différences existaient d'un
pays à un autre. Dans certains, les armées secrètes se sont changées
en creuset du terrorisme, tandis que dans d'autres, elles gardèrent un
simple rôle de prévention. En Turquie, la "Contre-Guérilla" est
impliquée dans le terrorisme local et les opérations de torture menées
contre les Kurdes, et en Grèce, le "LOK" a participé au "coup d'état
des colonels" de 1967 pour empêcher l'arrivée au pouvoir d 'un
gouvernement socialiste. En Espagne : armée secrète était utilisée
pour soutenir la dictature fasciste de Franco, et en Allemagne les
terroristes de droite ont utilisé les explosifs de l'armée secrète
pour l'attentat terroriste de Munich en 1980.

Dans d'autres pays, comme le Danemark, la Norvège et le Luxembourg.
les soldats secrets furent entraînés pour une éventuelle occupation de
leur pays natal et n'ont jamais pris part a aucun acte de terrorisme
ou de manipulation. Dans le contexte actuel de la prétendue guerre
contre le terrorisme. les données sur la Gladio soutiennent l'idée que
les gouvernements occidentaux ont sacrifié les vies d'innocents
citoyens et couvert des actes de terrorisme pour manipuler le peuple.
Les allégations selon lesquelles l'OTAN, le Pentagone, la NIG, la CIA
et les services de renseignements Européennes ont entretenu des liens
avec le terrorisme, les coups d'Etat et la torture en Europe sont
évidemment de nature extrêmement délicate et leur vérification
nécessitera de futures enquêtes.

(Source : International Relations and Security Network ISN Security
watch, ETH Zurich. Suisse I S décembre 2004, NEXUS n°38 mai-juin 2005)

http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/details.cfm?ID=10373

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