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    MI5 FLIES A FALSE FLAG.

    MI5 faked a Loyalist arms importation to manipulate Dublin in the run-up to an IRA ceasefire. A few months later the cream of NI Intelligence were dead in the Chinook helicopter crash. Shortly afterward, the ceasefire was called. The Chinook crash files are embargoed until 2094. By Deirdre Younge. Introduction 1994 was the year of living dangerously for Northern Ireland’s spymasters. The prospect of an imminent IRA ceasefire had the intelligence community in a spin. M15 was gaining the upper hand in the battle with the RUC Special Branch for the control and flow of intelligence. Some believed the watchers were being watched. It was the year M15 attempted to pull a foolhardy false flag operation. Initially lauded as a massive coup it was quickly buried under D notices when sceptical journalists blew a hole in the story. Fronted by an Ulster Resistance leader with links to the UVF, but by now suspected by other ‘Resistance’ members of being an agent, M15 arranged a massive arms importation from Poland, aided by some members of Polish intelligence.  The shipment, seized by customs at Teesport docks in a prearranged operation, was hailed as a massive success for the security services.  The aim of the phony operation was to put pressure on the Irish Government and to ‘even up’ the threat levels in negotiations.  June 2, 1994 – The crash of a Chinook helicopter carrying 24 of  the elite of the intelligence community in Northern Ireland: senior RUC officers like Brian Fitzsimons Assistant Chief Constable and Head of Special Branch; Army Intelligence Head and founder of FRU,Lt Colonel Victor Williams; Director and Coordinator of Intelligence, M15’s John Deverall; Michael Maltby, an M15 specialist in money laundering who had spent a career investigating IRA finances; Anne James, M15, among those who died on the side of a mountain on the Mull of Kintyre when the RAF Chinook helicopter, piloted by  special forces pilots crashed in fog. The other passengers, RUC officers Detective Superintendent Ian Phoenix, Detective Chief Superintendent Des Conroy were regarded as having a mastery of the intelligence files, a vital asset in a largely non computerised system. The helicopter was heading, not towards the stated destination of Fort George, Inverness but, according to high level security sources, to Machrihanish airbase minutes away from the crash site, on the other side of the Mull of Kintyre. The purpose of the carefully arranged flight was a meeting with American Intelligence counterparts in the CIA and FBI  for an annual ‘summit’.   Machrihanish, then a top secret base which hosted high level meetings, was also used by the American Navy as a base, a training centre for Navy Seals, and for top secret flights. Just before the crash the American intelligence contingent had landed at Machrihanish in a private jet with American markings which was literally flying under the radar. After the crash  documents were strewn around the impact area which was protected by a seven mile cordon. Files relating to the Chinook are embargoed until 2094 apart from a small number of  files containing a few pages released in 2019. Immediately after the disaster on the Mull the spinning began about the destination and the purpose of the meeting. The truth got lost in the fog of disinformation. Newspapers were briefed by the RUC that the intelligence specialists were meeting to discuss a threatened bombing campaign against Dublin, the evidence of which was the importation of weapons and explosives from Poland which had been seized by customs at Teesport seven months earlier in a seeming ‘coup’ for M15. The false flag operation was being linked to the dead officers. The Sunday World covered the Chinook helicopter crash extensively three days later and detailed the RUC brief about Teesport However, the importation had been arranged by MI5 to influence the Dublin government. [Author’s note: for the avoidance of confusion: MI5 (which is attached to the Home Office) often works in co-operation with MI6 (which is attached to the Foreign Office). Both organisations appear in this story, although the primary moving party here was MI5.) Stella Rimmington, the Director-General of MI5 at the time of MI5’s false flag operation involving commercial bomb materials imported from Poland. TEESPORT RENDEZVOUS In early November 1993 a senior RUC officer was surveying the docking area of a container ship in Teesport, Cleveland, north-east England. ‘The Inowroclaw’ was sailing from Gdynia in Poland to Teesport and from there to its declared final destination of Belfast Port and into the hands of the UVF. It was jammed with armaments. Later that month the RUC officer returned with a battalion of UK Customs officers to Teesport docks to ‘intercept’ the shipment before it reached its declared destination. The RUC officer was working with MI5. He had been in Teesport  weeks in advance  to ensure that nothing could go wrong. This time the weapons would not be distributed as had happened six years previously. If the arms were added to the UVF arsenal it would match anything imported from Libya by the IRA. The Inowroclaw This is not the plot of a Northern Ireland  ‘noir’ novel, but a ‘false flag’ operation at the tail end of the undercover war in Northern Ireland. By the time it sailed from the Baltic Port, the container-load of weapons included 300 assault rifles, grenades, pistols and detonators as well as two tonnes of plastic explosives. The importation, Loyalist sources in mid-Ulster told Village, was instigated by a man linked to Ulster Resistance, an Ulster loyalist paramilitary movement established in opposition to the Anglo-Irish Agreement,  in Armagh. He was also closely aligned to some members of the  UVF  –  and the Security Services. He had apparently convinced a Loyalist faction that he could source weapons from contacts in the Polish arms industry which, perennially economically challenged, was anxious to make deals to keep factories in business. Ironically, suspicions about this man among local Ulster Resistance activists – the ‘small men’ in Armagh – had  led to the RUC’s disastrous loss of control

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    Drew Harris Drawn in.

    As allegations continue to be made about the involvement of Robert Nairac in the Miami Showband massacre, how compromised is Garda Commissioner Harris who was PSNI liaison with Britain’s intelligence services? By Deirdre Younge. In the High Court in Belfast the British Government’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) and British Army are applying to have cases relating to the Dublin and Monaghan bombing atrocity of 1974 dismissed, alleging they are out of time. The bombings were carried out by the Glennane gang also known as the Portadown UVF who were also at the heart of an organisation that came into existence in the 1980s called Ulster Resistance. A recent BBC ‘Spotlight’ programme dealing with Ulster Resistance confirmed extensive collusion across the loyalist spectrum from DUP to UVF, UDA, UFF to MI5. Members of Ulster Resistance (UR) became aware that some of its members were MI5 agents. The key MI5 agent inside UR was carved out of the distribution of the weapons it had procured in late 1987 by those who were not under the control of the intelligence services. At the same time, information was leaked from RUC and the UDR which provided them with details of ‘suspected republicans’. The BBC NI Spotlight programme showed images of RUC intelligence that ended up in the  hands of the UFF/UDA. It  was used to target suspected republicans, including Loughlin Maginn, shot in Rathfriland in August 1989. His death, following that of solicitor Pat Finucane in February 1989, sparked the decades-long investigations by Sir John Stevens into collusion by the Security forces. Stevens was not shown evidence of RUC collusion. (BBC Spotlight on the Troubles, October 2019.) The fact that the UDA were receiving large volumes of  intelligence material from RUC sources was known to the agent Brian Nelson,  his Army Intelligence handlers and M15. That intelligence also, no doubt, informs the de Silva Report into Pat Finucane’s murder. De Silva was given access to British Army and MI5 intelligence that RUC officers at every level were leaking information to Loyalists. That intelligence is also integrated into the Ombudsman’s report on the Loughinisland murders as it relates to RUC ‘tip-offs’ about surveillance operations carried out in an attempt to seize UR weapons in Armagh in 1987 and 1988.  Awareness among members of UR that some of its members were M15 agents led to a disastrous loss of control by the Security Services and Special Branch  – and multiple murders Part 1: Commissioner Harris Drew Harris, the Garda Commissioner, didn’t leave the ‘Troubles’ of Northern Ireland behind him on entering Garda HQ. Drew Harris As former Assistant and Deputy Chief Constable of the PSNI and its former interface with the Security Services (UK), Harris has been accused of  fighting attempts to get information about the perpetrators of atrocities like the Miami Showband murders and of blocking access to  files about the many murders carried out by the Mid-Ulster, UVF ‘Brigadier’ Robin  Jackson. In 2011 the Historical Inquiries Team found Jackson had been connected to a weapon used in the Miami Showband murders by fingerprint evidence. In the High Court in Belfast in 2017 Judge Seamus Treacy ruled that there should be an overarching investigation into State collusion with the ‘Glenanne Gang’ and asked the PSNI to respond. In the Court of Appeal in Belfast the Lord Chief Justice ruled in July 9 [2019] against an appeal and said there must be an independent investigation carried out by the PSNI. Chief Superintendent Jon Boutcher has started an investigation into the Glennane series of killings as part of Operation Kenova. In an extraordinary development, Eugene Reavey whose three brothers were murdered in Whitecross in Co Armagh in 1976, has been told by the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland that a file has been sent to the Public Prosecution Service in the case. It is believed to recommend prosecution of a former RUC man, who was a member as ‘The Glennane Gang’. With the signing into law in Ireland of the Criminal Justice (International Cooperation)  Act  2019, the Garda can now give evidence and share intelligence with Coroners’ Courts in Northern Ireland. In an interesting twist of circumstances, Commissioner Harris  now has charge of the legacy files of secret Garda intelligence. Clearly how ambitious he’d want to be in sharing this information with authorities in the North is uncertain. As Assistant Chief Constable of the PSNI Drew Harris was the liaison between the Security Services (UK) , the PSNI and the Smithwick Tribunal from 2006 to 2014. (See also https://villagemagazine.ie/how-smithwick-got-diverted/ )The Tribunal was inquiring into alleged Garda collusion in the murders of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan. (See also https://villagemagazine.ie/investigation-killusion/http://Killusion ) He confirmed that he had spoken to the Security Service before he gave evidence to the Tribunal in October 2012. Drew confirms his consultation with the ‘British Security Service’ In 1989 MI5 reported the overall picture seems to be one of RUC collusion and links with the Loyalists which is similar in scale to that of the UDR, but the latter is much more likely to become involved in very serious crimes Dealing with the past is also causing problems for some retired RUC men – members of the Northern Ireland Retired Police Officers’ Association (NIRPOA). They now apparently  believe a policy of  non-co-operation with bodies like the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland  has been counterproductive. The Miami Showband Part 2: Ombudsman confirms collusion NIPROA took a Judicial Review against the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland and his 2016 report on the 1994 Heights Bar murders in Loughinisland. Former Head of Special Branch and Assistant Chief Constable Ray White often acts as its spokesman. In 1989 MI5 reported the overall picture seems to be one of RUC collusion and links with the Loyalists which is similar in scale to that of the UDR, but the latter is much more likely to become involved in very serious crimes Their affidavit was submitted in the names of Ray White and retired Chief Superintendent Thomas Hawthorne, the former Sub Divisional Commander in Co Down and chief investigator of the Loughinisland

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