The invasion of Iraq “substantially” increased the terror threat to Britain and turned British Muslims against their own country, says the former head of the MI5 spy agency. Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, controller of the domestic intelligence agency between 2002 and 2007, said yesterday that her agency “didn’t anticipate the degree to which British citizens would…
A growing number of young British Muslims say they have been tortured overseas with the apparent complicity of MI5 or MI6 officers. Not all are still considered terrorism suspects — many were released without charge — but the intelligence and security committee has never sought to interview any of them, or their lawyers.
This week’s appeal court ruling disclosed CIA-based intelligence showing that MI5 knew that British resident Binyam Mohamed had been subjected to treatment “at the very least cruel, inhuman, and degrading”. Mohamed is a former Guantánamo detainee who claims to have been tortured by US authorities with the knowledge or even support of MI5. The appeal…
MI5 failed to alert US intelligence about the extremist links of the Detroit plane bomber because of concerns about breaching his human rights and privacy. The spy agency withheld its files on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from Washington until after the near-catastrophic Christmas Day attack because of guidance from its legal department. Asked why the information…
Five Muslim community workers have accused MI5 of waging a campaign of blackmail and harassment in an attempt to recruit them as informants. The men claim they were given a choice of working for the Security Service or face detention and harassment in the UK and overseas. None of the six men, who work with…
