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Fusing together entries on Fleming’s famous 00-agent and detailed information on cases of espionage, real-life spies, MI5, SIS, CIA, KGB, and others, Historical Dictionary of Ian Fleming’s James Bond asks the question: What proportion of Fleming’s output is authentic, and what comes directly from the his imagination?

Deep-cover MI6 agents who have described the workings of the once-secret underground uranium enrichment plant near the Iranian city of Qom now have discovered a staggering five more similar operations, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin. They, like the Qom facility, are buried deep inside the mountains of north Iran and are guarded by divisions of Revolutionary Guards. The details were sent this weekend to some G20 leaders who met in Pittsburgh when the Qom facility was revealed to the world. The MI6 agents have established that, like Qom, the new plants are staffed by nuclear scientists...

LONDON (AFP) – The head of Britain's foreign intelligence service said Monday his agents were not involved in torture, amid allegations of British links to mistreatment of terror suspects held overseas. The head of MI6, John Scarlett, said his officers were committed to human rights and democracy as they protected Britain against terrorism threats. "Our officers are as committed to the values and the human rights values of liberal democracy as anybody else," Sir John told BBC's Radio 4 in comments posted on its website Monday. "They also have the responsibility of protecting the country against terrorism and these issues...

LONDON: He’s the spy who came in from the beach. Holiday snapshots and family details about the newly appointed head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency have been removed from a social networking page after a newspaper told the government about them. Pictures from the social networking website published in the Mail newspaper show John Sawers posing with his children, wearing a Santa hat and playing Frisbee on a beach. The paper said the information was posted by Sawers’ wife on the site. It included vacation photos, details about the couple’s three children and the location of their London home. Shelley...

LONDON - Britain's MI6 intelligence service is investigating how a camera holding sensitive information about al-Qaida suspects came to be lost by one of its agents and then sold on eBay, police said on Tuesday.

LONDON — A second-hand camera sold on eBay by a top MI6 agent held secret records used in the fight against Al Qaeda terrorists. Names, snaps, fingerprints and suspects’ academic records were found in the memory of the digital device. Alongside them were photos of rocket launchers and missiles which spooks believe Iran is supplying to Usama Bin Laden’s henchmen in Iraq. And a hand-drawn graphic revealed links between active Al Qaeda cells — with terrorists’ names and occupations. Meanwhile a document marked "top secret" detailed the encrypted computer system used by real-life James Bonds working away from MI6’s London...

British spying chief Alex Allan, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, has regained consciousness having been in a coma for 10 days. Mr Allan's committee collates information from MI5, MI6 and GCHQ and briefs the prime minister, ministers and officials on intelligence assessments on issues such as security, defence and foreign affairs.

The head of the Government's top spy committee is in a coma in hospital after falling mysteriously ill, it emerged today. Alex Allan, who chairs the Joint Intelligence Committee, was found collapsed at home on Monday and his condition is said to be critical. Scotland Yard denied speculation that he may have been the victim of an assassination attempt aimed at the heart of Britain's intelligence community. -snip- Mr Allan, who is responsible for assessing material produced by the UK's three main spy agencies, is one of Whitehall's most senior civil servants. As a close adviser of the Prime Minister...

MI6 Chief Visits Mossad for Talks on Iran's Nuclear Threat May 04, 2008 The Times Uzi Mahnaimi The head of MI6, Sir John Scarlett, is to visit Israel later this month as Britain forges closer links with Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service. Iran’s nuclear programme is expected to be high on the agenda in an intelligence-sharing process described by Israeli officials as a “strategic dialogue”. It is building on long-standing cooperation between MI6 and Mossad, both of which have extensive spy networks in the Middle East. Scarlett, 59, is likley to be briefed by Meir Dagan, 63, the head of...

AN ALLEGED attempt to kill a former Russian spy who defected to Britain was being investigated by police last night. Oleg Gordievsky was admitted to a hospital in Guildford after falling ill in November last year. And yesterday he claimed he had been poisoned with the highly toxic metal thallium in a botched assassination attempt. Gordievsky, a KGB double agent who spied on Russia for British intelligence during the 1980s, claims he was targeted by a Russian assassin who visited him at his safe house in Surrey. The 69-year-old was unconscious for 34 hours after falling ill last year and...

MI6 plotted to murder Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in a staged car accident in a tunnel five years before Diana, Princess of Wales died in a similar crash, a renegade former spy has told the inquest into her death. Richard Tomlinson, who worked for MI6 in the early 1990s, told the High Court he had seen a two page document, drawn up in 1992, detailing three plans to kill Mr Milosevic. Diana inquest: MI6 plotted tunnel murder One plan was to use a strobe light to blind Mr Milosevic’s chauffeur The first involved using a Serb opposition paramilitary group, which...

MI6 plotted to murder Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic in a staged car accident in a tunnel five years before Diana, Princess of Wales died in a similar crash, a renegade former spy has told the Inquest into her death. Richard Tomlinson, who worked for MI6 in the early 1990s, told the High Court he had seen a two page document, drawn up in 1992, detailing three plans to kill Mr Milosevic. Mr Tomlinson said the plan was shown to him by a senior MI6 officer referred to as "A" who argued that a crash in a tunnel would mean fewer...

Gordon Brown is to face pressure to return to Parliament and explain what discussions are taking place with Taliban fighters after it was disclosed that MI6 is involved in secret negotiations in Afghanistan. The Conservatives said last night that Britain should not be holding meetings with the Taliban while they were killing British troops. However, senior military figures said such discussions may be necessary. Earlier this month, the Prime Minister told MPs that we "will not enter into any negotiations with these people". However, The Daily Telegraph has disclosed that MI6 agents held a series of discussions, known as "jirgas",...

Agents from MI6 entered secret talks with Taliban leaders despite Gordon Brown's pledge that Britain would not negotiate with terrorists, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. Officers from the Secret Intelligence Service staged discussions, known as "jirgas", with senior insurgents on several occasions over the summer. An intelligence source said: "The SIS officers were understood to have sought peace directly with the Taliban with them coming across as some sort of armed militia. The British would also provide 'mentoring' for the Taliban." The disclosure comes only a fortnight after the Prime Minister told the House of Commons: "We will not...

The former KGB officer named as a suspect in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London said Wednesday the British government's case against him had collapsed and called the slain man a "traitor." In an interview with The Associated Press, Andrei Lugovoi, who is running for parliament in the Dec. 2 elections, said he expects his accusers to use the Nov. 23 anniversary of Litvinenko's agonizing death from radiation poisoning to renew calls for his extradition. But the 43-year-old multimillionaire said the Russian constitution prevents him being handed over, so he is not concerned about what British officials and Litvinenko's...

The most senior British intelligence official, appointed yesterday to oversee MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, has a website revealing his home address, phone numbers and private photographs of himself, family and friends. Alex Allan, 56, is the new head of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) with access to sensitive documents and information regarding anti-terrorist operations. But the details on his website, described by a security official as "a serious breach", reveal him as a devoted fan of the American rock band Grateful Dead and a keen cyclist who once windsurfed to work in Westminster during a train strike. The security breach,...

THE Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, who died after being poisoned, was an MI6 agent, it has been claimed. His death in November led to relations between London and Moscow plunging to their lowest since the Cold War. If the allegations are true, it will heighten pressure on Whitehall to have the main murder suspect extradited from Russia to stand trial in England. Litvinenko made a deathbed claim that he had been killed on the orders of Russian president Vladimir Putin, with whom he had several run-ins. The dissident's supporters allege the murder was ordered to send a 'deliberate message' to...

Ministers insisted that British secret agents would only be allowed to pass intelligence to the CIA to help it capture Osama bin Laden if the agency promised he would not be tortured, it has emerged. MI6 believed it was close to finding the al-Qaida leader in Afghanistan in 1998, and again the next year. The plan was for MI6 to hand the CIA vital information about Bin Laden. Ministers including Robin Cook, the then foreign secretary, gave their approval on condition that the CIA gave assurances he would be treated humanely. The plot is revealed in a 75-page report by...

MOSCOW - The Russian businessman whom Britain has named as a suspect in the killing of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko claimed Thursday that he has evidence of British special services' involvement in the poisoning death. Andrei Lugovoi, himself a former KGB agent, said Litvinenko tried to recruit him to gather compromising materials about Russian President Vladimir Putin for MI6, Britain's foreign intelligence agency. He claimed that British security services were unhappy with Litvinenko for boasting of his contacts with senior MI6 officials and spilling secrets. "It's hard to get rid of the thought that Litvinenko was an agent who got...

LONDON (Reuters) - Huddled against the December chill, the wife and young son of Alexander Litvinenko led a small crowd of mourners on Thursday at a private London funeral while confusion surrounded his deathbed conversion to Islam. Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky and separatist Chechen leader Akhmed Zakayev, two of the Kremlin's most outspoken exiled critics, were among the six pallbearers who lowered Litvinenko into his grave at Highgate cemetery in north London. He was laid to rest two weeks after dying from radiation poisoning in a case that has revived echoes of the Cold War and raised tensions between London...

British Muslims volunteering to fight against coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are being sent back to Britain to become al-Qaeda "sleeper" agents, The Sunday Telegraph has learned. MI5 agents believe that young Asian men, who have been trained to take part in the so-called "global jihad" in al-Qaeda camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, are now regarded as too valuable an asset to be used fighting British and American troops. MI5 and MI6 are working on the assumption that they are being ordered to return to their communities in Britain with instructions to establish secret, autonomous cells and to conduct...

The government of Iraq is secretly holding a Baathist cabal of military officers it claims attempted a coup against Prime Minister al-Maliki. The plotters were rounded up July 5 with the help of American military authorities after the Iraqi government's security warning center sent word to Mr. Maliki, who was in Kuwait on his first official visit as head of state, two highly placed Iraqi sources said. The prime minister quickly canceled a scheduled trip to Amman, Jordan, and returned to Baghdad to attend to the matter. At the time, Mr. Maliki's staff told reporters that the prime minister was...

BRITISH spies played a pivotal role in helping to nail al Zarqawi, The Sun can reveal.MI6 officers helped identify the whereabouts of the al- Qaeda general and his henchmen before the US air strike. And the SAS were involved in a series of “smash and grab” raids to seize his aides nearby. Senior sources confirmed last night that MI6 had worked for weeks with US and Jordanian counterparts. They helped pinpoint al Zarqawi and his team in their safe houses — leading directly to the bombing mission. A source said: “The intelligence services and special forces have been working with...

Image of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in death released by U.S. military WASHINGTON – When Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida leader in Iraq, was killed today by 500-pound bombs dropped by two F-16 fighter jets on a house north of Baghdad, it was the result of intelligence information gathered, in part, by an elite task force of international special operations forces formed just a month ago with the express purpose of taking him out. The "A-Team" created for the mission drew on the skills and expertise of U.S. Army Green Berets, "Tier 1" of Britain's Special Air Service and the...

Britain's international intelligence service is advertising for new real life James Bonds.MI6 chiefs are placing ads in The Times newspaper and The Economist magazine this week. The ads feature photos of places in the world where MI6 operate from their London HQ by the Thames to Arabian deserts and central American jungles. One of them reads: "We operate around the world to make this country safer and more prosperous." A Government source said: "We hope people who might have thought MI6 was not for them may consider us as an employer." As well as agents, MI6 is looking for administrators,...

NIGERGATE: BUSH TOLD THE TRUTH ……. BUT DID THE LIBERAL MSM ? Another interesting piece today from the Italian newspaper Il Foglio. Following-up on yesterday’s excellent article Il Foglio takes another look at how lies were, and still are, propagated through the anti-3B liberal media. President George W. Bush was correct in stating during his State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .” The statement was true, indeed to quote the British Government’s Butler Report “It is accepted by all parties...

Investigations of alleged British espionage activities in Russia are continuing. The FSB has been tracking the past movements of the four diplomats it has accused of spying. Visits made last year by one named diplomat to the cities of Kirov and Saratov have sparked an FSB probe of any organisations the individual concerned may have met, as well as anyone connected with the trip. So far, the most exciting 'revelation' seems to have been that some aid money was officially handed over to the local police academy in Kirov. While no new scandals have yet been uncovered, JID's sources in...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A fake stone alleged to have been used by British spies to communicate with Moscow agents was a "wonder" of technology that cost tens of millions of pounds (dollars), Russia's FSB security service said on Thursday. FSB spokesman Sergei Ignatchenko praised the high-tech spy stone, which would look at home in a James Bond film, and listed its extraordinary qualities. The stone was revealed by the FSB on Sunday in a television programme that apparently showed four British spies using it as a dead letter drop. "This is like space technology in its qualities. You could throw...

Tony Blair has laughed off the latest spy row with Russia, telling journalists with a smile: "I think the less said about that, the better." For the Prime Minister the revelations of British diplomats using electronic devices hidden in rocks may seem like another escapade in the spy games played for centuries by Britain and Russia. But in Moscow the affair is more ominous - it marks the latest attempt by the Kremlin to throttle the human rights and pro-democracy groups. Moscow is appalled by the "colour revolutions" that have removed its clients in the former Soviet Union - such...

"..caught red-handed financing a number of nongovernmental organizations.." "..the Russian special services offered us material that we evaluated as unambiguously sensational and exclusive. Do you think that, if the BBC received footage on which it was convincingly proved that four of our agents were working in London, that they wouldn't have aired it? " "The main crime of the British intelligence agents seems to be that their connections to Russian human rights organizations." http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?idr=527&id=643044 http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.html?docId=643044

Russian state television has broadcast video footage of what it claims are British diplomats spying in Moscow. In the programme, people claiming to be Russian agents say British spies retrieved data from a transmitter in a fake rock planted on a Moscow street. The intelligence officers also said a UK diplomat made regular payments to Russian non-governmental organisations. The UK Foreign Office said it was "concerned and surprised" and denied any improper conduct with Russian NGOs. The programme said four officials from the UK embassy and one Russian citizen, allegedly recruited by the British secret service, downloaded classified data from...

LONDON: The French government tried to blame the 1985 sinking of Greenpeace ship the Rainbow Warrior on British spy agency MI6, according to official documents released under freedom of information. The campaign of misinformation and smears - suggesting MI6 bombed the ship in New Zealand and framed French secret agents, or that MI6 knew in advance of the French mission - infuriated Margaret Thatcher's government.

A British overseas-intelligence service has launched a new Web site to enlist recruits--so would-be 007s can now sign up online. The MI6 Web site contains the history of the organization, officially known as the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), as well as frequently asked questions and information on how to become an officer. "We never talk about the size of the service, because that's giving the opposition some advantage, but we are actively recruiting," an MI6 representative said. In the first hour after its launch on Thursday, the Web site received 1,700 visitors. The site also experienced some slow loading due...

The Guardian - UK 10-2-5 An astonishing claim that M16 recruited Muslim extremists in Britain for terror training abroad has been made by Oldham MP and former cabinet minister Michael Meacher. Mr Meacher also suggest that a British Muslim held under sentenced of death in Pakistan for beheading a US journalist is being kept alive because he was a British double agent. The Oldham West and Royton MP makes these sensational claims in an article for Asian News' sister paper, The Guardian. The former Environment Secretary claims that Britain's 'overseas' security organisation, M16, set about recruiting UK Muslims directing them...

Council seeks intelligence service modeled after British spy agency MI6 09/14/2005 The Asahi Shimbun Japan needs a more effective intelligence agency modeled after Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) that would engage in activities beyond the diplomatic norm, a report by an advisory council said. The report said the entity would be under the control of the foreign minister and would specialize in collecting information on international affairs. The council is an advisory panel to Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura. Currently, the Foreign Ministry's Intelligence and Analysis Service is in charge of collecting and analyzing information on international affairs, as well as...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/ The Time in UK MI6 warned US of Al-Qaeda attacks Nicholas Rufford MI6 warned the American intelligence services about a plot to hijack aircraft and crash them into buildings two years before the September 11 attacks

August 10, 2005: Figuring out who the best intelligence service is can be quite difficult. The very nature of intelligence often means that the successes will not be public knowledge for years (for instance, World War II decryption efforts – the key to the United States winning the battle of Midway in 1942 – were not declassified until the 1970s), whereas failures or controversial operations will be taken to the press. It’s a thankless situation. Still, from what little has emerged, one can have an idea of some of the better intelligence services out there, with the understanding that this...

MI6 and the Croatian general       By Nick Thorpe   BBC News, Dubrovnik   European intelligence services have joined forces in the search for Croatian General Ante Gotovina, indicted by the war crimes tribunal in The Hague for alleged war crimes against Serbia in 1995. But as Nick Thorpe finds out, tracking him down is proving a difficult task. Croatian General Ante Gotovina was indicted for war crimes in 2001 Franjo Turek suggests we meet in the Dubrovnik cafe in central Zagreb. He is sitting in the corner by the window when I arrive, looking younger, but...

Spent the weekend watching back to back DVDs of John Le Carre's "Tinker,Tailor,Soldier,Spy" & "Smiley's People", both starring the Great Sir Alec Guinness. I had not seen either in quite awhile and thought I would rent both to see again. What a tour de force for Guinness playing British Master Spy George Smiley. This really is what good drama is and I was on the edge of my seat watching both of these as Smiley is tracking his Arch Nemesis Karla of Moscow Center. Reminded me growing up of all the great spy films there was durng the Cold War....

A High-Risk Nuclear Stakeout The U.S. took too long to act, some experts say, letting a Pakistani scientist sell illicit technology well after it knew of his operation. By Douglas Frantz, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON — Nuclear warhead plans that Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan sold to Libya were more complete and detailed than previously disclosed, raising new concerns about the cost of Washington's watch-and-wait policy before Khan and his global black market were shut down last year. Two Western nuclear weapons specialists who have examined the top-secret designs say the hundreds of pages of engineering drawings and handwritten notes...

Moviegoers can thank Austin Powers for killing off the martini-quaffing sexoholic, writes Tanya Gold. Last week James Bond was fired. His nuclear pencil gathers dust beneath Whitehall. There is no news of 007 number six and the production of Bond film 21, due this November, has stalled. There is trouble at MI6, minister: the martini-quaffing sexoholic is suffering an existential crisis and it can't be cured by an intelligent Rolex or a gondola that can drive on land. Eon, which produces Bond, and MGM, which finances his capers, are bickering. It is rumoured MGM wants an action-movie franchise - Spiderman...

A RUSSIAN double agent who worked for MI6 for ten years before having to defect for his own safety is at the centre of a new mystery over who betrayed him to the KGB. Oleg Gordievsky, who has lived in Britain since his escape from Moscow in the boot of a car in 1985, is now claimed to have been betrayed by a British journalist working for a magazine in Washington. Mr Gordievsky, in an interview with The Times, discounted the latest theory, although he admitted that he still did not know who tipped off the KGB that he was...

LONDON, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- MI6 chief John Scarlett unveiled the biggest shake-up of the British intelligence service in 20 years in the wake of its performance before the Iraq war. The changes are meant to prevent a repeat of the government's withdrawal of the report on Iraq used to justify the 2003 invasion. The Times of London said Sunday the shake-up is a "tacit admission" the intelligence agency's credibility had been damaged. Scarlett plans to reinstate procedures used in the cold war when senior intelligence officers vetted information before it was passed on.

EGYPT has been training British MI5 and MI6 agents in how to combat Islamic terrorists, underlining Cairo’s growing importance to the war against terror and the Middle East peace process. A senior Middle Eastern military intelligence official revealed last week that British officers had undergone the training as part of a co-operation programme with Egypt that began after the September 11 attacks on America in 2001 and continued until last year. Details have not been revealed, but it is believed to have included instruction in specialised interrogation techniques and in the terminology used by terrorists, which will enable agents to...

DISGUISED in an Arab robe and headdress, the British hostage Ken Bigley escaped from his captors in Iraq by car the day before they beheaded him, it was claimed last night. A Saudi described as a spokesman for the group that kidnapped Bigley said two of his captors had accepted a large sum of money to help him flee after three weeks of captivity. The money was provided by a Syrian and an Iraqi who had penetrated the group on behalf of British intelligence, the spokesman claimed. Bigley was bundled into the car last Wednesday and driven towards the safety...

British spies across the Balkans are being moved after they were publicly identified in a number of media reports planted by disgruntled local intelligence services. The Secret Intelligence Service, better known as MI6, has been forced to withdraw its chief officer in the Serb capital, Belgrade, and another spy in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, is about to leave. A third man, who has also been branded a British spy in the Balkans, this week left the office of the High Representative in Bosnia, Lord Ashdown, to take up a post elsewhere. A further two British intelligence officers working in the...

Agent Behind Fake Uranium Documents Worked for France By Bruce Johnston The Telegraph (UK) September 19, 2004 The Italian businessman at the centre of a furious row between France and Italy over whose intelligence service was to blame for bogus documents suggesting Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy material for nuclear bombs has admitted that he was in the pay of France. The man, identified by an Italian news agency as Rocco Martino, was the subject of a Telegraph article earlier this month in which he was referred to by his intelligence codename, "Giacomo". His admission to investigating magistrates in...

Nato has exposed the identities of four MI6 intelligence officers working in the Balkans, sparking intense anger from Britain. The four were named on the alliance's website in a summary of news, translated into English, from the former Yugoslavia. The site identified the men eight weeks ago, on July 9, and their names remained there until yesterday, when The Telegraph alerted Nato to its blunder. Within hours of being told of the error, embarrassed officials removed the web page yesterday afternoon. Their prompt action did not appease senior intelligence officials in London, who last night expressed fury at Nato's mistake...

MI6 involved in Balkan spy plot, says Croatian paper Ian Traynor in Zagreb Friday August 27, 2004 The Guardian British intelligence's extensive operations in the Balkans were thrown into disarray yesterday after a Croatian newspaper revealed the identities of several alleged British spies and claimed that the Croatian government had given MI6 agents carte blanche to wiretap and conduct undercover operations against Croatian citizens. The weekly news magazine, Nacional, published the names of four British diplomats it described as important spies. Nacional's claim followed the recent unmasking by a Belgrade tabloid of the chief MI6 officer in Serbia, Anthony Monckton,...

Tony Blair's war case has suffered a fresh blow after MI6 took the rare step of withdrawing intelligence about Iraq's WMD, the BBC has learned. This week sees the publication of the Butler report into how intelligence on Iraq was handled. That follows the premier's admission that Iraq's WMD may never be found. The Archbishop of Canterbury said Mr Blair, a practising Christian, would have to account for his decision over the Iraq war at "the judgement seat". John Ware, from the BBC's Panorama programme, was told that key intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction used to back...