Sharing ‘intel’ with our allies is crucial
IN THE aftermath of the Manchester bombing British counter-intelligence shared with their American opposite numbers some very early information stemming from their own detective work. The passing over of this “intel” was on a highly confidential basis. But someone across the pond foolishly leaked it to the US media, which of course printed it.
This information included the identity of the terrorist as well as pictures of the shrapnel, the detonator and some labels retrieved from his clothing and backpack. This provoked perfectly understandable outrage over here. Since then some voices have suggested we cease such sharing of information. That also is extremely foolish advice.
Most of us do not know, or need to know, the full measure of the information-share that goes on between our two countries but it is staggering in its volume and importance in keeping us safe – or at any rate a lot safer than we would be without it.
Other countries salivate at the closeness of this relationship and with good cause. They do indeed receive help from the Anglo-American intel alliance but it is very edited. The reason? Total disclosure has a price: total trust. That is what some idiot in Washington has broken. So why would we be crazy to end co-operation?
It is a ballpark figure but pretty accurate. About 90 per cent of incoming “gen” from the bad guys of the world is obtained electronically. When the terrorists chatter to each other (and they do) we are listening. When they email we are intercepting. When they telephone, we are eavesdropping. When their SUVs motor along a sandy track in the Middle East one of our drones is watching, waiting to launch its missiles. Those wipeouts in the desert, those arrests in the backstreets – they all have one link. That link is “tip-off ”.
The fight-back against the cruelty and insanity of Islamic State is immensely widespread, intense, constant, complicated and technical. So… a second ballpark figure. I suspect that 90 per cent of that 90 per cent comes from the Americans. They have the spy satellites in space, the thousands of drones, the landscapes of computers listening, decoding, tracking, analysing, comparing name with name, voice with voice, accent with accent, location with suspected location and finally pinpoint identification.
Occasionally an animal in human form slips through the net. An offduty bandsman is hacked to death, an unprotected constable in a Westminster courtyard, a score of youngsters filing out of a Manchester concert. And there will be others yet to come. But the perpetrators are the dross of IS, the dope-smoking failures taking out their bitterness by calling it piety and ending their own useless lives.
BUT these are not the brains of IS. Behind them are the enablers, the recruiters, the fundraisers, the bomb-makers, the networkers, the technicians, the propagandists and finally the commanders. We see nothing, hear very little. A brief paragraph here and there. A name that means nothing. Terminated in a shack in Syria. Another tip-off, another drone, another missile. The good news as we contemplate the barbarism of Manchester is that they are being wiped out. Faster than they can be replaced? It looks so. IS veterans are now 22 or 23. The members who came before them are all dead and gone. But in the Middle East the slaughter goes on, not of Christians and Jews but of many, many fellow Muslims. And such is the sadistic insanity behind IS that it will go on until Islam itself rises against them and wipes them out. Inshallah.