A recent speech by the former head of Mi6, the British foreign intelligence organisation, Mr. Richard Moore boasting about his clandestine meetings with Syria’s new ruler, the former internationally wanted al-Qaeda terrorist Ahmed al-Jolani before he attained power reveals a certain dimension of Britain’s relationship with a supposed enemy. The meetings were held during the time when Jolani still had an international $10 million bounty for his arrest. Mr. Moore informed a gathered audience in Istanbul that British intelligence had established contact with Jolani two years before his repackaged al-Qaeda organisation, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), swept into the Syrian capital, Damascus, in early December 2024.

According to the former British ambassador, Craig Murray, British intelligence had provided HTS with “intelligence support, training and weapons, based at secret UK bases in the [Lebanese] Bekka valley, including inside the Rayak airbase” during the CIA led regime change operation in Syria. So instead of claiming the $10 million for cash strapped Britain, Mr. Moore’s organisation was offering military advice. This is not the first time British intelligence, whether domestic or international, has been found to be working with al-Qaeda related characters while simultaneously informing the public that al-Qaeda and associated groups are a proscribed organisation because of its terrorism. In this essay, I outline further episodes where British intelligence are shown or seem to be in a covert dalliance with characters it is supposedly protecting the British people from which in turn portends a conundrum.

The Jordanian, Omar Mahmoud Uthman aka Abu Qatada, born in Bethlehem, had earned his jihadi credentials in Afghanistan in the 1980s but on his return to Jordan he found himself brutally out of favour. He was accused of involvement in terrorist activity which in turn compelled him to find asylum in London in 1993….To continue reading the article click here.