Intelligence behind raid was wrong, officials say

[daleo]

Senior counter-terrorism officials now believe that the intelligence that led to the raid on a family house last Friday in a search for a chemical device about to be used to attack Britain was wrong, the Guardian has learned.
Counter-terrorism officials were under pressure last night after days of meticulous search of the house in east London failed to produce anything to link the two men they arrested to a chemical plot. But a senior police officer said they had been left with "no choice" but to force entry into the house because there was specific intelligence of a threat to public safety.

One official, with knowledge why police acted and what had been found from days of searching, said the intelligence had been acted on correctly, but added last night: "There is no viable device at that house. There is no device being constructed, or chemicals. There does not appear to be anything there or anywhere else."

As lawyers for the two arrested men continued to protest their innocence, it emerged that the man who had passed the specific information that led to the raid in which a man was shot last Friday was a police informant who had been providing intelligence about the activities of alleged Islamist militants for several weeks.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1791110,00.html

[AlamoDemoc]

1. KIck....

Lets shoot them and ask questions later.....


"But, but, if we don't shoot them, and they were terrorists what would the rest of the white english folks think of us? they would say, we failed"

[AlamoDemoc]

2. In England all of sudden police think they are like a texan sheriff..lol

mind you, many of these these are bunch of men at the Scotland Yard police department who normally run after a thief with their only "feeeeeeeeeeep" with their mouth, and now they think they are trained to shoot someone of suspected terrorist!!! funny all around!

[Warren Stupidity]

3. Holy crap!

I have kept this incident at arms length after the rather unpleasant experience here with the police execution of the unfortunate de Menenzes last year. However, it seems that once again the British police have screwed up very badly and have killed a person for no good reason. I find this paragraph chilling, given the way events unfolded the last time:

"He refused to end the confusion about the raid or clarify how a 23-year-old man was shot during the operation. The Independent Police Complaints Commission is likely to take months to produce a report on the shooting."

The police stormed the house in "a pre-dawn raid involving more than 250 officers, including armed teams and government scientists." Any of those 'kratos' trained 'armed teams' involved?

I don't think I want to live in the social system these asshats are building. The terrorists have won: they have destroyed our ddemocratic institutions. They have done so with the eager facilitation of our leaders.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. Idle speculation here...

(I hate replying to my own post.) It occurred to me that the other piece of this hideous incident is that it is quite likely that an informant was deliberately outed by the real bad guys. This might be a classic counter intelligence incident: feed a suspected mole some bad intel and watch what happens. Not only did an innocent man get killed but because the police and it seems MI5 didn't bother to corraborate their intelligence source, that source is most likely useless now.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Just to be clear, the shot man was not killed

He was in hospital for a few days, but is now in police custody (they're not yet publicly admitting there's nothing to the case). If they don't charge them with anything, we need a public investigation into their 'intelligence' (because that term is looking pretty ironic right now).

[Warren Stupidity]

6. Thanks for clearing that up.

The article indeed just said shot. Like I said, I have kept this at arms length so as to not jump to conclusions and now it seems I have anyhow.

[CJCRANE]

7. IMO

this was a distraction, just like Operation Swarmer - lots of headline-grabbing action with no substance behind it.

The intelligence services set up a "Curveball" type character to give the tip-off then the military/police have no choice but to take it at face value. The ordinary cops on the ground are little people just like the rest of us to be used as the PTB see fit. All the stories about Prescott's position being untenable are off the front pages for a few days and Blair has his power-base back, at least temporarily until the next distraction is needed.