MI6 'worked with Gaddfi regime'
Evidence emerged today of close cooperation between British intelligence and the former Gaddafi regime.
Papers discovered in Tripoli apparently show that MI6 gave Muammar Gaddafi’s security service information on Libyan dissidents living in the UK.
They also contain communications between British and Libyan security ahead of then prime minister Tony Blair’s desert tent meeting with Gaddafi in 2004. Britain is said to have helped the Libyan dictator with his speech-writing.
The documents, discovered in the Tripoli offices of former head of Libyan intelligence Musa Kusa, also show how the CIA worked with the Gaddafi regime on the rendition of terrorist suspects.
Foreign Secretary William Hague said he could not comment on security matters.
But he said: “On the subject of these apparent disclosures, first of all they relate to a period under the previous government so I have no knowledge of those, of what was happening behind the scenes at that time.”
The Ministry of Defence disclosed today that British forces have so far hit more than 900 targets in the campaign to protect Libyan civilians from the Gaddafi regime.
The latest strikes came during armed reconnaissance patrols yesterday against buildings in Bani Walid which had been used by Gaddafi’s forces as a military vehicle depot.
At least 910 targets, including secret police headquarters and command bunkers, have been damaged or destroyed since operations began in March, the MoD said.
MoD spokesman Major General Nick Pope said the RAF had been patrolling areas where civilians remained “subject to the oppression of Colonel Gaddafi’s remaining troops”.
