theSun | TUESDAY AUGUST 11 2009
news without borders
MI6 not complicit in
torture, says chief
LONDON: The head of Britain’s
foreign intelligence service said
yesterday 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 (pix),
said his officers were
committed to human
rights and democracy
as they protected Brit-
ain against terrorism
threats.
“Our officers are as com-
mitted to the values and the
human rights values of liberal de-
mocracy as anybody else,” Scarlett
told BBC’s Radio 4 in comments
posted on its website yesterday.
“They also have the respon-
sibility of protecting the country
against terrorism and these issues
need to be debated and understood
in that context,” he added.
He said there has been “no
torture and there is no complicity
with torture”.
His comments come as Brit-
ish intelligence agencies face
allegations of involvement in the
questioning of terror suspects in
countries such as Pakistan, includ-
ing supplying questions for other
interrogators.
Two senior British min-
isters said on Sunday
they could not rule out
that vital anti-terror
information had been
obtained through the
torture of suspects
abroad.
Foreign Secretary
David Miliband and
Home Secretary Alan
Johnson strongly de-
nied allegations of Brit-
ish collusion in the abuse
of terror suspects overseas.
However, it was impossible to
eradicate all risk, they wrote in The
Sunday Telegraph newspaper, as a
panel of lawmakers warned the
government that using information
gained through torture could be
legally construed as complicity.
Calls have been growing for an
independent inquiry into British
knowledge of the use of torture on
suspects held overseas.
Former Guantanamo Bay de-
tainee Binyam Mohamed claims he
was tortured during six and a half
years in US custody or countries in
its so-called rendition programme
of suspected extremists.
The British resident was
released in February without
charges and police here last month
launched a criminal probe into his
claims that agents from Britain’s
domestic intelligence service MI5
were linked to his torture.
He claims an MI5 agent provid-
ed questions which he was asked
by interrogators who tortured him
at a secret site in Morocco follow-
ing his arrest in Pakistan in 2002.
The Joint Committee on Hu-
man Rights this month urged an
independent inquiry, saying it was
the only way of restoring public
confidence in MI5 and MI6 in the
wake of such “extremely serious”
allegations. Scarlett denied that
British intelligence services had
been compromised by their close
relationship with counterparts in
the United States.
“Our American allies know
that we are our own service, that
we are here to work for the British
interests and the United Kingdom,”
he told the BBC’s programme MI6:
A Century in Shadows that was
broadcast yesterday.
“We’re an independent service
working to our own laws – nobody
else’s – and to our own values.”
– AFP
US commander says
Taliban gaining upper hand
WASHINGTON: The top
US military commander in
Afghanistan says the Taliban
have gained the upper hand in
the country, forcing the United
States to change its strategy
by increasing the number of
troops in heavily populated
areas, The Wall Street Journal
reported yesterday.
Gen Stanley McChrystal told
the newspaper in an interview
the militant group was moving
beyond its traditional strong-
holds in southern Afghanistan
Local to threaten formerly stable
Counsel: areas in the north and west.
The militants are mounting
Local sophisticated attacks that
authorities combine roadside bombs with
must stick ambushes by small teams of
heavily armed militants, caus-
to the rules ing significant numbers of US
pg 13 fatalities, the general said,
according to the report.
“It’s a very aggressive en-
emy right now,” McChrystal is
quoted by the Journal as saying
in his office in a fortified Nato
compound in Kabul. “We’ve
got to stop their momentum,
stop their initiative. It’s hard
work.”
The commander said the
troop shifts are designed to
better protect Afghan civilians
from rising levels of Taliban
violence and intimidation.
The coming redeployments
are the clearest manifestation
to-date of McChrystal’s strat-
egy for Afghanistan, which puts
11
a premium on safeguarding the
Afghan population rather than
hunting down militants, the pa-
per said. The administration of
President Barack Obama is in
the midst of an Afghan buildup
that will push US troop levels in
the country to a record 68,000
by year end.
Some US military officials
believe the Taliban have taken
advantage of the US offensive
in the northern Helmand prov-
ince to infiltrate the southern
city of Kandahar and set up
shadow local governments
and courts throughout the city,
The Journal said.
McChrystal said he planned
to shift more US troops to
Kandahar to bolster the Cana-
dian forces that currently have
primary security responsibil-
ity for the region, the paper
reported.
“It’s important and so we’re
going to do whatever we got
to do to ensure that Kandahar
is secure,” The Journal quotes
the general as saying. “With
the arrival of the new US forces
we’ll have the ability to put
some more combat power in
the area.”
McChrystal also said he
would direct a “very significant”
expansion of the Afghan army
and national police, which
would double in size under the
plans being finalised by senior
US military officers, according
to the report. – AFP