There has been much media hype about a joint operation mounted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Russia's Federal Security Service, and the MI5 (Security Service) and MI6 (Secret Intelligence Service) of the United Kingdom that resulted in the arrest of three persons, one of them a British arms smuggler, and the recovery of a surface-to-air missile (SAM) of Russian make, which had been procured in Russia and smuggled to the United States for possible sale to jihadi terrorists.
The operation has been projected as reflecting unprecedented cooperation among the services of the three countries and as yet another success in the war against terrorism. A Russian claim that the missile was intended to be used against the US Air Force aircraft in which President George W Bush normally travels has been denied by the FBI.
The most important point to underline is that this was a sting operation mounted by the FBI with the cooperation of the services of Russia and the UK. Two unposed and hence unanswered questions in this regard are: first, was it a sting operation from the beginning until the end and, if not, at what stage it became one; and, second, whether the Russian and British services also knew that it was a sting operation.
A sting operation in such cases is one in which an intelligence officer, in order to trap smugglers willing to sell arms to terrorists and their accomplices, approaches the targeted smuggler, posing as a terrorist, and seeks his help in procuring the weapon in return for a huge sum of money. The sting operation results in the identification of arms smugglers willing to sell arms even to terrorists and their accomplices who are prepared to help them in procuring the arms and not in the identification and neutralization of the terrorists themselves.
There are certain other intriguing aspects of this operation. According to reports telecast by the British Broadcasting Corp, the FBI sought the cooperation of the Russian service, which cooperated after obtaining the clearance of President Vladimir Putin. The person who went to St Petersburg for the procurement of the missile was then kept under surveillance by the Russian service.
In that case, the Russian service should have come to know from whom the smuggler obtained the missile and should have arrested him for dealing in the sale of missiles. No such arrest in Russia has been reported so far. This gives rise to another interesting possibility. The man who offered the missile to the smuggler was himself a Russian intelligence officer who formed part of the sting operation, and he posed as a seller of missiles to the smuggler.
It is of note that the container containing the missile managed to pass undetected the security and customs services of both Russia and the United States and reached a container port in the US city of Baltimore. This indicates either that the concerned services of both Russia and the US were lax in their physical security or, as part of the sting operation and at the request of the FBI, they let it pass so that the FBI could make the arrests in the United States, where the courts award strong punishments, even in sting operations. Courts of other countries, particularly in Western Europe, look with suspicion on sting operations and are often reluctant to impose severe penalties.
[...]
full at
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/EH15Aa02.html
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com