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Military - new material (61)

01 July 2007

The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis, Patrick Cockburn. Independent 3.4.07, pp. 1-2. Cockburn describes how "A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers [Mohammed Jafari, deputy-head of the Iranian National Security Council and General Minojahar Prouzands] who were on an official visit to northern Iraq started the crisis that, 10 weeks later, led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines." He continues: "The attempt by the US to seize the two high-ranking Iranian security officers openly meeting with Iraqi leaders is somewhat as if Iran had tried to kidnap the heads of the CIA and MI6 while they were on an official visit to a country neighbouring Iran, such as Pakistan or Afghanistan."

European Space Policy. Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European parliament, Brussels, 26.4.07, COM(2007) 212, http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/space/doc_pdf/com_en.pdf

So, where is Mark Thatcher?, Raymond Whittaker. Independent on Sunday 13.5.07, p. 53. This piece is an update on the Equatorial Guinea coup attempt by a plane full of ex-security guards, led by the Old Etonian mercenary, Simon Mann, who was arrested at Harare airport in 2004 with a shipment of arms destined for the overthrow. It compares the role of Mann, who is facing a life sentence in a notorious prison, with Sir Mark Thatcher, son of the Conservative prime minister and a financier of the operation, who has never spent a day in jail. He is currently to be found "flitting between Gibraltar and London, trying to hang on to as much of his estimated £60m fortune as is possible."

The European Defence Agency two years on http://www.assembly-weu.org/en/documents/sessions_ordinaires/rpt/2007/1965.pdf