SAS bunglers had secret computer codes in pockets

Asked whether the rebels had accessed the system, he said: “Yes we did. We were, of course, curious. But as a courtesy to the UK we will not divulge all, but just enough to let them know that we know. It’s a good thing this hasn’t fallen into enemy hands.”

The rebels said much of the equipment was marked “Secret: UK eyes only.” One rebel with military experience said: “Some of the communications systems they carried is the stuff that you only see in the movies.” He described it as “espionage equipment”.

The haul included five laptop computers, six GPS trackers, two “Bgans” — said to be “broadband global area network” systems, eight satellite telephones and shortwave radios, plus lithium batteries and solar panels for recharging.

The Libyans seized maps marking “Suluk” as a landing location in red and “Gaminis” as an extraction point in yellow; passports, including three from different countries in the name of one man; and a fistful of credit cards, mostly from Barclays.

Components for explosives, “portable welding machines”, office equipment and five guns were also taken.

A source confirmed that two sophisticated communications systems had been seized. The source claimed this did not leave MI6’s systems vulnerable, and that the captured MI6 computer was “clean”. The Ministry of Defence denied that its main network could be accessed.

However, senior MoD sources could give no assurances about systems used by the directorate of special forces. The captured SAS computers are understood to hold confidential documents.

The Sunday Times has also learnt that the MI6/SAS group was released only after the Foreign Office faxed a plaintive letter to the rebels, requesting “all the usual courtesies” for the captured “diplomatic mission”.

Last week one US newspaper mocked the debacle as “Britain’s excellent Libyan adventure”. William Hague, the foreign secretary, remains under fire and David Cameron is said to be privately furious. The National Security Council is to report on what went wrong.

The mission was mounted as ministers struggled to formulate a clear policy on the uprising in Libya. Amid talk of imposing a no-fly zone, they wanted to forge links with the emerging leaders of the opposition to Muammar Gadaffi, the Libyan dictator.

Hague was in telephone contact with Abdul Fattah Younis, a former Libyan minister who has defected from Gadaffi’s regime. However, the regime still has control of telecommunications and can intercept calls and cut off networks.

A plan was drawn up to send an MI6 mission into Libya, with Sir John Sawers, the head of the service, and Hague being fully briefed on the details. Hague is said to show an especially close interest in MI6’s work and to have approved dozens of secret missions. He says he alerted Libyan rebels to the plans.

The mission’s objective, according to government sources, was to establish secure communications with the rebels and scout out a base in Benghazi for British diplomats. At its core was a young MI6 officer who is a specialist in the Middle East. A Cambridge graduate, he joined the Secret Intelligence Service, as MI6 is known, in 2001, underwent language training in Cairo and served in Iraq.

The officer and two other men were accompanied by five SAS soldiers. Judging by airline boarding passes also seized among their belongings, at least one of the team began the mission by travelling from Cairo to Frankfurt and on to Milan.

The group is believed to have flown from Malta to Crete, where the US has a substantial airbase at Souda Bay, probably to disguise their intentions. Two special forces Chinook helicopters, equipped with sophisticated navigation systems for low-level night flying, then set off for Libya, probably refuelling en route on the Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel Argus.

One Chinook carried the team, dressed in black civilian clothes and armed with what were described as five small machineguns; the other was “in the background, hanging around”, in case of trouble.

Why was such a clandestine route chosen? Why did the men not simply cross the border from Egypt or sail into Benghazi? Critics suggest MI6 favours the cloak-and-dagger approach. And the SAS, according to Patrick Mercer, the Conservative MP who served as a colonel in the army, has developed a tendency when planning operations “not to forget the film rights”.

On the other hand, a government source said the route had been chosen because the team was carrying sensitive communication equipment that it could not risk being discovered at any border crossings.

Either way, at 3am on Friday March 4, a Chinook landed near Suluk, a town about 30 miles south of Benghazi. Its target was a farmhouse where Thomas Smith, an honorary consul from the British embassy in Tripoli, had reportedly been working as an administrator for five months.

The area is rural and locals became suspicious when Smith was seen leaving the farm compound at an unusual hour. Helicopters were heard and two cars arrived filled with men in dark clothing who began unloading equipment. Farmers feared the interlopers were mercenaries hired by Gadaffi. They let the men enter the farmhouse, then surrounded it with machineguns.

The members of MI6/SAS team faced a dilemma. If they fought or summoned help from a rescue team based in Malta, it would cause uproar. Their aim was to generate good relations, not bloodshed.

Rebel sources say some shots were fired. British sources say the team was simply roughed up, with one man suffering a minor injury. What is clear is that soon after landing, the entire team was captive and bound with plastic cuffs.

Ahmed Albira, a farm manager, telephoned rebel headquarters in Benghazi, which told him to keep the men under guard until forces arrived and took them to the city.

“Of course they were roughed up at the beginning,” said a rebel source, who claimed the men initially refused to identify themselves. “For all we know, they were mercenaries hired by Gadaffi.”

Eventually, the team said it was from the British Foreign Office and had come to help the rebels, asking to speak to Younis and Mustafa Abdul Jalil, a leader of the recently formed “national council” for Libya.

A rebel source said: “We contacted both men, who denied knowing any of them [the captives] or that they had been contacted by anyone warning them that these men were on a mission to see them.”

The Britons then told their captors that they had flown from a British ship and the Libyans allowed them one telephone call, suggesting they get the ship to send an official letter confirming who they were.

The result was a faxed note on the headed paper of the Foreign Office. It read: “We take this opportunity to confirm that [name withheld] is at the head of an eight-man United Kingdom diplomatic mission ... We would be grateful if you could afford this mission all the usual courtesies and assistance.”

Smith, the honorary consul, was allowed to meet some rebel figures, though it is not clear who. The rest of the team, said the rebel source, “came to realise their mission had failed and just wanted to leave”.

Some rebels wanted to keep the captives as bargaining chips; others wanted to set them free. The latter prevailed, on one condition. “We specified that a British ship come and collect them to confirm they belong to her and to the United Kingdom,” a rebel said.

The team eventually boarded HMS Cumberland, which set sail for Malta. The MI6 men and the SAS were airlifted off even before it reached port.

Hague was in his Yorkshire constituency when he heard the men had been captured; Cameron was in Cardiff, doing a series of local media interviews, when an aide whispered the news to him.

Such was the secrecy that few others knew, including senior figures within the MoD. One senior Downing Street aide said that the first he knew of the debacle was “when I read about it in The Sunday Times”.

That report forced Hague to make a statement in the Commons on Monday, where he suffered the mockery of Douglas Alexander, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary. Was it true, Alexander asked, that “the Benghazi courthouse that is serving as the headquarters of the interim national council is but two miles from where HMS Cumberland was berthed”?

It was true, admitted Hague. The implication was that diplomats could simply have walked in to meet rebel leaders. That is the view in Libya. One rebel familiar with the episode said: “Why did they have to come through the back window and not the front door?”

The Libyans remain suspicious that there was more to the mission than admitted. Some British observers believe the presence of a second helicopter suggests that part of the purpose was to extract people from the ground. British officials maintain it was purely diplomatic, undertaken clandestinely to protect vital communications equipment.

Whatever the truth, the equipment was lost. And with it some of the hard-earned reputation of MI6 and the SAS.

Additional reporting: David Leppard, Michael Smith, Marie Woolf, Simon McGee, Richard Woods

An error of judgment

William Hague remains under fire after the bungled operation (STO)

One of the fateful mistakes in the failed MI6/SAS mission to Libya was to attach so much credence in a former minister in Muammar Gadaffi’s regime who defected to the rebels.

General Abdul Fattah Younis is a former head of Libyan special forces who oversaw a training programme run by the SAS.

After Younis defected to the rebels, he may have seemed an obvious point of contact. William Hague, the foreign secretary, spoke to him by telephone shortly before the botched mission.

However, Libyan sources said last week that Younis held little clout among the rebels and not much influence with their nascent national council.

The council still regards him with suspicion, despite his defection. When the members of the MI6/SAS mission said they had come to see Younis, they may have increased their captors’ suspicions.

The real decision makers among the rebels lie within the youth movement. They have placed a former Libyan justice minister, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, as head of the council because he is a recognised figure. However, the power remains with the youth movement.

When Jalil suggested Gadaffi might not have to face the International Criminal Court, influential young rebels quickly set him straight. Jalil retracted his suggestion.

Further reading:

‘We’ll never forgive the West for selling us short’

Time is up, Gadaffi Jr tells rebel capital

Andrew Sullivan: Leaving Libya to fight it out is brutal but smart

It’s wise to avoid Libyan adventures