Are we talking about the same France here? Perhaps the public face of Frace is a mask for a much deeper commitment to U.S. style anti-terrorism efforts. If true, then France has actually found the perfect counterterror style: publicly willing to negotiate with terrorists and assuming an anti-American stance critical of extraordary rendition while privately supporting the U.S. in the war on terror and participating in the same types of covert actions which are publicly criticized.

SMH Australia:

The operation that trapped [ Christian Ganczarski, a Christian convert to Islam who was allegedly the top al Qaeda agent in Europe and who was nabbed in a secret mission as he was being deported from Saudi Arabia ] was planned at a secret centre in Paris, code-named Alliance Base, set up by the CIA and French intelligence services in 2002. Its existence has not been previously disclosed.

Funded mainly by the CIA's Counter-terrorist Centre, the base tracks the
movement of terrorist suspects and plans operations to catch or spy on them....

Such joint intelligence work has been responsible for identifying, tracking and capturing or killing most of the jihadists targeted outside Iraq and Afghanistan since the attacks of September 11, 2001, terrorism experts say.

John McLaughlin, the former acting CIA director who retired recently after a 32-year career, described the relationship between the CIA and its French counterparts as "one of the best in the world. What they are willing to contribute is extraordinarily valuable".

Even as the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was criticising France in early 2003 for not doing its share in fighting terrorism, his US Special Operations Command was finalising a secret arrangement to put 200 French
special forces under US command in Afghanistan.

Alliance Base, headed by a French general, is unique because it is multinational and actually plans operations instead of sharing information among countries, former intelligence specialists said. It has case officers from Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Australia and the US.

To play down the US role, the centre's working language is French. The base selects its cases, chooses a lead country for each operation, and that country's service runs the operation.

In France, which has the largest Muslim population in Europe, US and French experts have put their own anti-terrorism laws in the service of allies to lure suspects such as Ganczarski from abroad.

"There's an easy exchange of information," said Pierre de Bousquet de Florian, head of France's domestic spy agency. "The co-operation between my service and the American service is candid, loyal and certainly effective."

Posted by: Rusty at 11:09 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 http://www.pbase.com/kburch/image/45384745 This was from my brother-in-laws change of command ceremony last weekend at Camp Lejeune - he was promoted to company commander of the Headquarters Company 6th Marines, 2nd Marine Division - Yes that's a Frenchie with him in the picture. The frenchie and some others had been with them since late 2002 on their deployment to Djibouti Africa and Haiti last year as were these Dutch Marines http://www.pbase.com/kburch/image/45384749. He's says you politics aside, they are professional soldiers who ARE in this WOT. http://www.pbase.com/kburch/camp_lejeune__june_24_2005 http://www.pbase.com/kburch/the_picture_from_iraq_you_wont_see_in_the_news

Posted by: Karl B at July 04, 2005 11:53 AM (7T29O)

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