- BELFAST, Northern Ireland
(Reuters) - The unmasking of Britain's top spy within the Irish Republican
Army (IRA) has sent shockwaves through one of Europe's most feared guerrilla
organizations.
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- Revelations that Alfredo "Freddy" Scappaticci
was working for the British at the same time as running the IRA's ruthless
internal security unit will shake IRA morale, but also pose awkward questions
for authorities in London and Belfast.
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- "There's a lot of anger (within the IRA) of course,
that this guy, who was involved in a lot of operations, was passing information
across," Belfast-based political commentator Brian Feeney told Reuters
on Monday.
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- For years the identity of the man known until now only
by the codename "Stakeknife" has been the source of intense speculation
in Belfast. On Sunday he was named on Web Sites and by several newspapers.
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- It was not immediately clear who is behind the leaking
of his identity, although another disgruntled former agent had been threatening
to name Stakeknife in recent weeks.
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- Scappaticci's home in a staunchly republican district
of west Belfast was deserted on Monday. He was reported to have fled to
England although the IRA's political ally Sinn Fein later said it had been
told he was still in Belfast.
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- Former IRA prisoner Anthony McIntyre, now a writer and
critic of the peace process strategy pursued by the IRA and Sinn Fein,
said the revelations were "potentially devastating" for the republican
movement.
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- "If it's true that Stakeknife was the head of internal
security then it's a major coup for the British -- it would mean they have
been steering republican strategy for years," he said.
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- But Feeney, author of a history of Sinn Fein and the
IRA, said the damage was limited by the fact Scappaticci was just a gunman,
and not involved in the political side of the republican movement's struggle
against British rule in Northern Ireland.
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- "In some respects there is an element of relief,
because there have been repeated allegations about Stakeknife, but the
implication always was that this was a senior figure who may have had something
to do with the peace process," he said.
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- According to media reports Scappaticci learned torture
tactics in Libya in the 1980s where the IRA trained alongside other guerrillas
from the Palestinian movement and Africa.
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- He was also said to have provided information that helped
British special forces track down and kill three unarmed IRA members in
Gibraltar in 1988.
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- Coming a month after a report by London's police chief
John Stevens accused elements of the security forces of helping pro-British
Protestant "loyalist" guerrillas kill Catholics, the Stakeknife
revelations raise fresh questions about the shadowy actions of Britain's
intelligence forces in Northern Ireland.
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- It is alleged Scappaticci was a suspect in more than
40 killings and that his handlers may have allowed innocent people to die
to preserve his cover.
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- "What's coming out here is that the British government
and British intelligence services were manipulating the situation on the
loyalist side and on the republican side," Danny Morrison, former
Sinn Fein publicity director and an ex-IRA prisoner, told Irish state broadcaster
RTE.
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- "They were being told things to such an extent that
they could have peoples' lives taken, innocent lives taken or combatants
executed and they had us at each other's throats."
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