Free Republic

This is intelligence and most of it comes from our Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. Based in a huge doughnut-shaped complex outside Cheltenham, GCHQ, among other things, is the great watcher and listener of our espionage array. High in Inner Space, out of reach of telescopes and missiles, cameras and recorders roll through the ether at exactly the same speed as earth, thus remaining stationary over any spot they are wanted. Gazing down, they record everything beneath them and it is beamed straight back to GCHQ. Thus we know what the Russian elite is doing and saying. And it is...

British thriller writer Frederick Forsyth revealed he had conducted missions for intelligence service MI6 in extracts from his autobiography published Sunday. Forsyth, whose bestsellers include "The Day Of The Jackal", told of how he had assisted Britain's overseas spying agency in the Nigerian region of Biafra, East Germany, Rhodesia and South Africa. While working as a journalist in 1968, he was approached by an MI6 man called "Ronnie" who wanted "an asset deep inside the Biafran enclave" where there was a civil war between 1967 and 1970.

In Frederick Forsyth’s eventful Forsyth began, as many journalists retelling of his life story, the thriller writer—famous for bestsellers such as The Day of the Jackal, The Dogs of War, The Fourth Protocol and most recently The Kill List—reveals how penury first prompted his move into fiction writing, how he almost started the Third World War and what he really thinks of the BBC, for which he briefly worked as a reporter. Forsyth is a private man and his memoir is indicatively titled The Outsider. He dislikes publicity—even when his books are published—and says he had long resisted the offer...

"In Virginia, there is an agency bearing the bland name of Technical Operations Support Activity, or TOSA. Its one mission is to track, find, and kill those so dangerous to the United States that they are on a short document known as the Kill List. TOSA actually exists. So does the Kill List. Added to it is a new name: a terrorist of frightening effectiveness called the Preacher, who radicalizes young Muslims abroad to carry out assassinations. Unfortunately for him, one of the kills is a retired Marine general, whose son is TOSA’s top hunter of men. He has spent...

Frederick Forsyth talks about researching intelligence activities for his new novel, "The Afghan" -- as well as western torture methods in Afghanistan and who would have killed Litvinenko if he had written the plot. SPIEGEL: Mr. Forsyth, at the beginning of your new thriller "The Afghan," an al-Qaida member is eliminated when he uses his cell phone and is immediately located by American intelligence services. Do you own a cell phone? Forsyth: No, and I don't own a computer either. I'm obviously much mocked for being such a dinosaur, but I have my reasons. With my typewriter I've never sent...

Frederick Forsyth's life reads like one of his own stories. At 17 he fled Britain and his private school to take up bullfighting in the south of Spain. Fluent in four languages, he joined the Royal Air Force and became, at 19, the youngest pilot in Britain. Yearning adventure and a chance to experience war first hand, he switched to journalism and served as a foreign correspondent with Reuters and the BBC. Shot at regularly in Biafran conflicts, he soon fell out with the BBC, which accused him of "biased" reporting and resigned his job. Aged 31, penniless and unemployed,...