Did Russians or al-Qaeda poison Britain's top spy?

The Sun, UK ^ | July 4, 2008 | JOHN KAY

[FocusNexus]

SUPERSPOOK Alex Allan may have been an assassination target of the Russians or al-Qaeda, security experts said last night.

The 56-year-old chairman of the Government's Joint Intelligence Committee is in a coma in hospital and has had toxicology tests to see if he has been poisoned.

Another theory is that Britain's top spy - whose 58-year-old Australian wife Katie Clemson died from cancer in November - may have taken a drugs overdose.

Mr Allan had direct access to the PM and regularly updated him about terrorist threats facing Britain.

The members of the Joint Intelligence Committee Mr Allan chairs are senior civil servants and the heads of the UK's three intelligence agencies MI5, MI6, and GCHQ. The JIC is responsible for providing ministers with co-ordinated intelligence assessments.

Top security expert Chris Dobson said: "Alex Allan's illness raises suspicion of foul play simply because of his job.

"He oversees and co-ordinates every aspect of our intelligence community. "

[FocusNexus]

He apparently is THE top guy overseeing all intelligence for Britain.

I doubt that someone like him would commit suicide.

It could still be natural causes, but all possibilities are open.

I hope he survives.

[1066AD]

Mr Allan had direct access to the PM

That could make one suicidal for a start :)

[FocusNexus]

He seems to have had access to more info than just about anyone else in the UK.

“Earlier in his career, he was principal private secretary to John Major and then Tony Blair.”

[robomatik]

The alleged poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko evokes memories of the assassination of a Bulgarian dissident in London nearly 30 years ago.

Georgi Markov survived two assassination attempts before his eventual murder Georgi Markov is believed to have been murdered after a tiny pellet containing the toxin ricin was fired into his leg from the tip of an umbrella as he was walking across Waterloo Bridge.

Mr Markov, a communist defector who was working for the BBC World Service, was waiting at a bus stop when he felt a sharp jab in his thigh and saw a man picking up an umbrella. He developed a high temperature and died three days later in September 1978.

A post-mortem examination, conducted with the help of scientists from the Government's germ warfare centre at Porton Down, established he had been killed by a tiny pellet containing a 0.2 milligram dose of ricin.

Despite the collaboration of British and Bulgarian authorities and Interpol, Mr Markov's assassin has never been caught.

Mr Markov, a playwright who satirised the communist high life, was the subject of two failed assassination attempts before he was finally killed.

In the years following his death, efforts were made to reveal the chain of command which led to the order for his assassination being given. It is believed that the operation was supported by the technical staff of the Soviet KGB and seems to have involved many senior members of the Bulgarian secret police.

In June 1992 General Vladimir Todorov, a former intelligence chief, was jailed for 16 months for destroying ten volumes of material. A second suspect, General Stoyan Savov, the deputy interior minister, committed suicide rather than face trial for destroying the files. Another Bulgarian spy, Vasil Kotsev, who was widely believed to have been the operational commander of the plot, died in an unexplained car accident.

Scotland Yard insists the case remains open and any new evidence would be considered

[FocusNexus]

UK Telegraph has an article on this also:

Alex Allan, Britain’s leading spymaster, gravely ill in hospital

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2247540/Alex-Allan,-Britain’s-leading-spymaster,-gravely-ill-in-hospital.html

Doctors are running a series of tests on Britain’s top spymaster to try and identify the mystery illness which has put him in a coma.
Alex Allan has been described as “very, very seriously ill” as he lies in a bed in the intensive care unit at a West London hospital.

Doctors have run a battery of tests but have been unable to identify what caused him to collapse at his home on Monday.

He was found by a tenant entering the house on Monday afternoon and rushed to hospital but has not regained consciousness and has been unable to talk to either doctors or police.

[Scotswife]

If it’s a poison - you have to go with it being a russian.

If Al-Queda gets to you it’s because they’ve managed to blow you up somehow.

[FocusNexus]

Al Qaeda could also get poison from the ex-Soviet Republics.

Accused ‘talked of poison plot’

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4841314.stm

One of the men accused of plotting bomb attacks in the UK discussed poisoning football fans by contaminating beer cans and burgers, a witness has said.

Mohammed Babar, 31, told an Old Bailey trial that suspect Waheed Mahmood, 34, of Crawley, West Sussex, talked of getting a job in a stadium as a vendor.

“You just put poison in a syringe, injecting it in a can and put a sticker on it which would stop it leaking and give it out.

“Or you could get mobile vending carts - all those vans going round selling burgers. He said he had done it. I didn’t believe it.

“He said you could stand on street corners selling poison burgers and then just leave the area.”

[Scotswife]

That’s just it...when the muslims want to poison - they want to poison alot of people at once.
They are terrorists - so the more terror they spread - the more people they attack, the better.

The russians like to use poison in single assasinations.
It sends a message - they can get to anyone - anywhere - anytime.

They’ll put flippin’ polonium in your tea while you sit in your favorite coffee shop.
That’s a russian.

[FocusNexus]

Look what else I just found, when I Googled Al Qaeda and poison.

From 2003:

Clear Ties of Terror by Willian Safire

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D00EEDD1239F934A15752C0A9659C8B63

“In the days following the Sept. 11 attacks, Secretary of State Colin Powell could find ‘’no clear link’’ between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

One soon appeared. On Sept. 24, 2001, I reported: ‘’The clear link between the terrorist in hiding [Osama] and the terrorist in power [Saddam] can be found in Kurdistan, that northern portion of Iraq protected by U.S. and British aircraft. . . . Kurdish sources tell me (and anyone else who will listen) that the Iraqi dictator has armed and financed a fifth column of Al Qaeda mullahs and terrorists. . . .’’

The C.I.A. would not listen. Through credulous media outlets, the agency — embarrassed by its pre-Sept. 11 inadequacies — sought to discredit all intelligence about this force of 600 terrorists. Called Ansar al Islam, and led by Osama’s Arabs trained in Afghanistan, they were sent in with Saddam’s support to establish an enclave in the no-flight zone. One assignment was to assassinate the free Kurds who made up the only anti-Saddam leadership inside Iraq.

...

The Kurds induced the captives and some defectors to reveal that the Ansar cell of Al Qaeda had begun producing poisonous chemicals for export. One product was reported here to be a cyanide cream being smuggled through Turkey. The operation was set up by a man with a limp, the informants said, a key bin Laden lieutenant, Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi.

[FocusNexus]

Should have included this in my quote in my post 9:

“British intelligence believes the limping terrorist took one of his products, ricin, to Algerian contacts in Turkey. ...Two weeks ago, a British detective, Stephen Oake, was killed arresting Algerians suspected of making ricin in North London. “

[Scotswife]

time will tell focus!

I’m still betting on a russian.

Gotta feed the baby and then hit the hay.
Good night!

[FocusNexus]

“The russians like to use poison in single assasinations.
It sends a message - they can get to anyone - anywhere - anytime.

They’ll put flippin’ polonium in your tea while you sit in your favorite coffee shop.
That’s a russian.”

I see your point — but why would the Russians poison this guy in particular and why now?

I do hope he regains consciousness and recover to tell us what happened.

[Scotswife]

“but why would the Russians poison this guy in particular and why now?”

The article refers to bad relations between british and russian intelligence over the poisoning of Litvinanko...

““They were blamed by Britain for the death of Alexander Litvinenko by radioactive polonium poisoning in London in 2006. And anti-Russian Vicktor Yashenko was horribly disfigured by poison which almost killed him during the election which made him President of the Ukraine.

“So Mr Putin, the former KGB colonel who runs Russia, ‘has form’. And he has become increasingly aggressive towards Britain, accusing us of espionage plots against Russia.”

I would guess Al Queda isn’t as capable as russian intelligence.

But maybe the guy just has pneumonia....who knows.