--- Begin Message ---
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=104483
The Independent, UK
12 November 2001
World trade conference hosts 'secret policeman's ball'
By Philip Thornton in Doha
From outside this gathering might look like a regular conference of
potentates and bureaucrats, but a peek inside the World Trade
Organisation's high-profile meetings reveals a second purpose � the secret
policeman's other ball.
The meeting of ministers from 142 nations, in the Middle Eastern country of
Qatar, has given the world's secret services a rare opportunity for an
informal get-together. The organisations that dare not speak their name �
let alone admit their existence � have been given a golden opportunity to
practise their dark arts amid heightened security fears of another strike
by Osama bin Laden at the WTO conference.
Rumours sweeping through the conference halls suggest that the world's most
famous and feared intelligence operatives have been registered as part of
the official national delegations to the WTO.
Understandably, the Americans, who have dispatched three warships with
2,100 marines to anchor off the Qatari capital for the duration of the
summit, have shown the most paranoid tendencies.
One senior WTO official said that the American "security guards", with
their traditional wedge-shaped haircuts, who insist on searching anyone
attending a US briefing, were in fact Navy Seals. One reporter who dared to
ask what authority they had to search people on non-US soil has been
mysteriously banned from the briefing.
The source also claimed that agents from Mossad, the Israeli foreign secret
service, were at the conference in force to protect their country's
delegation against possible reprisal attacks for the war on Afghanistan.
The Italians are less subtle. Their operatives wear the old-fashioned
earpieces that are otherwise only seen these days in dated Hollywood
presidential assassination dramas.
The British, too, are joining in. One UK delegate claimed that members of
the Metropolitan Police's Special Branch were on hand to make sure nobody
tried to exact revenge for Tony Blair's support for the US attacks on
Afghanistan.
But the most curious group is the Qatari security police. They are on their
own soil, and their troops and armoured vehicles are already in force on
the streets. But to ensure that Qatar does not ruin an opportunity to win
international respect for successfully hosting this summit, they have also
assigned police to guard the conference compound.
They are cleverly disguised in the traditional Gulf Arab dress of a white
dishdasha robe and keffiyeh head-dress. Unfortunately, they give the game
away by wearing their official identification � showing them in full uniform.
--- End Message ---
