RAF intelligence base linked to US drone strike on Iranian General Qassem Soleimani | Security and Counterterrorism in the UK

Campaigners called on ministers to explain whether the secret intelligence base at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire is involved in the recent drone killings, after the release of a report that raises questions about the UK’s involvement in the American attacks.

Research concludes that it was “likely” that Iranian General Qassem Suleimani was killed in January last year using information obtained from the British site, essentially an outpost of the National Security Agency (NSA ) American.

It also raises the question of whether UK personnel at the site are involved in assisting the deadly US drone strikes – particularly in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, all conflict zones where the UK does not. is not officially at war.

Barnaby Pace, an investigative journalist, complains in the report that American and British forces at Menwith Hill “are operating beyond the control and responsibility of the public” – and that, unless there is changes, “Orwellian surveillance systems and extrajudicial killings exposed in recent years will likely continue.”

The report, presented at a special meeting of the Menwith Hill Accountability Campaign, demands that “any US military activity or US security agency activity conducted at Menwith Hill be conducted in a manner that holds those responsible fully accountable to the United Kingdom. United “.

Menwith Hill sits eight miles west of Harrogate, on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, known for its distinctive large white golf ball domes housing radar equipment. Although nominally an RAF base, it is in fact the largest known NSA overseas site, with 600 American personnel and 500 British civilians on site.

Documents leaked in the Snowden Files showed Menwith Hill is part of a eavesdropping network, capable of collecting data from hundreds of millions of emails and phone calls daily and locating phones in the field.

The information obtained can be used in “capture-kill” operations, including tracking Taliban targets in Afghanistan in 2011 – leading to “around 30 enemies killed” – and again in 2012, according to a previously released analysis of the files. Snowden summarized by Pace. .

Another program, Ghostwolf, sought to identify terrorists in Yemen. Evidence obtained was used to “capture or eliminate” targets – during the Trump administration, US drone strikes in the country killed at least 86 civilians, including 28 children.

Intelligence programs at Menwith Hill are said to have played a key role in operations to ‘eliminate’ people in Yemen, as part of a deadly drone bombing campaign that left dozens of civilians dead in a countries that neither the UK nor the US have declared war on, ”Pace added.

The United States says its drone strikes in Yemen are legal, citing the military force authorization law passed in 2001 after the September 11 attacks. But no similar law exists in the UK and MPs have only voted for military action against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, where the RAF remains engaged in a bombing campaign.

In light of the leaks, Pace concludes that it was likely that Menwith Hill had a role to play in Suleimani’s murder in January 2020, an action that briefly threatened to plunge the United States into a wider conflict with

Iran. British ministers declined to say whether the Yorkshire base played a role in the drone strike, in light of a long-standing policy of “we do not comment on the details of operations at RAF Menwith Hill”.

But Pace argued that such secrecy raises serious questions. “The involvement of the UK and Menwith Hill in an assassination that threatened to start a war should be of great concern. The failure of the British government to assure the public that the base was not involved raises profound questions about the responsibility for the actions of the base, ”he wrote.

A Defense Department spokesperson said, “RAF Menwith Hill is part of a global United States defense communications network, with the base supporting various communications activities. For operational security reasons and for political reasons, neither the Ministry of Defense nor the [US] The Department of Defense publicly discusses details of military operations or classified communications, regardless of unit, platform or asset.