ON Thursday we had the corporate media trumpeting the “breaking news” of a report by the Intelligence and Security Committee on the “failings” of MI5 regarding the Manchester bombing.

Chair Dominic Grieve gravely announced that “MI5 moved too slowly to establish the danger posed by the bomber, Salman Abedi” and that “MI5 decided not to place travel monitoring or travel restrictions on Abedi and this allowed him to return undetected to the United Kingdom.”

“Undetected?” That’s interesting. Because the truth is that the security services, far from being apathetic in this affair, were intimately involved in facilitating the travel of British Libyans and exiled Libyans based in Manchester to Libya in 2011, the year, you might remember, when our government was making huge efforts to rid that country of Muammar Gadaffi.  

As an independent journalist who wrote about the Manchester bombing in June 2017, this characterisation of events leaves me sickened. A more cynical distortion of the state’s role in this affair would be hard to imagine, but the majority of the public will never know this thanks to the lies by omission of the “mainstream” media. 

In May last year, I read the stunning Middle East Eye report, “Sorted” by MI5: How UK government sent British-Libyans to fight Gadaffi” which documents how the British government lifted control orders on Libyan exiles and British/Libyan residents affiliated with the proscribed terrorist group LIFG (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group) giving them back their passports “just as the UK’s war against Gadaffi intensified, with the UK, France and the US carrying out air strikes and deploying special forces soldiers in support of the rebels.”

Theresa May was home secretary at this time and was responsible for this travesty which amounted, as we tragically discovered, to a grave threat to the security of the British public. 

On Thursday, Grieve asserted that “this [Manchester] could not have been predicted in any way at all … we saw nothing to suggest that anyone could possibly have predicted what [Abedi] was going to do.” 

What planet is this man on? He is either aware of the truth and is lying or he is unaware of it, in which case he is not fit to carry out an investigation. 

The Middle East Eye report carried an interview with Belal Younis, a British Libyan, who revealed how he was stopped by counter-terrorism officers on his return to Britain after a visit to Libya in 2011, “but after providing them with the name and phone number of the MI5 officer he had spoken to previously, and following a quick phone call to him, he was waved through. As he waited to board the plane, he said the same MI5 officer called him to tell him that he had ‘sorted it out.’

“The government didn’t put any obstacles in the way of people going to Libya,” he told Middle East Eye. “The majority who went from here were from Manchester.”

Previously, Younis told Middle East Eye, he had been asked by an MI5 officer: “Are you willing to go into battle?” 

“While I took time to find an answer he turned and told me the British government have no problem with people fighting against Gadaffi.”

Another British Libyan told Middle East Eye that he was “shocked” that he was able to travel to Libya in 2011 shortly after his control order was lifted. 

“I was allowed to go, no questions asked,” he says, going on to reveal that he met “several other British-Libyans in London who also had control orders lifted.” 

This was the same time, as Middle East Eye reminds us, that Britain, the US and France were bombing Libya (death toll: 100,000 innocent people) and putting special forces on the ground in support of elements opposed to Gadaffi.

This source confirmed to Middle East Eye that “within days” of their control orders being lifted, British authorities returned their passports, adding: “These were old school LIFG guys, they [the British authorities] knew what they were doing.”

It’s not difficult to see why MI5 would be interested in effectively recruiting LIFG members for their Libya project. 

In 1996 they carried out a failed assassination attempt against Gadaffi which was, according to MI5 whistleblower, David Shayler, funded by MI6, this being one of the reasons he left MI5, later explaining he was “physically sickened by the fact that MI6 wanted to sponsor Islamic extremists and carry out terrorism.” 

He expanded: “I joined the service to stop terrorism and prevent the deaths of innocent people, not to get involved in these despicable and cowardly acts. 

“I still cannot believe that the Prime Minister has refused to take my evidence or investigate this matter as this decision has sent out a clear message to the intelligence services that they can fund terrorism, conspire to murder people with impunity, and take enormous risks with our security. 

“After all, would you give an individual you hardly know, who has admitted to connections with al-Qaida, an enormous sum to carry out a terrorist attack, when you know the group he is leading is opposed to the values of Western society? It is difficult to imagine a greater disregard and contempt for the lives and security of the British people.”  

How tragically these words echo now. How terribly prescient they are in light of Manchester’s grief. And how illuminating they are regarding the unseen — and unreported — shameful programme of deep-state depravity carried out under the noses of those who have reported on MI5’s “failings” today. 

Historian Mark Curtis is author of the book Secret Affairs, which documents, using declassified government files, the long collusion of the British state with radical Islam to advance its foreign policy aims. 

Curtis is well placed to remark that “the culture of lying to and misleading the electorate is deeply embedded in British policy-making,” enabled by the elite’s “endemic contempt for the general population.” A contempt which means that, “Labour and Conservative governments have connived with militant groups … to control oil resources, overthrow governments and promote Britain's financial interests.”

This is the reality which the corporate media will never reveal. But is that because they are not aware of the facts? Sadly not. I emailed Jon Snow of Channel 4 News last year making sure to include all of the information above and asking him, as a leading journalist on what is widely considered to be our most radical news programme, “why have you chosen not to report this story?” His reply was short but not so sweet: “I’m sorry Alison … it’s been so hard to keep up. I will try to pursue this the moment i can take breath. best Jon” He didn’t. 

And now his corporate media colleagues will report all this, as the regrettable “failure” by MI5 we are told it is by a team of MPs who have investigated it thoroughly on our behalf. It’s all OK. Grieve assured us that “MI5 have revised their policies” and that “improvements are planned.” 

How comforting for the parents of the children killed in the Manchester bombing. If their deaths are not to be in vain we must all make it our business to reject the fake news we are fed by the politicians and corporate media who collude to keep us deaf, dumb and blind.