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Double agent 'killed' seven
01/12/2003 19:35 - (SA)
Madrid - An Iraqi double agent may have betrayed seven Spanish intelligence officers who were killed in an ambush south of Baghdad on Saturday, reported the daily, El Mundo, on Monday.
An Iraqi collaborator recruited by Spain may have informed toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's former secret service about the movements of the Spaniards, according to sources of the Spanish secret service (CNI), quoted by the daily.
Defence minister Federico Trillo said the agents had taken precautions by leaving earlier than planned and by choosing a busy road where they would not attract attention.
Preliminary investigations by the defence ministry indicated that two cars carrying eight Spanish intelligence officers drove into a carefully prepared trap about 40km south of Baghdad.
The attackers launched a bomb at the first car, which was set on fire.
The agents who were travelling in the second car exchanged fire with the attackers until all but one Spaniard were dead.
One of the victims called the CNI in Madrid by mobile phone.
"They are killing us! Send helicopters!", the fatally injured man shouted before he died.
Net of collaborators
A double agent was also believed to have betrayed Spanish intelligence officer José Antonio Bernal, who was shot dead at his Baghdad home in October, according to CNI sources.
Bernal worked in Iraq before the United States-led war, and had contacts with Saddam Hussein's secret service which helped Spain gather information on Islamic fundamentalist groups in Europe.
After the war, Spanish agents had been building a net of collaborators and informing the government about factors influencing the security of Spain's peacekeepers in Iraq.
The eight intelligence officers may have been betrayed by an Iraqi double agent who knew that four of them had come to replace the others and that they would be travelling together, according to El Mundo.
The seven coffins and the surviving officer arrived on Sunday in Madrid on board an air force plane carrying defence minister Federico Trillo and CNI director Jorge Dezcallar.
The CNI was investigating why its security had failed and whether there were double agents in the ranks of its collaborators. - Sapa-dpa
- SAPA
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