5 h. ago Britain's spies spent 20 years hunting a Russian double agent at the heart of MI6 in extraordinary global operation

The 'highly unusual' investigation, believed to have began in the mid-to-late 1990s before concluding in 2015, came following a tip-off from the CIA about an alleged spy.

Politics

28 h. ago UK launched huge operation to find suspected Russian double agent in MI6

Exclusive: Operation Wedlock lasted up to 20 years and took MI5 teams across world amid panic about ‘another Philby’Britain’s spy chiefs were forced to launch one of the most sensitive and risky investigations since the cold war over fears a senior officer at the foreign intelligence service MI6 was a double agent for Russia.The extensive hunt for the alleged mole, called Operation Wedlock, was run by MI6’s sister agency, MI5, which deployed a team of up to 35 surveillance, planning and desk officers, who travelled across the world. Continue reading...

Politics

7 d. ago Controversial Daniel Craig Bond film ranked higher than Sean Connery favourite on TV tonight

The James Bond film, which sees Daniel Craig reprise his role as the fictional MI6 agent, will air on STV in Scotland and ITV in England this weekend - and it's ranked higher than a Sean Connery classic on Rotten Tomatoes

Culture

2 w. ago ‘He changed the rules for all of us who came after’: Lee Child remembers Frederick Forsyth

Forsyth did away with the conventions of thriller-writing and still kept readers enthralled. He reset the whole genre, the author of the Jack Reacher novels writes• Frederick Forsyth, Day of the Jackal author and former MI6 agent, dies aged 86I remember two things about the first full week of January 1972. I passed my driving test on the Monday, and on the Friday I made my weekly trip to the library and borrowed The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth. I had no idea I would one day be a writer myself – at that point I was merely an insatiable reader – but in retrospect that Friday marked an important way station on the journey from one to the other.I gobbled up the book and thought it was fantastic – fast, pacy, exciting, suspenseful and laced with detail and intrigue. Then I thought, wait, what? How was this book working? It was a twin-track thriller – an assassin hunts his target while law enforcement hunts the assassin. But the intended victim was Charles de Gaulle, a real per...

Politics

2 w. ago Frederick Forsyth, The Day of the Jackal author, dies aged 86

British novelist and former MI6 agent died after a brief illness

Events

2 w. ago Frederick Forsyth dies: Day of the Jackal author and former MI6 agent passes away aged 86

Day of the Jackal author Frederick Forsyth has died after a brief illness at the age of 86.

Events

2 w. ago Frederick Forsyth, Day of the Jackal author and former MI6 agent, dies aged 86

Writer used his experience reporting on De Gaulle’s France to plot his thriller, and continued to draw on real-world research for subsequent bestsellersFrederick Forsyth, the author who turned his adventures as a journalist and work with MI6 into bestselling thrillers, has died after a brief illness aged 86.Forsyth brought a reporter’s eye to his fiction, transforming the thriller genre with a series of novels including The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File and The Dogs of War. Combining meticulous research with firecracker plots, he published a series of novels that sold more than 75m copies around the world, and won him honours including a CBE in 1997 and the Crime Writers’ Association Diamond Dagger award. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago A bright yellow minibus, a force 9 gale in the Baltic and a gang of heavies with Kalashnikovs: how MI6 extracted a KGB colonel and double agent from under the Russians' noses

Even with decades of experience between them, the two middle-aged spies were on edge. They were about to attempt something that had never been done before in the history of MI6.

Events