C. Wiebes - Intelligence en de oorlog in Bosnië 1992-1995. De rol van de inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten - Engels

208to a greater use of intelligence resources. British warships in the Adriatic started gathering Sigint moreactively and E-3 AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) aircraft of the Royal Air Force wereincreasingly deployed for Elint and Comint missions. Comint monitoring personnel of the 9th SignalsRegiment of the British Army operated from Akrotiri Air Base on Cyprus. 1103 Britains two sovereignbases areas (SBA’s) in Cyprus cover 98 square miles (250 square kilometres), which is an area a quarterthe size of Hong Kong, and are considered to have vital strategic interests as listening and militaryposts. The centres include the Episkopi garrison and RAF (Royal Air Force) Akrotiri, as well as alistening station at Ayios Nikolaos. Akrotiri is the largest RAF base outside Britain and an importantstaging post for military aircraft. It is also an essential element to Britains global communications andsurveillance network. The bases enable Britain to maintain a permanent military presence at a strategicpoint in the eastern Mediterranean and provide a training ground for its forces. About 3,000 UK-basedmilitary personnel train annually in Cyprus. 1104Probably the most important activity on the bases is the work of the electronic eavesdropperslistening to radio traffic in the Balkans and the Middle East. They are linked to Britain’s GCHQ. 1105 The399th Signals Unit of RAF Digby in the UK was also active in Bosnia, as were elements of the Britisharmy’s only electronic warfare unit, the 14th Signals Regiment (EW) from RAF Brawdy in Wales. Thissection was active in Bosnia with a Sigint unit of fifty soldiers in Banja Luka in the British zone, andpassed on Comint and Elint to the British army commanders in Bosnia. Nimrod aircraft of the RAFflew missions over the Adriatic from Goai delle Colle Air Base in Italy, while the frigates of the RoyalNavy in the Adriatic were equipped with a Classic Outboard Sigint system to monitor VRS and VJradio traffic.1106In addition, GCHQ also received information from the Combined Group in Pullach, where itclosely cooperated with the Bundesnachrichtendienst. While in Bosnia from April 1995 onwards membersof the British Intelligence Corps worked together with other NATO member states in the MilitaryInformation Office in Zagreb (see Chapter 1). This body monitored the military situation but alsogathered political, economic and humanitarian intelligence, although in the UN context reference couldonly be made to military information and not to intelligence. One British military officer within theMIS had the sole task of liaising with the commander of the British troops and with London. Inaddition some of the information gathered by the Joint Commission Observers (JCOs), who were alsopresent in Srebrenica, was shared with the MIO. 1107The British working methods in BosniaThe British author Mark Urban makes an interesting remark concerning the gathering of Sigint whichprobably also illuminates the way that other countries deal with their intelligence:‘Any channelling of Sigint or agent reports from the GovernmentCommunications Headquarters and MI6 to troops in Bosnia Hercegovina wasconstrained by the intelligence community’s strict rules about dissemination’.As already demonstrated in Section 2, this is a major disadvantage of Sigint. Due to this limitationmuch important and extremely interesting information fails to reach the troops on the ground, as even1103 Udo Ulfkotte, ‘Die Nato ist im Bilde, doch gibt sie nur wenig preis’ (NATO is informed, but it is not letting on), FrankfurterAlgemeine Zeitung, 10/04/99.1104 ‘British bases in Cyprus vital military staging point’, AFP Report, 27/12/01.1105 Colin Smith, ‘ Cypriot rebel to continue fight on ‘satan masts’’, The Sunday Times, 08/07/01.1106 Urban, UK Eyes, p. 216; The Rose and the Laurel: Journal of the Intelligence Corps, 1996, p. 43; The Rose and the Laurel: Journal ofthe Intelligence Corps, pp. 83-85; Major Robert L. McPeek, ‘Electronic Warfare British Style’, Military Intelligence, January -March 1996, p. 23 and Graig Covault, ‘Joint Stars Patrols Bosnia’, in: Aviation Week and Space Technology, 19/02/96, p. 45.1107 Confidential information (39). Smith, New Cloaks, p. 210 talks about a Forces Military Information Unit in Zagreb but heprobably confused this with MIO.