Richard Norton-Taylor: Arab Spring took British Intelligence by Surprise.

Britain's intelligence agencies were surprised by the Arab spring, and their failure to realize unrest would spread so rapidly, may reveal a lack of understanding of the region, according to the parliamentary body set up to scrutinize their activities. A particularly sharp passage of the intelligence and security committee's (ISC) report describes as "ill-considered" an attempt by MI6 to smuggle into Libya two officers who were promptly seized by rebels. The report says that at the time the Arab spring erupted, both MI6 and GCHQ, the government's electronic eavesdropping center, were cutting resources devoted to Arab countries. The criticism of MI6's attitude is all the more significant, given the agency's traditional close ties to the Arab world. The ISC, chaired by the former Conservative foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, said it was understandable that the intelligence agencies were taken by surprise, "as indeed were the governments in the countries affected". However, it said there were questions about whether the agencies "should have been able to anticipate how events might subsequently unfold, and whether the fact that they did not realize that the unrest would spread so rapidly across the Arab World, demonstrates  a lack of understanding about the region". SAS troops escorted MI6 officers to Libya in a Chinook helicopter, and dropped them off at a desert location south of Benghazi in the middle of the night in March 2011. The mission was an embarrassment to the British government and the anti-Gaddafi rebels alike. MI6 "misjudged the nature and level of risk involved", the ISC said. It noted that the lessons had been taken seriously by MI6, and added: "We would have expected nothing less." The incident "demonstrates a lack of operational planning that we would not have expected from MI6 and other participants" it said.