The BBC confirmed this and "Alfredo Scappaticci", this morning (GMT + 8): it's hard to know what to make of it; but it looks like "disinfo", or carefully timed and edited "info" to me.

So what happened to "Steakknife"? Has he been arrested, relocated, assassinated?

Originally posted by dragonrider
So what happened to "Steakknife"? Has he been arrested, relocated, assassinated?

From the reports I've seen he ws taken out of Northern Ireland yesterday and may be holed up in a military base in the south of England.
But who knows.

Apparently relocated to England over the weekend (which means probably relocated to Ecuador three months ago!).
The conspiracy angle here is -who does it benefit, or harm? It's relatively innocuous as far as Blair is concerned: moost of what happened would have happened under the Conservatives, one imagines.
It makes British Intelligence look pretty good: on the other hand they appear powerless to stop the publication.
And, of course, one man's masterspy is another man's murderer.
The IRA look fairly stupid and Adams in particular as this person was -it is claimed -a personal friend.

Any information on who he is? Former SAS, MI5, freelancer, former CIA?

Civilian spy -working for something called the "the Force Research Unit" -which is described as "shadowy".

His payments seem remarkably cheap considering the position he was in.
I would have thought he would have demanded at least 10 times this and the Brits would have paid.

Originally posted by mad scientist
His payments seem remarkably cheap considering the position he was in.I would have thought he would have demanded at least 10 times this and the Brits would have paid.

Dont say that. His payment is still good enought and there are many chances that he never see the color of this money. These kind of agents dont work for the money and intelligence service never pay well. Th british governement will probably abandon him in the hand of the IRA when the war between Ireland and Britain will finish... If it's cover is not still "burn".

Spies are only pawns on the political chessboard and they never live young or have the benefit of them acts.

Forget what you seen in James BOND or other movies. The work of a secret agent is ingratfull, dangerous and it's paid really cheap, because they have no retirement.

There is no war between Ireland and Britain Nans. There's just a bunch of terrorists who tried to give themselves an image of validity by describing their actions as "war". Fact is, they targeted civilians, and are on the whole a bunch of thugs.

That said, at least they've stopped bombing now. Respect to them for that.

Oh, and they've caused an infinitely greater number of civilian casualties on the British mainland than Al-Quada. Remember, Al-Quada have killed no British people on the mainland, there's never been a terrorist bomb attack by them in the UK, and still we're happily signing up to iris-scans on passports, and 14 day lockup periods for suspected terrorists.

The IRA... there was a proper scary terrorist organisation...

He's reported as being under armed guard at a "former US base", to-day.
This all seems rather "engineered" to put it mildly.