Brits launch shoot-to-kill ops

LONDON -- Specialist agents for Britain's MI6 intelligence service, trained to pose as Muslim extremists, are leading two hand-picked SAS units to seek and destroy a secret bomb-making factory in Baghdad, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

Their first major success came last weekend when sharpshooters shot and killed Mahir Ahmad Mahmud Judu al-Zubaydi near his hideout in Baghdad's Adhamiya suburb.

The MI6 agents had identified him as the deputy commander of al-Qaida in the city and the mastermind behind a series of recent bombings. He died as he was on his way to a local mosque for Friday prayers.

"His removal will send shock waves through Baghdad's terrorist networks," said coalition spokesman Rear Admiral Patrick Driscoll.

Al-Zubaydi had been hunted for two years since he appeared on a video recording showing him shooting dead a Russian diplomat in the city. He was at the top of the SAS target list for having been credited with killing over 300 men, women and children with his bombs.

The MI6 agents are fluent in the local languages and live outside the highly protected Green Zone, moving from one hideout to another in the hostile Sunni Muslim areas of the city.

Their work is described as "the most dangerous of all the undercover operations in Iraq. Their prime targets are to not only destroy the factory, but to discover the terrorist cells where the bombers wait to strike," confirmed a senior intelligence officer in London.

Days before they had tracked down al-Zubaydi, the MI6 agents had established he was responsible for last month's killing of 35 civilians and injuring more than 100 others through roadside bombs created in the secret factory.

Bomb and casing fragments showed the explosives originally came from Iran -- and may possibly have been smuggled into the country with the knowledge of Iranian diplomats.