Operation Gladio

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Operation Gladio was a covert CIA / NATO intelligence operation designed to prevent communists from achieving political power, espeically through violentely disrupting democratic elections where communists woud've likely won.

It was a clandestine "stay-behind" operation of armed resistance that were organized by the Western Union (WU), and subsequently by NATO and the CIA, in collaboration with several European intelligence agencies. Although Gladio specifically refers to the Italian branch of the NATO stay-behind organizations, "Operation Gladio" is used as an informal name for all of them.

During the Cold War, some anti-communist armed groups engaged in the harassment of left-wing parties, torture, terrorist attacks, and massacres in countries such as Italy. The role of the CIA and other intelligence organisations in Gladio—the extent of its activities during the Cold War era and any responsibility for terrorist attacks perpetrated in Italy during the "Years of Lead" (late 1960s to early 1980s)—are the subject of debate. Researcher Francesco Cacciatore, in an article based on recently de-classified documents, writes that a "note from March 1972 specified that the possibility of using ‘Gladio’ in the event of internal subversions, not provided for by the organization’s statute and not supported by NATO directives or plans, was outside the scope of the original stay-behind and, therefore, ‘never to be considered among the purposes of the operation’. The pressure put forward by the Americans during the 1960s to use ‘Gladio’ for purposes other than those of a stay-behind network would appear to have failed in the long term."

To date, only Italy, Switzerland and Belgium have had parliamentary inquiries into the matter. Guido Salvini, a judge who worked in the Italian Massacres Commission, concluded that some right-wing terrorist organizations of the Years of Lead: La Fenice, National Vanguard and Ordine Nuovo were the trench troops of a secret army, remotely controlled by exponents of the Italian state apparatus and linked to the CIA. Salvini said that the CIA encouraged them to commit atrocities. The Swiss inquiry found that British intelligence secretly cooperated with their army in an operation named P-26 and provided training in combat, communications, and sabotage.

Similar operations

In modern times, intelligence agencies carry out similar operations. An example of this is the Spanish intelligence agency backed an ISIS terror attack to scare Catalan independence supporters.