Operation Gladio was a secret stay-behind network started in Italy in 1952 , sponsored by the CIA and NATO , to organize resistance in the event of a communist takeover in Italy or a Russian invasion of other countries.
The first preparations were already made in 1947. Although the term Gladio only refers to the Italian part, similar networks in other countries are also often referred to as Gladio . Recent research has revealed that similar networks were active and linked throughout Western Europe . In any case, Gladio was active in Belgium , Denmark , Germany , France , Greece , Luxembourg , Netherlands , Norway , Austria , Portugal , Spain ,Turkey and Switzerland , while the United Kingdom and the United States also played a role in the network's strategic planning. Gladio's role in Europe , including in attacks and terrorism , has led to parliamentary investigations in various countries.
Italy In Italy, the name Gladio first came into the public eye on August 3, 1990 when the then Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti admitted the existence of this network. He did so in testimony before a parliamentary committee investigating terrorism in Italy. Andreotti revealed that Gladio was hidden within the Defense Department with military intelligence. His statement raised suspicions that the network was involved in several bomb attacks with the aim of influencing politics.
Felice Casson , an Italian judge , had first stumbled upon the secret Gladio network while investigating far-right terrorism and forced Andreotti to give a statement. Casson discovered that the network had made connections with right-wing terrorists. The terrorists, supplied with material by the network, would carry out bombings, attribute them to left-wing Italian groups and then be kept out of the investigation by military intelligence.
Gladio's involvement has only been established with regard to the Peteano attack in 1972, which killed three members of the Carabinieri and which was attributed to the Red Brigades until 1984.
Italian judges concluded: It is a kind of invisible government, in which the masonic lodge P2, certain branches of the secret services, organized crime and terrorism are closely linked. A dark group with extra-institutional ties has operated in our country for years with the aim of acquiring the political conditioning of democracy and personal power. To achieve its goals, this group used terrorism.
Underboss
Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 4,837 Underground
First time hearing about this operation. Thanks H.
Theres was also one similar operation in the US in which the goverment wanted to start a conflict between the Mafia and communist organization, and since the Mafia was more dangerous, the goverment was hoping to start a conflict and to eliminate at least one of the organizations, probably the communist one.
Btw, few days ago I watched the Il Divo movie two times in a row, since I havent watched it since the late 2000s.
He who can never endure the bad will never see the good
Even in the 2000s in Holland former employees and surviving relatives of the secret organization 'Gladio' are paid almost four hundred thousand euros undeclared every year. It concerns about forty people. This is evident from answers to parliamentary questions from Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende in January, 2008.
On September 9, 2007, KRO Reporter broadcast a documentary about Operations & Intelligence, in which it was revealed that weapons and explosives from a secret depot in the Scheveningse Bosjes in The Hague had fallen into the hands of organized crime. The case came to light when the police arrested top criminals Sam Klepper and John Mieremet in 1991. Both were shot dead years later. The Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) covered up the weapon robbery - the largest in Dutch history - at the time to prevent 'unwanted publicity in the Gladio atmosphere'.
Btw, few days ago I watched the Il Divo movie two times in a row, since I havent watched it since the late 2000s.
Me too FWIR it was a strange but good movie!
In 1994 prosecutors accused Giulio Andreotti, of being a full-fledged member of Cosa Nostra.
Giulio Andreotti with Nino Salvo at the Zagarella hotel (Palermo) in 1978. Although half of Italy knew the Salvo cousins, Andreotti claimed not to know either Mafiosi. He said he was dealing with the manager of the hotel. According to pentito Tommaso Buscetta, the cousins called Andreotti "lo zio" (the uncle). Andreotti once sent a wedding present to Nino Salvo's daughter.
In Turkey, the 'Counter-Guerrilla', which was part of Gladio , was involved in terror and torture.
According to a survey published in the daily newspaper Milliyet, 61.7% of the Turkish population believe in the existence of Ergenekon, while 20.3% do not believe that such a crime network exists. 18 percent were undecided.
The Ergenekon case confirms for many Turks the existence of a so-called 'deep state' within the state that actually holds power. In 1996, the so-called Susurluk incident confirmed that suspicion, when a police chief, a mafia boss and his mistress were killed in a car accident and a parliamentarian was injured. The scandal about secret links between the state, police and underworld that followed was never fully resolved and high-ranking key figures were never prosecuted. During the investigation of Ergenekon, the corpses came out again: Susurluk, but also the disappearance in the 1990s and various unsolved murder cases.
The death of Danny Casolaro and the investigation into Gladio together with Giovanni Falcone AMTwo thousand 05 June 2024
Forensic criminologist Federico Carbone has returned to talk, in an article published on Dark Side , about the murder of Danny Casolaro , the American investigative journalist found dead in a bathtub in a hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia with his wrists cut several times on August 10, 1991.
Officially the authorities labeled the case as a suicide, but many point the finger at unknown subjects most likely linked to an intricate network of conspiracies: "The Octopus", as the journalist renamed it. It was, we read in Carbone's article, "a vast corruption network involving government sectors, organized crime and international intrigue".
Hence the leap: the journalist came to discover more hidden ties that included drug traffickers, political and financial scandals (both inside and outside the United States), arms trafficking and money laundering.
A particular aspect of his investigations was certainly the collaboration with the magistrate Giovanni Falcone whose investigations "often intersected with Casolaro's discoveries on international criminal networks, including secret NATO operations such as 'Gladio', which were believed to involve clandestine activities and manipulations policies across Europe"
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