Brit spy stn on Cyprus would hear anything the Mossad might hear re. Assad authorizing sarin attack.

[JohnyCanuck]

This is according to the former British diplomat and Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray. He seems to think it suspicious that the Mossad is telling the US it has definitive intercepts pinning the blame for the Sarin attack on Assad, and yet this super duper British electronic eavesdropping station in Cyprus which monitors communications throughout the Middle East has apparently not picked up this same evidence. If the British snoops had the same intercepts, presumably they would have passed the info on to Cameron to use to backup the Israeli assertions of Assad's guilt.

The Troodos Conundrum
by Craig Murray

The GCHQ listening post on Mount Troodos in Cyprus is arguably the most valued asset which the UK contributes to UK/US intelligence cooperation. The communications intercept agencies, GCHQ in the UK and NSA in the US, share all their intelligence reports (as do the CIA and MI6). Troodos is valued enormously by the NSA. It monitors all radio, satellite and microwave traffic across the Middle East, ranging from Egypt and Eastern Libya right through to the Caucasus. Even almost all landline telephone communication in this region is routed through microwave links at some stage, picked up on Troodos.

Troodos is highly effective – the jewel in the crown of British intelligence. Its capacity and efficiency, as well as its reach, is staggering. The US do not have their own comparable facility for the Middle East. I should state that I have actually been inside all of this facility and been fully briefed on its operations and capabilities, while I was head of the FCO Cyprus Section in the early 1990s. This is fact, not speculation.

It is therefore very strange, to say the least, that John Kerry claims to have access to communications intercepts of Syrian military and officials organising chemical weapons attacks, which intercepts were not available to the British Joint Intelligence Committee.

On one level the explanation is simple. The intercept evidence was provided to the USA by Mossad, according to my own well placed source in the Washington intelligence community. Intelligence provided by a third party is not automatically shared with the UK, and indeed Israel specifies it should not be.

More at:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/08/the-troodos-conundrum/

[Autumn]

1. Interesting.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. However: "RAF Troodos picks up order to fire chemical shells"

BRITISH intelligence chiefs have intercepted radio messages in which senior Syrian military chiefs are heard ordering the use of chemical weapons
...
Last night the senior RAF officer said: “The commander of the artillery battery told the regional commander that he would not comply and there was a heated exchange. He was told in direct language that unless the order was carried out, he would be shot. A total of 27 chemical artillery shells were then fired at the suburb in a 14-minute period.”

The conversation was monitored and recorded by British officers based at the remote mountain-top RAF Troodos Signals Intelligence listening post in Cyprus and within minutes details of the conversation had been relayed to GCHQ, Whitehall and the Pentagon.
...
Last night senior Ministry of Defence sources confirmed that the Prime Minister was aware of several intercepts that had been picked up by nuclear submarine HMS Tireless, by RAF spy planes and by the Troodos listening station but they said the messages were initially treated with “caution” by analysts, who feared they might be fakes “planted” by rebels desperate for Western military support.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/425981/Senior-Syrian-military-chiefs-tell-captain-fire-chemicals-or-be-shot

Since this is all 'sources say', it's not definite; but it would be surprising if stuff like this was openly talked about. It may or may not be reliable; but the "why has nothing come out of Troodos" argument doesn't seem to hold up.