The BBC have been at it again, acting as messenger boy for the Repressive State Apparatus. A programme about al-Qa'ida was broadcast on behalf of MI5 and was a complete fabrication. The following is lifted from the Guardian Diary -

Interesting noises from the BBC following items on our front page and here in the diary telling how spooks keen to taint the al-Qaida brand spun a line to documentary makers, the better to reinforce the impression that the terrorists are in crisis. "We are pushing this material to UK media channels, eg, a BBC radio programme exposing tensions between AQ leadership and supporters," the experts wrote in a leaked document. We noted that a programme, Al-Qaida's Enemy Within, was broadcast on Radio 4 on August 7. It was repeated on the World Service on Wednesday. The BBC said there was no link between the Whitehall spinning and the programme as transmitted, though Nicola Meyrick, the executive editor of radio current affairs, now reveals on her blog that the reporter and producer "did have some contact" with the spooks while the programme was being made. However they did not meet them until the main batch of interviews had been completed, Meyrick insists. The spooks supplied her team with briefing materials, but she says they didn't use them. It was "a completely independent and impartial piece of journalism", she writes. And so we could conclude that the spooks were exaggerating. It's happened before, apparently.