Book review: Trading secrets: spies and intelligence in anage of terror

In Trading Secrets, former Financial Times security correspondent Mark Huband aims to provide a unique and controversial assessment of the ability of the major intelligence agencies to combat the threat of twenty-first century terrorism. With access to intelligence officers from Rome to Kabul and from Khartoum to Guantanamo Bay, Huband covers how spies created secret channels to the IRA, deceived Iran’s terrorist allies, frequently attempted to infiltrate al- Qaeda, and forced Libya to abandon its nuclear weapons. Julia Muravska finds the accounts to be somewhat sensationalist in parts, but mostly valuable and intriguing.