London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 15, 2025

Revealed: clandestine actions of mercenaries during Thatcher years

Revealed: clandestine actions of mercenaries during Thatcher years

Keenie Meenie Services was active from Sri Lanka to Nicaragua – and Foreign Office could not rein it in, book claims
A British mercenary company established by former SAS veterans conducted clandestine and highly controversial operations around the world, with successive British governments either unwilling or unable to rein it in, a new book reveals.

Keenie Meenie Services (KMS) was one of Britain’s first mercenary companies, believed to have taken its name from Arabic slang for “undercover”. It was set up in the 1970s and recruited veterans battle-hardened by the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Operation Storm in Oman – when Anglo Omani forces quashed an uprising – and the 1980 siege of London’s Iranian embassy.

It won contracts with the Foreign Office to guard British embassies in global hotspots, as well as protecting Gulf royals, including Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani and Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman who died earlier this month. The firm’s founding directors were so well connected that attempts in 1976 by the Labour prime minister Harold Wilson to ban mercenaries were thwarted amid Whitehall concerns about it going out of business.

Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who Got Away with War Crimes quotes declassified intelligence files that reveal the warning of one Foreign Office staffer: “If KMS were legislated away en passant no comparable substitute protection would be available to the diplomatic service.”

The Foreign Office’s Middle East department insisted that when it came to taking action against mercenaries “our firm preference is still for no legislation at all”, adding that civil servants should present to ministers “the benefits of doing nothing at all”.

As a result of lobbying from inside Whitehall, no legislation was passed against mercenary companies. In the aftermath, KMS took on increasingly daring contracts in Asia and Latin America during the Thatcher era. In Sri Lanka, it earned millions of pounds directing military operations and flying helicopter gunships on combat missions in which scores of civilians were killed. In 1985, the Foreign Office’s South Asia head noted in a memo: “We believe only KMS pilots are currently capable of flying armed helicopter assault operations in Sri Lanka.”

The book’s author, Phil Miller, a reporter for Declassified UK, an investigative journalism organisation, claims the continued use of air power caused a crucial ceasefire to collapse, prolonging the bloody civil war. Lt Col Richard Holworthy, Britain’s former defence attache to Sri Lanka, told Miller that the helicopters bombed Tamil civilians using grenades placed inside wine glasses. “They’d fly over and drop the grenade with the wine glass, and of course when it hit the ground the glass broke, the grenade exploded,” Holworthy said.

In Nicaragua, one of the company’s directors worked with US-backed Contra rebels. Documents seized from Colonel Oliver North, who oversaw the funding of US operations in Nicaragua, confirmed KMS’s involvement in the country.

David Gladstone, a former British high commissioner to Sri Lanka, told Miller that KMS had “some sort of political cover in this country … there were one or two British politicians who were connected to the company”.

These included Sir Anthony Royle, a former SAS soldier who had been best man to the KMS founder Col Jim Johnson and went on to be vice-chairman of the Conservative party under Margaret Thatcher. On several occasions, Foreign Office officials asked Royle to have a quiet word with Johnson about KMS activities rather than put their concerns into writing.

“You get the sense that at times the Foreign Office felt it was quite beneficial what Keenie Meenie was doing,” Miller said. “The British state didn’t have to get its hands dirty and Keenie Meenie could be doing things they didn’t want to be doing.”

KMS closed down in the early 1990s after questions about its activities were aired in parliament.

“Part of the reason for writing the book is for it to act as a cautionary tale, so if others think of going down this path in the future they could reflect on the consequences it could have,” Miller said. “While it can make these companies quite a lot of money in the short term, it’s a high-risk strategy.”
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
The Sydney Sweeney and Jeans Storm: “The Outcome Surpassed Our Wildest Dreams”
Erika Kirk Delivers Moving Tribute at White House as Trump Awards Charlie Presidential Medal of Freedom
British Food Influencer ‘Big John’ Detained in Australia After Visa Dispute
ScamBodia: The Chinese Fraud Empire Shielded by Cambodia’s Ruling Elite
French PM Suspends Macron’s Pension Reform Until After 2027 in Bid to Stabilize Government
Orange, Bouygues and Free Make €17 Billion Bid for Drahi’s Altice France Telecom Assets
Dutch Government Seizes Chipmaker After U.S. Presses for Removal of Chinese CEO
Bessent Accuses China of Dragging Down Global Economy Amid New Trade Curbs
U.S. Revokes Visas of Foreign Nationals Who ‘Celebrated’ Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
AI and Cybersecurity at Forefront as GITEX Global 2025 Kicks Off in Dubai
DJI Loses Appeal to Remove Pentagon’s ‘Chinese Military Company’ Label
EU Deploys New Biometric Entry/Exit System: What Non-EU Travelers Must Know
Australian Prime Minister’s Private Number Exposed Through AI Contact Scraper
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
×