MI6

Abbreviation for Military Intelligence, section six, the secret intelligence agency of the British intelligence services which operates largely under Foreign Office control.

MI6 mounted a big security operation in May 1999 to protect dozens of agents whose names were published on a US-based Internet website – allegedly by a renegade former officer. The unprecedented posting of the names would mean that some agents would have to be recalled to the UK. Among the 117 names on the list were a number of officers whose identities had never been made public. Others were retired and some were said to have had no links to the intelligence service.