False flag

False flag attacks are actions carried out in ways calculated to deceive the victim as to the nature of the perpetrator. Historically, these often involved flying literal flags, e.g. from a ship, or wearing uniforms. The procedure has been used as a standard way to try to justify starting a war. Most recently, perhaps the most common false flag in Western nations have been bombs attacks blamed on Muslims designed to fuel fear and promote the "war on terror".

False flag
Interest of	• Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed • Sandra Barr • Kevin Barrett • 'Burning Blogger of Bedlam' • Amy Baker Benjamin • Christopher Bollyn • James Corbett • Bonnie Faulkner • James Fetzer • Robert S. Finnegan • Allan Francovich • Guns And Butter • Patrick Henningsen • Intellihub • Caitlin Johnstone • Frank Kitson • Thierry Meyssan • Steve Pieczenik • Fletcher Prouty • Michael Rivero • Paul Craig Roberts • Ralph Schoenman • Bernie Suarez • Webster Tarpley • The Corbett Report • The Truthseeker • James Tracy • Unwelcome Guests • William Walker • Washington's Blog • What Really Happened • WinterWatch • Gerhard Wisnewski • Karel van Wolferen
False flag attacks are actions carried out in ways calculated to deceive the victim as to the nature of the perpetrator. Historically, these often involved flying literal flags, e.g. from a ship, or wearing uniforms. The procedure has been used as a standard way to try to justify starting a war. Most recently, perhaps the most common false flag in Western nations have been bombs attacks blamed on Muslims designed to fuel fear and promote the "war on terror".

A False flag operation describes covert military or paramilitary operations designed to deceive in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by entities, groups or nations other than those who actually planned and executed them. Increased mass communications (especially the mass surveillance capabilities of intelligence agencies such as the NSA) mean that large false flag attacks are the limited preserve of the most influential, disciplined organisations, particularly those that can control the machinery of national governments. False flag attacks are often complex and always potentially risky ventures, so they are usually designed with a number of contingency (fallback) strategies to allows the perpetrators to choose from a variety of official narratives and opposition narratives according to how events pan out.

Selected Recent Examples

September 11^th & Amerithrax

Full articles: 9/11, Anthrax Attacks 2001

On September 11, 2001, a complex attack occurred which killed thousands of people. No one has been brought to justice or even charged with the crime. The US government continues neither to investigate the evidence, admit reponsibility nor answer reasonable outstanding questions. Two planes were flown into two of the World Trade Center Towers, both of which collapsed completely just an hour or two later, as did WTC7, a third tower in the World Trade Center which was not hit by an aeroplane. There is considerable compelling evidence - both forensic and from eye-witnesses - that explosives were involved in all three tower collapses. Additionally an FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has revealed a U.S. intelligence alliance between al Qaeda starting in 1997 and ongoing to present time. An attack was launched against the Pentagon, which was subject to a military stand down. The official narrative fails to explain the innumerable deviations from standard operating procedure before, during and after the attacks. No hijacked aircraft were intercepted, fighter jets were not scrambled as SOP determines and the evidence of the demolished World Trade Center buildings was removed without being subjected to any investigation. Wikipedia editors rapidly censor any evidence which contradicts the official narrative.

Operation Gladio

Full article: Operation Gladio

This was a large operation in many European countries which is still only partially understood. It was most clearly revealed in Italy, after bomb attacks which killed hundreds of civilians were eventually admitted to have been carried out by a team established by NATO and the CIA. This operation quite probably gave rise to the Turkish deep state. The program has continued and expanded internationality and codenamed Gladio B.

1967 USS Liberty Incident

Full article: USS Liberty Incident

The Israeli attack on the USS Liberty illustrates when can happen when false flag attacks fail. Had the USS Liberty been actually sunk according to plan, Israel might have succeeded in plausibly denying culpability. As it was, the survivors report the planes as Dassault Mirage IIIs and Super-Mystere jets, which could only have been Israeli. The torpedo boats were correctly marked as being Israeli. The survivors all state that the USS liberty was flying the US flag, rendering highly implausible the official Israeli narrative that "we made a mistake". Other evidence includes the lack of markings on the Israeli planes and the jamming of US distress frequencies to try to stop the ship radioing for help. A high level cover up and a subservient US corporate media prevented major repurcussions at the time.

1954 Lavon Affair

Full article: Lavon Affair

Israel used Egyptian Jews as fifth-columnist to mount terrorist attacks on American and British-owned targets in Cairo and Alexandria. That it was actually Zionist terrorism was discovered when one of the saboteurs was caught planting a bomb in 1954. Israel blamed antisemitism in Egypt for the accusations and anyone who dared repeat them, silencing almost all western comment.

Israel finally ended five decades of denial in 2005, presenting official citations to surviving agents, saying: "This is historic justice for those who were sent on a mission on behalf of the state and became the victims of a complex political affair."

The motive is still not entirely clear, though Israel wished to induce the British government to retain its occupying troops in Egypt's Suez Canal zone. Israel also urgently needed manpower to work and defend the land it had seized in 1948, so inducing antisemitism, pogroms and expulsions of Jews was to their advantage. The Wikipedia article on the Lavon Affair is detailed and largely complete, but it claims that the affair was "disastrous for Israel in several ways" - while omitting the serious effects on Egypt and Egyptian Jews.

Admitted False Flag Attacks

Nation states rarely admit to carrying out False Flag attacks, even when clear evidence exists that is unaccounted for by any other version of events. Some recent attacks which have been admitted, from wikipedia's list of false flag attacks:

• 1978 Celle Hole one bombing carried out by a West German secret service to further implicate the Red Army Faction, an active terrorist group. Revealed to be a not very serious (nobody hurt, no prison escape) case by the German government in 1986.

• 1970s The strategy of tension was a period in Italy when right-wing elements are accused of carrying out various terrorist acts. There do not appear to be any of the elements of a false-flag element, though the 1972 killing of three Italian police Peteano bombing blame was initially blamed on their ideological opponents, the Lotta Continua ("continuous struggle", far left extra-parliamentary organization). Officers of the carabinieri were later indicted and convicted for manipulating the investigation in false directions. An Ordine Nuovo ("New Order" far right Italian cultural and extra-parliamentary political and terrorist organization founded in 1956) member has been named as the bomber.

• 1970s the CIA Project Cherry is described in Wikipedia as a "USA non-stop assassination project to kill Norodom Sihanouk, Prince, and later King of Cambodia" but with no details.

• 1962 CIA Operation Northwoods a series of proposals for false-flag attacks, blaming Cuba for attacks carried out on US people/assets rejected by the Kennedy administration. In the same year Operation Mongoose was 12 proposals devised by the Department of Defense and against the same target. James Bamford wrote in his well-cited 2002 book "Body of secrets" that Northwoods "had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff".

• 1953 CIA Operation Ajax and Operation Boot were covert operations to overthrow the Prime Minister of Iran and replace him with the Shah.

• 1944 Panzer Brigade 150 wore American uniforms as they attempted to seize bridges ahead of the Ardennes Offensive, a German counter-attack. Their success was slight though the tactic caused the Americans great alarm. A Wikipedia article on the "Kommandoverband Jaguar German army unit" was deleted when it was discovered to have been largely taken from (and hence a copyright violation of) an article on a Russian web-site here, claiming that Germans in Russian uniforms spent 6 hours in Soviet occupied territory. It is unclear whether this is a true false-flag attack/operation (as intended at both Wikipedia and Wikispooks). It is known that SOE agents sometimes wore German uniforms behind enemy lines and, in 1944, German soldiers were sometimes wearing the better-quality American uniforms. Debatable false-flag, treated here as covert.

• 1939 Gleiwitz incident Germans dressed as Polish briefly seize a German radio station. They briefly broadcast in Polish and left behind the body of a freshly murdered German Silesian known to have been sympathetic to Poles. Genuine false-flag.

• 1939 Shelling of Finland by Joseph Stalin and USSR in order to get pretext for 'justified' war of aggression named Winter War.

• 1933 The Reichstag Fire was Hitler's pretext for suspending the Weimar Constitution and could have been false flag. "Historians disagree as to whether Van der Lubbe acted alone or whether the arson was planned and ordered by the Nazis ... as a false flag operation". Debatable false-flag, treated here as covert.

 

Examples

Page name	Start	End	Attributed to	Perpetrator(s)	Description
"Gulf of Tonkin Incident"	2 August 1964	4 August 1964	Vietnam	US/Navy	Two faked attacks used by the USA as a casus belli to commit ground forces to the Vietnam War.
"Jubilee Plot"				Francis Millen Thomas Callan Michael Harkins	An attempt by Irish nationalist patsies to assassinate Queen Victoria and her Cabinate during her Golden Jubilee thanks giving service at Westminster abbey on 20 June 1887
"Kosovo student poisoning"	22 March 1990	22 July 1990			The alleged poisoning of thousands of Kosovan young people by toxic gases or substances in 1990. It came in the run-up to the Kosovo War and gained lots of coverage in the international press.
"The Storming of the Reichstag"					Attempted false flag incident, where police agents provocateurs attempted to incite a small crowd of right wing protesters to storm Parliament, in an attempt to smear a larger COVID-dissident demonstration the same day.
2001 Mexican legislative assembly attack	10 October 2001 17:00:00	10 October 2001 17:30:00		Saar Noam Ben Zvi Salvador Guersson	Two Israelis caught with false passports grenades, explosives and guns in the Mexican parliament a month after 9-11. Later released without charge. Western corporate media aware but uninterested.
2002 Bali bombings	12 October 2002 23:05:00	12 October 2002 23:05:00	Al-Qaeda Jemaah Islamiyah		Two bombs in Bali that killed 202 people, blamed on Al-Qaeda
2002 Venezuelan coup attempt	11 April 2002	13 April 2002			A failed CIA-backed coup attempt against President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez.
2005 London bombings	7 July 2005 08:50:00	7 July 2005 09:47:00	Hasib Hussain Mohammad Sidique Khan Germaine Lindsay Shehzad Tanweer		A series of coordinated attacks on London's public transport system during the morning rush hour, allegedly carried out by four Muslim suicide bombers.
2011 Alexandria bombing			Army of Islam		An deadly attack on a church in Egypt to stoke tensions during the 2011 regime change.
2014 Ukraine coup/Odessa massacre				2014 Ukraine coup	Events in Odessa culminating in the deaths of 48 (official narrative) and up to 120 (evidence-based alternative narrative) anti-Kiev Junta demonstrators by fire, gun-shots and beatings in and around the Odessa Trade Union building on 2 May 2014
2016 Berlin attack	19 December 2016	19 December 2016	Islamic State Anis Amri		Reported truck hijacking in Berlin attributed to ISIL.
2016 Hurriyah car bombing hoax	30 October 2016	30 October 2016			A real bomb in the Hurriyah area of Baghdad reported as having killed people by commercially-controlled media but exposed as a hoax after CCTV footage appeared online.
2017 Barcelona attacks				National Intelligence Center	Attackers were police informants and under intense surveillance. Happened at a convenient time for the Spanish government.
2018 missile attack on Russian IL-20 reconnaissance aircraft					Israel trying to start WW3 by having Russian plane shot down in war ruse.
2021 Washington D.C. Riots			Donald Trump "Alt-right"		One of the most fortified positions in the US gets violently overrun by a group of Trump Supporters after a demonstration... without a single shot fired by the mob. Official narrative soon blamed Trump and extremists. Official opposition narrative soon blamed the democratic party trying to fraud Joe Biden into the White House. Several other governments were briefed by intelligence services that the incident seemingly "was being allowed" to happen.
2022 Brooklyn Subway Shooting			Frank Robert James
9-11	11 September 2001	11 September 2001	Al-Qaeda "9-11/The 19 Hijackers" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Zacarias Moussaoui Walid bin Attash Mustafa al-Hawsawi Ramzi bin al-Shibh Ammar al-Baluchi	Mossad US/Deep state SDS	A complex and spectacular set of events in New York and Washington. The US government was quick to blame Al Qaeda, though no evidence of guilt was presented and there is much suspicion about what Al Qaeda really is. In the USA 9-11 assisted the Patriot Act's roll back of civil liberties, the stepping up of domestic surveillance and the financial advancement of the military industrial complex. Abroad 9-11 helped launched wars on Iraq and Afghanistan that had been planned long before.
9-11/George Washington Bridge plot	11 September 2001	11 September 2001			The FBI arrested at least one van of men (two or three) which was found to contain tons of explosives. This was announced on the day, two conflicting reports, but later retracted. No alternative explanation is known to have been given.
9-99/Ryazan incident	22 September 1999	23 September 1999		FSB	Moscow FSB officers discovered wiring up what looked like a bomb in the basement of a building by night. Local FSB unaware. Claimed to be a terror drill but no documentation was presented. Instead documents were sealed and discussion of it prohibited in the Duma.
Achille Lauro hijacking	7 October 1985	10 October 1985		Palestine Liberation Front	1985 hijacking of the Italian ocean liner MS Achille Lauro by four men representing the Palestine Liberation Front. Later revealed to in fact be an Israeli "black" propaganda operation.
Bologna bombing	2 August 1980 10:25:00	2 August 1980 10:25:00	Communism	Operation Gladio	A murderous attack on the Italian public, carried out by the MI6/CIA led Operation Gladio, blamed on communists, as part of a wider program to prevent their electoral success in Italy.
Celle Hole	25 July 1978	25 July 1978			Prison escape organized by secret services, possibly to arrange a "shot while fleeing"
Cheonan sinking	26 March 2010	26 March 2010	North Korea		The sinking of the South Korean Corvette 'Cheonan' on 26 March 2010 with the loss of 46 South Korean sailors, quickly blamed on North Korea by the US and its allies.
Day X plot	2015	February 2017		'Franco A.'? 'Mathias F.'? 'Maximilian T.'?	A failed attack which appears to have been intended as a false flag to be blamed on Syria.
Gleiwitz Incident	31 August 1939	31 August 1939	Poland	Germany Alfred Naujocks Gestapo	The excuse for an invasion of Poland, starting World War II
Gretchen Whitmer/Kidnapping plot			"Alt-right"	Unknown	The "unsuccessful plot" in 2020 to overthrow the Michigan government arranged by the FBI.
HMS Defender Crimea controversy	23 June 2021	23 June 2021	Russia	Vladimir Putin Boris Johnson	A diplomatic military controversy between Russia and the UK
Hindawi affair	17 April 1986	17 April 1986			Failed attempt to smuggle a time bomb onto a plane
J. D. Tippit/Murder	22 November 1963	22 November 1963		JFK/Assassination/Perpetrators	An accessory murder to the JFK assassination
JFK/Assassination	22 November 1963	22 November 1963	Lee Harvey Oswald	US/Deep state JFK/Assassination/Perpetrators	The assassination of US President John F. Kennedy was the seminal deep political event of modern times, perhaps even more than 9-11. Both were done by the same group. Subsequently the group assassinated RFK, MLK and many others to try to contain the truth.
Jovenel Moïse/Assassination	7 July 2021	7 July 2021	Unknown	SDS	The assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.
July 2021 Gulf of Oman incident	29 July 2021	29 July 2021	Iran	Israel Iran	Incident in July 2021
Lavon Affair	July 1954	October 1954	Egypt	Mossad	A false flag bombing campaign carried out in Egypt against US, UK and Egyptian targets. Israel was caught and exposed - and officially admitted responsibility some 51 years later.
Mukden Incident	18 September 1931	18 September 1931	China	Japan	A particularly feeble excuse of a false flag used by the Japanese to try to justify their 1931 invasion of Manchuria
Nashville explosion	25 December 2020	25 December 2020	Anthony Quinn Warner		A mysterious explosion that has been memory holed since the US Capitol riots.
Oklahoma City bombing	19 April 1995	19 April 1995	Timothy McVeigh Terry Nichols	The cabal	A highly suspicious terrorist bombing that was initially blamed on "Muslims", then on lone nuts Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Many questions remain answered about the official narrative.
Operation Embarrass	14 February 1947	1948	'The Defenders of Arab Palestine'	MI6	A false flag bombing campaign MI6 carried out to try to stem Jewish immigration.
Operation Gladio/B	1997			US/Deep state UK/Deep state	A development of Operation Gladio to help roll out the "war on terror" by promoting US/NATO-sponsored false flag attacks to be blamed on "Muslim terrorists".
Operation Washtub				CIA Anastasio Somoza García
Pan Am Flight 103	21 December 1988	21 December 1988	Abdelbaset al-Megrahi		When Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland on 21 December 1988, killing all 259 passengers and crew on board, news reports cited UN Assistant Secretary-General, Bernt Carlsson, as its highest-profile victim. US and British intelligence operatives, posing as Lockerbie investigators, ignored the evident targeting of the UN diplomat and instead focused on the jumbo jet. With the result that the wrong country was blamed and an innocent person convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
Patrick Haseldine/Suppressed Lockerbie evidence ignited 9-11 attacks	11 September 2001 08:46:00	11 September 2001 10:28:00	Al-Qaeda
Plan JB 355				US Franklin D. Roosevelt Claire Lee Chennault	A 1941 plan for dozens or hundreds of US bombers with American crews masked by Chinese markings to bombing Japanese cities
Russian apartment bombings	4 September 1999	16 September 1999	Ibn al-Khattab Chechnya Adam Dekkushev Yusuf Krymshakhalov	FSB	A 'Russian 9/11' which boosted support for the second war that was launched in Chechnya
Shelling of Mainila	26 November 1939	26 November 1939	Finland	Soviet Union	A false flag used to launch the Winter War.
Syrian Chemical Weapons Attack	21 August 2013	21 August 2013	Syria
The Bombers Affair (Luxembourg)	30 May 1984	2 December 1985			Luxembourg terrorist attacks by the local Gladio stay-behind network
The Sinking of the Atlas			The Red Hand	Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure	German cargo ship sunk by French agents in 1958. Blamed on fictional Red Hand terrorist organization.
The Sinking of the SS San Flaviano				CIA	British oil tanker sunk in 1958 by the CIA bombing under false flag. The purpose was make foreign companies like Shell suspend operations and in Indonesia, to weaken the Indonesian economy and destabilize the government.
The secret war against Sweden	27 October 1981	1994	Soviet Russia	NATO William Casey Ronald Reagan James Lyons National Underwater Reconnaissance Office Bror Stefenson	A large number of "Soviet" submarine intrusions in Swedish waters in the 1980s, in reality committed by NATO under false flag. The intrusions were about deception and PSYOPs, to change the mindset of the Swedes, to make them adapt to US interests.
USS Liberty Incident	8 June 1967	8 June 1967		Israel	A 1967 false flag attack by Israel that tried and failed to sink the USS Liberty, a United States Navy signals intercept ship. The investigation was told to "conclude that the attack was a case of 'mistaken identity' despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary." Israel paid compensation but always contested that it was accidental.
... further results

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Patrick Clawson	“One can combine other means of pressure with sanctions. I mentioned that explosion on August 17th. We could step up the pressure. I mean look people, Iranian submarines periodically go down, some day one of them might not come up, who would know why? We can do a variety of things if we wish to increase the pressure... We are in the game of using covert means against the Iranians. We could get nastier.”	Patrick Clawson	September 2012
Francesco Cossiga	“Maroni should do what I did when I was Minister of the Interior. First, leave the high school students alone, because think what would happen if a twelve-year-old was killed or seriously injured. Let them do the university students instead. Withdraw the police force from the streets and universities, infiltrate the movement with agents provocateurs ready for anything, and let the demonstrators devastate the shops, set fire to cars and set fire to cities for ten days. After that, thanks to popular support, the sound of ambulance sirens will overwhelm that of police and carabinieri cars. In the sense that the police should massacre the protesters mercilessly and send them all to hospital. Do not arrest them, since the magistrates would immediately set them free, but beat them to a pulp, and to a pulp even those teachers who foment them. Especially the teachers. Not the old ones, of course, but the little girls teachers, yes.”	Francesco Cossiga	2008
Mikhail Gorbachev	“The storming of the capitol was clearly planned in advance, and it's obvious by whom”	Mikhail Gorbachev	7 January 2021
Strategy of tension	“When you were on the Right you were not supposed to attack the State or its representatives. You were supposed to attack civilians, women, children, innocent people from outside the political arena. For one simple reason: To force the Italian public to turn to the State turn to the regime and ask for greater security. This was precisely the role of the right in Italy. It placed itself at the service of the State which created a strategy aptly called the "Strategy of Tension" in so far as they had to get ordinary people to accept that at any moment over a period of 30 years, from 1960 to the mid eighties a state of emergency could be declared. So, people would willingly trade part of their freedom for the security of being able to walk the streets, go on trains or enter a bank. This is the political logic behind all the bombings. They remain unpunished because the state cannot condemn itself.”	Vincenzo Vinciguerra
Robert Stuart	“Let me pin my colours to the mast and say that I am absolutely convinced that the BBC did deliberately and knowingly fake evidence of chemical attacks.”	Craig Murray Robert Stuart

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:All Roads Lead to Dark Winter	report	1 April 2020	Whitney Webb
Document:Anatomy of a NATO-sponsored false flag operation	audio transcript	27 March 2014		Leaked audio of high-level discussion of a planned Turkish false flag operation. It is an example of classic military/intelligence deception tactics in furtherance of policy already decided upon - in this case the overthrow of the Syrian government of Bashar al Assad.
Document:Another Chemical Weapon False Flag on the Eve of Peace Talks in Brussels	article	4 April 2017	Paul Antonopoulos	The Khan Sheikoun gas attack in Idlib province, like that in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta in 2013, can be a very useful means of propaganda
Document:Bandar ibn Israel	article	28 August 2013	Sharmine Narwani	The collusion of Saudi Arabia's Bandar bin Sultan with Israel in acts of terrorist violence in the Middle East through 2013.
Document:Charlie Hebdo déjà vú	article	14 January 2015	Adrian Salbuchi	An analysis of the Charlie Hebdo event of January 2015. It connects many dots linking it to a litany of similar outrages and exposing the essentially False flag nature of all of them.
Document:False Flags for Israel	webpage	11 September 2012	Deanna Spingola	An overview of Israel's long history of False Flag attacks.
Document:I've Been Banned From Facebook for Sharing an Article About False Flags	article	17 November 2017	Caitlin Johnstone	Caitlin Johnstone's account of her Facebook censorship experience.
Document:Peter Dale Scott - COPA 2010	speech	2010	Peter Dale Scott
Document:The Global Drugs Meta-Group	article	October 2005	Peter Dale Scott
Document:The Spectacle of The False Flag	book	1 March 2015	Eric Wilson
Document:The Terror Attacks in France. The Broader Geopolitical Implications	interview	10 January 2015	Umberto Pascali	Interview with Umberto Pascali – For Voice of the People, TV Sonce, Skipje, Macedonia

Rating

18 July 2017 Robin  An essential topic!
This article explains this vital tactic, increasingly being unmasked by independent investigators worldwide.

Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.

See Also

• Category:False Flag - The category of false flag attack pages