NATO’s Operation Gladio:
Operation Gladio (Italian: Operazione Gladio) is the codename for a clandestine North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) “stay-behind” operation in Italy during the Cold War. Its purpose was to continue armed resistance in the event of a Warsaw Pact invasion and conquest. Although Gladio specifically refers to the Italian branch of the NATO stay-behind organizations, “Operation Gladio” is used as an informal name for all of them. The name Gladio is the Italian form of gladius, a type of Roman shortsword. Stay-behind operations were prepared in many NATO member countries, and some neutral countries.[1]
The role of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Gladio and the extent of its activities during the Cold War era, and any relationship to terrorist attacks perpetrated in Italy during the “Years of Lead” (late 1960s to early 1980s) is the subject of debate. Switzerland and Belgium have had parliamentary inquiries into the matter.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV6ThumhLyc[/video]
While these “stay-behind” armies were supposedly intended to help put together a resistance if the Soviet Union invaded their countries, they went on to commit terrorist attacks against their own populations, so as to influence domestic politics.
The documentary describes how, from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, Western intelligence agencies collaborated with right-wing extremist groups to commit false flag terrorist attacks, which would often be falsely blamed on left-wing groups.
and the wider phenomenon of stay behind networks:
In a stay-behind operation, a country places secret operatives or organisations in its own territory, for use in the event that an enemy occupies that territory. If this occurs, the operatives would then form the basis of a resistance movement or act as spies from behind enemy lines. Small-scale operations may cover discrete areas, but larger stay-behind operations envisage reacting to the conquest of entire countries.
Stay-behind operations of significant size existed during World War II. The United Kingdom put in place the Auxiliary Units. Partisans in Axis-occupied Soviet territory in the early 1940s operated with a stay-behind element.[1][2]
During the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sponsored stay-behind networks in many European countries, intending to activate them in the event of that country being taken over by the Warsaw Pact or if a communist party came to power[citation needed] in a democratic election. According to Martin Packard they were “financed, armed, and trained in covert resistance activities, including assassination, political provocation and disinformation.”[3]
Many hidden weapons caches were found[by whom?], in Italy, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and other countries, at the disposition of these “secret armies”. The most famous of these NATO operations was Operation Gladio, acknowledged by Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti on October 24, 1990.