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The Ministry of Defence Releases Secret NATO Manual By Accident

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has accidentally released a secret NATO report complete with code words, ciphers, co-ordinates, radio frequencies and a host of other “special instructions” needed for huge war drills currently under way around Scotland. The manual marked “restricted”  somehow made its way into the email inboxes of fishermen and ferry operators The Herald Scotland reports: An MoD official mistakenly circulated a manual for planned air operations during major military exercises involving more than a dozen countries. Joint Warrior 161 is currently being played out around Scotland, while Griffin Strike 16 is taking place around the southwest coasts of England and Wales. The 192-page manual, marked “NATO restricted” on every page, was sent by email to fishing and ferry operators on March 29. They were meant to receive a guide to when, where and how shipping areas might be affected during the exercises. But instead they were given technical details of aircraft “killbox” target areas, code decryption tables, radio jamming rules and authentication protocols. As well as dozens of codewords, call signs and map co-ordinates, the report includes long lists of phone numbers, email addresses and military facilities. The MoD admitted that there had been a “communications issue” [...]