Britain wants more non-white spies, laments 007 image

0 Comments | AFP, November, 2007

LONDON (AFP) — The nation's secret services want to recruit more non-white and Muslim agents, a top official said Monday, dismissing the "myth" of British spies resembling 007 agent James Bond.

In unprecedented BBC interviews with the MI5 and MI6 domestic and foreign intelligence agencies, two British Asian staff also denied that Muslims were specific targets.

The head of recruitment at the MI6, interviewed in the security service's London headquarters, stressed the need for its foreign staff to come from a wider range of ethnic backgrounds.

"We need people to deploy into a range of situations around the world and people who have a different ethnicity can often go places and do things and meet people that those from a white background can't," he told the...