The SAS has been training Libyan special forces despite Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's regime having supplied arms to the IRA, it has been reported.
Britain's elite regiment has been passing on skills to its Libyan counterparts for the past six months, The Daily Telegraph reported.
SAS sources told the newspaper they are unhappy with the arrangement, which they believe could be connected to the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi last month.
They are also angry at being ordered to train soldiers from a country that provided the IRA with weapons used against British troops during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
An SAS source said: "A small SAS training team have been doing it for the last six months as part of this cosy deal with the Libyans.
"From our perspective we cannot see it as part of anything else other than the Megrahi deal."
Another SAS soldier said: "The IRA was our greatest adversary - now we are training their backers. There was a weary rolling of the eyes when we were told about this."
Robin Horsfall, a former SAS soldier who took part in the Iranian Embassy siege in 1980 and fought the IRA in Northern Ireland, said: "There is a long list of British soldiers who have died because of Gaddafi funding terrorists.
"The SAS is being ordered to do something it knows is morally wrong."
The Ministry of Defence does not comment on special forces activities.
