[…] ‘surveillance operations by soldiers in plain clothes ……initiated by Frank Kitson when he commanded the brigade in Belfast, some of them exploiting ex-members or supporters of the IRA, of which I was aware, and for which I had obtained Ministerial approval.’ (Out of Step, Memoirs of a Field Marshall, Michael Carver, Hutchinson London 1989 […]
[…] loyalist killer gangs, the FRU also provided some of their arms, apparently believing that this was the only way to redress the balance of forces after the IRA received arms from Libya. (p. 191) The behaviour of Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair and his gang goes some of the way to illustrate the claims of […]
[…] – if ‘good’ is the right word. In June’s Searchlight this paragraph appeared; ‘Seasoned political observers in Northern Ireland say that the UDA and parts of the IRA are jointly controlling some of their criminal activities and use the same drug traffickers.’ This is classic disinformation (see also ‘IRA Godfathers’ et al, ad nauseam) […]
[…] their wonderful new 250 million building on the Thames. MI5 are on the bureaucratic offensive and were given ‘overall responsibility for agent-running and analysis worldwide against the IRA’ in Spring 1991 (p. 201); and at the beginning of 1992 Home Secretary Kenneth Clarke received a recommendation that MI5 ‘take control of all counter-terrorist operations […]
[…] MI5 advice on what to do about Soviet agents in Britain. Another recurring theme is the alleged link between Labour MPs and groups alleged to support the IRA – the Campaign for Democracy in Ulster, Anti-Internment League, Troops Out Movement, British Withdrawal from Northern Ireland Group, Irish Political Hostages Release Committee and the Campaign […]
[…] especially its clandestine forces, are almost completely missing from Bruce’s account. How important are the spooks in this story? How can we tell? In the end the IRA is still there — so they are not all powerful. Finer discrimination than that? In 1987 James Miller, sometime UDA ‘intelligence officer’, told Barry Penrose that […]
[…] well on the way to alienating the Catholic working class in Belfast and Derry. The conduct of the troops was effectively recruiting young Catholics into the Provisional IRA, something since acknowledged by military sources. A good case can be made that, by treating the events of 1970-71 as the first stage of a revolutionary […]
[…] CARACAS 1964 1ST SEC (INFO) 1967 FCO 1969 1ST SEC (INFO) 1973 FCO 1974 SECONDED TO DEPT OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY 1976 CONSUL GEN BILBAO. OPERATIONS AGAINST IRA (F) 1978 FO 1979 1ST SEC (COMM) DUBLIN 1980 HIGH COMMISSIONER TO TONGA 1983 COUNSELLOR FCO 1984 AMBASSADOR ASUNCION COLVIN, IAN B 1913, D 20.4.75 1932 […]
[…] and Ross McWhirter had been ‘meeting with a small group of like-minded friends concerned about the relentless spread of subversion.’ (2) After McWhirter was shot by the IRA this group formed the National Association for Freedom. But ‘to avoid the delays implicit in formal council meetings, a small group of us decided to function […]
[…] that ‘the dissent generated by Catholic and Protestant differences is only a small factor’, reveals that ‘Sinn Fein does not know or govern the actions of the IRA’ and describes the Troops Out Movement as representative of the opinions of ‘English civilians’ (source: a poll carried out by the Troops Out Movement). More trivially, […]
