The use of undercover military units in counter-terrorist operations: a historical analysis with reference to contemporary anti-terrorism

Abstract

This article examines the use of specialised plain-clothes military units in counter-terrorism, concentrating on examples involving liberal-democratic states. It analyses the benefits and problems arising from clandestine military activity, focusing in particular on British army units (notably 14 Intelligence Company and the Force Research Unit in Northern Ireland). The article concludes by arguing that such formations have a clear utility – notably in gathering intelligence on terrorist groups – but other aspects of their role are inherently controversial (notably in cases where undercover soldiers use deadly force against suspected terrorists). It also states that plain-clothes military operations need to be conducted on the basis of accountability, both for strategic reasons, and also in accordance with the norms of liberal democracy.

Keywords:

• Counter-terrorism
• Northern Ireland
• special forces
• military intelligence
• civil-military relations

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank both Dr Huw Bennett, a colleague in the Defence Studies Department (DSD), and Dr William Rosenau (of the Strategic Studies Division, Center for Naval Analyses, Alexandria VA) for reading and critiquing an earlier draft of this article. Dr Bennett's own research on Northern Ireland led to the declassification of files in the National Archives of the United Kingdom (hereafter cited as NAUK). The author also acknowledges the guidance offered by Mr Bill Park (also of DSD) on Turkish issues, and the helpful comments offered by two serving officers of the British armed forces. The analysis, opinions and conclusions expressed or implied in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the JSCSC, the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) or any other government agency.

Notes

 1. ‘General Petraeus hails SAS after Iraq success over al-Qaeda car bombers’, The Times, 11 August 2008. ‘British forces break soldiers out of Basra jail’, The Times, 19 September 2005. ‘So what were two undercover British soldiers up to in Basra?’, Independent on Sunday, 25 September 2005.

 2. ‘Algerian Regime Responsible for Massacres’, The Observer, 16 November 1997. Shy and Collier, ‘Revolutionary War’, 821.

 3. Quadrennial Defense Review Report ; The National Security Strategy of the United Kingdom: Security in an interdependent world.

 4. ‘The Secret War’, Los Angeles Times, 27 October 2002. Stempel, ‘Covert Action and Diplomacy’, 128.

 5. The Strategic Defence Review – A New Chapter, 9, 17. ‘Special Forces Regiment Created’, 5 April 2005, online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4412907.stm

 6. These definitions are compiled from Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 1–41; FM3/24, Counterinsurgency, 1–1/1–29; AFM1/10, Counter Insurgency Operation s (Strategic and Operational Guidelines), A-2–1, B-3–1; Townsend, Terrorism, 114–39; and Wilkinson, Terrorism Versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response, 1. On French military abuses in Algeria, see Aussaresses, The Battle of the Casbah. The British Army COIN manual can be found online at http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Wikileaks, the US manual was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2007.

 7. Taylor, States of Terror, 313–14.

 8. Giladi, ‘Out of Context: “Undercover” Operations and IHL [International Humanitarian Law] Advocacy in the Occupied Palestinian Territories’; Hughes and Tripodi, ‘Anatomy of a Surrogate: Historical precedents and implications for contemporary Counter-Insurgency and Counter-Terrorism’.

 9. For example, Stoffa's ‘Special Forces, Counter-Terrorism and the Law of Armed Conflict’ does not even discuss clandestine military units. Dewar's The British Army in Northern Ireland refers to the shooting of three Provisional IRA (PIRA) terrorists at Strabane on 23 February 1985 (216–17), without stating that they were killed by undercover Army operatives. Taylor, Brits, 258–9. Colonel Paul Melshen (USMCR) is – to the best of the author's knowledge – the first scholar to devote any attention to this subject. See his Pseudo Operations: The Use by British and American Forces of Deception in Counter-Insurgencies.

10. ‘Paul Bruce’, The Nemesis File. The Daily Telegraph reported his arrest and admission on 1 and 2 August 1996.

11. Taylor, Brits, 286; Bruce, ‘Loyalist Assassinations and Police Collusion in Northern Ireland: An Extended Critique of Sean McPhileny's The Committee’.

12. ‘Democracy on Trial as 86 Face Coup Attempt Charge’, The Independent, 20 October 2008; Jenkins, ‘The Impact of the Ergenekon Investigation on Turkish Counterterrorism operations’.

13. Hughes and Tripodi, ‘Surrogate’, 3, 5, 16–19; Hughes, ‘A “Model Campaign” Reappraised: The Counter-Insurgency War in Dhofar, Oman, 1965–1975’.

14. Jones, SAS: The First Secret Wars, 79; Walker, Aden Insurgency: The Savage War in South Arabia, 184–5. ‘Keeni Meeni’ is a Swahili phrase describing a snake's movement towards its prey.

15. IRN(74)2, Memorandum by Roy Mason (Defence Minister), Army Plain Clothes Patrols in Northern Ireland, 28 March 1974, CAB134/3778(NAUK); ‘Could this ‘Police Officer’ be a Soldier?’, The Sunday Times, 31 July 2005; ‘Top Secret Army Cell Breaks Terrorists’, The Daily Telegraph, 5 February 2007.

16. Horne, A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962, 491–3.

17. Richelson, ‘“Truth Conquers All Chains”: The US Army's Intelligence Support Activity, 1981–1989’; Smith, Killer Elite. For the purposes of clarity, this article will refer to this unit as the ISA.

18. Taylor, States of Terror, 7–44; ‘Deadly Force’, Time Magazine, 24 August 1992; ‘Palestinian Militants Killed in Bethlehem’, The Times, 14 March 2008; Bregman, Israel's Wars: A History Since 1947, 220–4.

19. Jones, ‘India, Pakistan, and counterinsurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir’, 15.

20. Bovenkerk and Yesilgoz, The Turkish Mafia, 185, 197–8, 204–8, 214–16; Jenkins, ‘Susurluk and the Legacy of Turkey's Dirty War’; Park, ‘Turkey's Deep State: Ergenekon and the Threat to Democratisation in the Republic’, 54–9.

21. Smith, ‘Military Options in Response to State-Sponsored Terrorism’; Wilkinson, Terrorism Versus Democracy, 102–3.

22. Rennie, The Operators: Inside 14 Intelligence Company – The Army's Top Secret Elite, 1, 20–104, 156; Lewis, Fishers of Men, 51–68; Smith, Killer Elite, 54–62, 152–77.

23. B'Tselem Report, Activity of the Undercover Units in the Occupied Territories, 8; Rennie, Operators, 109–13; Urban, Big Boys' Rules: The Secret Struggle Against the IRA, 141–3.

24. Smith and Roberts, ‘War in the Gray: Exploring the concept of Dirty War’, 385–8.

25. Evans, ‘Terrorism and Subversion of the State: Italian Legal Responses’; Groenwold, ‘The German Federal Republic's Response and Civil Liberties’.

26. Jones, ‘“One Size Fits All”: Israel, Intelligence and the al-Aqsa Intifada’, 273–5.

27. Dewar, British Army, 38; Roberts, ‘Ethics, Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism’, 60.

28. FM3/24, 3.1; AFM1/10, B-6-1/B-6-18; Kitson, Low Intensity Operations, 95–6.

29. O'Neill, Insurgency and Terrorism, 128; Chin, ‘Examining the Applicability of British Counterinsurgency Doctrine by the American Army in Iraq’, 4; Alexander & Krieger, ‘France and the Algerian War: Strategy, Operations and Diplomacy’.

30. FM3/24, 3-28; Thompson, Defeating Communist Insurgency, 119–120.

31. Dewar, British Army, 185–6; Hamill, Pig in the Middle: The Army in Northern Ireland 1969–1985, 292; AFM1/10, B-6-10; Operation Banner: An Analysis of Military Operations in Northern Ireland, 2-15. The British Army's internal study of Banner was declassified as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request from a journalist in July 2007.

32. Freedman, The Transformation of Strategic Affairs, 90–1; Teague, ‘Double Blind’.

33. B'Tselem, Undercover Units, passim: The Dirty War: Israel Undercover, documentary broadcast on BBC2, 19:15, 17 February 2002; Jones, ‘Israel’, 279–80.

34. Richelson, ‘“Truth Conquers All Chains”’, 178, 186–7; Bowden, Killing Pablo; Smith, Killer Elite, 125–51, 178–204.

35. Horne, Savage War, 493–5; ‘Leaders firm after Basra unrest’, 21 September 2005, online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4267054.stm

36. ‘British Troops Demolish Iraqi Police Station’, The Independent, 26 December 2006; ‘Short of Kit, Short of Support: How the Army Failed in Basra’, The Times, 18 March 2008.

37. Roberts, ‘Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism’, 60; Connor, Ghost Force: The Secret History of the SAS, 129–30; Walker, Aden Insurgency, 185.

38. Walker, Aden Insurgency, 190–1; Jones, ‘Israel’, 275; Catignani, ‘The Israel Defense Forces and the Al-Aqsa Intifada: When Tactical Virtuosity Meets Strategic Disappointment’.

39. Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949–1993, 636–7; ‘The Collaborator’, New York Times, 18 August 2002; Taylor, States of Terror, 85–6, 88–99.

40. Kitson, Bunch of Five, 298; Jones, Secret Wars, 82–3.

41. A copy of the ‘Yellow Card’ can be found in FCO87/584(NAUK); Connor, Ghost Force, 130; B'Tselem, Undercover Units, 18–23; Giladi, ‘“Undercover” Operations’, passim.

42. Evans, ‘Italian Legal Responses’, 333, 350; Della Porta, ‘Institutional Response to Terrorism: The Italian Case’, 153–4.

43. Bovenkerk and Yesilgoz, Turkish Mafia, 227, 231–2; McGregor, ‘Turkey's Gendarmerie: Reforming a Frontline Unit in the War on Terrorism’.

44. For a balanced account, see Kennedy-Pipe, The Origins of the Present Troubles in Northern Ireland. See also Peter Taylor's trilogy (The Provos; Loyalists; and Brits, passim). Thomas Hennessey provides a comprehensive, archive-based account of events from 1969 to 1972 in The Evolution of the Troubles, 1970–72.

45. Iron, ‘Britain's Longest War: Northern Ireland 1967–2007’; Annex A to CGS/1180, Directive for General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland, 15 December 1972, DEFE25/282(NAUK).

46. Kennedy-Pipe, Northern Ireland, 177; Moore, Commander Land Forces Operational Summary: 1975 in Retrospect, 14th January 1976; Joint Directive by General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland and Chief Constable Royal Ulster Constabulary, 12th January 1977, DEFE11/917(NAUK).

47. Murray, The SAS in Ireland. Claims of Army dirty tricks and political double-dealing permeate the Ken Loach film Hidden Agenda (1990). Dillon, The Dirty War, provides a dispassionate and careful analysis of the competing claims made by all sides in the Northern Ireland conflict.

48. Roger Faligot echoes ‘Seaman's’ claims in Britain's Military Strategy in Ireland: The Kitson Experiment, 37. See also Bloch and Fitzgerald, British Intelligence and Covert Action, 213. For the discrediting of ‘Seaman’, see Dillon, Dirty War, 117–23. PIRA split from the Official IRA in 1970. The latter became increasingly irrelevant in the Republican movement after it declared a ceasefire in 1972.

49. Peter Carrington (Defence Secretary) to Edward Heath (Prime Minister), Special Reconnaissance Unit, 28 November 1972, DEFE25/282(NAUK). The author would like to thank Huw Bennett for his efforts in declassifying this file. Dillon, Dirty War, 51–5; Urban, Big Boys' Rules, 35–8.

50. Taylor, Brits, 128–37. Carrington to Heath (note 49), DEFE25/282(NAUK). IRN(74)2, CAB134/3778(NAUK).

51. J. Stewart (Northern Ireland Office – NIO) to P. Wright (10 Downing Street), 24 August 1976, PREM16/1342(NAUK). Hamill, Pig in the Middle, 234, 263–4; Geraghty, The Irish War, 223. Dillon attributes Green's death to Loyalists; see Dirty War, 191–2.

52. IRN(74)2 (note 15), CAB134/3778(NAUK). Carrington to Heath, DEFE25/282(NAUK). Minute by Lt Colonel D. Ramsbotham on telephone conversation between Chief of the General Staff and GOC Northern Ireland, 17 October 1973, DEFE13/990(NAUK). Dr Bennett's efforts ensured that this file is now in the public domain. Cabinet papers refer to 14 Int as the ‘Special Reconnaissance Unit’. C. E. Johnson (MOD) to S. S. Bampton (NIO), undated (June 1976), FCO87/582(NAUK).

53. Lewis, Fishers of Men, 105; Taylor, Brits, 3; Rennie, The Operators, 158; Dillon, Dirty War, 468–70.

54. Confidential Annex to Chiefs of Staff (COS) Meeting, 17/75, 18 November 1975, DEFE32/22(NAUK). MISC115(76)1st meeting, Cabinet Committee on Northern Ireland, 6 January 1976, CAB130/908(NAUK). Memorandum by Fred Mulley (Defence Secretary) and Roy Mason (Northern Ireland Secretary) to James Callaghan (Prime Minister), 3 December 1976, PREM16/1342(NAUK).

55. S. Wright (British Information Services, New York) to A. Turner (Foreign and Commonwealth Office), 9 January 1976, FCO87/582(NAUK). John Hunt (Cabinet Secretary) to Callaghan, 1 December 1976, PREM16/1342(NAUK). Peter Neumann, ‘Winning the “War on Terror”? Roy Mason's Contribution to Counter-Terrorism in Northern Ireland’, 51–2.

56. The SAS recruits from across the British Army and all volunteers are obliged to pass a gruelling selection course. Those who fail are sent back to their original battalion, regiment or corp. Before September 1976, any serving member of the SAS who wanted to transfer to 14 Int had to serve two years with his parent unit before he could join this undercover formation.

57. Ian Jack, ‘Gibraltar’; Bamford, ‘The Role and Effectiveness of Intelligence in Northern Ireland’, 597–8.

58. Bamford, ‘Intelligence’, 586; Taylor, States of Terror, 252; Joint Directive, 12 January 1977, DEFE11/917(NAUK). The Loyalist groups noted here should not be confused with the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), a locally recruited British Army unit, although some UDR soldiers clearly colluded with Loyalist terrorists. See Dillon, Dirty War, 211–30.

59. Tuck, ‘Northern Ireland and the British Approach to Counter-Insurgency’, 170, 176; Taylor, States of Terror, 282–306.

60. Urban, Big Boys' Rules, 20–3, 109–10; Lewis, Fishers of Men, xv, 120–1; Rennie, The Operators, 191.

61. Quote taken from Dixon, ‘“Hearts and Minds”? British Counter-Insurgency Strategy in Northern Ireland’, 456.

62. Carver, Out of Step, 429; Benest, ‘Aden to Northern Ireland, 1966–76’, 132–3. For a reassessment of the effect of internment, see Hennessey, Troubles, 214–26.

63. Operation Banner, 3-3/3-4, 5-6. Lt Col. J. Biles, CGS Visit to Northern Ireland Wednesday 5 Feb 1975, 6 February 1975, DEFE11/917(NAUK).

64. Operation Banner, 2-12, 3-2; Benest, ‘Northern Ireland’, 136–7; Kennedy-Pipe, Troubles, 84–6.

65. Tuck, ‘Northern Ireland’, 168–9; Bamford, ‘Intelligence’, 584, 589, 119–20; General Sir Peter Hunt (CGS) to Mason, 30 September 1975, DEFE11/917(NAUK); Hennessey, Troubles, 129–67.

66. For exceptions, see Dewar, British Army, 86–91; and ‘Andy McNab’, Immediate Action, 39–44.

67. Bamford, ‘Intelligence’, 591; Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA, 317–18; Iron, ‘Longest War’, 179.

68. Neumann, ‘The Myth of Ulsterization in British Security Policy in Northern Ireland’; Operation Banner, 1-2, 7-2/7-3. Tuck, ‘Northern Ireland’, 168–9; British Army troop figures in Northern Ireland are taken from successive volumes of The Military Balance from 1974 to 2006 (published annually by the International Institute of Strategic Studies).

69. Benest, ‘Northern Ireland’, 119; Kennedy-Pipe, Troubles, 77–8, 88, 177; Tuck, ‘Northern Ireland’, 175; Harnden, Bandit Country: The IRA and South Armagh, 155.

70. Taylor, Brits, 1, 302; Bamford, ‘Intelligence’, 592–3; Iron, ‘Longest War’, 177–8; Moloney, IRA, 332–3, 335–6, 458–9; McIntyre, Good Friday: The Death of Irish Republicanism, 177–9, 187–90.

71. Lewis, Fishers of Men, 200–1, 236; Taylor, Brits, 270–7; Operation Banner, 2-15, 5-14; Benest, ‘Northern Ireland’, 139.

72. Harnden, Bandit Country, 418–23; Moloney, IRA, 318–19. The Army killed a total of 131 terrorists (10 Loyalists, the remainder Republican) and 170 civilians, in Northern Ireland between 1969 and 1997. ‘After 38 years, the Army's Longest Campaign Draws to a Quiet Close’, The Times, 30 July 2007.

73. GEN(76)1st meeting, Cabinet Committee on Northern Ireland, 24 May 1976, CAB130/908(NAUK). Harnden, Bandit Country, 93–154; Taylor, Brits, 192–3; Hughes and Tripodi, ‘Surrogate’, 8–9; Hamill, Pig in the Middle, 162, 204.

74. Geraghty, Who Dares Wins: The Story of the SAS 1950–1992, 232–4, 247–52; Dillon, Dirty War, 465–78.

75. Jack, ‘Gibraltar’, passim; Bamford, ‘Intelligence’, 596–7, 603; Tuck, ‘Northern Ireland’, 171–2; Hamill, Pig in the Middle, 293–4.

76. Connor, Ghost Force, 190; Taylor, Brits, 309; Urban, Big Boys' Rules, 205.

77. ‘Torture, Murder, Mayhem – the Dirty War Just Got Dirtier’, The Guardian, 12 May 2003; ‘Family of IRA ‘Nutting Squad’ Victim Want Collusion Inquiry’, Belfast Telegraph, 28 January 2007; Taylor, States of Terror, 254–69.

78. Hughes and Tripodi, ‘Surrogate’, 9–10; Teague, ‘Double Blind’, passim; Lewis, Fishers of Men, 236; Ingram and Harkin, Stakeknife: Britain's Secret Agents in Northern Ireland; Iron, ‘Longest War’, 181.

79. Bamford, ‘Intelligence’, 600–3. For a particularly vitriolic treatment of FRU operations, see Floyd, ‘Ulster on the Euphrates: The Anglo-American Dirty War in Iraq’. The Finucane Centre also has a somewhat one-sided approach to human rights violations in Northern Ireland; see http://www.serve.com/pfc/. For an observation on the reluctance of some NGOs to address terrorist (particularly PIRA) human rights abuses, see Dickson, ‘Counter-Insurgency and Human Rights in Northern Ireland’, 491. Jon Moran offers a concise and balanced overview of this contentious subject in ‘Evaluating Special Branch and the Use of Informant Intelligence in Northern Ireland’.

80. Neumann, ‘Ulsterization’, 374; ‘British Army Storms Basra Jail to Free 2 Soldiers From Arrest’, New York Times, 20 September 2005.

81. Van Crefeld, The Sword and the Olive: A Critical History of the Israeli Defense Force, 344–5; ‘Conspiracy Theories’, Economist, 31 January 2009; ‘Israel's Death Squads: A Soldier's Story’, Independent on Sunday, 1 March 2009; ‘Shadow of the Past’, The Economist, 12 March 2009.

82. Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 271; Richards, ‘The Development of the UK Intelligence Community after 9/11’, 122.

83. ‘New Special Forces Unit Tailed Brazilian’, The Guardian, 4 August 2005.

84. ‘Secret War’, Los Angeles Times, 27 October 2002, passim. On British Muslim attitudes to 7/7, see ‘The Great Divide: How Westerners and Muslims view Each Other’, with a poll produced by the Pew Global Attitudes Project on 22 June 2006, http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID = 253

85. Bamford, ‘Intelligence’, 602; Crelinstein and Schmid, ‘Western Responses to Terrorism: A Twenty-Five Year Balance Sheet’, 335. RIPA can be consulted online at http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/ukpga_20000023_en_1