Counter-Gangs – The Origins Of British Terrorism In Ireland

12 year old Maria McGurk, murdered by British state-controlled terrorists in 1971 at McGurk's Bar, Belfast, Ireland. Another victim of Britain's dirty war in Ireland. — 12 year old Maria McGurk, murdered by British state-controlled terrorists in 1971 at McGurk’s Bar, Belfast, Ireland. Another victim of Britain’s dirty war in Ireland.

I’ve devoted considerable space on An Sionnach Fionn to cataloguing Britain’s dirty war in Ireland highlighting a wide range of evidence gathered over the last forty years by human rights organisations, journalists and historians. Now the independent news and current affairs site Spinwatch has worked with the Pat Finucane Centre to publish a new study, “COUNTER-GANGS: A history of undercover military units in Northern Ireland 1971-1976“, a comprehensive investigation into the origins of British state-terrorism in Ireland.

The author of COUNTER-GANGS is Margaret Urwin, the secretary of Justice for the Forgotten, a branch of the Pat Finucane Centre which works with victims of Britain’s bombing campaigns in Ireland during the 1970s. Her report is based on years of work including interviews with former members of the British military and intelligence services and extensive documentary research. The publication presents evidence proving:

that senior British Army officers stationed in the North of Ireland during the early years of the conflict developed close contacts with various British terrorist factions in Ireland as part of a wider counter-insurgency war against the Irish Republican Army and Irish civilian population in general.
that the British Army created a special forces intelligence group, the Military Reaction Forces (MRF), in late 1971 and that the public exposure of the MRF as a death squad led to their replacement a year later by a larger organisation: the Special Reconnaissance Unit (SRU).
that the SRU relied heavily on members of the Special Air Service (SAS) for special forces manpower. Successive British governments went to enormous lengths to conceal this fact from the British parliament and media, denying the role of SAS death squads in Ireland.
that deliberately misleading information about British special forces and intelligence units in Ireland was fed to the British and international press as part of a black propaganda campaign. One resulting media story included information that would have enabled the Irish Republican Army to identify Louis Hammond as an MRF agent in their ranks. Hammond was shot shortly afterwards.

The report is the first of the State Violence and Collusion Project, an online research collaboration between SpinWatch and the Pat Finucane Centre, established with funding from the respected British-based Scurrah Wainwright Charity.

For more information please download the free PDF booklet “COUNTER-GANGS: A history of undercover military units in Northern Ireland 1971-1976” (verified virus-free). I also recommend the use of the independent wiki Power Base for more to the background of Britain’s thirty-year war in Ireland.