Product Description

In this book, defence specialist and war correspondent Mark Urban explores covert operations against the IRA from the mid-1970s to the Loughgall shooting in 1987. Drawing on interviews with people who have served at the heart of intelligence and special operations in Ulster, as well as with members of paramilitary groups, this book examines the roles of the army, the police and special branch, as well as both MI5 and MI6. The book also looks at the shoot to kill allegations, and records members of the security forces describing the deliberate deception of the press and courts in Ulster. The author also reveals many details including the events which lead up to the killing of eight IRA members in May 1987 in the village of Loughgall.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38563 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 266 pages

Customer Reviews

Weak on Fact.
I found this book to ask many questions about so called "shoot to kill" policies in NI. The answers it suggested were the author's opinions and based on weak evidence. Words and phrases such as "probably", "perhaps", "it is believed"..... regularly cropped up in offering explainations which just aren't good enough. The author is a journalist who spent 10 months in the Tank Regiment..... why only 10 months? What happened?...... he certainly did not have active service in Northern Ireland and quotes individual soldiers, police officers and journalists who, in the main appear to have been on the very periphery of the actions under discussion. There is a theme which is adopted throughout the text as to what the definition of an ambush is as opposed to an arrest plan. The fixation on this theme becomes a source of great annoyance to the reader particularly given the author's apparent pre-disposition on the matter. Not the book I expected..... the sources of information seem remote to the actual craft on which they comment. One for the charity book sale!

Superb Book
I have been following the Irish Troubles for years, and this is one of the very few books written by a British citizen...that takes a hard, critical eye at some of the events that have taken place in Northern Ireland that lesser books and newspaper articles have written up as heroics, but sometimes are little more than highly dubious killings dressed up after the fact as being consistent with the rule of law...I did not see any errors or flaws in logic that made me think that his book was fundamentally flawed. It is a welcome breath of fresh air compared to the various memoirs of SAS men that have come out in the past decade, very few of which entertain even the slightest possibility that the men of the SAS might on occasion do something wrong.

Finally, I met the author back in 1997 or 1998. I was doing research for my own book about Northern Ireland, and I would like to say he was very helpful and patient with my inquiries.

So, if you are interested in a three-dimensional look at Britain's most famous, skilled, and (yes) feared soldiers, buy his book. I only wish he'd do another one about Northern Ireland.

durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Like it or hate the book - following publication 14 became JCUNI and forces research became JSG soon after