British Army 'Green Slime' - FRU in N Ireland, JSG in Iraq

[TonyGosling]

Unit linked to death squads may be in Iraq

Chris Thornton - Belfast Telegraph

Thursday, February 22, 2007
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article2294205.e ce
By Chris Thornton

Questions have been tabled in Parliament about reports that the shadowy Army unit linked to Troubles intelligence scandals is now operating in Iraq.

The Joint Services Group (JSG), which allegedly operates out of Baghdad's Green Zone, is said to be the new name for the Force Research Unit (FRU) - the Army outfit that ran notorious agents like Brian Nelson and IRA mole Stakeknife.

SDLP leader Mark Durkan has demanded answers from the Ministry of Defence about the group's reported operations in Iraq. His party has called for their withdrawal from that country.

The JSG is alleged to be running Iraqi agents using techniques learned in Northern Ireland, where FRU ran key informers inside the IRA and loyalist groups - but may have allowed them to get away with murder in order to preserve their cover.

SDLP justice spokesman Alban Maginness said the unit "will only make it worse" for the people of Iraq if they operate in the same way that they did in Northern Ireland.

FRU's work with Nelson, a UDA intelligence officer, was exposed when he was jailed for conspiracy to murder. But full details of his work, including links to the murder of solicitor Patrick Finucane, have never been fully explained.

The Army unit also operated the IRA agent known as Stakeknife. He is alleged to have operated within the IRA's internal security department, which involved him in the deaths of alleged informers.

Four years ago, up to two dozen members of FRU were named in criminal investigation files sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions by Lord Stevens, the head of the Stevens Inquiry. No public action has been taken on those

In his 2003 report, Lord Stevens said collusion had taken place involving members of FRU and loyalist and republican paramilitaries.

The unit is said to have been renamed as the JSG in the wake of that report.

Prior to the invasion of Iraq, the JSG is said to have operated exclusively in Northern Ireland. But as terrorist units spread throughout Iraq, it was deployed to develop intelligence gathering.

British defence sources are reported to have claimed the group has saved hundreds of lives, prevented suicide bombings and gathered intelligence that helped coalition forces kill Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, last year.

But Mr Maginness said the unit has "never been called to account for their actions" in Northern Ireland.

"The FRU has been involved in murder and mayhem in the North," he said.

Chris Thornton - Belfast Telegraph

Homepage: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article2294205.e ce


See also.......

Link

[TonyGosling]

‘Green slime’ invades Iraq
by William Bowles
Monday, 26 September 2005
http://www.williambowles.info/ini/ini-0366.html

.............This is Brigadier Gordon Kerr, identified as being involved in the deaths of at least fifteen Irish Republicans during his tenure as head of the FRU or the Force Reconnaissance Unit in Northern Ireland. Promoted from Lt. Colonel to Brigadier for his efforts, Kerr was given the job as military attaché in Beijing, largely to keep him out of the way of an investigation into the activities of the FRU in the assassination of human rights lawyer Pat Finucane and as many as fourteen other people.

[rodin]

Hmmm... more light in dark places. This internet thing could catch on..



Internet chatter

[Abandoned Ego]

Brigadier Carr was a point man for the TRUE elite.

His master died recently, bless her. I wonder if she got a telegram ?

And they aint democratically elected.

[rodin]

[Abandoned Ego]

[Abandoned Ego]

The Treason Felony Act 1848, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (11 & 12 Vict. c. 12.) The Act is still in force. It is a law which protects the Queen and the Crown.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason_Felony_Act_1848


Read the * act, and ask yourself why we cant stop Trident, or Blair , or Cameron, or any of the rest of these murdering morons ?

Who do our politicians swear their "oath of alllegiance" to ?

Is it you ?

Nah.

And of course, anyone with a brain in their head should realise that it doesnt take 10 years to have an inquest into the death of a member of the Royal family. Unless of course , the said 'crew' dunnit.

No doubt you will require "more proof"

WTFU

[TonyGosling]

Exposing Gordon Kerr and Tony Blair’s secret army
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=11105

The secret Force Research Unit, the British Army’s counter-intelligence squad, pictured in 1988. The circled man is Gordon Kerr - now in Iraq
British soldiers from the SRR unit arrested in Iraq in 2005

Simon Basketter exposes how special British units in Iraq are run by the same man who commanded death squads in Northern Ireland
Two of Britain’s most secret military units operating in Iraq are run by a man who ran death squads in Northern Ireland.
British covert military unit the Joint Support Group (JSG) works alongside US covert forces in the aptly named “Task Force Black”.
Earlier this year the JSG was lauded in the Sunday Telegraph for its role in running dozens of double agents in Iraq, many of who had infiltrated the various insurgent groups and militias.
The Telegraph claimed the regiment is “one of the coalition’s most effective and deadly weapons in the fight against terror”.
The other unit is the Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR). At its creation in 2005, suitably anonymous “military sources” told the media, “We want to place electronic ‘bugs’ close to terrorist leaders such as Osama bin Laden and have agents within the ranks of global terrorist groups.

Shooting
“We got very good at doing this in Northern Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s, and now we want to transfer this capability to the global war on terrorism.”
In July 2005, the SRR was involved in the surveillance operation which led to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell tube station in London.
SRR officers were apparently engaged in “low-level intelligence behind the scenes” when Jean Charles was shot. According to the “military sources”, this was the first time the new regiment had been engaged in an operation.
In December that year two British soldiers in the SRR were arrested by police in Iraq.
Who were the two men and what were they doing when they were seized outside al-Jamiat police station in Basra?
What prompted British soldiers to smash down the wall of the station and demolish several buildings inside the compound in the operation to snatch them back?
At the request of the MoD, the British media obscured the faces of the two captured men (pictured above).
They had been sitting in a car outside the police station in Arabic dress. They were heavily armed and had an impressive array of surveillance equipment with them.
It was claimed at the time that the two undercover men had opened fire when they were stopped at a police roadblock, killing at least one police officer. They were part of the Britain’s undercover war in Iraq.
Both the JSG and the SRR are run by Brigadier Gordon Kerr.
Kerr’s career has taken him to troublespots all over the world. An officer in the Gordon Highlanders, he served briefly in Cyprus before his first posting in Northern Ireland in 1972.
Tony Blair appointed Kerr to head up military intelligence in Iraq in 2003 – just two weeks after an inquiry into collusion with paramilitaries in Northern Ireland sent a file about Kerr to the director of public prosecutions.
Kerr is the most senior serving intelligence officer in the army and has been rewarded with both an OBE and the queen’s gallantry medal.
In Iraq Kerr applies the “methods developed on the mean streets of Ulster during the Troubles”, as the Sunday Telegraph excitedly relates.
The government has repeatedly claimed that Northern Ireland provides the blueprint for the British army’s operations in Iraq.

Paramilitaries
From the late 1970s, various British governments backed a secret unit of the army, the Force Research Unit (FRU), which, along with the special branch of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, supplied names, addresses and photographs of Catholic targets to Loyalist paramilitaries.
The FRU was led by Gordon Kerr. When Kerr became the FRU’s commander in 1986, the 100-strong squad adopted a more aggressive approach to the running of informers.
The key person supplying information was British army agent Brian Nelson.
He infiltrated the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the biggest Loyalist paramilitary group. His information was responsible for the murder of at least 30 Catholics.
These included many who had no connection to the IRA, including the Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane who was murdered in 1989 by the UDA’s death squad, the Ulster Freedom Fighters.
The FRU also obtained “restriction orders” from other British security and military units whereby the FRU would withdraw from an area to allow Kerr’s UDA agents to get in and out without hindrance.
Drawing on his sources in British intelligence, Nelson passed on the names and addresses of apparent IRA activists to the UDA, whose gunmen would promptly go out and “execute” the suspects.
Nelson’s activities were regularly discussed at London meetings of the Joint Intelligence Committee.
This was chaired by then Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
In January 1992 Nelson agreed to plead guilty to five conspiracies to murder, and at least four sectarian murder charges against him were dropped.
In a bizarre court case lasting less than a day, Nelson’s real role was effectively covered up. After a moving tribute to his sterling work for the British army from an anonymous colonel, Nelson got ten years.
Speaking from behind a security screen the colonel stressed the lives Nelson had allegedly “saved”. Nelson was released after serving less than half his sentence, and spent the rest of his life under a false identity.
The anonymous colonel was Gordon Kerr.
Beyond Gordon Kerr, the Special Reconnaissance Regiment includes at least 100 other veterans of Britain’s dirty war in Northern Ireland.
How much does Tony Blair know about what they are up to?

[TonyGosling]

British “Pond Life” Intel Ops Unmentioned in the Corporate Media
Kurt Nimmo, Another Day in the Empire


September 23, 2005

Jarlath Kearney, writing for the Daily Ireland, draws a crucial comparison that will of course be completely ignored by the larger corporate media. The incident in Basra, where two SAS undercover operatives were captured, dressed as Arabs and driving a car loaded with weapons and explosives, is similar to an earlier incident in Northern Ireland, where the SAS operated for years. "The incident drew parallels with the March 1988 attack on the funeral of IRA volunteer Caoimhghin Mac Bradaigh," writes Kearney. "During that incident, two armed and undercover army intelligence operatives drove directly at the cortege in west Belfast. After firing a shot, both soldiers were subsequently captured, beaten and shot dead by the IRA." Lucky for the British intelligence operatives in Basra, they were not murdered, although apparently beaten.

Kearney also mentions that Brigadier (in the Intelligence Corps) Gordon Kerr, who "played a key role in the activities of covert British activities in the North [of Ireland]," is "now stationed with British forces in Iraq." Neil Mackay, Home Affairs Editor of the Sunday Herald, characterizes Kerr as "the archetypal spy; a spook’s spook and a master of dirty tricks and dirty wars," on the same level "as pond life" (according to "regular squaddies and military brass"), "[h]ighly effective, immensely powerful and very dangerous pond life, but pond life nevertheless." Kerr and his Force Research Unit (FRU) not only "handed packages of photographs and military reports detailing the movements and addresses of potential targets, which in turn were passed to loyalist murder gangs" in Northern Ireland (essentially organizing targeted assassinations), but also "carried out more 'flag tours’—secret intelligence missions [in Berlin, circa 1983-85]—than the French and US military intelligence put together" and were thus described by an "officer who served with Kerr in Berlin" as "pointlessly aggressive and confrontational." An intelligence officer who knew Kerr portrayed him as "the perfect advocate of the ends justifying the means."

In Britain, as in America, criminals and terrorists are rewarded for their murderous behavior. In February, 2003, Kerr was "sent to the Gulf to head up British spying activities in the Middle East as part of preparations for action in Iraq," Mackay reported for the Sunday Herald. "The move has been described as a 'get out of jail free card’ for Kerr." Prior to this assignment, Kerr was rewarded with a military attache position in Beijing. "The fact that Kerr seems to be playing a key role in the coming war suggests that all the activities that he was involved in were sanctioned at the highest level," remarked Jane Winter, the director of British Irish Rights Watch.

A FRU source told Mackay in 2000 that what "was happening [in Northern Ireland] may have been occurring outside the law but the establishment [at the time, Secretary of State for Defense, George Younger, Ulster Secretary, Tom King, PM Margaret Thatcher, and General Sir John Waters, the general officer commanding in Northern Ireland] knew what was happening." Likewise the "establishment" knows what is happening in Iraq—no doubt the sort of "dirty war" launched by the likes of Gordon Kerr and FRU is confirmed British policy (a collaborative effort with American intelligence and Rumsfeld’s Pentagon), well "outside the law."

Naturally, all of this is simply irrelevant because the corporate media will not report it—instead, in the wake of the embarrassing revelations of SAS undercover agents posing as Arabs, the media has turned its attention toward Iran, accused (as usual) of organizing and funding the murder of British and American occupation soldiers in Iraq. In the period of a day or so, all reference to the SAS and its "dirty tricks and dirty wars," more alluded to than actually investigated, have disappeared down the memory hole, replaced by archetypal terrorists of the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi sort.

[TonyGosling]

Panorama -
Britain's Secret Terror Deals
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05x8gzs/panorama-britains-secret -terror-deals
British security forces have been accused of involvement in dozens of murders during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Reporter Darragh MacIntyre investigates allegations that the state colluded with paramilitary killers and covered up their crimes. He meets the families who have been fighting for decades to uncover the government's darkest secrets and he confronts some of those believed to be complicit.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05x8gzs

Reporter Darragh MacIntyre
Producer Maurice May
Executive Producer Andrew Head
Editor Ceri Thomas

[TonyGosling]

“Serial killers” allowed to operate in North by British Army, says BBC
Casey Egan @irishcentral May 30,2015 04:10 AM
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Serial-killers-allowed-to-operate-in- North-by-British-Army-says-BBC.html

Amnesty International has called for a full investigation into state support for paramilitary killers during the Troubles after BBC coverage. Photo by: Jeff J Mitchell/Reuters
British security forces colluded with paramilitary killers during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, resulting in the still unsolved murders of hundreds of people, the BBC investigative series Panorama has revealed.

Now, Amnesty International is calling for a full-fledged investigation into the claims.

The program, “Britain’s Secret Terror Deals,” which aired Thursday on the BBC, zeroed in on links between MI5, the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary with the Ulster Defense Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force. It also explored allegations made by the the families of victims killed by the IRA that some of those who perpetrated the killings were also paid informers for the British state.

Northern Ireland’s first police ombudsman, Baroness Nuala O’Loan, was among those interviewed by reporter Darragh McIntyre and the Panorama team.

She described some of the people working as undercover operatives for the British forces as “serial killers.”

"They were running informants and their argument was that they were saving lives, but hundreds and hundreds of people died because these people were not brought to justice.

"There was impunity really for these people to go on committing their crimes. Many of them were killers, some were serial killers," she said.

According to Lord Stevens, the former Met Police Commissioner who has headed three government investigations into Troubles-era security forces in Northern Ireland, thousands of agents and informants were recruited.

The current police ombudsman of Northern Ireland, Dr. Michael Maguire, has been for a number of year now investigating 60 murders in which the state has been implicated.

It was not until last year, when he challenged the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in court, that the PSNI agreed to release the relevant files.

Speaking to Panorama, PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton said “There is a need to understand the sheer magnitude of what we are dealing with. We are talking about rooms full of material.

"Some of it is very sensitive, some of which if it is released in the wrong circumstances would be outside of legislation, some of it if released in the wrong circumstances could put lives at risk."

Amnesty International has been firm in its calls for a full investigation. "The breadth and depth of collusion being alleged here is truly disturbing,” said Amnesty Northern Ireland Program Director Patrick Corrigan.

"Killing people targeted by the state, using intelligence provided by the state and shooting them with guns provided by the state - if all this is proven, we’re not talking about a security policy we’re talking about a murder policy.

"There must now be a full, independent investigation into the scale of the policy where the police, army and MI5 worked with illegal paramilitary groups, resulting in the deaths of perhaps hundreds of people.

"Without full accountability for past actions, there can be no public confidence in today’s justice mechanisms."

To date, the British government’s response to these claims has been that collusion with paramilitaries should not have been carried out and that it has already apologized in the instances in which it was practiced.