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Comrade Joe · #12 (**permalink**) 06-20-2008, 02:04 PM

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Originally Posted by Drakej

Any links to the SAS being involved?

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Numerous intelligence agencies were at work in Northern Ireland by 1974—the RUC Special Branch, Army Intelligence, the Special Air Service (SAS) in the guise of the 14th Intelligence Unit, along with both MI6 and MI5. These often competing agencies attempted to share some of their intelligence through a Director and Co-ordinator of Intelligence, while all the agencies reported to their own British based headquarters—all of whom ultimately reported to various British government ministers. All were running agents.

At the same time, the boundaries between the loyalist paramilitary groups and state forces such as the RUC and the UDR were very porous, with numerous individuals holding dual membership. Much of the military and police hierarchy considered the loyalist paramilitaries as valuable allies.

Barron considers the evidence supporting the view that security forces directly assisted the Dublin and Monaghan attacks. He claims that the only source of allegations that an SAS Brigadier and Captain participated in the attacks came, in 1983, from French journalist Roger Faligot. Barron insists that his inquiry has found no evidence to support this claim.

More substantial information of collusion by the armed forces centres around leading loyalist Billy Hanna. He was regularly visited by soldiers, who even took him fishing. Other reports, from journalist Joe Tiernan, suggested that he was regularly visited by plainclothes officers. According to Tiernan, faced with difficult questions in the preparation of an operation, Hanna was wont to clear his unit’s action with his army contacts. By implication, an operation as huge as the Dublin one could only have been carried out with approval from above.

Barron rejects the assertion that the complexity of the attacks and the type of explosive necessarily imply direct practical assistance from the military. His conclusions are generally weak and conditional, which must reflect ongoing sensitivities in the Irish political establishment. But he does find the following:

* That finding that members of the security forces had been involved in the bombings is “neither fanciful or absurd.”

* Although the loyalist groups were capable of the bombing on their own, “this does not rule out the involvement of individual RUC, UDR or British Army members.

* A high level cover-up cannot be ruled out, but “it is unlikely that any such decision would ever have been committed to writing.”

* Neither would any written records have been made of advance warnings.

* The security forces in the North knew quickly who carried out the attack on the basis of good intelligence.

* Some of those suspected had relationships with British intelligence and/or RUC Special Branch, and therefore information supplied to the Garda was compromised.

Having made these points, however, he insists that the inference that the bombings were state sanctioned “is not sufficiently strong. It does not even follow as a matter of probability. Unless further information comes to hand, such involvement must remain a suspicion. It is not proven.”

Commenting on the report, Margaret Unwin of the Justice for the Forgotten group said that its publication would strengthen demands for the full public inquiry as long demanded by the bombs’ victims.

Ireland: Barron report confirms British collusion in 1974 Dublin bombings