Bandit Country
Page 39
Charlie One, by Sean Hartnett, is a first-hand account of counter-terrorism operations run by 14 Intelligence Company. Hartnett gives a fascinating insight into intelligence gathering, decision-making processes, and tactics employed to combat IRA operatives across Northern Ireland during the Troubles.
There is a graphic account within Iain Cobain’s book, The History Thieves, about attempts to sabotage inquiries by Lord Stevens into the killings of various IRA terrorists and the role played in these deaths by British army intelligence officers in the Force Research Unit and the RUC’s special branch. Cobain also details the extent of collusion between certain members of the army’s Ulster Defence Regiment and loyalist, or unionist, terrorist groups, in mounting lethal operations against republican terrorists.
Stakeknife, written by former army intelligence officer, and Force Research Unit member Ian Hurst under the pseudonym Martin Ingram, gives a detailed account of life running agents inside the IRA and the life-and-death decisions that had to be made daily in order to protect those sources. As Hurst spells out, sometimes there were very stark, dark, choices to be made—literally allowing some informers to be killed in order to protect others who were seen as more valuable. I tried to reflect a little of this in Bandit Country, but for anyone who wants to know more, Stakeknife is available on Amazon. This book also details how British security forces colluded with loyalist terrorist units.
In terms of fundraising by republican forces, a House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee report in 2012, Fuel Laundering and Smuggling in Northern Ireland, is enlightening. Its focus is on the extent of cross-border tobacco and fuel smuggling between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The Miami New Times website carried a graphic account of how one tobacco smuggling gang was caught as they transported millions of cigarettes from Miami to Dublin as part of an IRA fundraising operation.
There is much material available about British security forces’ tactics in combating IRA sniper gangs. For example, the UK Elite Forces website details the operation by the SAS in 1997 that resulted in the capture of one gang at a farm complex near Crossmaglen. The gang had been responsible for the deaths of seven soldiers and two policemen.
The ongoing catalogue of violent dissident republican attacks on British security targets, particularly policemen and police stations, is well documented by the BBC, which maintains a timeline of incidents dating back to 2009.
Efforts by the Police Service of Northern Ireland to tackle the problem have been outlined by media, including The Belfast Telegraph, who ran this article about the PSNI’s anti-terror unit.
The formation of the New IRA in 2012 as a fresh grouping of republican organizations was widely documented, but was reported initially in an article in The Guardian newspaper.
I have centered my story around a meeting of leaders of the G8 group of industrialized countries in Belfast. There actually was a G8 meeting in Northern Ireland in 2013, at the Lough Erne golf resort, but it took place in June of that year, not January, as portrayed in my book. Barack Obama did attend, along with David Cameron, and they both visited a school, but it was in Enniskillen, not the fictional Belfast school depicted in my book. The BBC has an account of Obama’s visit to Northern Ireland here.
About the author and contact details
Andrew has always had a love of writing and a passion for reading good thrillers. But despite having a long-standing dream of writing his own novels, it took him more than five decades to finally get around to doing it.
Bandit Country is the third in the Joe Johnson series of thrillers, following on from the first, The Last Nazi, and the second, The Old Bridge. This series pulls together some of Andrew’s main interests, particularly history, world news, and travel.
Andrew studied history at Loughborough University and worked for many years as a business and financial journalist before becoming a corporate and financial communications adviser with several large energy companies, specializing in media relations.
He originally came from Grantham, Lincolnshire, and lives with his family in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, UK.
You can connect with Andrew via these routes:
E-mail: andrew@andrewturpin.com
Website: www.andrewturpin.com.
Facebook: @AndrewTurpinAuthor
Twitter: @AndrewTurpin
Instagram: @andrewturpin
Please do get in touch with your comments and views on the books, or anything else for that matter. Andrew very much enjoys hearing from readers and promises to reply.
Copyright
First published in the U.K. in 2018 by The Write Direction Publishing, St. Albans, U.K.
Copyright © 2018 Andrew Turpin
All rights reserved.
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-78875-004-2
Andrew Turpin has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.