by Mark Urban
By the mid 1980s soldiers had been equipped with a family of portable counter-measures packs designed to meet different threats. The IRA was aware of the function of the devices carried by soldiers on patrol and later tried to blame Army counter-measures for triggering the explosion in 1987 at the Remembrance Day service at Enniskillen which killed eleven people. In fact it was set off by a timing device.
Perhaps inevitably, IRA experts found an area of the electronic spectrum in which inhibitors would not operate – the ‘white band’. From 1985 onwards, several soldiers and police officers were killed, notably in south Armagh, by bombs set off using a radio signal in the white band. Defeating this threat became the subject of urgent effort at a Ministry of Defence establishment in southern England. After more than a year of intensive effort, the scientists came up with a successful counter-measure to transmitters operating in the white band. Having been chased across the electronic spectrum, increasingly the IRA reverted to an old-fashioned and unjammable method – the command wire.
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Under its strategy of long war, the IRA became more aware of the risks to its men and women and of the need to avoid reckless operations. Republican areas, particularly in the inner cities, were intensively patrolled and subjected to undercover surveillance activities by the security forces, which increased the chances of IRA agents being intercepted. Because of this, the IRA had to put greater effort into the preparation of attacks to ensure that snipers or bombers would get a free run at their target. The IRA developed the skills of its own intelligence organization, scoring some coups which were to cause dismay in the security community.
During the early days of the Troubles, women had banged dustbin lids whenever an Army patrol entered the estates. As the 1970s went on, the IRA shifted towards more subtle forms of communication. Telephones were used to pass cryptic messages. Sympathizers living in tall blocks of flats would spot patrols with binoculars and then hang a towel on their balcony or open a window. These warning posts made it safer for the IRA to stage attacks or move weapons and, in turn, forced an increase in undercover surveillance by the security forces. These were mainly plain-clothes operations which were more likely to catch people out. Attempting to counter this new surveillance activity, the IRA employed their own teams of watchers, known as ‘dickers’ or ‘dicks’. They were often recruited from the youth or women’s branches of the movement and took part in attacks, by observing the security routine or by finding the home of a police officer, as well as observing the home turf.
The Provisionals also soon made attempts to intercept their opponents’ communications. The small tactical radios of soldiers on the street were easily listened to. Attics or spare rooms were kitted out by the IRA as eavesdropping posts. Those who ran them quickly learned how to interpret the basic code words used by soldiers and police in an attempt to disguise their actions. It did not take long, for example, to establish that a soldier mentioning ‘Felix’ on the radio was talking about a bomb disposal officer or that ‘Sunray’ referred to a unit commander. This kind of information could be valuable in setting up ‘come on’ ambushes where the IRA would stage an incident and attack those who responded to it. Simple direction-finding equipment could also be used to trace the location of the transmissions.
However, intelligence gathered by listening to the communications of foot patrols remained fairly basic. The IRA realized that it would gain far more important information if it were able to break into the higher-level communications used by senior commanders. In 1979, as part of a major police intelligence operation code-named HAWK, the RUC raided a house near Belfast which had been converted into a bomb factory and sophisticated listening post. The police deduced that the Provisionals had succeeded in tapping in to the landlines which carried the phone conversations of senior officers. During the same year, sympathizers in England had succeeded in stealing from a mailbag the so-called Glover Report on future terrorist trends in Northern Ireland. The loss of this secret document was a profound embarrassment to Whitehall.
The tapping of their communications led the Army to devise a new, more secure system. One, code-named BRINTON, which was deployed in the early 1980s, was intended to provide encrypted telephone and data lines between various headquarters. However, doubts were raised recently about BRINTON. In late 1989 someone with extensive contacts in the republican movement alleged to me that the IRA had succeeded in breaking into this high-level network. During the same month, the Ministry of Defence contracts bulletin, a publication circulated to defence contractors, contained an invitation to tender for an extension to project BRINTON – possibly a recognition that the system needed enhancement.
By the late 1970s, in tandem with the new cellular structure, more effort was put into giving formal training to IRA volunteers, often at camps in Donegal and other remote areas of the Republic. They became more expert at sidestepping advances in crime detection. This ‘forensic awareness’, as the police call it, included several new measures: the use of balaclavas was increased to prevent identification from photographic surveillance; it became standard practice to use rubber gloves when handling weapons, keeping prints off guns and oil and powder from the hands; and boiler suits or other garments were put on top of normal clothing to prevent them picking up traces of explosive. These clothes, balaclavas and gloves were hidden away from IRA members’ homes, often with the weapons themselves. Volunteers bathed soon after handling explosives so that no traces could be found on their hair or skin. The IRA’s inventiveness prompted many counter-measures from the security forces which sought, also through technology and improved forensic practice, to gain more convictions.
Another area where technology was used to combat the IRA was in the checking of car number plates. In 1974 the security forces introduced the first computerized vehicle number plate system, code-named Operation VENGEFUL. This project was developed by the Army, the main-frame computer being based at Lisburn. And it had been the Royal Military Police in Londonderry, not the RUC, which had made the first attempts to link vehicle checkpoints to the agencies holding records so that instant checks could be made, vengeful terminals, many of them at checkpoints on the border with the South, could be used to obtain information on a car in about thirty seconds.
The IRA soon realized its vulnerability to such a system, but it too developed counter-measures. IRA operatives toured the streets of prosperous areas, whose inhabitants would be listed in VENGEFUL as being of no interest, and took the precise details of cars. They would then find a similar model, change its number plates and ensure that it was identical to the first, even down to stickers in the window. In this way a soldier or police officer checking the number by computer would assume the car belonged to a respectable suburbanite. However, the use of ‘ringers’, as the IRA called them, involved the organization in a great deal of extra effort and was not possible in many cases. But equally it took the Army some time to discover the most effective way to use the computer – at first a great deal of time was wasted in checking vehicles belonging to the bulk of the population, uninvolved in terrorism. In 1977 the VENGEFUL computer was modified to deal mainly with suspect vehicles.
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During the 1970s most Army and RUC records were held on index cards at headquarters from local through to national level. These cards listed suspects, houses and firearms, often in considerable detail. Soldiers arriving to search a house would know the location of the furniture within it and other details – like whether the building had a cellar or a blocked chimney. This data had been compiled on house cards from previous raids and sometimes by the simple expedient of looking through the window. Security forces could obtain other information about a house from the Post Office or from the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.
Inevitably, the houses of people innocent of terrorism were sometimes subjected to such scrutiny. The searches were deeply unpopular and were criticized by some Labour MPs in London, who felt that Ulster was turning into a ‘Big Brother’ socie
ty in which ordinary people were subject to an unacceptable level of surveillance by the security forces. As a result of this, in 1976 Harold Wilson announced the setting-up of a personal records computer. Compiling this kind of information causes concern among civil liberties activists, although Army officers argue that it allows Lisburn to establish, at the press of a button, the many people who definitely were not involved in an incident, removing the innocent from suspicion. Security chiefs hoped this would enable them to focus their efforts more effectively, lessening the unwelcome attention given to those uninvolved in violence.
The police and Army had realized for some time that there was considerable scope for mishandling of information held in the system of card indexes and that the amount of time required to keep the information up-to-date was escalating. They introduced a computer known simply as ‘3072’, its model number, which was intended to improve the situation. Like many early experiments with computers, it soon became apparent that the machine did not have the memory or speed to be effective. As a result police stations and Army bases retained their card indexes, and the computer had little real impact on their intelligence-collating activities.
During the early 1980s a new system was developed to replace ‘3072’. In 1987 125 Intelligence Section, the data-processing department of 12 Intelligence and Security Company based at Lisburn, took delivery of a new computer. The new machine, which had a memory many times the size of ‘3072’ was code-named CRUCIBLE. The Army hoped that CRUCIBLE would at last allow it to exploit the possibilities of the information revolution.
CRUCIBLE does not only store information on people and incidents but also contains data on the movements of individuals, fed in from dozens of terminals in the intelligence cells of units around Ulster. The introduction of the new computer brought some complaints from intelligence officers who resented the amount of time which their men had to spend feeding information into it. Luddite elements in the intelligence world felt the input of information into the computer absorbed more time and effort than was necessary with a system of cards and a skilled collator. Although it may reduce the number of people subjected to the attention of the intelligence-gatherers, computerization of information can compound mistakes, and the consequences – being detained at roadblocks or having homes searched – for people entered erroneously in the computer as terrorist suspects are potentially very damaging to the security forces.
Computerizing records has not brought any miraculous changes to intelligence work. CRUCIBLE has various levels of access, with those at the lower levels spending much time putting information in, but not being able to access the best intelligence themselves. According to an officer who has used the system, only the highest level of access provides the user with information significantly better than written records.
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In 1973 the Reconnaissance Interpretation Centre (RIC) was established at RAF Aldergrove in Northern Ireland. The RIC is used to channel requests for aerial photography. This work is often undertaken by high altitude passes by RAF Canberra aircraft flying from England. The pictures are useful for simple mapping purposes but can also be valuable for establishing whether equipment in an enclosed area has been moved or if large weapons storage pits are being dug.
The Army Air Corps has also deployed Gazelle helicopters equipped with a specially stabilized TV camera mounting. These ‘heli-telly’ missions became a near constant presence over Belfast and Londonderry and at events such as republican funerals. Heli-telly pictures were used in 1989 in the successful prosecution of several men who had killed two corporals after they had accidentally driven into a republican funeral.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s the Army Air Corps ran an operation to find command wire bombs and arms caches through the use of infra-red imaging equipment which could detect disturbances in the earth. The equipment was too sensitive to work properly in a helicopter because of the vibrations. Instead it was fitted in the Corps’ ancient Beaver spotter planes, small propellor aircraft with several seats. Such sorties from Aldergrove went on through the early 1980s, often over border areas where the IRA mounted command wire bomb attacks. The Beavers were retired in the late 1980s, for by then a new generation of thermal imagers was being carried in helicopters. One model, often used by special forces, provided high quality images at night at a distance of several miles.
Technology was also used to reduce the burden of running covert OPs. This task presented serious risks and the number of people trained to do it was limited. Newly invented sensors, which did not require personnel to run them, appeared to offer help. Devices which sensed approaching footsteps could be planted in the ground. Special cameras were developed which could be left by one of the many unstaffed border crossings and would be triggered by movement. These devices could then be recovered several days later. Cameras were also fitted in the headlight cavities of cars which were left parked opposite a suspect’s house or other area of interest.
Provisional newspapers revealed that the cumulative effect of physical surveillance, heli-telly, spotter planes, bugging and computerization was making many IRA volunteers fearful of carrying out operations. A senior IRA member said in an interview with the newspaper An Phoblacht/Republican News:
There is their vast array of forts, barracks and spy-posts which bristle with antennae and communications masts, listening devices and other hi-tech equipment. Behind this visible presence there is also the frightening level of undercover and covert surveillance. Recently [1989] on this front there has been a dramatic increase in the use of hidden surveillance cameras in both urban and rural areas … there is also the bugging of cars and even certain open locations in republican strongholds.
The IRA member concluded, ‘Ultimately it is a battle of wits, every operation must be meticulously planned, taking account of the obstacles.’
Hi-tech bugging equipment offered extraordinary possibilities to the covert operators especially as, by 1979, the security forces faced a dilemma over what to do when they found an arms cache. The policy of using the SAS to confront terrorists at arms caches or at the scene of a planned attack had been abandoned, as previously related in chapter eight, largely because those in charge of security felt that killing terrorists under such circumstances resulted in the dead IRA or INLA members being seen as martyrs in the republican community. Intelligence specialists came up with the solution of planting miniature transmitters inside weapons found in such dumps. The idea was that the devices would be activated when the weapon was picked up and that the terrorists’ movements could be monitored as they went towards their target. Later, more sophisticated devices were developed which not only allowed the location of the weapon to be tracked but also acted as microphones, enabling intelligence officers to listen to the IRA members’ conversations.
The task of fitting these devices was entrusted to specially selected officers and NCOs belonging to the Weapons Intelligence Unit (WIU), a joint Army/RUC outfit which pooled all information on ballistics and arms finds. Within each brigade headquarters there is a Weapons Intelligence Section and it was often these officers who were summoned to fit the devices to weapons, an act known in the secret argot of covert operations as ‘jarking’.
The heyday of this type of covert operation was to extend from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. On numerous occasions experts succeeded in jarking IRA weapons. In several cases there were spectacular successes resulting in the arrest of IRA members who planned to use the weapons. For years these results were achieved for comparatively little risk.
A well-planned operation to bug IRA weaponry required several preconditions, the most important of which was the ability to gain access to the guns without the IRA becoming aware of it. In some cases caches were discovered in remote areas. Under these circumstances weapons could sometimes be removed to be worked on under laboratory conditions while the cache was kept under surveillance. In other cases the guns were hidden in built-up areas, sometimes even inside people’s houses.
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On occasions the SAS and 14 Company were used on ‘covert search’ missions, sometimes gaining access to a republican household while its occupants were not at home. On these missions they were able to plant listening devices of various types, including those used inside weapons. At other times people acting as agents of the security forces allowed soldiers and police access to weapons stored in their houses.
Another requirement for a successful jarking operation was that the IRA should plan to make some use of the weapons in which devices had been planted while they were still working. This factor was clearly beyond the control of the security forces. Monitoring listening and tracking devices required a base close to the site of the cache. The small transmitters used inevitably had a limited range. The bases used for such operations ranged from a local police station to an unoccupied house. In the case of a barn bugged in Armagh in 1982, where events central to the subsequent investigations of John Stalker took place, the devices were monitored from a specially placed portable cabin nearby.
Ultimately, it was inevitable that the IRA would discover that its weapons were being jarked, no matter how clever the experts were at disguising their work. It appears that the first time an IRA member noticed that a gun had been tampered with was late in 1983 or early in 1984. The discovery led to the death of James ‘Jas’ Young, an IRA member and police informer.
Young had been recruited as an agent following a car accident in August 1981. The police apparently threatened to return Young to jail to serve the remaining four years of an eight-year sentence for terrorist offences given to him in 1976. Young agreed to help the police as a means of keeping his liberty, and was active in the County Down IRA. In the first days of January 1984, he allowed his Special Branch handlers access to a sub-machine-gun which he was moving to Belfast. After this Young’s career as an informer came to an abrupt halt. The IRA appear to have discovered the presence of an electronic device in the gun soon after it was dropped off and Young was abducted and subjected to interrogation.
