'A MAN has declared war on Europe: a free Europe; a special war.
Faligot's new book The Kitson Experiment. * The man of course is Brigadier Frank Kitson, author of Low Intensity British army's political-military manual on how to deal with an insurgent population. Faligot shows in detail how Kitson's ideas have been applied in Ireland — a usetul practice for possible civil uprising in Britain and other parts of Europe.
The essence of Kitson's strategy is control of Ine civwan populauol, repression against the core of an insurrectionary movement; pyschological warfare and black propaganda with the aim of separating leaders trom sophisticated possible means of intelligence and in- 111-0 their followers; filtration of opposition movements.
Revolt The application of these techniques calls for the closest possible liaison between civil police and military forces, together with the formation and use of 'special brigades' for selected operations. All these plans have been put into operation in On called David Seaman arranged a press conference in Dublin. He revealed that until then he had been member of the Special Air Service operating in Northern He said that, things, the SAS were engaged in random bòmb explosions to discredit the IRA.
In January 1972 his body was found in a ditch near the border in County Armagh.
Seaman's revelations blew the whistle on the operation of Kitson's 'special units'. first jobs of the SAS were the formation of the Military Reconnaissance cipal aim, was to infiltrate Republican and Loyalist organisations. A famed operation of the MRF was the Four Square Laundry Operation.
On October 1972 a Four Square Laundry Van was ambushed in the Twinbrook area of Belfast. An IRA unit shot dead two SAS men in a concealed compartment in the roof of the van, and killed the driver. The Four Square Laundry was a clever cover operation. house visits yields valuable tion to cleaning clothes, the Four Square Laundry aso examined clotning tor evidence wal il nal been in the vicinity of firearms.
The MRF was just a small episode in the anti'low intensity' arsenal. psychological warfare and operations (known as Joint Warfare Establishment (JWE) at Salisbury Wiltshire. The repressive personnel weapons bullets, water cannon and the rest are well known So are techniques of selective repression of the political vangnard Perhaps the most developed aspect of the 'Kitson' operations in the North have been the massive surveillence and intelligence operation. Computer files at the Thiepval Barracks in Lisburn number half a million or more -total adult population of the nationalist areas, plus a few over for Loyalist groups.
What's important anti-subversion warfare is that it's an escalating system, combining politica, and millary The security services civil strife to put it into already in operation in Britain, in particular the many of its intelligence-gathering features.
The rest is jusi waiting for implementation at the right time ... and the forces who will put it into effect are getting all the experience they will need in Britain's counter-revolutionary war.
* The Kitson Experiment, Available from The Other Bookshop, 328 Upper St, London NI. Add 20% post and packing.
So begins Roger Operations the selective but ferocious most 23 October 1971 a 31-year old Englishman other Among the Forces (MRF). A prinoften using soldiers of Irish extraction, Anything involving house to intelligence. In addiFaligot details the propoganda 'psyops'), taught at the arsenal of antiplastic assassination, internment, - roughly equivalent to the about Kitson's scheme v.
abucws won't wait for widespread effect. Aspects of it are Zed Press, £3.95.