A hand-picked elite team of undercover British soldiers has mounted a 24-hour surveillance operation on dissident republicans intent on carrying out terror attacks in Northern Ireland, it was disclosed today.
The squad from Britain's Special Reconnaissance Regiment are employing round-the-clock communications intercept tactics currently being used on enemy targets in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The decision by Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde to call in the half-dozen specialist Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) officers to support the Police Service of Northern Ireland has prompted an outcry from nationalist politicians.
But the North’s top officer today defended the move, claiming the team’s expertise was needed in the battle against dissidents.
He also rejected the notion that it represented the return of special forces operations synonymous with the SAS during the Troubles.
“This is a very small number, a handful of people coming in with technical expertise I don’t have, to enhance the front-line capabilities of my officers,” he said.
“The idea that there will be SAS walking around with machine guns, as some people have tried to portray, is rubbish. They are offering support of a purely technical nature.
“I am not doing anything any other Chief Constable in the United Kingdom wouldn’t do to help his officers tackle a specific threat.
“They will support my officers in keeping communities safe and keeping dissident republicans under the cosh.”
Republican extremists opposed to the peace process have launched a series of failed murder bids against police officers in the last 18 months and in January abandoned a 300lb car bomb in the County Down village of Castlewellan.
This week MI5 raised the dissident threat level to severe while Sir Hugh said the potential for attack was now greater than at any time in his seven years in the job.
The SIGINTs will focus their work in the border counties of Fermanagh, Derry and Tyrone, where the majority of dissident incidents have taken place.
Going under a variety of names, including the Real IRA, Oglaigh na hEireann, Continuity IRA and the INLA, police do not believe the factions are well supported or organised.
However the lethal cargo packed into the car left near a school in Castlewellan, and the rocket attack on a police patrol in Co Fermanagh last year, proves the small band of violent renegades have the potential to inflict serious destruction.
The SRR officers, who arrived in the region this week, are now deploying the latest high-tech surveillance technology to monitor the activities of the dissidents.
One security expert explained that the SIGINTs were not directly involved in front line operations.
“These aren’t the guys who kick down the doors,” he said.
“They provide the information to the guys who do.” Sir Hugh is to meet members of his oversight body — the Northern Ireland Policing Board — next week to address criticism levelled at him from Sinn Féin and SDLP members.
They are angered at the prospect of undercover soldiers returning two years after the Army officially ended its operations in the region and that the board was not given prior notice.
However, Sir Hugh stressed that the decision was an operational matter and did not contravene the 2006 St Andrews
Agreement between the Irish and British governments, which sets out provisions for the military and security services to provide back-up in Northern Ireland.
Sinn Féein Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness called the move stupid and dangerous.
“The history of the north has shown that many of these forces have been as much a danger to the community as anyother group,” he said.
SDLP board member Dolores Kelly questioned whether the troops would be allowed to operate without being accountable to the board.
“It was always the plan of the NIO and British government to have the option of deploying recon units,” she said.
“But units like these are the very people around whom the most serious questions arose in the past.” But Sir Hugh said the deployment was not the return of soldiers to the streets.
“There will be no troops back on the streets,” he said.
“I will die in a ditch over that — that is not going to happen.” He added: “Every single one of those (SRR) people is under the control of the police.
“They have no executive powers and no executive capabilities.” Democratic Unionist policing board member Ian
Paisley Jnr has defended Sir Hugh and said the outrage from nationalists was contrived and down to inter-party rivalry.
“It’s clear we have a struggle going on between Sinn Fein and the SDLP on who has the hairiest chest for nationalism,” he added.
“They tried so hard to tell their communities that they had managed to get the Brits out but the truth is the Brits never left, the [British] army have always been here.” Ulster Unionist board member Basil McCrea said the Chief Constable had every right to make the call.
“This is clearly an operational matter over which the Policing Board has no remit,” he said.
“He is responsible for ensuring the safety of all of the citizens of Northern Ireland and he should have all available resources to this end.”
PA