Internal Security Unit (IRA)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Internal Security Unit (ISU) was a reconnaissance unit that was supposed to locate and punish informants within the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) through their investigations and interrogations. This unit was often referred to as the Nutting Squad (nutcracker squad ).

tasks

The ISU was formed in the late 1970s as part of efforts by the IRA to prevent infiltration attempts by British security and intelligence services. Members of the IRA had previously been interviewed at the Long Kesh internment camp in order to obtain clues about possible informants. From around 1979 onwards, all members who had been questioned by the police were subsequently questioned by the IRA. This Belfast practice was later extended to the whole organization. The experience gained with interrogation techniques was recorded in the IRA's so-called Green Book , which instructed members to refuse to make statements during interrogations.

The ISU was presumably responsible for both the Northern and Southern Command of the IRA and was directly subordinate to the IRA Headquarters (IRA General Headquarters; GHQ). The ISU had approximately twelve members and had unrestricted access to the members and resources of the IRA. The other tasks of the ISU included:

  • General security review and character review of the new recruits for the IRA
  • Gathering and compiling material on failed or unauthorized IRA operations and police weapons finds
  • Gathering and compiling material on suspicious persons or informants
  • Questioning suspects
  • Participation in the trials of the “courts-martial” of the IRA
  • Execution of people who have been sentenced to death by so-called IRA courts-martial

The ISU's operations could only be stopped on the orders of the Army Council . Exclusion procedures were also part of the ISU's area of ​​responsibility. Exclusions from the IRA should ideally be recorded in writing and, if possible, taped for propaganda purposes.

Membership in the IRA and the expanded Republican community meant that requests for information from the ISU were responded to immediately. This information was then used to substantiate or refute the allegations against the IRA volunteer.

Enforcement with informants

With information on operations and members of the IRA centrally available to the ISU, the placement of informants within the ISU was of the utmost importance to the British intelligence services. In addition, informers in the ISU were able to contribute to securing and promoting informants in other IRA units.

After it became known that the unit's deputy commander, Freddie Scappaticci , was the informant Steake knife , the ISU is considered to be the IRA unit with the most informant penetration. There is also suspicion that their commander, John Joe Magee, was an informer. Magee had been sentenced to death by the IRA in the mid-1970s for contact with loyalist paramilitaries and prostitutes. The sentence was not carried out; Magee later became active again for the IRA and was head of the ISU for around ten years from the mid-1980s.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ed Moloney: Voices from the grave. Two men's was in Ireland. Faber, London 2010, ISBN 978-0-571-25168-1 , pp. 277f.
  2. ^ A b Moloney, Voices , p. 278.
  3. ↑ Moloney, Voices , pp. 278f.

literature

  • Martin Ingram with Greg Harkin: Stakeknife. Britain's secret agents in Ireland. O'Brien Press, Dublin 2004, ISBN 0-86278-843-9 .
  • Eamon Collins with Mick McGovern: Blind Hatred. Autobiography of an Irish Terrorist. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-10-010812-4 .