Editing Force Research Unit (section)

== Collusion with loyalist paramilitaries ==
[[File:UFF D Company mural.png|thumb|A mural of the [[Ulster Defence Association|UDA]]/[[Ulster Freedom Fighters|UFF]]]]
In the mid 1980s, the FRU recruited [[Brian Nelson (Northern Irish loyalist)|Brian Nelson]] as a double agent inside the [[Ulster Defence Association]] (UDA), and helped him to become the UDA's chief intelligence officer.<ref name="nelsonobituary">{{cite news |date=17 April 2003 |title=Obituary: Brian Nelson |work=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/apr/17/guardianobituaries.northernireland |access-date=27 September 2013}}</ref> Until it was proscribed in 1992, the UDA was a legal [[Ulster loyalist]] paramilitary group that had been involved in hundreds of attacks on Catholic and nationalist civilians as well as against republican paramilitaries. In the summer of 1985, Nelson traveled to [[Apartheid in South Africa|South Africa]] in an unsuccessful attempt to procure weapons and debriefed his FRU handlers on his return.<ref name="de Cory Inquiry">{{cite web|url=https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/collusion/cory/cory03finucane.pdf|title=The Cory Collusion Inquiry Report |work=UK Gov }}</ref><ref name="1999 British Irish Rights Watch"/> Nelson was also allegedly involved in the 1988 [[Ulster Resistance]] weapons importation from South Africa.<ref name="nelsonobituary" />

Through Nelson, the Force Research Unit helped the UDA to target people for assassination. In a March 2001 article for the [[Andersonstown News]], Martin Ingram claimed that when Brian Nelson was appointed the UDA's intelligence chief in 1987, he handed over their entire cache of targeting files to the FRU,<ref name="NelsonTrialTranscript"/> who then updated them with information taken from RUC Special Branch and Military Intelligence files before handing them back to Nelson for use in the planning of assassinations.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1 March 2001|title=British Intelligence whistleblower speaks out
|url=https://cryptome.org/fru-ingram02.htm|newspaper=[[Andersonstown News]]|language=en}}</ref> In 1998, [[The Sunday Telegraph]] published a series of articles detailing the activities of the FRU and Brian Nelson's interactions with the unit. Secret documents examined by the newspaper suggested that the specific purpose of running Nelson in the UDA was to ensure that the Loyalist paramilitaries he sourced intelligence for would only target people actively involved in Republican
terrorism, instead of indiscriminately murdering Catholics at random. Evidence showed that Nelson was involved in at least 15 murders, 15 attempted murders, and 62 conspiracies
to murder during his time as an FRU agent.<ref>{{Cite news |date=29 March 1998|title=Army Set Up Ulster Murders|url=https://www.ainfos.ca/98/mar/ainfos00307.html|newspaper=[[The Sunday Telegraph]]|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=29 March 1998|title=Assassination by Proxy|url=https://www.ainfos.ca/98/mar/ainfos00308.html|newspaper=[[The Sunday Telegraph]]|language=en}}</ref>  

In a 2000 interview with the Sunday Herald, an unnamed FRU operator identified Margaret Walshaw as being Nelson's primary FRU handler between 1986 and 1990, and accused her of colluding with him by sourcing maps, photos, and personal details of people to be targeted for assassination. The article further alleged that Walshaw even bought Nelson a [[personal computer]] so that information could be more effectively passed to him in [[floppy disk]] format, and the chances of him being arrested with incriminating documents could be reduced. Walshaw was also accused of failing to prevent murders she had advanced knowledge of, such as when  [[Brian Robinson (loyalist)|Brian Robinson]] shot Patrick McKenna in a random attack. According to the source, Walshaw left Ireland in 1990 to become an FRU instructor with the Intelligence Corps.<ref>{{Cite news |date=3 December 2000|url=https://cryptome.org/fru-herald.htm|title=Exposed: captain who aided hitmen|newspaper=Sunday Herald|language=en}}</ref>

In 2003, the BBC reported that FRU commanders aimed to make the UDA "more professional" by helping it to target and kill republican activists and prevent it from killing uninvolved Catholic civilians.<ref name="stevenspeople" /> If someone was under threat, agents like Nelson were to inform the FRU who were then to alert the police.<ref name="stevenspeople" /> [[Gordon Kerr (British Army officer)|Gordon Kerr]], who ran the FRU from 1987 to 1991, claimed Nelson and the FRU saved over 200 lives in this way,<ref name="stevenspeople" /><ref name="guardianscandal">[https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/apr/17/northernireland.northernireland2 "Scandal of Ulster’s secret war"]. [[The Guardian]]. 17 April 2003. Retrieved 27 September 2013.</ref> and testified on Nelson's behalf for mitigation during his 1992 trial under the alias "Colonel J".<ref name="NelsonTrialTranscript">{{cite web|url=https://www.patfinucanecentre.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/Evidence%20of%20Colonel%20J-Gordon%20Kerr-Crown%20V%20Nelson.pdf|title=Evidence of Colonel J (Gordon Kerr) - Crown Vs Nelson 1992|work=UK Gov }}</ref> Kerr defended the actions of the FRU regarding Nelson by asserting that the planning phase of assassinating a known PIRA activist took much longer than the usual ad hoc shooting of a random Catholic, which therefore allowed the FRU to warn RUC Special Branch to prepare "counter-measures", such as increasing the level of security forces in the area of the target's home. Kerr claimed that 730 intelligence reports had been forwarded to Special Branch in this manner, that identified threats to 217 individuals.<ref>{{Cite news |date=29 March 1998|title=Assassination by Proxy|url=https://www.ainfos.ca/98/mar/ainfos00308.html|newspaper=[[The Sunday Telegraph]]|language=en}}</ref>

However, the [[Stevens Inquiries]] found evidence that only two lives were saved and said many loyalist attacks could have been prevented but were allowed to go ahead.<ref name="guardianscandal" /> The Stevens team believes that Nelson was responsible for at least 30 murders and many other attacks, including most prominently solicitor [[Pat Finucane]], and that many of the victims were uninvolved civilians.<ref name="guardianscandal" /> The [[Cory Collusion Inquiry]] and a separate inquiry by Sir Desmond de Silva both also discovered evidence of collusion between the Brian Nelson and the FRU in the murder of Patrick Finucane.<ref name="de Silva Inquiry">{{cite web|url=https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c2313e5274a25a9140ac8/0802.pdf|title=The de Silva Inquiry - Report of the Patrick Finucane Review  2012 |work=UK Gov }}</ref> Although Nelson was imprisoned in 1992, FRU intelligence continued to help the UDA and other loyalist groups.<ref name="birw">[http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/issues/violence/birw0299.htm “Deadly Intelligence: State Involvement in Loyalist Murder in Northern Ireland – Summary”]. British Irish Rights Watch, February 1999.</ref><ref>Human Rights in Northern Ireland: Hearing before the [[United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs|Committee on International Relations]] of the [[United States House of Representatives]], 24 June 1997. US Government Printing Office, 1997.</ref> From 1992 to 1994, loyalists were responsible for more deaths than republicans for the first time since the 1960s.<ref>{{cite book |last=Clayton |first=Pamela |title=Enemies and Passing Friends: Settler ideologies in twentieth-century Ulster |year=1996 |publisher=Pluto Press |page=156 |quote=More recently, the resurgence in loyalist violence that led to their carrying out more killings than republicans from the beginning of 1992 until their ceasefire (a fact widely reported in Northern Ireland) was still described as following 'the IRA's well-tested tactic of trying to usurp the political process by violence'…}}</ref>

Allegations exist that the FRU sought ''restriction orders'', a de-confliction agreement to restrict patrolling or surveillance in an area over a specified period, in advance of a number of loyalist paramilitary attacks in order to facilitate easy access to and escape from their target{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}}. This de-confliction activity was carried out at a weekly Tasking and Co-ordination Group which included representatives of the [[Royal Ulster Constabulary]], [[MI5]] and the [[British Army]]. It is claimed the FRU asked for restriction orders to be placed on areas where they knew loyalist paramilitaries were going to attack.<ref>{{cite book|title=Ten-Thirty-Three|first=Nicholas|last=Davies|author-link=Nicholas Davies (journalist)|year=2000|publisher=Mainstream |isbn=1-84018-343-8}}</ref>

In a February 2025 [[podcast]] series for [[The Daily Telegraph|The Telegraph]], former FRU operator Martin Ingram accused his former commanding officer at the Force Research Unit, [[Gordon Kerr (British Army officer)|Gordon Kerr]], of being a proud Scottish [[Loyalism|Loyalist]] who let his own bigotry towards Irish Catholics cloud his judgement. Ingram also accused a former FRU colleague named Margaret Walshaw, who was Brian Nelson's handler, of passing information (such as photographs and vehicle registration numbers) to Nelson to help plan assassinations.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://shows.acast.com/65804e231585de00125defe6/67a2366a9a67c6bc4ec40d01 |title=Bed of Lies - Series 3 / Episode 5 - Handlers|website=[[The Daily Telegraph|The Telegraph]]|date=20 February 2025 }}</ref>

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| quote = ''Kerr had no moral qualms about anything that we were up to, and he knew of every decision taken by his men. At the time I had no qualms either. We saw what was happening as a war and we were going to fight fire with fire. Kerr had one policy, in his own words it was: You go in, and you go in heavy. Raise the temperature on the ground to boiling point and then reduce it fast. That means you hurt your enemy so hard that you reduce the risk of casualties on your side. Then you step back quickly. That means the enemy is constantly in a state of terror and panic. It's an old SAS tactic.''
| source =  Excerpt of interview with former FRU operative (November 2000)<ref>{{Cite news |date=19 November 2000|url=https://cryptome.org/fru-herald.htm|title=My unit conspired in the murder of civilians in Ireland|newspaper=Sunday Herald|language=en}}</ref>
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