General Frank Kitson (97) led British military operations in the north at the beginning of the conflict, and went on to become a hate figure for nationalists and republicans after being linked to several atrocities. As early as 1972, Kitson’s fame in Belfast was such that the now defunct This Week (describing itself as “Ireland’s Quality News Magazine”) featured a broadly smiling Kitson on its front cover, with the headline “Kitson’s War Against The IRA” and a seven-page inside feature. Like most senior British Army career soldiers who served there in the early ’70s, he had seen recent service in British counterinsurgency campaigns—in his case in Palestine and Aden. His sometimes controversial writings on military subjects - notably Low Intensity Operations (reissued by Faber Finds in 2010, along with Directing Operations and Bunch of Five ) - remain highly relevant and continue to be widely read and to provoke strong opinions. Kitson was a willing tool of the British empire and has gone to his death a decorated ‘hero’ of the empire.

General Kitson oversaw operations of the 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment, which opened fire on civil rights marchers in Derry in on Bloody Sunday, where 13 people were shot dead in January 1972. A second soldier involved in both events was ‘mentioned in despatches’ at the behest of Kitson for his alleged bravery in the face of the enemy. The outcome, however, was not the defeat of the IRA (its campaign continued for a further 30 years) but the killing of uninvolved civilians, including women and teenagers, and the further alienation of the Catholic community from Britain’s security apparatus. A further brigade was usually attached as brigade reserve, but this could be employed elsewhere as required.You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Kitson later wrote about the techniques developed in Kenya in a book entitled Gangs and Countergangs’. In British-controlled Iraq the future head of the Second World War Bomber Command, Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris, used air power to crush a revolt there, including using chemical weapons in the form of poison gas.

They should then face a rigorous interrogation about their activities on the days during which the murder spree took place. As Keefe discusses, one major consequence of Kitson’s actions during the early period of The Troubles was the split between the Provisional IRA and the Official IRA leading to the formation of a paramilitary group that worked in direct opposition to Kitson’s forces.The first Treaty of Friendship was signed in 1820, nearly 200 years ago, and it remained until replaced by a new one in 1971 on Britain’s withdrawal from the Gulf – a unilateral decision of which my father said – ‘Why? We get mawkish empire sentimentalism, and our reporters rarely examine the fact that we’ve become the world centre for mercenary companies, nor think about how that influences our politics. He led British military operations in the north at the beginning of the Troubles, and went on to become a hate figure for nationalists and republicans. The British government has taken steps to halt the prosecution of soldiers responsible for the deaths of civilians in Northern Ireland, most of whom had no connection to paramilitary activities. With regard to the classic Maoist formula that the relationship between guerrillas and their supporting community was akin to that between fish and water, Kitson observed: ‘If a fish has got to be destroyed it can be attacked directly by rod or net .

He was a key proponent of incorporating the SAS into the army’s command structure, something that he advanced as a war office planner in 1958 through the use of the SAS in Oman.Half a million Malaysians were forced into concentration camps through a process known as ‘villagisation,’ designed, as in the Boer War, to prevent the guerrillas gaining food. He already hosts the only permanent SAS base outside the UK and three GCHQ bases which tap the undersea cables running from the Gulf under the Strait of Hormus.