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This searing account primarily covers Ed Bird's Special Branch (SB) service in the Beitbridge area of southern Matabeleland, 1976-1980, encompassing Operations Repulse and Tangent of the bitter Rhodesian 'bush war'. Joining the British South Africa Police (BSAP) in 1964, Bird cut his teeth on Selous Scouts 'pseudo' operations during Operation Hurricane in 1974-1976, so was well equipped to deal with the insidious escalation of the ZANLA and ZIPRA campaigns in the south of the country. A meticulous recorder, Bird implemented and maintained the Beitbridge SB incident log, and it is this diary of terror and death upon which Bird's account hangs, interspersed with detailed accounts of fire fights, ambushes, landmine blasts, ZANLA executions, traitors and assassinations, SB 'dirty tricks' and 'turning' terrorists. Although first and foremost an intelligence-gatherer, Bird thrived on combat and against all protocol inveigled his way onto Fire Force operations and as an air mobile MAG machine-gunner on converted Police Reserve Air Wing aircraft. Decorated for bravery but overlooked for promotion, Bird's BSAP career became victim to spurious political expedience.
The Malayan Emergency lasted from 1948 to 1960. During these tumultuous years, following so soon after the Japanese surrender at the end of the Second World War, the whole country was once more turned upside down and the lives of the people changed. The war against the Communist Party of Malaya's determined efforts to overthrow the Malayan government involved the whole population in one form or another. Dr Comber analyses the pivotal role of the Malayan Police's Special Branch, the government's supreme intelligence agency, in defeating the communist uprising and safeguarding the security of the country. He shows for the first time how the Special Branch was organised and how it worked in providing the security forces with political and operational intelligence. His book represents a major contribution to our understanding of the Emergency and will be of great interest to all students of Malay(si)a's recent history as well as counter-guerrilla operations. It can profitably be mined, too, to see what lessons can be learned for counterinsurgency operations in other parts of the world.
The Special Branch of the London Metropolitan Police has been a hidden but important part of Britain's political life for a hundred years. Opinions on its role have varied between those who saw it as protecting Britain from terrorism, revolution or worse and those who regarded the Special Branch as a threat to Britain's civil liberties. The truth has never been easy to establish, mainly due to the obsessive secrecy of the Branch.
The Rhodesian Bush War had grumbled on at a low key since the early 1960s, but it escalated sharply in late 1972 when major infiltrations of ZANLA guerillas from Mozambique began. The Rhodesian forces found it difficult to engage the guerrillas using conventional counter-insurgency methods, because the enemy's tactic was to merge with the local tribal population. This resulted in the formation of the Selous Scouts whose role was to infiltrate pseudo-geurillas into enemy groups, gather intelligence and turn captured guerillas into pro-government fighters. The Selous Scouts accounted for 68% of all guerillas killed or captured during the war.
A Brutal State of Affairs analyses the transition from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe and challenges Rhodesian mythology. The story of the BSAP, where white and black officers were forced into a situation not of their own making, is critically examined. The liberation war in Rhodesia might never have happened but for the ascendency of the Rhodesian Front, prevailing racist attitudes, and the rise of white nationalists who thought their cause just. Blinded by nationalist fervour and the reassuring words of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and army commanders, the Smith government disregarded the advice of its intelligence services to reach a settlement before it was too late. By 1979, the Rhodesians were staring into the abyss, and the war was drawing to a close. Salisbury was virtually encircled, and guerrilla numbers continued to grow. A Brutal State of Affairs examines the Rhodesian legacy, the remarkable parallels of history, and suggests that Smiths Rhodesian template for rule has, in many instances, been assiduously applied by Mugabe and his successors.
Initially tasked with combatting the threat of Irish republican terrorists in the reign of Queen Victoria, the Metropolitan Police Special Branch went on to play a major role in the defence of the realm for over 120 years. Over time, 'the Branch', as it came to be known, assumed a much wider role, and was held responsible for monitoring the activities of anarchists, Bolsheviks and even the suffragettes. Later, it became the executive arm of MI5 in dealing with espionage cases, as (much to their frustration) the Security Service had no power to arrest potential spies. As the war against terrorism became more intense in the latter half of the twentieth century, Special Branch worked closely with the Anti- Terrorist Branch in tackling this new threat. Packed with accounts of extraordinary missions, life-saving acts of bravery and high-risk intelligence-gathering, Special Branch offers the first complete history of this unique, but now defunct, service, which was subsumed into the Counter-Terrorism Command of the Metropolitan Police in 2006. Special Branch veterans Ray Wilson and Ian Adams have brought this long and distinguished history to life with the help of recollections from former colleagues, as well as their own experiences of life in the Branch. In doing so, they have also illuminated the underlying friction marring its relations with the Security Service - without doubt a factor in its eventual demise.
Secret Victory is captivating and disturbing in equal measure. It reveal's how the IRA was infiltrated, degraded and strategically defeated - at times with violent and deadly consequences. To read this book is to understand how intelligence drives irregular conflicts.
Prior to and after Kenya's independence, this biography recounts a Kenyan police officer's daily experiences, including armed combat in the bush, the technical operations in Nairobi, and the battle of wits against the South African intelligence services in Lesotho and Botswana. Exploring the intrigue and brutality of the officer's position, the book provides insight into security force operations.
The previously untold story of a Cold War spy unit, “one of the best examples of applied unconventional warfare in special operations history” (Small Wars Journal). It is a little-known fact that during the Cold War, two US Army Special Forces detachments were stationed far behind the Iron Curtain in West Berlin. The existence and missions of the two detachments were highly classified secrets. The massive armies of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies posed a huge threat to the nations of Western Europe. US military planners decided they needed a plan to slow the expected juggernaut, if and when a war began. This plan was Special Forces Berlin. Their mission—should hostilities commence—was to wreak havoc behind enemy lines and buy time for vastly outnumbered NATO forces to conduct a breakout from the city. In reality, it was an ambitious and extremely dangerous mission, even suicidal. Highly trained and fluent in German, each of these one hundred soldiers and their successors was allocated a specific area. They were skilled in clandestine operations, sabotage, and intelligence tradecraft, and were able to act, if necessary, as independent operators, blending into the local population and working unseen in a city awash with spies looking for information on their every move. Special Forces Berlin left a legacy of a new type of soldier, expert in unconventional warfare, that was sought after for other deployments, including the attempted rescue of American hostages from Tehran in 1979. With the US government officially acknowledging their existence in 2014, their incredible story can now be told—by one of their own.
Absent History is an account of the multi-faceted activities of the British Special Branch as it tackled problems of religious extremism, espionage and sedition in Singapore from 1915 to 1942. It documents the severe threats to security and stability beneath the placid peacefulness of that period. Drawing upon previously unavailable archival materials, Absent History reveals the often-privileged view that the Special Branch had of the events and strands of Malayan / Singapore history. period of halcyon peacefulness that popular opinion depicted. Throughout these years, a successive number of countries carried out active espionage and subversion efforts against the colonial government. As these threats accelerated, causing considerable social and security unrest, the British stepped up their counter-espionage and counter-subversion. In 1916 they set up a Special Branch, the predecessor to Singapore's Internal Security Department and the Malayan Special Branch.