By the mid-1980s, intelligence had become one of the British state’s most important weapons in Northern Ireland, with covert surveillance teams working the streets of Belfast knowing discovery could prove fatal.
In episode four of SAS: The Shadow War, The Independent’s world affairs editor Sam Kiley meets ‘Bob’, a veteran surveillance operator, and ‘Liz’, a pioneering former female intelligence operative speaking publicly for the very first time. They reveal how secret teams shadowed suspects, navigated anti-surveillance traps and operated alone in hostile territory.
From a stolen submachine gun to the murder of Corporals Derek Wood and David Howes, the episode reveals how a single mistake could have deadly consequences, and asks why so much of Britain’s intelligence war remains secret.
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