When the British Army arrived in Northern Ireland it was unprepared for combatting an urban guerilla force and enlisted the counter-terrorist expertise of Brigadier Frank Kitson to set up the Military Reconnaisance/Reaction Force which became involved in controversial shootings and was widely believed to be an organization of counter-terror gangs. Many of the MRF's activities are here chronicled for the first time. Dillon also writes of the IRA's contacts with terror groups throughout Europe and the Middle East, as well as its network in the USA. He details the development of the use of informers as supergrasses, and also the way the RUC Special Branch, in collusion with MI6, used members of Loyalist paramilitaries. The role of the SAS - including new material on the murder of Captain Robert Nairac - is examined in full, as is the conflict between MI5 and MI6 in Northern Ireland in the mid 1970s.