History of Terror

When Mary Tudor, eldest daughter of Henry VIII, succeeded to the throne of England in 1553 it was with wild rejoicing and a degree of popularity rarely seen on the accession of a British monarch. Yet at her death five years later she was almost universally reviled and hated by her people so much so that she was posthumously awarded the sobriquet Bloody Mary. Mary's revenge on the church and on a religion she hated was swift and total. Noblemen like the Duke of Northumberland, would-be queens like Lady Jane Grey, churchmen like Thomas Cranmer and bishops Latimer and Ridley, Mary's fires or the executioners axe ended the lives of all of them. During her brief reign she restored the Catholic faith to England and had over 280 Protestant martyrs burned at the stake. For a reign that looked so promising Mary's brief period in power brought the greatest officially sanctioned religious bloodletting the country had ever seen. And at the end, the stench of the execution fires and the grey smoke that settled like a pall across the country seemed to epitomize the reactionary forces that had assumed control.

It is, of course, no secret that undercover Special Forces and intelligence agencies operated in Northern Ireland and the Republic throughout the troubles, from 1969 to 2001 and beyond. What is less well known is how these units were recruited, how they operated, what their mandate was and what they actually did. This is the first account to reveal much of this hitherto unpublished information, providing a truly unique record of surveillance, reconnaissance, intelligence gathering, collusion and undercover combat. An astonishing number of agencies were active to combat the IRA murder squads (the Provos), among others the Military Reaction Force (MRF) and the Special Reconnaissance Unit, also known as the 14 Field Security and Intelligence Company (The Det), as well as MI5, Special Branch, the RUC, the UDR and the Force Research Unit (FRU), later the Joint Support Group (JSG)). It deals with still contentious and challenging issues as shoot-to-kill, murder squads, the Disappeared, and collusion with loyalists. It examines the findings of the Stevens, Cassel and De Silva reports and looks at operations Loughgall, Andersonstown, Gibraltar and others.

Crammed into cattle trucks and deported to camps, shot and buried in mass graves, or force-marched to death, over 1.5 million Armenians were murdered by the Turkish state, twenty years before the start of Hitler's Holocaust. The United States' government called it a crime against humanity and Turkey was condemned by Russia, France and Great Britain. But two decades later the genocide had been conveniently forgotten. Hitler justified his Polish death squads by asking in 1939: 'Who after all is today speaking about the destruction of the Armenians?'Armenian Genocide is a new, gripping account that tells the story of the 'Megh Yeghern' — the Great Crime — against the Armenians through the stories of the men and women who died, the few who survived, and the diplomats who tried to intervene.

In October 1944, the US Office of Strategic Services described the Irgun Tsvai Leumi — National Military Organization — as 'an underground, quasi-military organization with headquarters in Palestine ... fanatical Zionists who wish to convert Palestine and Transjordan into an independent Jewish state ... advocate the use of force both against the Arabs and the British to achieve this maximal political goal'. In 1925, Ze'ev Jabotinsky founded the Revisionist Zionism organization, whose secular, right-wing ideology would lead to the formation of the Irgun and, ultimately, of the Likud Party. Commencing operations in the British Mandate of Palestine in 1931, Irgun adopted a mainly guarding role, while facilitating the ongoing immigration of Jews into Palestine. In 1936, Irgun guerrillas started attacking Arab targets. The British White Paper of 1939 rejected the establishment of a Jewish nation, and as a direct consequence, Irgun guerrillas started targeting the British. The authorities executed captured Irgun operatives found guilty of terrorism, while deporting hundreds to internment camps overseas. As details of Jewish genocide — the Holocaust — emerged, Irgun declared war on the British in Palestine. Acts of infrastructural sabotage gave way to the bombing of buildings and police stations, the worst being the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem — the hub of British operations and administration — in July 1946, killing ninety-one. Freedom fighters or terrorists — Irgun was only dissolved when the independent Jewish state of Israel was born on 14 May 1948. This is their story.

When the wagons of the Voortrekkers — the Boers, those hardy descendants of the Dutch — moved into the southern African interior in 1836, on the Great Trek, their epic journey to escape British control at the Cape, the wheels of their wagons crunched over carpets of skeletons of those slain in the Mfecane. The years 1815 to 1840 were probably the most devastating and violent period of South Africa's turbulent history. The Mfecane (Zulu) or Difaqane (Sotho) was a result of many factors including internecine conflict among the Zulu tribes themselves. Faced with the wrath of the great King Shaka, Mzilikazi (The Road) fled with his followers, who became the Matabele, cutting a swathe of destruction, pillage and genocide across southern Africa from the land of the Zulu (KwaZulu-Natal today) to the Highveld in the north. New alliances and allegiances were forged as refugees fled from the path of the rampaging Mzilikazi, leading to the creation of new nations and alliances between the arriving Voortrekkers and the enemies of the Matabele. Finally defeated in 1836 by the Voortrekkers in a nine-day battle, Mzilikazi crossed the Limpopo River and founded the kingdom of the Matabele in what is now Zimbabwe.

In the spring of 73 AD the rock fortress of Masada on the western shore of the Dead Sea was the site of an event that was breathtaking in its courage and self-sacrifice. Here the last of the Jewish Zealots who, for nearly eight years, had waged war against the Roman occupiers of their country made their last stand. The Zealots on Masada had withstood a two-year siege but with Roman victory finally assured, they were faced by two options: capture or death. They chose the latter and when the Roman legions forced their way into the hill fort the following morning they were met only with utter silence by row upon row of bodies. Rather than fall into enemy hands the 960 men, women and children who had defended the fortress so heroically had committed suicide. The story of the siege and eventual capture of Masada is unique, not just in Israeli legend but in the history of the world. It is a story of bravery that even the Roman legionaries, well used to death and brutality, could see and appreciate. It was a massacre but a massacre with a difference: carried out by the victims themselves. The story of Masada has gone down in Israeli and Jewish folklore. It is little known elsewhere and it is time to redress the balance.

Nearly four years of brutal Japanese occupation in WW2 has dimmed Manila's luster. The Philippine capital, surrounding an old Spanish fortress, was once a glittering jewel among America's overseas possessions. And now a vast Allied army led by the indomitable MacArthur is ready to take it back from the Japanese. It is a necessary mission and an urgent one for trapped within the old University of Santo Tomas are thousands of ailing prisoners: men and women, young and old, at risk of torture and death by their captors. But the token Japanese garrison has other ideas as desperate units of the Japanese navy dig in to fight to the death against the advancing Americans. Caught in this cruel vice are thousands of Filipinos still trapped in the metropolis, with no hope of escape. From the closing days of January until early March 1945, Manila is to endure the most bitter fighting in the Pacific theater, leaving it a charred wasteland littered with the bodies of the dead, soldier and civilian alike, the latter deliberately targeted by Japanese death squads. Such is the carnage and conquest of Manila.