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divdiv class=story-body readability=69 span class=story-date#13; span class=date20 November 2013/span#13; span class=time-textLast updated at /spanspan class=time19:03 ET/span#13; #13; /span#13; #13; #13; #13; #13; #13; #13; #13; #13; p class=introduction id=story_continues_1Soldiers from an undercover unit used by the British army in Northern Ireland killed unarmed civilians, former members have told BBC One's Panorama./p#13; pSpeaking publicly for the first time, the ex-members of the Military Reaction Force (MRF), which was disbanded in 1973, said they had been tasked with hunting down IRA members in Belfast. /p#13; pThe former soldiers said they believed the unit had saved many lives./p#13; pThe Ministry of Defence said it had referred the disclosures to police./p#13; pThe details have emerged a day after Northern Ireland's attorney general, John Larkin, suggested ending any prosecutions over Troubles-related killings that took place before the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998./p#13; pThe proposal has been criticised by groups representing relatives of victims./p#13; pPanorama has been told the MRF consisted of about 40 men handpicked from across the British army./p#13; span class=cross-head'Surveillance from gutters'/span#13; pBefore it was disbanded 40 years ago, after 18 months, plain-clothes soldiers carried out round-the-clock patrols of west Belfast - the heartland of the IRA - in unmarked cars./p#13; pThree former members of the unit, who agreed to be interviewed on condition their identities were disguised, said they had posed as Belfast City Council road sweepers, dustmen and even meths drinkers, carrying out surveillance from street gutters./p#13; pBut surveillance was just one part of their work./p#13; div class=story-feature wide readability=15#13; a class=hidden href=#story_continues_2Continue reading the main story/a h2Analysis/h2#13; !-- pullout-items--#13; #13; !-- pullout-body--#13; pFor 15 years, Northern Ireland has been divided about how to deal with the legacy of three decades of conflict./p#13; pThe compromise has been the establishment of the Historical Enquiries Team, a group of former detectives, who are reviewing all deaths in Northern Ireland during the conflict, primarily to answer questions from their relatives. /p#13; pBut now the Northern Ireland attorney general has reignited the vexed issue of whether truth recovery through a virtual amnesty is preferable to prosecution./p#13; pJohn Larkin has called for an end to all prosecutions and inquiries in relation to Troubles-related killings./p#13; pThe disclosures by Panorama are bound to add to this debate./p#13; pThe closest former MRF soldiers have previously come to breaking cover is as the pseudonymous authors of two semi-fictionalised paperbacks, one of whom has referred to the MRF as a legalised death squad./p#13; pThe factual account of the MRF may not be quite as colourful. Nonetheless, the evidence gleaned from seven former members, declassified files and witnesses, does point to a central truth - that MRF tactics did sometimes mirror the IRA's./p#13; #13; !-- pullout-links--#13; /div p id=story_continues_2One of the soldiers said they had also fired on suspected IRA members. /p#13; pHe described their mission as to draw out the IRA and to minimise their activities... if they needed shooting, they'd be shot./p#13; pAnother former member of the unit said: We never wore uniform - very few people knew what rank anyone was anyway. /p#13; pWe were hunting down hardcore baby-killers, terrorists, people that would kill you without even thinking about it./p#13; pA third former MRF soldier said: If you had a player who was a well-known shooter who carried out quite a lot of assassinations... then he had to be taken out./p#13; p[They were] killers themselves, and they had no mercy for anybody./p#13; pIn 1972 there were more than 10,600 shootings in Northern Ireland. It is not possible to say how many the unit was involved in./p#13; pThe MRF's operational records have been destroyed and its former members refused to incriminate themselves or their comrades in specific incidents when interviewed by Panorama./p#13; pBut they admitted shooting and killing unarmed civilians./p#13; pWhen asked if on occasion the MRF would make an assumption that someone had a weapon, even if they could not see one, one of the former soldiers replied occasionally./p#13; span class=cross-head'Targets taken down'/span#13; pWe didn't go around town blasting, shooting all over the place like you see on the TV, we were going down there and finding, looking for our targets, finding them and taking them down, he said. /p#13; pWe may not have seen a weapon, but there more than likely would have been weapons there in a vigilante patrol./p#13; pPanorama has identified 10 unarmed civilians shot, according to witnesses, by the MRF:/p#13; ulli Brothers John and Gerry Conway, on the way to their fruit stall in Belfast city centre on 15 April 1972 /li#13; li Aiden McAloon and Eugene Devlin, in a taxi taking them home from a disco on 12 May 1972/li#13; li Joe Smith, Hugh Kenny, Patrick Murray and Tommy Shaw, on Glen Road on 22 June 1972/li#13; li Daniel Rooney and Brendan Brennan, on the Falls Road on 27 September 1972/li#13; /ulpThe Ministry of Defence refused to say whether soldiers involved in specific shootings had been members of the MRF./p#13; #13; pIt said it had referred allegations that MRF soldiers shot unarmed men to police in Northern Ireland./p#13; pBut the members of the MRF who Panorama interviewed said their actions had ultimately helped bring about the IRA's decision to lay down arms./p#13; pGen Sir Mike Jackson, the former head of the British army, and a young paratrooper captain in 1972, said he had known little of the unit's activities at the time, but admired the bravery of soldiers involved in undercover work./p#13; pHe said: That takes a lot of courage and it's a cold courage. It's not the courage of hot blood [used by] soldiers in a firefight./p#13; pYou know if you are discovered, a pretty gruesome fate may well await you - torture followed by murder./p#13; pPanorama has learnt a Ministry of Defence review concluded the MRF had no provision for detailed command and control./p#13; pForty years later and families and victims are still looking for answers as to who carried out shootings./p#13; pFormer detectives are reviewing all of the deaths in Northern Ireland during the conflict as part of the Historical Enquiries Team set up following the peace process. /p#13; pAround 11% of the 3,260 deaths being reviewed were the responsibility of the state./p#13; p class=transmission-infostrongPanorama: Britain's Secret Terror Force, BBC One, Thursday 21 November at 21:00 GMT and then available in the UK on the /stronga href=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03jprmxBBC iPlayer/a./p#13; /div/divbrbrcentera href=http://www.wizardrss.comPowered By WizardRSS.com/a | a href=http://www.wizardrss.comFull Text RSS Feed/a | a href=http://www.amazon.com/RFID-Blocking-Cards-Identity-Protector/dp/B00CJHZLEWRFID/a | a href=http://www.wpzonbuilder.comAmazon Affiliate/a/center