Special Operations.

Just how do you turn someone into a double agent? This segment from Low Intensity Operations (pg. 122) describes just a situation, and it makes you think about the phenomenon and just how realistic it is. The hypothetical is adapted as needed, of course. "The next partof the scenerio deals with the business of using special people and specialized techniques to develop background information into contact information. It is based on the author's experience in Kenya. While the company was engaged in the North of the District the Intelligence Section was busy building up its coverage in the South. After some initial set-backs, the inspector managed to get an informer into village C who provided the names of several prominent communist supporters in the area. This was the first good information to have come out of the Southern part of the District for some time so it was decided to take no action against the people named. Instead the intelligence section was invited to watch events in the hope that it might get some further leads on the communist organization in that part of the District. At the time it seemed more important to get a line on the enemy's activities than to curtail them. During the past few months, throughout the country, the military officers who had been drafted into the intelligence organization had amongst other duties been experimenting in the use of captured insurgents against their former comrades. As part of these experiments the officer in the District covered in this scenerio had collected a team of such people together which he kept in a post a few miles outside the town. The intelligence section now decided to use these people against the communist Branch operation South of the river, in an attempt to exploit the information provided by the informer. As a first step a man was selected from the team and provided with a detailed story. In outline the story was that hehad been a member of an insurgent platoon which had been engaged in a battle with the forces of the government a few miles outside the forest, in a District which was some miles away. In the story four members of the platoon had been detatched from the main body and had hidden in a farm yard, as the forces of the government pursued the rest of the platoon. The whole area seemed to be swarming with troops so the four split up. Soon afterwards this man concealed himself in the back of a lorry and got taken out of the area. Some hours later the driver stopped outside village C for some reason or other and the man jumped out and hid by the side of the road. The man was rehearsed with great care. He was made to learn the personal details of every member of the platoon from which he had allegedly come and these included the particulars of an individual who had originated from village C and who had been killed some weeks earlier. Although it was not usual for men to be drafted into platoons operating away from their own District it had to happen from time to time when heavy casualties were incurred and this was a genuine case which would have been well known to the people of village C. In addition to the story the man was equipped with all the right documents, clothes, and a weapon.

One evening this man was dropped off near village C by the officer from the intelligence organization and told to go to the house of one of the villagers named by the informer as a prominent communist. On arrival he told his story to this villager and asked for help. He said that the insurgent from village C who had been in his platoon up to the time of his death had advised him to contact this man if he ever needed assisatance in this part of the country. He said that all he wanted was to be put in touch with the local Branch organization who would know how to get him back to his platoon or who would allocate him to some other unit. The villager was worried but everything about the story was so right that he took the man in and hid him in his house. Later in the evening three members of the Village C Supporters' cell came in and questioned him for some time. Eventually they seemed satisfied and told him to go and hide in a bit of swamp outside the village until they could arrange for him to be put in touch with someone from the forest. They would signal to him to come in again by hanging a red blanket on the washing line which he could see from the swamp where he would be lying up. He slipped out of the village just before dawn and went to the swamp. Later he left his hideout and met and met the officer from the intelligence section at a pre-arranged rendezvous. In the course of the night he had learned a lot about the communist cell and was able to describe the three members who he had met. The background information provided by thei informer combined with the background information which had gone into the cover story had been developed into more information by a special operation but it would be necessary to go a stage further before it could be used to put the goverment's forces into contact with an armed enemy group. After hearing the man's story the officer decided to set up two more members of the team and himself to represent the other three members of the platoon who had become separated in the battle. They would join the man in his hideout swamp. Then when the supporters in th village sent for him he would explain that there were in fact four escaped members of the platoon and not one. He would say that one of themwas a high ranking officer of the organization but that he had not dared mention it at the first meeting because he could not then be sure that the villager and his friends were not planning to betray him. He would say that they had been lying up near, but not at, the place recommended and had watched to see whether any police or soldiers had been tipped off to look there. As none had appeared they concluded that they could trust the village cell and tell them the whole truth about the leader. At the second meeting which took place three nights later the man told his story. This time there were two extra members of the village cell present together with an insurgent from the Branch in the forest. He was just visiting the village and was going on to the town before returning to the forest but he said that he would be back in a week with four others to pick up some supplies. He said that the man and his three companions could accompany them back to the forest at that time if the leader of the Branch agreed. After the meeting this insurgent went to the hide in the swamp and met the other three. He questioned all of them carefully and appeared satisfied. The original background information could be said to have been developed into contact information because it was now known that a group of insurgents were going to come to a certain place, i.e. the villager's house, at a certain time, i.e. a week later. On the basis of this information it would have been a comparitively easy matter to have destroyed the insurgents. But the officer was after bigger game. Had he sprung the trap at this stage it is likely that only one Branch member and a few rank and file escorts would be eliminated. He decided to take the matter a stage further and get himself and his three men taken to the Branch headquarters in the forest. Once there he would find out as much as possible about the communist District Committee and the insurgent platoon. He would then choose a favorable moment to turn on his hosts and kill as many of them as he could, making sure that the leaders did not escape. He and his men would take a chance on escaping in the confusion. In this case they would not only have developed background information into contact information but by acting on it themselves at the most favorable possible moment they would reduce to a minimum the chances of the enemy escaping. They would also stand a chance of getting more information about other enemy groups, i.e. the District Committee and the insurgent platoon which might later be developed into contact information. There is no point in pursuing this part of the scenerio any further because the principle of developing background information into contact information using special people and specialized techniques has been sufficiently demonstrated. Suffice it to say that there are innumerable ways in which the principle can be applied under various circumstances and it is up to those involved to invent or adapt such methods of achieving their aims as may be relevant to the situation. END OF SCENERIO" It's that easy!