Active service unit
An active service unit (ASU) was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) cell of four to ten members, tasked with carrying out armed attacks.[1] In 2002 the IRA had about 1,000 active members of which about 300 were in active service units.[2]
In 1977, the IRA moved away from the larger conventional military organisational principle owing to its perceived security vulnerability. In place of the battalion structures, a system of two parallel types of unit within an IRA Brigade was introduced. Firstly, the old "company" structures were used to supply auxiliary members for support activities such as intelligence-gathering, acting as lookouts or moving weapons.[3]
The bulk of attacks from 1977 onwards were the responsibility of a second type of unit, the ASU. To improve security and operational capacity these ASUs were smaller, tight-knit cells, usually consisting of five to eight members, for carrying out armed attacks. The ASU's weapons were controlled by a quartermaster under the direct control of the IRA leadership.[4] By the late 1980s and early 1990s, it was estimated that the IRA had roughly 300 members in ASUs and approximately 450 serving in supporting roles.[5]
The exception to this reorganisation was the South Armagh Brigade which retained its traditional hierarchy and battalion structure and used relatively large numbers of volunteers in its actions.[6] Some operations, like the attack on Cloghogue checkpoint or the South Armagh sniper squads, involved as many as 20 volunteers, most of them in supporting roles.[7]
The smaller Republican paramilitary organisation the INLA also used the term "active service unit,[8] as did the Loyalist paramilitary groups the Ulster Volunteer Force.[9] and Ulster Defence Association.[10]
See also
- Flying Columns, terminology for some types of Irish Volunteers units of circa the 1920s
- Fireteam and Squad, terminology for functional types of modern military units of similar size
References
- ^ Leahy, Thomas (2020). The Intelligence War against the IRA. Cambridge University Press. p. 89. ISBN 978-1108487504.
- ^ Moloney, Ed (2002). A Secret History of the IRA. Penguin Books. pp. xiv. ISBN 0-14-101041-X.
- ^ O'Hearn, page 19
- ^ Bowyer Bell Page 437
- ^ O'Brien, p.161
- ^ Moloney, p.377
- ^ Harnden, Toby (2000). Bandit Country:The IRA and South Armagh. Coronet books. pp. 404. ISBN 0-340-71737-8.
- ^ Archived 26 February 2019 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Statement by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), (3 May 2007)". CAIN. Retrieved 11 August 2020.
- ^ "The Shankill Bomb". YouTube. Retrieved 17 August 2020.
Bibliography
- O'Hearn, Denis. Bobby Sands: Nothing but an Unfinished Song, Pluto, ISBN 0-7453-2572-6
- Bell, J. Bowyer. The Secret Army - The IRA, 1997 3rd Edition, ISBN 1-85371-813-0
- Moloney Ed, The Secret History of the IRA, Penguin, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-101041-X
- O'Brien. Brendan, The Long War - The IRA and Sinn Féin. O'Brien Press, Dublin 1995, ISBN 0-86278-359-3
- ASUs in the Irish War of Independence