The SAS and the Secret Society
Rumours about the SAS and its links to various shadowy groups within British society have been floating around since the 70s. As with most things connected with the UK's secret establishment, hard facts are hard to come by.
The Increment
As detailed here, the Increment is the name of an organization made up of select operatives from Special Forces and the intelligence services that carry out deniable missions for the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), or MI6, as it is also known.
Group 13
Group 13 is rumoured to be a secret cadre of ex-SAS and military intelligence operatives. Group 13's remit seems to lay in the same shadowy realm as 'The Increment' ie deniable covert actions such as assassinations. Both units are rumoured to be run via the Foreign Office, through the SIS. The main difference appears to be that Group 13 tends to recruit mostly ex-SAS as apposed to serving members. Group 13 have been linked to various controversial incidents such as:
- the 1990 assassination of Gerald Bull - designer of the so-called Supergun, meant for Saddam's regime
- the death of Biological weapons expert Dr David Kelly in 2003
- the 1984 shooting of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan Embassy
It should be noted that no hard evidence has been presented for Group 13's role in any of the above incidents.
Resistance and Psychological Operations Committee (RPOC)
RPOC was a product of the cold war. Fearing a Soviet takeover of Britain, this right-wing group had links to the Conservative party, the intelligence services and the SAS. In the event of a Soviet invasion of the UK, or any other NATO territory, RPOC would mount an underground resistance operation, using a network of pre-planned and prepared assets. RPOC was part of the government-funded Reserve Forces Association (RFA), an organization setup to represent British military reservists. RPOC was the brainchild of several renowned veterans from World War 2, such as Sir Collin Gubbins, founder of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the Commandos.
Greater Britain 1975 (GB75)
Formed following Harold Wilson's election as Prime minister of the UK in 1974, GB75 was an organization setup by SAS founder, David Stirling, which included ex soldiers, spies and arms dealers, all with links to the military and intelligence apparatus. The more paranoid elements of the right wing establishment feared that Wilson and his government were communist sympathizers, perhaps even Soviet agents. Efforts were made to covertly plan for a coup d'etat against the Wilson government. Stirling was rumoured to be highly sympathetic to action against what he saw as an extreme threat to democracy from the far left. Stirling began building a private force of men to counter this threat, a force that would have been well suited in assisting in any coup.
