Irish National Liberation Army Belfast Brigade

The Irish National Liberation Army Belfast Brigade was the main brigade area of the Irish National Liberation Army. The other Brigade areas were in Derry & Armagh with smaller units in Newry, east & west Tyrone & south Fermanagh.

Formation
The Irish National Liberation Army Belfast Brigade or simply INLA Belfast Brigade was the faction of the Irish Republican and Socialist Paramilitary the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) that was based in Belfast. Along with the INLA's Derry and Armagh brigades the Belfast INLA was one of the most active in the organization during its 24 year paramilitary campaign. It was formed in 1975 a few months after the Irish National Liberation Army and the groups political Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) were themselves formed in Dublin in 1974 by the groups leader Seamus Costello. The INLA and IRSP were formed when Volunteers in the Official IRA (OIRA) left that group as they were frustrated with the progress it was making and the OIRA's 1972 ceasefire. The INLA became one of the most feared paramilitaries of The Troubles in Ireland from the late 1970's onwards.

Activity & actions
The INLA Belfast Brigade's first actions were feuding with the Official IRA. Dissenters had left the group early in 1974 lead by Paul Tinnelly (who formed the short lived Tinnelly Brigade) & the OIRA moved quickly to crush that group and met little resistance. They hoped to do the same with the newly formed INLA who used the covername People's Liberation Army (PLA) in its first few months. The OIRA met more stronger resistance from the INLA than they did with any other dissenters. Most of the OIRA / INLA feud was played out in Belfast, six people were killed in the feud & several others injured mainly from the OIRA, the highest profile victim of the feud was Official IRA Belfast Brigade OC Billy McMillen who was rumored to have been killed by Gerard Steenson and Brendan McNamee (a former Provisional IRA volunteer) at Dunlewy Street near the Falls Road. INLA Volunteers also tried to kill Official IRA member & veteran Republican Sean Garland, he was seriously injured in an INLA attack in Dublin on the 13 March 1975 by Volunteers from the INLA Belfast Brigade. The attacks on McMillen & Garland were not sanctioned by the INLA Army Council and INLA Chief of Staff Seamus Costello was reportedly furious when he heard the news of the attacks, the Belfast Brigade staff believed that since it was the one directly under attack from the OIRA that it should decide when & who to attack, not the INLA leadership that was based in Dublin & not under threat from the feud. McNamee who helped kill McMillen was himself shot dead soon after by the OIRA in Suffolk,Belfast. The feud with the OIRA & INLA ended soon after this killing when a truce was agreed upon. The brigades first action against a member of the British security forces occurred on the 9 August 1975 when Belfast INLA units injured two soldiers from the British Army, the first attack in Ballymurphy a sniper shot a soldier in the neck and the second along the Lower Falls a soldier suffered a serious head injury. There was an attack on soldiers in Divis Flats as well but the unit claimed no hits. It wasn't until a year later that the brigade killed a member of the British Army in the Turf Lodge area of Belfast when a sniper shot dead private Andrew Crocker who was shot in the neck and died the next day. In September 1976 however the INLA was accused of a double sectarian murder when Volunteers from the Belfast brigade shot dead two Protestant civilians at their home in Ormonde Park, Finaghy, the INLA claimed it was a case of mistaken identity.

Divis Flats, which became a death trap for British security forces became the headquarters (HQ) for the brigade. The brigade went through a number of leaders in its first year but its first full-time Officer commanding (OC) was Ronnie Bunting who's father was Ulster Loyalist politician and British Army Major Ronald Bunting who was a follower of Ian Paisley. Under Bunting however the Belfast Brigade became one of the most deadly paramilitary units in Belfast. Although it was still no were near the intensity & not capable of carrying out the sheer number of operations the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade carried out each year, even still the Belfast INLA was steadily becoming the mot deadly Brigade of the INLA, especially after gaining a number of AK47's from the Middle East from a connection with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1978, and which were first used by the Belfast INLA in August 1978 injuring a number of British soldiers. After Bunting was shot dead along with an IRSP member by the UDA in 1980, Gerard Steenson became OC of the INLA in Belfast. Steenson was OC from 1980 - 1983, this was the most active period in the INLA's history. Steenson was locked up for a number of years during the Supergrass trials of the 1980s. While most of the top leaders of the INLA were imprisoned during the Supergrass period of the mid 1980s Tom McCartan a close friend of Chief of Staff of the INLA Dominic McGlinchy (who was also locked up) became OC of the Belfast INLA, it was during this period that McCartan was OC the Belfast INLA moved into extortion and racketeering, damaging their popular support they had in the city. The INLA Belfast lost direction in the 80's & a feud with the newly created Irish People's Liberation Organisation (IPLO) weakened the group further. The IPLO was formed by former members of the INLA like Gerard Steenson & the new groups leader Jimmy Brown. Hugh Torney became OC of the INLA in Belfast during the feud, he was almost killed in an ambush set up by Steenson in which INLA men John O'Reilly & Thomas 'Ta' Power were killed. A few months later Torney set up Steenson in an ambush in Belfast & killed Steenson along with another IPLO member.

During the late 1980s - early 1990's the INLA barely existed as a coherent paramilitary force. It wasn't until the early-mid 90's that the Belfast INLA started becoming active once again. It is believed Gino Gallagher was in charge of the brigade staff during this period. In January 1993 the brigade shot and seriously injured leading UVF member John "Bunter" Graham at his house on the Shankill Road. Later that same month the brigade shot dead a Protestant civilian in which the INLA claimed was a case of mistaken identity. In June 1993 they shot dead a former RUC man in a hotel in Belfast. In September 1993 they seriously injured a disabled loyalist in a shooting on the Shakill road. In February 1994 they shot dead a Protestant doorman Jack Smyth, at the entrance to Bob Cratchits Bar, Lisburn Road, Belfast. The INLA claimed he was linked to the UDA/UFF, but this was denied. Earlier that same month the INLA's former Chief of Staff Dominic McGlinchy was shot dead in Drogheda, nobody ever claimed the killing. In June 1994 the brigade carried out the 1994 Shankill Road Killings when Volunteers shot dead three UVF members on the Shankill road including leading UVF man Trevor King. It was alleged that Gino Gallagher carried out the ambush on the orders of Hugh Torney.

Another internal INLA feud broke out in 1996. Both Hugh Torney and Gino Gallagher claimed to be the legit leaders of the INLA, the Torney faction was known as INLA-GHQ and the Gallagher faction as the INLA Army Council. During 1996 the feud claimed the lives of six people, including a nine-year-old girl who was shot by mistake by the Army Council faction in north Belfast. The first victim in the feud was Gino Gallagher who was shot dead in a Social Security Office on the Falls Road in January. The last victim was Hugh Torney shot dead in Lurgan on the 3 September 1996, this killing brought the feud to an end and the Torney GHQ faction disbanded on the 9 September 1996.

Around this time the INLA adopted a "no first strike" policy. This meant in theory that the INLA would not attack anybody unless they were attacked first in which case the INLA would hit back to defend itself from a threat, it claimed it was now only involved in a defensive campaign and to defend Nationalists from loyalist attack.

In 1997 the INLA Belfast Brigade became active once again. In May of that year they shot dead an off-duty RUC officer Darren Bradshaw as he drank in a gay bar in Belfast's Docks area. During the large and bloody Northern Ireland riots of July 1997 an INLA unit opened fire on British soldiers on patrol in Ardoyne, north Belfast. On the 25 September 1997 two INLA units one in south Belfast & the other in west Belfast threw grenades at RUC stations, both of the devices failed to explode. On the 27 December 1997 in one of the INLA's most infamous actions, INLA Belfast man Christopher "Crip" McWilliams shot dead Billy Wright the leader of the loyalist paramilitary the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) inside the Maze prison while Wright was being transferred to another part of the prison in a van. In January 1998 the INLA Belfast Brigade shot dead UDA leader Jim Guiney in his carpet shop in Dunmurry. The INLA said the killing was in revenge for the recent killings of Irish Nationalists killed by loyalists. In April the INLA shot dead one of their own Volunteers and farther of 5 Mark McNeill, it is not clear why the killing occurred but it was speculated that the killing was a "grudge killing" or that it might have been a drug related killing. In its last action before they called a ceasefire the INLA Belfast Brigade on the 13 July 1998 left two incendiary devices in the Ballynafeigh Orange Hall in which the British security services carried out controlled explosions on the suspect devices. A month later on the 24 August 1998 the INLA announced a ceasefire.