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From 1969 until 1997,〔Moloney, p. 472〕 the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) conducted an armed paramilitary campaign primarily in Northern Ireland and England, aimed at ending British rule in Northern Ireland in order to create a united Ireland.〔''War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History Volume 2'' by Robert B. Asprey (ISBN 978-0-595-22594-1), page 1125〕〔''Global Geopolitics: A Critical Introduction'' by Klaus Dodds (ISBN 978-0-273-68609-5), page 205〕〔''British Civilization'' by John Oakland (ISBN 978-0-415-26150-0), page 108〕〔''Northern Ireland'' by Jonathan Tonge (ISBN 978-0-7456-3141-7), page 2〕 The Provisional IRA emerged from a split in the Irish Republican Army in 1969, partly as a result of that organisation's perceived failure to defend Catholic neighbourhoods from attack in the 1969 Northern Ireland riots. The Provisionals gained credibility from their efforts to physically defend such areas in 1970 and 1971. From 1971–72, the IRA took to the offensive and conducted a relatively high intensity campaign against the British and Northern Ireland security forces and the infrastructure of the state. The British Army characterised this period as the 'insurgency phase' of the IRA's campaign. The IRA declared a brief ceasefire in 1972 and a more protracted one in 1975, when there was an internal debate over the feasibility of future operations. The armed group reorganised itself in the late 1970s into a smaller, cell-based structure, which was designed to be harder to penetrate. The IRA now tried to carry out a smaller scale but more sustained campaign which they characterised as the 'Long War', with the eventual aim of weakening the British government's resolve to remain in Ireland. The British Army called this the 'terrorist phase' of the IRA's campaign. The IRA made some attempts in the 1980s to escalate the conflict with the aid of weapons imported from Libya. In the 1990s they also began a campaign of bombing economic targets in London and other cities in England. On 31 August 1994, the IRA called a unilateral ceasefire with the aim of having their associated political party, Sinn Féin, admitted into the Northern Ireland peace process. The organisation ended its ceasefire in February 1996 but declared another in July 1997. The IRA accepted the terms of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 as a negotiated end to the Northern Ireland conflict. In 2005 the organisation declared a formal end to its campaign and had its weaponry decommissioned under international supervision. Other aspects of the Provisional IRA's campaign are covered in the following articles: *''For a chronology, see Chronology of Provisional IRA actions'' *''For the Provisional IRA's armament, see Provisional IRA arms importation'' ==Beginnings== In the early days of the Troubles (1969–72), the Provisional IRA was poorly armed, with only a handful of old weapons left over from the IRA's Border campaign of the 1950s. The IRA had split in December 1969 into the Provisional IRA and Official IRA factions. In the first years of the conflict, the Provisionals' main activities were defending Irish nationalist areas from attacks. In contrast to the IRA's relative inaction during the 1969 Northern Ireland riots, in the summer of 1970, the Provisional IRA mounted determined armed defences of the nationalist areas of Belfast against Ulster loyalist attackers, killing a number of loyalists in the process. On 27 June 1970, the IRA killed seven loyalists in rioting in Belfast. Three more were shot in Ardoyne in north Belfast after gun battles broke out during an Orange Order parade. When loyalists retaliated by attacking the nationalist enclave of Short Strand in east Belfast, Billy McKee, the Provisionals' commander in Belfast, occupied St Matthew's Church and defended it in a five-hour gun battle with the loyalists (see Battle of St Matthew's). One of his men was killed, he was badly wounded, and three loyalists were also killed.〔Mallie, Bishop, The Provisional IRA p157-158〕 The Provisional IRA gained much of its support from these activities, as they were widely perceived among nationalists as being defenders of nationalist and Irish Catholic people against aggression. Initially, the British Army, deployed into Northern Ireland in August 1969 to reinforce the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and restore government control, was welcomed in Catholic nationalist areas as a neutral force compared to the Protestant- and unionist-dominated RUC and Ulster Special Constabulary.〔Taylor, pp. 56–59〕 However, this good relationship with nationalists did not last long. The Army was soon discredited in the eyes of many nationalists by incidents such as the Falls Curfew of July 1970, when 3,000 British troops imposed martial law conditions on the nationalist lower Falls area of west Belfast. After a gun and grenade attack on troops by Provisional IRA members, the British fired over 1,500 rounds of ammunition in gun battles with both the Official IRA and Provisional IRA in the area, killing six civilians. Thereafter, the Provisionals continued targeting British soldiers. The first soldier to die was gunner Robert Curtis, killed by Billy Reid in a gun battle in February 1971.〔Taylor, p. 88〕 1970 and 1971 also saw feuding between the Provisional and Official IRAs in Belfast, as both organisations vied for supremacy in nationalist areas. Charlie Hughes, commander of the Provisionals' D Company in the Lower Falls, was killed before a truce was brokered between the two factions.〔Taylor, p. 79〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Provisional Irish Republican Army campaign」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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