States of Terror

The first programme tells the story of Silke Maier-Witt, for 15 years one of Europe's most wanted women. Her middle class family were devastated when they discovered her role in the brutal terrorist group, the Red Army Faction. Wanted for murder, she fled to East Germany where, with a new face and identity, she received protection from the Stasi secret police. Only when the Berlin wall came down was Maier-Witt arrested when she chose to betray her former terrorist comrades and tell her story.

In 1972 the Palestinian terrorist group Black September massacred 11 Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich. The response by Israel's intelligence agency Mossad was to deploy an assassination squad, targeting senior PLO officials. Masterminded by General Aharon Yariv , the squad claimed at least ten victims, most notably Yasser Arafat 's right-hand man Ali Hassan Salameh. In the second of his investigations into states' responses to terrorism, Peter Taylor follows the trail of revenge that led from Munich to the death of Salameh, and talks to General Yariv about Israel's covert assassination policy. "I approach it from a cost-benefit point of view," says Yariv. "Is it morally acceptable? That's debatable. Is it politically vital? It was."

In the past decade the Basque separatist group Eta has killed 800 people, almost as many as the Provisional IRA over the same period. Peter Taylor 's third film In the series investigating state response to terrorism traces the rise and fall of Eta. It focuses on the experiences of a group of friends from Ordizia, a Basque village in northern Spain, who Joined Eta in the early 70s as part of the struggle against the dictator General Franco. The survivors recall their reasons for joining Eta and describe their bombing campaigns. When Spain embraced democracy Tanke, Loli and Koldo abandoned the struggle. Yoyes was murdered by her former comrades when she accepted the government's offer of an amnesty, and Txato was assassinated by a right-wing hit squad, established with Spanish state funds. The film includes a unique Interview with Rafael Vera , Madrid's counter-terrorist chief, who says: "I will negotiate with Eta, but only for their surrender."

In 1983 an Islamic fundamentalist carried out a hugely successful suicide mission, almost completely wiping out the CIA operation at the US Embassy in Beirut. Six months later, another suicide bomber killed 241 US Marines after receiving the blessingof Sheikh Fadlallah, spiritual leader of Hezbollah. Between them they had effectively driven the US out of Lebanon. As a result, Colonel Bill Cowan was sent to Beirut on an undercover mission, charged with devising ways of retaliating. In tonight's film he returns there, and reveals the details of that mission, targeted at Fadlallah. Meanwhile, in the White House, President Reagan was promising that there would be no deals with the terrorists. The reality was precisely the opposite of the rhetoric. Peter Taylor presents the fourth in the series investigating state response to terrorism.

In the final investigation I of the series about state responses to terrorism Peter Taylor uncovers the story of how Army Intelligence and MI5 recruit and deploy agents within Northern Ireland's paramilitary groups. The report focuses on two agents. One was for many years one of MI5's top operators in the Province, feeding information to the security services that succeeded in saving lives. In a first interview with an MI5 agent, the film reveals the process of his recruitment and how he operated. He claims to have taken on the work not for money but for moral reasons, to help prevent terrorist killings. He is still alive, whereas IRA man Gregory Burns is dead. His naked and hooded body, along with those of two other alleged British agents, was found last year dumped in South Armagh. All three had been "executed" by the IRA. The programme has gained unique access to the records of their final "confessions" in a film that defines the secret battleground between the British state and terrorists, Loyalist and Republican, in Northern Ireland.