 Relations between the British Army and the residents had steadily decayed since the first appearance of troops in August 1969 . In September , after clashes between nationalist and unionist crowds that led to the death of a Protestant man , William King , the British Army erected a ' peace ring ' to <unk> the nationalist population in the area they had previously controlled . Roads into the city centre were closed at night and people were prevented from walking on certain streets . Although some moderate nationalists accepted this as necessary , there was anger among young people . <unk> between youths and troops became more frequent . The riot following the Officials ' Easter parade in March 1970 marked the first time that the army used ' <unk> squads ' , who rushed into the <unk> wielding <unk> to make arrests . The <unk> squads soon became a common feature of army arrest operations . There was also a belief that they were arresting people at random , sometimes days after the alleged offence , and based on the identification of people that they had seen from a considerable distance . The <unk> were condemned as <unk> by <unk> , who saw the riots as hampering attempts to resolve the situation . The Labour radicals and Official <unk> , still working together , tried to turn the youth away from rioting and create socialist organizations — one such organization was named the Young <unk> Association — but to no <unk> . The <unk> , while <unk> of riots , viewed them as the inevitable consequence of British occupation . This philosophy was more attractive to <unk> , and some of them joined the Provisional IRA . The deaths of two leading <unk> in a premature explosion in June 1970 resulted in young militants becoming more prominent in the organization . Nevertheless , up to July 1971 the Provisional IRA remained numerically small . 
