"This is a tropical Northern Ireland in many ways" Brig David Richards, commander of the British contingent in the multinational force in East Timor, told journalists in the capital, Dili, yesterday.
Brig Richards, who had served several terms in Northern Ireland, was explaining the difficulty of controlling the situation in East Timor with a limited number of troops - currently just 3,000.
"With 25,000 troops in Northern Ireland, the IRA was able to do the things you will all have heard of," he said. "The methods we'll use patrolling are like we do in Northern Ireland. Actually, the Australians are now saying to us `What would you be doing in Northern Ireland?'
"One thing we suggested to them is you should keep a helicopter up in the air a lot because it tended to intimidate the IRA. They think you are better than you are, and that a helicopter has got more kit than it has. It just suppressed activity levels."