In the end, many British officials suspected that the search and destroy worked out poorly because the manner in which it was conducted. British troops often set fire to villages accused of supporting the insurgents, and detaining suspected collaborators. British units that discovered civilians providing assistance to insurgents were to detain and interrogate them to discover the location of insurgent camps. Insurgents had numerous advantages over British forces; they lived in closer proximity to villagers, they sometimes had relatives or close friends in the village, and they were not afraid to threaten violence or torture and murder village leaders as an example to the others, forcing them to assist them with food and information. British forces thus faced a dual threat: the insurgents and the silent network in villages who, willingly or unwillingly, supported them. While the insurgents rarely sought out contact with British forces, they used terrorist tactics to intimidate civilians and elicit material support.