Defence group told to be independent (9)
I believe the answer is:
unrelated
'be independent' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'defence group told' is the wordplay.
'defence group' becomes 'un' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'told' becomes 'related' (as in relating a story).
'un'+'related'='UNRELATED'
'to' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for unrelated that I've seen before include "Not linked" , "beside the point" , "Having no (family) connection" , "Irrelevant" .)