Loughgall attack in 1987
The attack from Loughgall ( English Loughgall ambush ) was carried out during the Northern Ireland conflict on May 8, 1987 by members of the "Irish Republican Army" (IRA) on the station of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in Loughgall , County Armagh . An explosive charge was driven onto the premises of the RUC station with the help of a backhoe loader and detonated, while other IRA members supported this project with small arms. However, soldiers from the British Special Air Service (SAS) had been informed of the attack in advance and shot the eight attackers and an uninvolved civilian from previously occupied positions.
The incident is considered the most deadly attack for the IRA and the most successful anti-terrorist operation by British authorities in the Northern Ireland conflict.
prehistory
After intelligence reports of an impending attack by the IRA on the RUC station in Loughgall, 24 soldiers from the SAS and three RUC officers reached the station in the morning of May 8, 1987. Important information about the time and place of the attack is said to have come from an informant from the ranks of the East Tyrone Brigade . The three officers and six of the soldiers positioned themselves on the site of the station, while the 18 other soldiers took five covert positions in the vicinity. The RUC officials were supposed to simulate normal duty operations, the soldiers on the premises wore civilian clothes.
The theft of a blue van and a backhoe loader in nearby Dungannon were reported during the day . The security authorities therefore expected an attack like the one on August 11, 1986 on an RUC station in County Tyrone , in which an explosive backhoe loader and another vehicle had been used to transport armed men. A similar attack on a RUC station in County Tyrone had already occurred on December 7, 1985, in which two members of the RUC were killed.
attack
At around 7.15 p.m. the blue van pulled up to the RUC station and parked on the roadside. The vehicle had previously been seen several times near the station by the soldiers. The inmates got out and shot at the station with handguns, while some of the soldiers returned fire. In the course of this shooting, the backhoe loader reached the station and broke through the security fence. The explosive charge in the shovel was set on fire, after which it detonated about 40 seconds later and caused extensive property damage. Two RUC officers and one soldier were injured in the shooting and subsequent explosion. In the meantime, the other soldiers had also intervened with machine guns and assault rifles, killing all eight of the attackers.
A pair of brothers who accidentally drove into the attack zone was mistaken for an IRA reserve unit and was also under fire, killing the driver and injuring the passenger. The wife of the victim was compensated by the British government in 1991. The investigation and preservation of evidence began at 7:35 p.m.
Investigations
678 cartridge cases were found at the scene of the attack, 600 of which came from the weapons of the SAS soldiers. Several vehicles were hit by projectiles, with the blue van alone recording around 125 bullets. The eight attackers killed: Pádraig McKearney (32), Jim Lynagh (31), Patrick Kelly (30), Gerard O'Callaghan (29), Tony Gormley (25), Eugene Kelly (25), Declan Arthurs (21) and Seamus Donnelly (19) each had multiple gunshot wounds.
Patrick Kelly has served in the IRA since the 1970s and in command of the East Tyrone Brigade since 1985. He is said to have planned the tactics of the raids on isolated RUC stations in the region. Jim Lynagh had been on the wanted list of the British authorities for six years. He is said to have been involved in several IRA operations, including the murder of the politician Norman Stronge and his son James Stronge in January 1981. Pádraig McKearney was the brother of hunger striker Tommy McKearney and had escaped from Maze Prison in 1983 . Among Republicans , the dead were honored as "Loughgall Martyrs".
Eight small arms were seized from the hands of the attackers, including six assault rifles, a forearm repeater and a revolver. After forensic investigations, the firearms have been linked to 33 crimes, including eight murders. The revolver could be identified as the service weapon of the RUC Reserve Constable William Clements, who was shot in the aforementioned attack on December 7, 1985.
After the incident, voices were raised as to why the perpetrators had not been stopped and arrested on the way to the attack target due to the extensive burden of proof. Chief constable John Hermon of the RUC said that because of the IRA's practices of reconnaissance and observation, traditional methods such as roadblocks or approaches by air or road would not work. In addition, a non-combat arrest of eight armed IRA members in a vehicle is highly unlikely.
The European Court of Justice in 2001 found a violation of human rights of the eight killed attacker because no serious investigation had been carried out over the circumstances of his death. In addition, the relatives of the dead were not sufficiently informed about the completed investigations and proceedings. However, the killings themselves were not deemed unlawful by the court. 2011 came Historical Inquiries Team of the Police Service of Northern Ireland to the conclusion that the first shots of the IRA men had been fired and a safe arrest at that time could not be made. The shots by the SAS soldiers were judged to be justified.
Possible revenge killings
On March 20, 1989, Chief Superintendent Henry Breen and Superintendent Robert Buchanan of the RUC were killed in an IRA ambush near Jonesborough . They were the two top RUC fatalities in the Northern Ireland conflict. Henry Breen was in command of the RUC's H Division, which was responsible for large parts of Armagh County. According to a final report by the Smithwick Tribunal , Breen is said to have been selected as a target in revenge for his appearance in the media after the Loughgall attack, when he had himself photographed with the seized IRA weapons, among other things.
The Sinn Féin administrative manager Denis Donaldson , who was exposed as a British spy in 2005, was shot dead in Ireland on April 4, 2006. The Irish police assume with an 80 percent probability that the perpetrators come from the environment of Jim Lynagh, who was killed in the Loughgall attack.
Web links
literature
- A Secret History of the IRA by Ed Moloney
- The Provos: The IRA and Sinn Fein by Peter Taylor