Grenade attack on No. Downing Street 10

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A grenade attack on No. Downing Street 10 , the seat of the Prime Minister of Great Britain in London , was carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on February 7, 1991. The aim was to kill incumbent Prime Minister John Major and his War Cabinet who were discussing the Gulf War. The attack on Major's predecessor, Margaret Thatcher , was originally planned.

A total of three shells were hit at No. Downing Street. 10 fired; two grenades missed and one grenade exploded in the back garden of the building. No member of the War Cabinet was injured, but four other people were injured, including two police officers. Major condemned the attack with the words: "democracies cannot be intimidated by terrorism" (democracies are not intimidated by terrorism).

background

Security bars placed on Downing Street in 1989 because of the IRA bombing campaign

During the Northern Ireland conflict and the IRA's armed campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland from 1969 to 1997, the IRA carried out attacks in Northern Ireland several times with self-made grenades. The most momentous grenade attack occurred in the 1985 Newry attack , killing nine Royal Ulster Constabulary officers .

Before the attack on No. 10 no grenades were fired in Great Britain, but from December 1988 onwards they used technical details to calculate the ballistic trajectory for their projectile designs , as found out by officers of the anti-terrorism department of the Metropolitan Police based on documents from a search in Battersea in the south were found by London in the same year.

In the late 1980s, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was high on the IRA's death lists after a failed 1984 assassination attempt on her in Brighton . British security forces in 1988 safeguards such as the construction of a building as a police department and a security gate at the end of Downing Street met a year, the cost of £ 800,000 sterling caused. Plans to detonate a car bomb by remote detonation on a street near Downing Street when Margaret Thatcher's official vehicle drives by had been rejected by the IRA because there might have been numerous civilian casualties, as some members said of the IRA Army Council for counterproductive.

preparation

The Army Council decided instead to launch a grenade attack on No. Downing Street. 10 . In mid-1990, two IRA members traveled to London to plan the attack. One of the IRA volunteers was able to calculate the trajectories of grenades and the other, from the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade , was able to build the grenades. An active IRA group in London procured a Ford Transit and rented a garage, while an IRA coordinator procured the explosives and materials needed to make the grenades. IRA members began building and designing the grenade launcher, cutting an opening in the roof of the van through which the grenades would be fired, and locating a convenient spot in Whitehall to target Downing Street No. Shoot 10 . When the preparations were over, the two IRA volunteers returned to Ireland as the IRA leadership considered them valuable personnel and wanted to avoid their arrest in any of the subsequent UK security forces. In November 1990 Margaret Thatcher unexpectedly resigned as Prime Minister, but the Army Council decided that the planned attack should be carried out and that the successor John Major should be the target instead. The IRA planned the attack at a time when Major and his ministers are meeting in Downing Street and the date will be publicly announced.

attack

On the morning of February 7, 1991, the War Cabinet with senior government and military officials entered at No. Downing Street. 10 together to discuss the beginning Gulf War. Present at the meeting were: John Major, David Mellor , Douglas Hurd , Tom King , Norman Lamont , Peter Lilley , John Wakeham , Robin Butler , David Craig , Patrick Mayhew , Percy Cradock , Charles Powell and Gus O'Donnell . When the session began, IRA members drove the groomed van to the launch location at the intersection of Horse Guards Avenue and Whitehall, just off the Department of Defense headquarters on Downing Street, about 200 yards away.

When they arrived the driver parked the van and left on a motorcycle that was parked there. A few minutes later, at 10:08 am, when a police officer approached the parked vehicle to examine it, the three grenades were fired, the vehicle was detonated by a bomb with a preset detonator and burned out. All forensic traces were removed. Each grenade was about 1.40 m long, weighed 60 kg and was filled with 20 kg of Semtex , a plastic explosive . The type of grenade used by the attackers was self-made and classified as Mark 10 by the British side . Two grenades dug into a grassy area outside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office without exploding . The third shell exploded in the back garden at No. Downing Street. 10 , about 30 meters from the room where the war cabinet met. Had the grenade got into the building, all cabinet members might have been killed. When cabinet members heard the explosion, they ducked under the table to protect themselves. Bomb protection nets on the windows dampened the effects of the explosion, the rear wall was damaged by the heat and a crater was created that was several meters deep.

When the bang of the explosion had subsided and the shock subsided, John Major commented: "I think we had better start again, somewhere else". (I think we should start all over, somewhere else.) The room was evacuated and the session resumed in less than ten minutes in the underground bunker known as the COBR . No cabinet member was injured, but four people were slightly injured, including two police officers who were hit by debris.

Reactions

The IRA took responsibility for the attack in a statement in Dublin :

"Let the British government understand that, while nationalist people in the six counties [Northern Ireland] are forced to live under British rule, then the British Cabinet will be forced to meet in bunkers"

"The British government should understand that as long as nationalists in the six counties [= Northern Ireland] are forced to live under British rule, their cabinet will be forced to meet in bunkers."

John Major stated in the House of Commons regarding the IRA statement:

“Our determination to beat terrorism cannot be beaten by terrorism. The IRA's record is one of failure in every respect, and that failure was demonstrated yet again today. It's about time they learned that democracies cannot be intimidated by terrorism, and we treat them with contempt ”

“Our determination to defeat terrorism cannot be defeated by terrorism. The IRA story is one of failure in any relationship, and that failure has shown itself once again today. It is time they learned that democracies cannot be intimidated by terrorism; we treat them with contempt. "

UK opposition leader Neil Kinnock condemned the attack as "both malicious and pointless". The Metropolitan Police 's head of counterterrorism , Commander George Churchill-Coleman, described the attack as "daring, well planned, but badly executed." Peter Gurney, department head of the explosives unit the Metropolitan Police, who investigated one of the unexploded grenades, gave their opinion on the attack as follows:

“It was a remarkably good aim if you consider that the bomb was fired 250 yards [across Whitehall] with no direct line of sight. Technically, it was quite brilliant and I'm sure that many army crews, if given a similar task, would be very pleased to drop a bomb that close. You've got to park the launch vehicle in an area which is guarded by armed men and you've got less than a minute to do it. I was very, very surprised at how good it was. If the angle of fire had been moved about five or ten degrees, then those bombs would actually have impacted on Number Ten. "

“It was aimed exceptionally well, considering the shell had to be fired 250 yards over Whitehall with no direct line of sight. Technically it was brilliant and I am sure that numerous army teams, if given the same assignment, would be delighted if their missile hit this close. They had to park their launch vehicle in an area guarded by armed men and they had less than a minute. I was very, very surprised at how well they did it. If the aiming angle had been changed by about five to ten degrees, those bullets would actually be at No. Downing Street. 10 struck "

Another IRA statement appeared in An Phoblacht , the weekly newspaper of Sinn Féin :

“Like any colonialists, the members of the British establishment do not want the result of their occupation landing at their front or back doorstep […] Are the members of the British cabinet prepared to give their lives to hold on to a colony? They should understand the cost will be great while Britain remains in Ireland. "

“Like all colonialists, members of the British establishment do not want the consequences of their occupation to fall on their doorsteps or behind them. Are the members of the UK Cabinet willing to give their lives to hold on to a colony? You should understand that as long as Britain remains in Ireland the cost will be great. "

The attack was celebrated in Irish rebel music , a special form of Irish folk . The music band The Irish Brigade released a song called Downing Street to the tune of On the Street Where You Live , which contains the text: "while you hold Ireland, it's not safe down the street where you live" (while you think Ireland , it is not safe in the street you live on).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Stephen Cook and Michael White: IRA shells the War Cabinet . The Guardian . February 8, 1991. Retrieved May 15, 2009.
  2. ↑ a b Toby Harnden: Bandit Country . Hodder & Stoughton, 1999, ISBN 034071736X , pp. 21-35.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Peter Taylor: Brits . Bloomsbury Publishing, 2001, ISBN 0-7475-5806-X , pp. 317-318.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Martin Dillon: 25 Years of Terror: The IRA's war against the British . Bantam Books, 1996, ISBN 0-553-40773-2 , pp. 266-270.
  5. ^ Tony Geraghty: The Irish War: The Hidden Conflict Between the IRA and British Intelligence . HarperCollins , 2000, ISBN 978-0006386742 , p. 193.
  6. ^ A b c d J. Bowyer Bell: The Irish Troubles: A Generation of Violence 1967-1992 . Gill & Macmillan, 1993, ISBN 0-7171-2201-8 , pp. 784-786.
  7. ↑ Man held after Downing St hammer attack . The Daily Telegraph . September 10, 2004. Retrieved May 15, 2009.
  8. ↑ a b c d e f J. Bowyer Bell: The Secret Army: The IRA . Transaction Publishers, 1997, ISBN 1560009012 , pp. 623-625.
  9. ↑ John Major : John Major . HarperCollins, 2000, ISBN 978-0006530749 , p. 238.
  10. ↑ a b c d Peter Taylor: Provos: The IRA & Sinn Féin . Bloomsbury Publishing, 1997, ISBN 0-7475-3818-2 , pp. 321-322.
  11. ^ Tony Geraghty (1998), The Irish War: the Hidden Conflict Between the IRA and British Intelligence , Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 192. ISBN 0801864569 .
  12. ↑ Gary McGladdery: The Provisional IRA in England: The Bombing Campaign 1973-1997 . Irish Academic Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0716533740 , p. 150.
  13. ↑ Inside Number Ten: A Guided Tour , The Independent , June 28, 2007.
  14. ↑ a b Craig R. Whitney: IRA Attacks 10 Downing Street With Mortar Fire as Cabinet Meets . The New York Times . February 8, 1991. Retrieved May 15, 2009.
  15. ^ Richard Deutsch: Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA . Pan Books, 2003, ISBN 0-330-49388-4 , p. 274.
  16. ↑ Bandit Country , p. 337.

Web links

Coordinates: 51 ° 30 '12.2 "  N , 0 ° 7' 39.5"  W.