The Birches, August 1986: The Attack the SAS Used to Set the Loughgall Trap

Описание: Patrick Kelly's East Tyrone Brigade had attacked two Royal Ulster Constabulary stations in eighteen months. They targeted the same type of outpost — isolated, part-time, rural, in their East Tyrone and north Armagh operating area. They struck at the same time of evening, when the shift was ending and a handful of officers were inside finishing up. At Ballygawley in December 1985, two armed units struck simultaneously: an assault team killed the guards, a bomb unit destroyed the building. At The Birches in August 1986, Kelly refined the method — a stolen JCB digger, its bucket packed with 200 lbs of explosive, driven through the perimeter fence, while others raked the station with automatic fire. On the eighth of May 1987, they came back with the digger method, at Loughgall. British intelligence had been watching the pattern build. This is how they got caught.

Patrick Kelly took command of the East Tyrone Brigade in 1985. He operated across County Tyrone, and by the time he assumed the OC role, the brigade had already established itself as one of the Provisional IRA's most capable units in the province. Kelly brought a strategic theory to the job. Isolated, part-time RUC stations could be attacked, destroyed, and prevented from being rebuilt. The goal was to deny the security forces their physical presence across East Tyrone and north Armagh, station by station. IRA Northern Command approved the plan. What Kelly needed was a method that worked.

He found one on a Saturday evening in December 1985.

At 18:55 on the seventh of December, the East Tyrone Brigade launched a coordinated assault on the RUC base at Ballygawley, County Tyrone. Kelly deployed two separate Active Service Units simultaneously — an armed assault team and a bomb unit, both under his direct command. The assault team was armed with AK-47 and AR-15 rifles. They hit the station at shift-change, when the handful of RUC officers inside were handing over to the next shift and the guards at the gate hadn't yet been relieved.

The IRA's own magazine, Iris, described it in its October 1987 edition: one volunteer took up a position close to the front gate. Two RUC men opened the gate and the volunteer stepped forward, shooting them both dead at point blank range. Volunteers firing AK-47 and Armalite rifles moved into the barracks, raking it with gunfire. Having secured the building they planted a 100 lb bomb inside. The bomb exploded, totally destroying the building after the volunteers had withdrawn to safety.