On the day of the attack, two RUC Headquarters Mobile Support Unit (HMSU) officers were placed in the station to accompany the local RUC officer who was to carry on the normal running of the station. Three local RUC officers worked at the station, which was only open part-time, from 09:00 to 11:00, and from 17:00 to 19:00 daily. According to historian and former Professor of Politics at Queen's University Belfast Richard English, information of the attack had not come from within the unit, though Tony Gormley was known to security forces as a well-paid Special Branch informant. Other sources claim that the security forces had instead learned of the planned attack through other surveillance methods, such as a telephone tap.
It has been alleged that the security forces had a double agent inside the IRA unit, and that he was killed by the SAS in the ambush. The British security forces however had received intelligence weeks prior to the attack of the IRA's plan and at least 10 days before of the target. In the attack at The Birches, they had breached the base's perimeter fence with a digger that had a bomb in its bucket it was planned to use the same tactic in an attack on the lightly-manned Loughgall base. In both attacks, the bases were raked with machine-gun fire and then severely damaged with homemade bombs. The second was an attack on an RUC base at The Birches on 11 August 1986. The first was an attack on the RUC barracks in Ballygawley on 7 December 1985, in which two police officers were shot dead. In 19, it carried out two major attacks on Royal Ulster Constabulary bases. In 1985, Patrick Joseph Kelly became its commander and began implementing the strategy.
Members of the unit, such as Jim Lynagh and Pádraig McKearney, advocated a strategy of destroying bases and preventing them being rebuilt or repaired in an attempt to "deny ground" to British forces. By the mid-1980s it had become one of the IRA's most aggressive formations. The IRA's East Tyrone Brigade was active mainly in eastern County Tyrone and neighbouring parts of County Armagh. It was the IRA's biggest loss of life in a single incident during the Troubles. The joint British Army/RUC operation was codenamed Operation Judy. Ī civilian was also killed and another wounded by the SAS after unwittingly driving into the ambush zone and being mistaken for IRA attackers. Two of them were subsequently found to have been unarmed when they were killed. Soldiers from the British Army's Special Air Service (SAS) then returned fire both from within the base and from hidden positions around it in a pre-planned ambush, killing all of the attackers. The bomb exploded and destroyed almost half of the base. An IRA member drove a digger with a bomb in its bucket through the perimeter fence, while the rest of the unit arrived in a van and fired on the building. An eight-man unit of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) launched an attack on the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) base in the village. The Loughgall ambush took place on in the village of Loughgall, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. See also: The Troubles in Britain and Europe, Assassinations during the Troubles, and Loyalist feud Assassination of British ambassador to Ireland.Donnelly's Bar and Kay's Tavern attacks.
Paddy Wilson and Irene Andrews killings.
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