" Throwing the weight to the other foot." The attack on the Prudential Insurance building in Manchester. Shock tactics. Final orders

Part of what I counted "shifting focus was to concentrate IRA actions against targets in England and wind down the activities of the IRA in Ireland in the 1990's. This plan of campaign was the schema which I decided in the period when I was dealing with Michael Mc Manus.

One of those actions was the attack on the Prudential Insurance company. That reprisal was undertaken because that world-leading personal insurance concern donated £250 000 to Thatcher's election campaign in 1987.

In August 1988 I did not know that the administrative headquarters of the Prudential Insurance concern was in Manchester. I knew that it's merchant banking division was at the top of Fleet Street in London.

I decided in my choice of operational tactics for the IRA many times to throw the weight to the other foot,an old boxer's trick,and attack where an attack was least expected after building up a false profile that we were solely concerned with a specific area.

 The attack in Manchester came after I had caught the British in a double blind on a number of occasions. On this occasion that double blind being the expectation of a permanent peace,thus sending them into a state of preparedness in the wrong location.

 It was always my stated intention to strike at "the weak underbody of the British economy" one which in 1987 generated one quarter of Britain's foreign exchange earnings. The whole point of the attacks in England was to cause economic damage.

The 'prospect of peace' was therefore on my part a deception tactic whatever about the good intentions of Adams. (I held Adams in contempt but regarded him as the only acceptable public spokesman for the IRA). On the IRA's part and mine,we always intended to break the temporary ceasefire and strike again where our opponent expected an attack least.

The attack varied my orders and shock tactics were deployed. Whingeing aside,the IRA used the classic guerrilla modus operandi.

The bomb exploded in the afternoon and hundreds of civilians were injured.

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I say that my tactics were varied because my preferred option was to strike all of our targets on 23 December 1991 at the hour of 12 midnight. The option would have meant striking at the Prudential Assurance building on Fleet Street along with the other three or four targets simultaneously.

I presented the IRA leaders with a number of options because I was not sure if there was a mole. I realised that I was pursuing a high-risk strategy and that it was unlikely that the IRA would commit so much explosives from its small stocks of primer,TNT,to one Grand Slam.