Lurgan,the killing of police detectives

 In my briefings either in 1987 to Michael Mc Manus or in my final briefings, perhaps even earlier to Manus Maguire,the double agent,I mentioned or wrote down the prevalence of jogging by police detectives as a means of patrolling and surveillance.

The police were indeed very foolhardy and naive because their behaviour formed part of a consistent pattern. 

In my conversations with other IRA members I decided to kill two police joggers in retaliation for the killing of a member of the INLA outside the police station in Lurgan or Portadown. That volunteer was called Marshall. He was shot outside the police station and there were accusations of police collusion with his loyalist killers. Loyalist gangs were established by RUC Special Branch and British Army Military Intelligence to combat the republican insurrection.

Two policemen were subsequently killed in either Portadown or Lurgan as they conducted surveillance on those walking behind them. I pointed out in my briefings to Jim Wray, having carefully studied the subject,that surveillance can be conducted from in front of the intended target.

In the killings,the IRA members dressed as women.

The downing of helicopters...."X" marks the spot.. Final orders

 In the period before Michael Mc Manus left the IRA in September 1983 to form the Continuity IRA,he imparted to myself the use of machine guns to bring down British Army helicopters.

This tactic involved positioning two machine guns on high ground several  hundred yards apart and firing at helicopters as they tried to escape rapid-fire,belt-fed machine guns.

This tactic was used in South Armagh in 1978 and brought down a British Army helicopter.

The tactic,best summed up as a curtain of fire,I revived in August 1988.

The instruction was passed on to GHQ.

Reports vary about the success of the tactic subsequently but one report indicates that six or seven helicopters were brought down by the IRA in the whole course of the Troubles.

I only recently became aware of the downing of a helicopter at Garrison,County Fermanagh.