| Strabane ambush | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part ofthe Troubles andOperation Banner | |||||||
 Near the ambush site | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Provisional IRAIRA West Tyrone Brigade | |||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Charles Breslin † | Unknown | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 3IRA Volunteers | .png) 8 soldiers | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 3 killed | None | ||||||
  Ambush at Strabane | |||||||
TheStrabane Ambush was a BritishSpecial Air Service ambush against a three manProvisional Irish Republican Army (IRA)unit. All three members of the IRA unit were killed in the ambush. At the time it was the most successful SAS operation against the IRA, until theLoughgall ambush two years later in 1987 in which eight IRAvolunteers were killed.[1]
Strabane was one of the IRA's most deadly strongholds duringThe Troubles. IRA andIrish National Liberation Army Volunteers in Strabane carried out attack after attack against theBritish security forces; between 1971 and 1991 16 attacks were launched by Irish Republicans against British troops and RUC police which resulted in the death of at least one member of the British security forces in each of those attacks, theBritish Army andRUC bases in Strabane were constantly attacked with sniper fire, bombings, grenades, mortar attacks and RPG attacks. Strabane was once the most bombed town in Europe in proportion to its size, and was the most bombed town inNorthern Ireland.[2][3]
A few weeks earlier in December 1984, theSpecial Air Service (SAS) carried out two ambushes against theProvisional IRA Derry Brigade which killed four IRA volunteers, in the first in theKesh ambushKieran Fleming and another IRA volunteer was killed, four days later Kieran's cousinWilliam Fleming and Danny Doherty were killed in another ambush.[4][5]
On the 23 February 1985, an IRAactive service unit while returning weapons or bringing new weapons to an arms cache in Plumbridge Road inStrabane were suddenly ambushed by British Army SAS unit and all three IRA volunteers were killed on the spot.[6] Local witness said they heard that no warning tosurrender was given by the SAS as the men entered a field which is when the SAS unit fired over 100 rounds at the Volunteers killing them instantly.[7] The IRA volunteers killed at Strabane were unitCommanderCharles Breslin (21) and Michael Devine (22) and his brother David Devine (16). David Devine was the youngest IRA volunteer killed in the conflict.[8]
This ambush was the first in several high-profile SAS and undercover soldier ambushes and operations between 1985 – 1992 especially targeting the IRA's units around the Fermanagh, Tyrone and Armagh borders. A year later the IRA's Fermanagh commanderSéamus McElwaine was killed during an ambush,[9] and in 1987 eight volunteers from theProvisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade were killed in theLoughgall ambush,[10] in 1988 three volunteers were killed duringOperation Flavius inGibraltar,[11] that August three more IRA men were killed in theambush at Drumnakilly,[12] in 1991 three more volunteers were killed in theCoagh ambush[13] and finally in February 1992 in theClonoe ambush four IRA volunteers were killed.[14]
