Thatcher ‘oversaw’ SAS Gibraltar ambush of IRA team from Downing Street

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher oversaw an SAS ambush that resulted in the deaths of three IRA members in Gibraltar almost 40 years ago, according to a new book.

Well-known author and journalist Martin Dillon also claims British army agent Freddie Scappaticci was later drafted in by the IRA to investigate the affair.

Details are contained in ‘The Sorrow and the Loss – The Tragic Shadow Cast by the Troubles on the Lives of Women’, which is published this week.

In the book, which examines the impact of the Troubles on women, Mr Dillon looks at the 1988 ambush that resulted in the deaths of three IRA members Mairead Farrell, Sean Savage and Daniel McCann.

The controversial killings sparked claims of a shot-to-kill policy after eyewitnesses later said some of the victims were killed at close range as they tried to surrender.

In the book Mr Dillon reveals how Ms Farrell was captured in 1976 when an attempt to bomb a hotel on the outskirts of west Belfast went wrong.

During the operation an IRA member Sean McDermott, who the author says Ms Farrell was in a relationship with, was shot dead after he attempted to hijack a car belonging to an RUC reservist while trying to make an escape.

Kieran Doherty, who died in the 1981 hunger strike, was also arrested.

Released from prison in 1986, Ms Farrell continued her involvement with the republican movement.

Two years later she was part of an IRA team sent to Gibraltar to target a British band.#

Mr Dillon says the operation was approved by the IRA’s ‘Belfast Brigade’ after the organisation’s ‘Army Council’ was consulted.

Mr Dillon suggests there was “scope for British assets within the senior ranks of the IRA in Belfast to learn about” the operation.

He describes the mission as “puzzling because of its obvious flaws”, including the use of prominent IRA members.

He claims both Mr McCann, who the author says was a former ‘Officer Commanding’ of the IRA’s Belfast Brigade, and Mr Savage were “experienced gunmen” while the latter was a trusted bomb maker who had killed UDA brigadier John McMichael.

Mr Dillon says MI5 found out about the planned operation in Autumn 1987, several months before it was due to take place.

He adds that on the day of the SAS ambush that claimed the lives of the three IRA members, Mrs Thatcher was following events closely.

The former Tory Prime Minister has previously been accused of ordering other murders, including those of INLA and IRSP members shot dead after the breakaway faction killed her close friend Airey Neave in 1979.

He reveals that on the day of the SAS ambush “military and intelligence figures” arrived at Downing Street to brief Mrs Thatcher in a room known as GEN 42, where matters relating to the north were discussed.

“A direct line to Whitehall and a satellite link to Special Air Service (SAS) HQ in Hereford kept everyone aware in real time about events in Gibraltar, with minute-by-minute reports on the surveillance of the IRA trio,” Mr Dillon reveals.

“The British military operation had been given the name ‘Operation Flavius’.

“Thatcher’s ‘boys’, as she liked to refer to soldiers of the SAS, were in Gibraltar to eliminate targets, not to arrest them.

“This was to be a repeat of the killings she ordered after Airey Neave’s murder.”

Mr Dillon says the IRA members were in Gibraltar to take part in a dummy run and that British authorities later fed false information to the media about the presence of an explosive device, “which led to the SAS being forced to take them out”.

“However, it seems clear to me that Farrell and her companions were allowed to enter Gibraltar without a bomb that morning so they could be liquidated,” Mr Dillon said.

“This was Thatcher’s revenge. She was sending a personal message to the IRA leadership.”

Mr Dillon said that after the ambush former Sinn Féin deputy first minister Martin McGuiness brought in Freddie Scappaticci in to sit on an internal inquiry.

“After their deaths, Martin McGuinness, as officer commanding the Northern Command, was told by the IRA’s Army Council to hold a court of inquiry to establish the cause of the Gibraltar failure,” he said.

“In a move which raises questions about McGuinness’ judgement, he asked Frederick Scappaticci to sit on the inquiry board.

“This was akin to asking the fox to run the hen house.”