page_title: Operation Flavius
section_title: Build-up
hierarchical_section_title: Operation Flavius / Build-up
caption_attribution_description: The Convent and King's Chapel, Gibraltar
context_page_description: Operation Flavius was a military operation in which three members of a Provisional Irish Republican Army cell were shot dead by undercover members of the British Special Air Service in Gibraltar on 6 March 1988. The three—Seán Savage, Daniel McCann, and Mairéad Farrell —were believed to be mounting a car bomb attack on British military personnel in Gibraltar. Plain-clothed SAS soldiers approached them in the forecourt of a petrol station, then opened fire, killing them. All three were found to be unarmed, and no bomb was discovered in Savage's car, leading to accusations that the British government had conspired to murder them. An inquest in Gibraltar ruled that the SAS had acted lawfully, while the European Court of Human Rights held that, although there had been no conspiracy, the planning and control of the operation was so flawed as to make the use of lethal force almost inevitable. The deaths were the first in a chain of violent events in a fourteen-day period. On 16 March, the funeral of the three IRA members was attacked by a loyalist wielding pistols and grenades, leaving three mourners dead.
context_section_description: From late 1987, the British authorities were aware that the IRA was planning an attack in Gibraltar and launched Operation Flavius. The intelligence appeared to be confirmed in November 1987, when several known IRA members were detected travelling from Belfast to Spain under false identities. MI5—the British Security Service—and the Spanish authorities became aware that an IRA active service unit was operating from the Costa del Sol and the members of the unit were placed under surveillance. After a known IRA member was sighted at the changing of the guard ceremony at "the Convent" (the governor's residence) in Gibraltar, the British and Gibraltarian authorities began to suspect that the IRA was planning to attack the British soldiers with a car bomb as they assembled for the ceremony in a nearby car park. In an attempt to confirm the IRA's intended target, the government of Gibraltar suspended the ceremony in December 1987, citing a need to repaint the guardhouse. They believed their suspicions were confirmed when the IRA member re-appeared at the ceremony when it resumed in February 1988, and the Gibraltar authorities requested special assistance from the British government.
  In the weeks after the resumption of the changing of the guard ceremony, the three IRA members who were to carry out the attack—Seán Savage, Daniel McCann, and Mairéad Farrell—travelled to Málaga (90 miles [140 kilometres] along the coast from Gibraltar), where they each rented a car. Their activities were monitored and by early March, the British authorities were convinced that an IRA attack was imminent; a special projects team from the SAS was despatched to the territory, apparently with the personal approval of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Before the operation, the SAS practised arrest techniques, while the Gibraltar authorities searched for a suitable place to hold the would-be bombers after their arrest. The plan was that the SAS would assist the Gibraltar Police in arresting the IRA members—identified by MI5 officers who had been in Gibraltar for several weeks—if they were seen parking a car in Gibraltar and then attempting to leave the territory.
caption: Area in front of The Convent where the changing of the guard ceremony takes place
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