Coagh ambush The Coagh Ambush was a controversial incident that took place on 3 June 1991 , when a Provisional Irish Republican Army ( IRA ) unit from the East Tyrone Brigade was ambushed by the Special Air Service ( SAS ) in the village of Coagh , County Tyrone . The three - man IRA team was on its way to assassinate a high - profile Officer of the Ulster Defence Regiment ( UDR ) . Eight SAS members opened - fire on the IRA unit ' s car , killing the three men and causing the car to burst into flames . There have been claims that two of the IRA members fled the blazing car , only to be shot and then put back inside by the SAS . Background . In May 1987 , an eight - man unit of the IRA East Tyrone Brigade was ambushed and shot dead by a Special Air Service ( SAS ) unit seconds after bombing the Royal Ulster Constabulary ( RUC ) base at Loughgall , County Armagh . The SAS also killed a civilian who had accidentally driven into the ambush . This was the IRA ' s greatest loss of life in a single incident during its campaign . Despite this major setback , IRA activity in East Tyrone didn ' t lessen in the following years . In August 1988 , the SAS shot dead another three IRA members who were stalking a UDR soldier near Carrickmore . British intelligence sources claim they were involved in the Ballygawley bus bombing , which killed eight British soldiers and injured 28 . The British military had to ferry its troops in and out of East Tyrone by helicopter as result of the Ballygawley bombing . Tit - for - tat killings in East Tyrone . According to author Kevin Toolis , the series of killings which led to the Coagh Ambush began on 26 April 1988 , when a 23 - year old UDR soldier from Coagh , Edward Gibson , was shot dead by an IRA unit at Ardboe . Gibson was working for Cookstown Council on a bin lorry at the time . Off - duty UDR soldiers , who tended to be Protestants , were usual targets of the IRA in County Tyrone . These kind of assassinations fostered the perception among the Protestant community that the IRA was waging a sectarian war against them . The Ulster Volunteer Force ( UVF ) retaliated by killing Phelim McNally ( brother of local councillor Francie McNally ) on 24 November 1988 . The IRA revenge took the form of a shooting at Leslie Dallas ' s garage on 7 March 1989 . Dallas , a former UDR soldier and alleged senior UVF member , was killed along with two elderly pensioners . The tit - for - tat rampage in and around Coagh continued on 29 November 1989 , when UVF gunmen broke into a pub owned by IRA member Liam Ryan ; Ryan and a customer were shot dead . On 8 March 1990 , UDR soldier and construction worker Thomas Jamison was killed when the IRA , using guns and a grenade , ambushed the truck he was driving near Donaghmore . Jamison was returning from delivering concrete to a UDR base . He was an employee of Henry brothers , a construction company that had rebuilt and refurnished a number of security bases across Northern Ireland since 1985 . One of the owners of this company , Harold Henry , had been killed by the IRA in 1987 in The Loup , County Londonderry . The UVF renewed the bloodshed on 3 March 1991 , when four men were shot dead in the republican stronghold of Cappagh . Three of the victims were IRA members . Republican sources claim that the attack in the remote village could have been carried out only with the help of the security forces . The IRA retaliated on 9 April 1991 , when alleged UVF member Derek Ferguson ( a cousin of local Member of Parliament Reverend William McCrea ) was shot dead in Coagh by the East Tyrone Brigade . His family denied any paramilitary links . Kevin Toolis includes as part of this cycle of violence the destruction of Glenanne UDR barracks in nearby County Armagh , where three soldiers were killed and 10 injured by an IRA truck bomb on 30 May . The IRA would later claim that the death of its men in Coagh was an SAS retaliation for the Glenanne bombing . The Ambush . At about 7 . 30 am on 3 June 1991 , three IRA volunteers — Tony Doris from Coalisland , Peter Ryan from Ardboe , and Lawrence McNally from County Monaghan — drove from Moneymore ( in County Londonderry ) to the village of Coagh in a hijacked Vauxhall Cavalier , crossing the bridge between counties Londonderry and Tyrone . The IRA said that the trio was on an operation to assassinate a part - time UDR soldier , who was also a contractor to the security forces . The plan , however , was betrayed either by an informer inside the IRA , or by technical surveillance . The SAS unit was waiting for the car on both sides of Coagh ' s main street and in a disguised lorry . According to witnesses , they were wearing boiler suits and gas masks . The car was driven by Tony Doris toward the center of the village . The IRA unit ' s journey from Moneymore had been tracked on the ground and even from the air . The undercover team set up a " decoy " for the IRA , played by an SAS soldier who behaved like the intended victim , sitting in a car while waiting for a friend on his way to work . When the car reached a pre - established spot , eight SAS members opened - fire from close range , riddling the Vauxhall with over 200 rounds of high - velocity automatic fire . Tony Doris was immediately hit , and the out - of - control Vauxhall crashed into two parked cars . The shooting continued for about ten minutes , until the car exploded in flames and set one of the parked vehicles ( a Volkswagen Golf ) alight . According to an eyewitness , one of the volunteers returned fire on the SAS after the car crashed . Some reports state that at least two of the IRA unit managed to flee the blazing car and that two of them were found lying half out of the vehicle . Some of their relatives believe that the two men had escaped but were then shot and dragged back into the car by SAS members . A crime - scene report stated that a balaclava of one of the men was found some distance away . The bodies were so badly burnt that they had to be identified using dental records . Two rifles were recovered from the charred car . Forensics later found that the weapons had been used in the killings at Leslie Dallas ' s garage in 1989 . Reactions . Local Democratic Unionist Party ( DUP ) politician William McCrea — cousin of Derek Ferguson , killed by the IRA on 9 April — declared that " They have fallen into the pit they planned for others . . . Justice has now been done " . Ian Paisley , leader of the DUP , welcomed the ambush and said " The time has come for a full war " . Sinn Féin councillor Francie McNally — brother of Lawrence McNally — said that the three men were " good soldiers . . . executed by the British Crown forces " . Republican sources criticised both the RUC and Gardaí for " delaying and harassing " the funerals of the three men , who were buried with full military honours . These sources also slammed initial RUC claims that the IRA unit was in the process of shooting Protestant workmen . Social Democratic and Labour Party MP Seamus Mallon warned that an " ethic of violence is eating into the soul of this community " and that he " hoped that every effort at arrest had been made " . Later East Tyrone Brigade operations . IRA recruiting in Tyrone continued unabated despite the ambush . Just two months later it shot dead a former UDR soldier driving a truck on Altmore road , near Cappagh . In January 1992 an IRA landmine at Teebane killed eight construction workmen ( one of them a Royal Irish Rangers soldier ) who were working on a British Army base . Another SAS ambush killed four IRA volunteers in Coalisland in February 1992 , but a month later a bomb attack maimed a soldier at Cappagh and prompted a series of clashes between nationalist residents and British troops in Coalisland . By 1993 there were allegations about an IRA campaign of assassinations to drive Protestants land - owners out of Tyrone and Fermanagh , especially after a bomb attached to his car killed former UDR soldier and land - owner David Martin in Kildress .