The Downing Street mortar attack was carried out by the
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reu ...
(IRA) on 7 February 1991. The IRA launched three homemade
mortar shells at
10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street in London, also known colloquially in the United Kingdom as Number 10, is the official residence and executive office of the first lord of the treasury, usually, by convention, the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Along w ...
,
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, the headquarters of the
British government
ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd
, image = HM Government logo.svg
, image_size = 220px
, image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg
, image_size2 = 180px
, caption = Royal Arms
, date_est ...
, in an attempt to assassinate
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
John Major
Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon, formerly Hunting ...
and his
war cabinet
A war cabinet is a committee formed by a government in a time of war to efficiently and effectively conduct that war. It is usually a subset of the full executive cabinet of ministers, although it is quite common for a war cabinet to have senio ...
, who were meeting to discuss the
Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...
.
One of the mortar shells
exploded in the back garden of Number 10, yards from the
Cabinet Office
The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government object ...
. Due to the bomb-resistant windows, none of the
cabinet
Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to:
Furniture
* Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers
* Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets
* Filin ...
were hurt, though four other people received minor injuries, including two
Metropolitan Police
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...
officers. The other two shells overshot
Downing Street
Downing Street is a street in Westminster in London that houses the official residences and offices of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Situated off Whitehall, it is long, and a few minutes' walk f ...
and landed on a green nearby.
Background
During
the Troubles
The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "i ...
, as part of its
armed campaign against
British rule in Northern Ireland, the
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reu ...
(IRA) repeatedly used
homemade mortars against targets in Northern Ireland.
The most notable occasion was the
1985 Newry mortar attack which killed nine members of the
Royal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC)Richard Doherty, ''The Thin Green Line – The History of the Roya ...
(RUC).
The IRA carried out many attacks in England, but none involved mortars. In December 1988, items used in mortar construction and technical details regarding the weapon's trajectory were found during a raid in
Battersea
Battersea is a large district in south London, part of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is centred southwest of Charing Cross and extends along the south bank of the River Thames. It includes the Battersea Park.
History
Batt ...
,
South London
South London is the southern part of London, England, south of the River Thames. The region consists of the boroughs, in whole or in part, of Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Greenwich, Kingston, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Richmond, Southwark, Sut ...
, by members of the
Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch.
In the late 1980s,
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...
was top of the IRA's list for assassination, following the failed attempt on her life in the
Brighton hotel bombing
A Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) assassination attempt against members of the British government took place on 12 October 1984 at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, East Sussex, England, United Kingdom. A long-delay time bomb was plan ...
.
Security around
Downing Street
Downing Street is a street in Westminster in London that houses the official residences and offices of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Situated off Whitehall, it is long, and a few minutes' walk f ...
had been stepped up at a cost of
£800,000 following increased IRA activity in England in 1988, including the addition of a police guard post and security gates at the end of the street.
Plans to leave a
car bomb
A car bomb, bus bomb, lorry bomb, or truck bomb, also known as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), is an improvised explosive device designed to be detonated in an automobile or other vehicles.
Car bombs can be roughly divided ...
on a street near Downing Street and detonate it by remote control as Thatcher's
official car was driving by had been ruled out by the IRA's
Army Council owing to the likelihood of civilian casualties, which some Army Council members argued would have been politically counter-productive.
Preparation
The Army Council instead sanctioned a mortar attack on Downing Street and, in mid-1990, two IRA members travelled to
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
to plan the attack.
One of the IRA members was knowledgeable about the trajectory of mortars and the other, from the IRA's
Belfast Brigade, was familiar with their manufacture.
An
active service unit
An active service unit (ASU; ) was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) cell of four to ten members, tasked with carrying out armed attacks. In 2002, the IRA had about 1,000 active members of which about 300 were in active service units.
T ...
bought a
Ford Transit
The Ford Transit is a family of light commercial vehicles manufactured by the Ford Motor Company since 1965, primarily as a cargo van, but also available in other configurations including a large passenger van (marketed as the Ford Tourneo in ...
van and rented a garage. An IRA co-ordinator procured the explosives and materials needed to make the mortars.
The unit began making the mortars and cutting a hole in the roof of the van for the mortars to be fired through. They reconnoitred locations in
Whitehall
Whitehall is a road and area in the City of Westminster, Central London. The road forms the first part of the A3212 road from Trafalgar Square to Chelsea. It is the main thoroughfare running south from Trafalgar Square towards Parliament Sq ...
to find a suitable place from which the mortars could be fired at the back of
10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street in London, also known colloquially in the United Kingdom as Number 10, is the official residence and executive office of the first lord of the treasury, usually, by convention, the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Along w ...
, the official residence and office of the British prime minister.
Once preparations were complete, the two IRA members returned to Ireland, as the group's leadership considered them valuable personnel and did not wish to risk them being arrested in any follow-up operation by the security services.
In November 1990, Thatcher unexpectedly resigned from office, but the Army Council decided the planned attack should still go ahead, targeting her successor
John Major
Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon, formerly Hunting ...
.
The IRA planned to attack when Major and his ministers were likely to be meeting at Downing Street and waited until the date of a planned
cabinet
Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to:
Furniture
* Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers
* Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets
* Filin ...
meeting was publicly known.
The attack
On the morning of 7 February 1991, Major's
war cabinet
A war cabinet is a committee formed by a government in a time of war to efficiently and effectively conduct that war. It is usually a subset of the full executive cabinet of ministers, although it is quite common for a war cabinet to have senio ...
, along with other senior government and military officials, were meeting at Downing Street to discuss the ongoing
Gulf War
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...
. As well as Major, those present included politicians
Douglas Hurd,
Tom King,
Norman Lamont,
Peter Lilley,
Patrick Mayhew,
David Mellor and
John Wakeham; civil servants
Robin Butler
Frederick Edward Robin Butler, Baron Butler of Brockwell, (born 3 January 1938) is a retired British civil servant, now sitting in the House of Lords as a crossbencher.
Early life and family
Butler was born in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, on ...
,
Percy Cradock
Sir Percy Cradock (, 26 October 1923 – 22 January 2010) was a British diplomat, civil servant and sinologist who served as British Ambassador to the People's Republic of China from 1978 to 1983, playing a significant role in the Sino-British ...
,
Gus O'Donnell and
Charles Powell; and
Chief of the Defence Staff David Craig.
As the meeting began, an IRA member was driving the van to the launch site at the junction of
Horse Guards Avenue and Whitehall, about from Downing Street.
On arrival, the driver parked the van and left the scene on a waiting motorcycle.
Several minutes later at 10:08 am, as a policeman was walking towards the van to investigate it, three mortar shells were launched from a
Mark 10 homemade mortar, followed by the explosion of a pre-set
incendiary device
Incendiary weapons, incendiary devices, incendiary munitions, or incendiary bombs are weapons designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using fire (and sometimes used as anti-personnel weaponry), that use materials such as napalm, ...
.
This device was designed to destroy any
forensic evidence
Forensic identification is the application of forensic science, or "forensics", and technology to identify specific objects from the trace evidence they leave, often at a crime scene or the scene of an accident. Forensic means "for the courts".
H ...
and set the van on fire.
Each shell was four and a half feet (1.4 m) long, weighed , and carried a
payload
Payload is the object or the entity which is being carried by an aircraft or launch vehicle. Sometimes payload also refers to the carrying capacity of an aircraft or launch vehicle, usually measured in terms of weight. Depending on the nature of ...
of the
plastic explosive Semtex
Semtex is a general-purpose plastic explosive containing RDX and PETN. It is used in commercial blasting, demolition, and in certain military applications.
Semtex was developed and manufactured in Czechoslovakia, originally under the name B ...
.
Two shells landed on Mountbatten Green, a grassed area near the
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is a department of the Government of the United Kingdom. Equivalent to other countries' ministries of foreign affairs, it was created on 2 September 2020 through the merger of the Foreig ...
.
One exploded and the other failed to detonate.
The third shell exploded in the back garden of 10 Downing Street, from the
Cabinet Office
The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government object ...
, where the meeting was being held.
Had the shell struck 10 Downing Street itself, it is likely the entire cabinet would have been killed.
On hearing the explosion, the cabinet ducked under the table for cover. Bomb-proof netting on the windows of the Cabinet Office muffled the force of the explosion, which scorched the back wall of the building, smashed windows and made a crater several feet deep in the garden.
Once the sound of the explosion and
aftershock
In seismology, an aftershock is a smaller earthquake that follows a larger earthquake, in the same area of the main shock, caused as the displaced crust adjusts to the effects of the main shock. Large earthquakes can have hundreds to thousa ...
had died down, Major said, "I think we had better start again, somewhere else."
The room was evacuated and the meeting reconvened less than ten minutes later in the
COBR Room.
No members of the cabinet were hurt, but four people received minor injuries, including two police officers injured by flying debris.
Immediately after the attack, hundreds of police officers sealed off the government district, from the
Houses of Parliament
The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north ban ...
to
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square ( ) is a public square in the City of Westminster, Central London, laid out in the early 19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. At its centre is a high column bearing a statue of Admiral Nelson comm ...
. Until 6 pm, civilians were kept out of the area as forensic experts combed the streets and government employees were locked in behind security gates.
Aftermath
The IRA claimed responsibility for the attack with a statement issued in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...
, saying: "Let the British government understand that, while nationalist people in the six counties
orthern Irelandare forced to live under British rule, then the British Cabinet will be forced to meet in bunkers".
Major told the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
that "Our determination to beat terrorism cannot be beaten by terrorism. The IRA's record is one of failure in every respect, and that failure was demonstrated yet again today. It's about time they learned that democracies cannot be intimidated by terrorism, and we treat them with contempt".
Leader of the Opposition
The Leader of the Opposition is a title traditionally held by the leader of the largest political party not in government, typical in countries utilizing the parliamentary system form of government. The leader of the opposition is typically se ...
Neil Kinnock
Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock (born 28 March 1942) is a British former politician. As a member of the Labour Party, he served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995, first for Bedwellty and then for Islwyn. He was the Leader of ...
also condemned the attack, stating: "The attack in Whitehall today was both vicious and futile".
The head of the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch, Commander George Churchill-Coleman, described the attack as "daring, well planned, but badly executed".
Peter Gurney, the head of the Explosives Section of the Anti-Terrorist Branch who defused one of the unexploded shells, gave his reaction to the attack:
It was a remarkably good aim if you consider that the bomb was fired 250 yards cross Whitehallwith no direct line of sight. Technically, it was quite brilliant and I'm sure that many army crews, if given a similar task, would be very pleased to drop a bomb that close. You've got to park the launch vehicle in an area which is guarded by armed men and you've got less than a minute to do it. I was very, very surprised at how good it was. If the angle of fire had been moved about five or ten degrees, then those bombs would actually have impacted on Number Ten.
A further statement from the IRA appeared in ''
An Phoblacht
''An Phoblacht'' (Irish pronunciation: ; en, "The Republic") is a formerly weekly, and currently monthly newspaper published by Sinn Féin in Ireland. From early 2018 onwards, ''An Phoblacht'' has moved to a magazine format while remaining an ...
'', with a spokesperson stating, "Like any colonialists, the members of the British establishment do not want the result of their occupation landing at their front or back doorstep ... Are the members of the British cabinet prepared to give their lives to hold on to a colony? They should understand the cost will be great while Britain remains in Ireland."
The attack was celebrated in
Irish rebel culture when the band
Irish Brigade released a song titled "Downing Street", to the tune of "
On the Street Where You Live", which included the lyrics "while you hold Ireland, it's not safe down the street where you live".
Major temporarily moved to
Admiralty House while repairs of the bomb damage (mostly to the garden and exterior walls) were being completed. The attack led to the addition of guardhouses at the street ends as well as other less visible measures to further improve security of Downing Street.
In popular culture
In
Jack Higgins's 1992 novel ''Eye of the Storm'', the hero of many of his novels, the terrorist
Sean Dillon, attempts to bombard the prime minister's residence with makeshift shells, but the shells do not hit accurately. Major gives the same words as in reality and leaves with the meeting participants to another office.
The Irish rebel/rock band known as
Irish Brigade published a song about this attack titled "Downing Street" on their ''Ten Years on the Run'' album.
References
External links
IRA Mortar attack on Downing Street – ITN videoJohn Major reaction to IRA Mortar attack – ITN video
{{The Troubles
1991 crimes in the United Kingdom
1991 in British politics
1991 in London
1990s in the City of Westminster
Attacks on buildings and structures in 1991
Attacks on buildings and structures in London
Attacks on government buildings and structures
Building bombings in London
Crime in Westminster
Mortar attack
Failed assassination attempts in the United Kingdom
Failed terrorist attempts in the United Kingdom
February 1991 crimes
February 1991 events in the United Kingdom
Improvised explosive device bombings in 1991
Provisional IRA bombings in London
Terrorist incidents in London in the 1990s
Terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom in 1991