The proxy bomb, also known as a human bomb, is a tactic that was used mainly 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 reun ...

(IRA) in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

during the conflict known as "

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 ...

". It involved forcing people (including off-duty members of the British security forces or people working for the security forces) to drive

car bombs 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 ...

to British military targets after placing them or their families under some kind of threat (as

human shield A human shield is a non-combatant (or a group of non-combatants) who either volunteers or is forced to shield a legitimate military target in order to deter the enemy from attacking it. The use of human shields as a resistance measure was popula ...

s or

hostage A hostage is a person seized by an abductor in order to compel another party, one which places a high value on the liberty, well-being and safety of the person seized, such as a relative, employer, law enforcement or government to act, or ref ...

s) The tactic was later adopted by the

FARC The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army ( es, link=no, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de ColombiaEjército del Pueblo, FARC–EP or FARC) is a Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian confl ...

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

and by rebels in the Syrian Civil War."Accounts of Syria rebels executing prisoners raise new human rights concerns"
, mcclatchydc.com, 3 August 2012. The tactic has been compared to a

suicide bomb A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout histor ...

, but each bomber is coerced, rather than being a volunteer.

Early proxy bombs

Irish Republican Army

The first proxy bomb attacks took place in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. By 1973, increased searches and surveillance by the British security forces were making it harder for IRA members to plant their bombs and escape. In response, the IRA introduced the proxy bomb tactic in March of that year.Coogan, Tim Pat. ''The IRA''. Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. p.378 In the early proxy bombings, the driver and nearby civilians would usually be given enough time to flee the area before the bomb detonated.Drake, C J M. ''Terrorists' Target Selection''. Palgrave Macmillan, 1998. p. 67 One of the proxy bomb attacks carried out by the IRA during this period took place in 1975, when an employee of

's Forensics Laboratory in

Newtownbreda Newtownbreda is a residential suburb of South Belfast, clustered around a small and now largely invisible 18th century village. The Belfast A55 "Outer Ring" dual carriage-way provides transport links to the city centre, as well as the outskirts o ...

was forced to drive a car laden with explosives to the building. The explosion caused moderate damage, and operations resumed quickly. The Laboratory would be the subject of one of the largest IRA bombings in 1992, when a 1,700 kg van bomb, abandoned in the compound parking lot, demolished the facilities and caused widespread damage within a radius of 1 km.

Irish National Liberation Army

The

Irish National Liberation Army The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA, ga, Arm Saoirse Náisiúnta na hÉireann) is an Irish republican socialist paramilitary group formed on 10 December 1974, during the 30-year period of conflict known as "the Troubles". The group seek ...

used a proxy bomb on at least one occasion. On the 28 August 1986 the INLA claimed responsibility for seven bomb attacks across Northern Ireland: two of the bombs were proxy bombs when they forced taxi drivers to drive bombs to RUC stations which exploded outside the RUC bases in Newry and

Downpatrick Downpatrick () is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is on the Lecale peninsula, about south of Belfast. In the Middle Ages, it was the capital of the Dál Fiatach, the main ruling dynasty of Ulaid. Its cathedral is said to be the b ...

, nobody was hurt in either bombing.

Loyalists

The proxy bomb was used by Ulster loyalists on a number of occasions in 1974 in the Republic of Ireland. In July, an armed group kidnapped an off-duty Garda and forced him to drive a car bomb to the village of Magheraveely, on the border between

County Cavan County Cavan ( ; gle, Contae an Chabháin) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster and is part of the Border Region. It is named after the town of Cavan and is base ...

and

Fermanagh Historically, Fermanagh ( ga, Fir Manach), as opposed to the modern County Fermanagh, was a kingdom of Gaelic Ireland, associated geographically with present-day County Fermanagh. ''Fir Manach'' originally referred to a distinct kin group of a ...

. The proxy-bombers target was a Catholic-owned pub. The Garda managed to abandon the vehicle on an open field. In another incident, a man was forced to drive a car bomb which eventually failed to explode into

Clones Clone or Clones or Cloning or Cloned or The Clone may refer to: Places * Clones, County Fermanagh * Clones, County Monaghan, a town in Ireland Biology * Clone (B-cell), a lymphocyte clone, the massive presence of which may indicate a pathologi ...

County Monaghan County Monaghan ( ; ga, Contae Mhuineacháin) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Ulster and is part of Border strategic planning area of the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Monaghan. Monaghan County Cou ...

. The IRA claimed that they defused the device. On 11 September 1974, masked gunmen in British Army uniform hijacked a car in Northern Ireland, placed a time bomb inside and forced the owner to drive it into the village of Blacklion,

. They claimed to be from the

Ulster Volunteer Force The Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) is an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group. Formed in 1965, it first emerged in 1966. Its first leader was Gusty Spence, a former British Army soldier from Northern Ireland. The group undertook an armed campaig ...

and threatened to attack his family if he did not comply. The village was evacuated, and the

Irish Army The Irish Army, known simply as the Army ( ga, an tArm), is the land component of the Defence Forces of Ireland.The Defence Forces are made up of the Permanent Defence Forces – the standing branches – and the Reserve Defence Forces. The Ar ...

carried out a controlled explosion on the car. It estimated that the bomb would have destroyed most of the village.

Hindawi affair

In the 1986 Hindawi affair, a Jordanian citizen romanced an Irish woman working as a chambermaid in a London hotel, getting her pregnant, asking her to marry him and persuading her to fly on an

El Al El Al Israel Airlines Ltd. (, he, אל על נתיבי אויר לישראל בע״מ), trading as El Al (Hebrew: , "Upwards", "To the Skies" or "Skywards", stylized as ELAL; ar, إل-عال), is the flag carrier of Israel. Since its inaugural ...

airliner to be introduced to his family in

Damascus )), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , ...

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

. She was stopped by airport security at

Heathrow Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system (the others bei ...

, who discovered that he had planted a bomb in her suitcase before taking her to the airport to put her on the flight.

October 1990 proxy bombings

On 24 October 1990, the

(IRA) carried out a series of proxy-bomb attacks. In these particular cases, three men deemed by the IRA to be " collaborators" were strapped into three vehicles and forced to drive to three British military targets. However, unlike the earlier proxy bombings, they were not given the chance to escape. The three synchronised attacks took place at Coshquin (near

Derry Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. The ...

), Cloghoge (near

Newry Newry (; ) is a city in Northern Ireland, divided by the Clanrye river in counties Armagh and Down, from Belfast and from Dublin. It had a population of 26,967 in 2011. Newry was founded in 1144 alongside a Cistercian monastery, althoug ...

), and

Omagh Omagh (; from ga, An Ómaigh , meaning 'the virgin plain') is the county town of County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is situated where the rivers River Drumragh, Drumragh and Camowen River, Camowen meet to form the River Strule, Strule. North ...

in the early morning of 24 October 1990. The Coshquin attack was the deadliest, killing the human proxy and five soldiers. One soldier was killed at Cloghoge, but the proxy survived. At Omagh, there were no fatalities because a faulty detonator prevented the explosion of the main explosive charge.

Coshquin

The Coshquin operation involved 11 members of the IRA's Derry City Brigade.Toolis, Kevin. ''Rebel Hearts: Journeys within the IRA's soul'' (second edition). Picador, 2000. Chapter 4: "Informers"; p. 253;

RUC Special Branch RUC Special Branch was the Special Branch 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 Constab ...

had received some intelligence about the operation,Jordan, Hugh. ''Milestones in Murder: Defining moments in Ulster's terror war''. Mainstream Publishing, 2002. Chapter 11. but it was said to be only a "vague outline" of an "impending assault against a base" in the area. A Catholic, Patrick Gillespie, 42, who lived in the

Shantallow Shantallow (Shantallow
- Placenamesni.org) is a

Irish border Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ga, Contae Dhún na nGall) is a county of Ireland in the province of Ulster and in the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Donegal in the south of the county. It has also been known as County Tyrconne ...

. Gillespie was then put in a van loaded with of explosives, chained to the seat to prevent his escape and told to drive to the Coshquin permanent border checkpoint on Buncrana Road. An armed IRA team followed him by car to ensure that he obeyed their commands. Four minutes from the checkpoint, the IRA team armed the bomb remotely. When Gillespie reached the checkpoint, at 3:55 AM, he tried to get out and warn the soldiers, but the bomb detonated when he attempted to open the door. IRA bomb makers had installed a detonation device linked to the van's courtesy light, which came on whenever the van door opened. As a safeguard, the bombers also used a timing device to ensure that the bomb detonated at the right moment. Gillespie and five soldiers were killed, including Kingsman Stephen Beacham, Vincent Scott, David Sweeney, Paul Worrall and Lance Corporal Stephen Burrows, from D (Support) Company of the 1st Battalion

the King's Regiment The King's Regiment, officially abbreviated as KINGS, was an infantry regiment of the British Army, part of the King's Division. It was formed on 1 September 1958 by the amalgamation of the King's Regiment (Liverpool) which had been raised in 1685 ...

. Witnesses reported hearing "shouting, screaming and then shots" right before the explosion. The bomb devastated the base, destroying the operations room and a number of armoured vehicles. It was claimed that the death toll would have been much higher had the soldiers not been sleeping in a recently built mortar-proof bunker. The blast damaged 25 nearby houses. At Gillespie's funeral, Bishop Edward Daly said the IRA and its supporters were "the complete contradiction of Christianity. They may say they are followers of Christ. Some of them may even still engage in the hypocrisy of coming to church, but their lives and their works proclaim clearly that they follow Satan".

Cloghoge

In tandem with the Coshquin operation, members of the IRA's South Down Brigade took over the house of a Catholic man, James McAvoy, 65, in Newry. He was allegedly targeted because he served RUC officers at his

filling station A filling station, also known as a gas station () or petrol station (), is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold in the 2010s were gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel. Gasoli ...

, which was beside the house. He was driven away in a

Toyota HiAce The (pronounced "High Ace") is a light commercial vehicle produced by the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota. First launched in October 1967, the HiAce has since been available in a wide range of body configurations, including a minivan/ ...

van while his family was held at gunpoint. At Flagstaff Hill, near the Irish border, members of the IRA's

South Armagh Brigade The South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) operated during the Troubles in south County Armagh. It was organised into two battalions, one around Jonesborough and another around Crossmaglen. By the 1990s, the South Ar ...

loaded the van with one ton of explosives. McAvoy was strapped into the driver's seat and told to drive the van to the accommodation block at Cloghoge permanent vehicle checkpoint. Before he drove off, a senior IRA member seemed "to have a pang of conscience" and whispered in McAvoy's ear "don't open the door; go out through the window". An IRA team followed the van in a car and turned into a side road shortly before it reached the checkpoint. When McAvoy stopped the van and climbed out of the window, a soldier came over and began shouting at him to move the vehicle. Moments later, a timer detonated the bomb. The soldier was killed outright and 13 other soldiers were injured. McAvoy survived but suffered a broken leg. The soldier killed was Ranger Cyril J. Smith, from B Company, 2nd Battalion,

Royal Irish Rangers The Royal Irish Rangers (27th (Inniskilling), 83rd and 87th) was a regular infantry regiment of the British Army with a relatively short existence, formed in 1968 and later merged with the Ulster Defence Regiment in 1992 to form the Royal Iris ...

. Smith, who was also a Northern Ireland Catholic, was posthumously awarded the

Queen's Gallantry Medal The Queen's Gallantry Medal (QGM) is a United Kingdom decoration awarded for exemplary acts of bravery where the services were not so outstanding as to merit the George Medal, but above the level required for the Queen's Commendation for Braver ...

, as he tried to warn his comrades about the bomb, rather than running for cover.

Omagh

At about the same time, there was a third attempted proxy bombing in

County Tyrone County Tyrone (; ) is one of the six Counties of Northern Ireland, counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the thirty-two traditional Counties of Ireland, counties of Ireland. It is no longer used as an admini ...

. A third man was strapped into a car and forced to drive it to Lisanelly Camp in Omagh while his family was held at gunpoint. The third bomb weighed , only exploded partially because of a faulty detonator.

Effects

The 'proxy bombs' of October 1990 caused widespread outrage from everyone, especially among the Catholic community, the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, and even among some IRA supporters, eventually forcing the IRA to drop the tactic. According to journalist and author

Ed Moloney Edmund "Ed" Moloney (born 1948–9) is an Irish journalist and author best known for his coverage of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and the activities of the Provisional IRA, in particular. He worked for the ''Hibernia'' magazine and ''Magill ...

, "as an operation calculated to undermine the IRA's armed struggle, alienate even its most loyal supporters and damage Sinn Féin politically, it had no equal". Moloney has suggested that the tactic may have been calculated to weaken the position of alleged "hawks" in republicanism, those who favoured armed action over electoral politics. At the same time, Moloney argues that the widespread public revulsion would have strengthened the position of those in the IRA such as

Gerry Adams Gerard Adams ( ga, Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh; born 6 October 1948) is an Irish republican politician who was the president of Sinn Féin between 13 November 1983 and 10 February 2018, and served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Louth from 2011 to 2020 ...

who were considering how republicanism could abandon violence and focus on electoral politics.

Peter Taylor Peter Taylor may refer to: Arts * Peter Taylor (writer) (1917–1994), American author, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction * Peter Taylor (film editor) (1922–1997), English film editor, winner of an Academy Award for Film Editing Politi ...

wrote of the proxy bombs that by such actions and the revulsion they caused in the community, IRA hardliners inadvertently strengthened the hand of those within the republican movement who argued that an alternative to armed struggle had to be found.

Later proxy bombs

The Troubles

Several more 'human proxy bombings' were planned, but the operations were called off, partly because of the outrage it drew from all sections of the community. Nevertheless, there were a few more 'traditional' proxy bombings in the following months. At 9:30 am on 22 November 1990, the IRA took over a man's house in

Newtownbutler Newtownbutler or Newtown Butler is a small village in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is in the southeast corner of the county, near Lough Erne, the border with County Monaghan, and the town of Clones. It is surrounded by small lakes and ...

County Fermanagh County Fermanagh ( ; ) is one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the six counties of Northern Ireland. The county covers an area of 1,691 km2 (653 sq mi) and has a population of 61,805 a ...

. While his parents were held at gunpoint, he was forced to drive a

Toyota Hilux The , stylized as HiLux and historically as Hi-Lux, is a series of pickup trucks produced and marketed by the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota. The majority of these vehicles are sold as pickup truck or cab chassis variants, although the ...

pick-up truck to Annaghmartin military checkpoint. He was told that the truck carried a bomb on a five-minute timer. When he reached the checkpoint, he shouted a warning and a small explosion was heard, but the main bomb failed to detonate. The vehicle was found to contain of homemade explosives, the biggest IRA bomb until then. The same checkpoint was the subject of a

heavy machine gun A heavy machine gun (HMG) is significantly larger than light machine gun, light, medium machine gun, medium or general-purpose machine guns. HMGs are typically too heavy to be man-portable (carried by one person) and require weapon mount, mountin ...

attack on 26 December. In early February 1991, another proxy bomb wrecked an

Ulster Defence Regiment The Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) was an infantry regiment of the British Army established in 1970, with a comparatively short existence ending in 1992. Raised through public appeal, newspaper and television advertisements,Potter p25 their offi ...

base in

Magherafelt Magherafelt (, �mˠaxəɾʲəˈfʲiːlt̪ˠə is a small town and civil parish in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It had a population of 8,805 at the 2011 Census. It is the biggest town in the south of the county and is the social, econo ...

, County Londonderry, but there were no fatalities. Two months later, on 8 April, near the border town of Belleek, County Fermanagh, a civilian female motorist working in the local RUC/Army barracks was taken hostage along her husband at an IRA checkpoint and forced to drive to the facilities with a bomb in her handbag. A soldier on watch in a sangar at the base main gate raised the alarm, and the area was evacuated. There were no casualties, but the observation post was heavily damaged by the blast. The final IRA use of proxy bombs came on 24 April 1993, when they forced two London taxi drivers to drive bombs towards

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 ...

and

New Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London' ...

. There were no casualties, however, as the drivers managed to shout warnings and to abandon their cars in time. A conventionally delivered bomb was detonated by the IRA on the same day in the financial centre of

Bishopsgate Bishopsgate was one of the eastern gates in London's former defensive wall. The gate gave its name to the Bishopsgate Ward of the City of London. The ward is traditionally divided into ''Bishopsgate Within'', inside the line wall, and ''Bishop ...

, in Central London.

Colombia

In the early 2000s,

rebels began to use proxy car bombs in Colombia. That has been attributed to training given to FARC by members of the Provisional IRA. In the Colombian province of Arauca in January 2003, three brothers were forced to drive car bombs into military checkpoints, each told that the other brothers would be killed if they did not comply. One of the brothers died, along with six Colombian soldiers, and another survived with serious injuries in a separate incident, when only one of the three explosive charges attached to the vehicle went off, resulting only in minor damage to the target. The whereabouts of the third brother were still unknown in December 2003.

Republican dissidents

In December 2013,

Óglaigh na hÉireann (), abbreviated , is an Irish-language idiom that can be translated variously as ''soldiers of Ireland'', ''warriors of Ireland'', '' volunteers of Ireland''O'Leary, Brendan. ''Terror, insurgency, and the state: ending protracted conflicts''. ...

, a Real IRA splinter group, claimed responsibility for an attempted bomb attack on Belfast City Centre in which a car was hijacked and its driver forced to deliver the bomb to its intended target. The bomb only partially detonated, leaving no casualties.

References

{{Terrorism topics 1990 in Northern Ireland Attacks on military installations Explosions in 1990 Explosions in 2003 Car and truck bombings in Colombia Car and truck bombings in Northern Ireland Guerrilla warfare tactics Improvised explosive devices Irish National Liberation Army actions Military actions and engagements during the Troubles (Northern Ireland) October 1990 events in the United Kingdom Provisional Irish Republican Army actions Terrorism tactics Ulster Volunteer Force actions