Last orders, August 1988. Briefing of GHQ. Loyalist gangs

 In August 1988,I repeated my old, oft-repeated instructions to the IRA to kill the loyalist gang leaders. I repeated this instruction many times during my time in the IRA.

I wrote this instruction down in my final written briefing and approximately a dozen loyalist ring-leaders were killed in the period before the troubles came to an end in the summer of 1997.

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31.5.2025

It occurs to me that in the course of my actions to get the Loughgall operation called off, I briefed Terry Harkin on the execution of John Mc Michael.

I suggested that we approach the UDA headman in East Belfast,Jim Gray/Craig.

I suggested that we offer him £30 000 to set up Mc Michael who was the acknowledged head of the UFF murder gangs.

I believed that the only way we could get at Mc Michael was to plant a mercury tilt-switch operated device under his car.

I wanted to decapitate this terror gang of loyalist extremists.

In late 1987,Mc Michael was killed by an under-car,booby trap device.

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To decapitate the worst of the loyalist murder gangs,I suggested in my final briefings,a bomb beneath the headquarters of the UDA on the Shankhill Road.

I specified that it should be fitted with an anti-handling device to prevent it being rendered impotent or being carried outside the premises.

The bomb detonated early and many people were killed,all innocent shoppers.

It is my surmise that the IRA members of the Belfast Brigade panicked or were not well enough armed and that they did not wait for the mercury in the tilt switch to settle after their abrupt entry into the fish shop that fateful day.