The Clonoe Ambush: Behind the Scenes COUNTRY SQUIRE MAGAZINE

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BY FRANCIS CARR

How the SAS Ended One More IRA Attack and the Future Threat of Russian Hybrid Warfare in Britain

On the night of 16 February 1992, at approximately 10:40 PM, a Provisional IRA unit launched an assault on the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police station in Coalisland, County Tyrone. Armed with Eastern Bloc AK-47s and a Soviet-designed DShK heavy machine gun mounted on a stolen lorry, the IRA operatives fired over 30 rounds of armour-piercing ammunition at the station before retreating. Their objective was clear: eliminate police officers, provoke retaliation, and escalate their campaign for a British withdrawal.

British intelligence had already anticipated an attack. On 15 February 1992, intelligence reports indicated that the East Tyrone Brigade was planning an imminent heavy-weapon strike on the Coalisland RUC station. Further intelligence gathered hours before the attack confirmed that a Czechoslovakian 14.7mm heavy machine gun would be used. The IRA unit was expected to assemble in or around St. Patrick’s Church in Clonoe shortly before 11:00 PM. After the attack, they planned to return to the church car park to make their escape.

This intelligence provided British forces with a tactical advantage, allowing the SAS to pre-position assets for an immediate response. Acting under military engagement protocols, the SAS executed a swift and decisive intervention in the St. Patrick’s Church car park. The four IRA operatives – Kevin Barry O’Donnell, Sean O’Farrell, Peter Clancy, and Patrick Vincent – were neutralised before they could engage in a major gun battle.

The SAS team involved were highly trained, many of whom were veterans of counter-insurgency operations in Borneo, Aden, and Oman. Their training emphasised asymmetric warfare, counter-terrorism, and rapid urban combat tactics. The operation concluded within seconds, with no collateral damage, demonstrating the precision and operational efficiency characteristic of British special forces.

Under Gerry Adams’ leadership, the IRA sought to portray itself as a legitimate military force. However, under international law, it was never granted combatant status. This illegal organisation employed asymmetric and terrorist tactics while demanding the rights of a conventional army. In contrast, the SAS adhered to established military engagement protocols, responding to an active attack by heavily armed illegal combatants with an appropriate level of force. The Clonoe ambush was not an extrajudicial execution but a measured and professional military response within the framework of counterterrorism doctrine.

The validity of the military response at Clonoe is reinforced by the legal framework provided by cases such as McCann v. the UK (1995). On 6 March 1988, in Gibraltar, a targeted operation was conducted by the British SAS against suspected IRA operatives. During this operation, three IRA terrorists were killed after the SAS engaged them under the belief that they posed an imminent threat. Legally, the British government defended its actions at the European Court of Human Rights by asserting that the operation took place within the context of a Non-International Armed Conflict and was thus governed by International Humanitarian Law, rather than conventional criminal law. This defence rested on the principles of military necessity and proportionality, arguing that the use of lethal force was a controlled and measured response to an immediate threat. The European Court ultimately recognised that while the operation did interfere with the right to life, it was justified given the circumstances and strict rules of engagement applied during the mission.

While the tactical engagement at Clonoe was a significant success in disrupting the IRA’s operations, it also underscored a broader strategic issue. The involvement of Soviet-designed weaponry and material support networks indicated that the Troubles were not merely an isolated insurgency but were, in part, a beneficiary of Cold War-era proxy warfare.

Evidence from the Mitrokhin Archive, a collection of KGB files smuggled out by Soviet defector Vasili Mitrokhin, reveals that Soviet intelligence regarded the IRA as a potential destabilisation tool. However, concerns over the IRA’s ideological heterogeneity, spanning Marxist and non-Marxist factions, made direct Soviet support strategically complex. Instead, Soviet-aligned intelligence agencies maintained indirect contact with Irish Republican groups as part of a broader Cold War destabilisation strategy.

Declassified Czechoslovak documents confirmed that the StB, Czechoslovakia’s secret police, functioned as an intermediary for Soviet arms shipments to the IRA. The weapons supplied included small arms, Semtex plastic explosives, RPG-7 rocket launchers, DShK heavy machine guns, and AK-47 assault rifles – three of which were used in the Clonoe attack. The use of Czechoslovakia as a conduit for arms mirrored Soviet practices in other insurgencies, including in the Middle East.

The Stasi, East Germany’s secret police, also played a crucial role in the IRA’s operational development. Reports confirm that IRA operatives travelled to East Germany for advanced training in urban guerrilla warfare, bomb-making techniques, intelligence gathering, and counter-surveillance. Additionally, the Stasi provided forged passports and false identities, facilitating the movement of IRA operatives across Europe and enabling cross-border operational mobility.

Libya, under Muammar Gaddafi, became one of the IRA’s primary arms suppliers due to its strong anti-British stance. Libya’s geopolitical alignment with Moscow showed an indirect Soviet link to IRA operations. The 1987 interception of the French ship Eksund, which was carrying 150 tons of Libyan weapons, including AK-47 assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and large quantities of Semtex explosives, prevented what could have been a significant escalation in the IRA’s capability. Had this shipment reached its intended destination, it would have extended the operational longevity of the IRA’s campaign by years, demonstrating the effectiveness of intelligence-led interdiction operations.

Beyond material support, the IRA maintained contact with Marxist-Leninist movements backed by the KGB. The Provisional IRA had operational ties to the Official IRA (OIRA) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), both of which adhered to Soviet-aligned ideological frameworks. The Workers’ Party of Ireland, which evolved from the OIRA, received Soviet funding and ideological support. Intelligence reports confirm that during the 1970s and 1980s, delegations from the Workers’ Party of Ireland regularly travelled to Moscow and other Soviet-aligned nations for meetings, training, and funding discussions. The party and the IRA were viewed as reliable Marxist-Leninist allies and received financial and political support from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). These visits were part of broader diplomatic efforts by the Soviet Union to maintain influence among left-wing movements in Western Europe.

Although the Soviet Union never fully endorsed the IRA, its involvement through proxy states and intelligence networks played a decisive role in sustaining the conflict. The careful use of intermediaries such as Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Libya enabled the Soviet Union to maintain plausible deniability while providing substantial support to Irish Republican paramilitaries. This indirect approach embedded the IRA within Cold War geopolitics, making them a component of the broader strategy of Western destabilisation.

While the Soviet Union has since collapsed, the legacy of its hybrid warfare strategy remains deeply relevant. The methods employed during the Cold War – covert arms distribution, proxy training programmes, intelligence manipulation, and ideological subversion – have evolved into contemporary Russian hybrid warfare tactics.

The Modern Threat: Russian Hybrid Warfare in Britain

Today, Britain faces a more complex and systematic enemy, shaped by the doctrine of Russian hybrid warfare. Like before, their goal is to weaken public trust in key institutions – the military, police, monarchy, government, and traditional values – to create internal division. This is known among academics as the Gerasimov Doctrine.

General Valery Gerasimov, the Russian Chief of the General Staff, outlined the blueprint for modern hybrid warfare, which has already reshaped the global battlefield. His doctrine is not based solely on conventional military confrontation, as seen in Ukraine. Instead, hybrid warfare focuses on destabilising nations from within through a combination of economic, political, and social warfare.

The key objectives of Russian hybrid warfare are clear:

Economic Warfare: Attacking the financial infrastructure of the West, undermining confidence in Western markets, and weakening the European economy.
Political Destabilisation: Exploiting ethnic divisions, extremist groups, and social unrest to cause internal strife within NATO member states. Psychological operations use misinformation, propaganda, and cyber warfare to create despondency among Western populations.
Sabotage of Alliances: Destroying the cohesion of NATO and the European Union.

The Gerasimov Doctrine also involves the infiltration of embedded terrorist networks. This is achieved through migratory corridors, financed by high-street money laundering, to position highly trained operatives inside European cities, ready to act when the time comes. This is not a conventional war; it is a war of infiltration, economic collapse, and psychological manipulation.

When examined closely, the logistical and financial infrastructure supporting hybrid warfare relies heavily on untraceable assets, including laundered money derived from illicit activities. One key indicator of such activities in the UK is high-street money laundering, a criminal enterprise that remains insufficiently addressed. This system, which obscures profits from the European drug trade smuggled into the UK, manifests through several specific business types:

Barbershops, predominantly operated by Kurds.
Nail and tanning salons, managed by Chinese-Vietnamese networks.
Car washes, which often employ undocumented workers from Eastern Europe.
Used mobile phone and vape sales, run by Pakistani Muslims.
Restaurants in major cities selling expensive wines and liqueurs, or high-street restaurants run by Bangladeshi nationals.

Estimates suggest that these activities collectively launder over £150 billion annually, creating a robust financial base for criminal and hybrid operations.

An additional concern is the influx of military-grade illicit firearms, many of which remain untraceable. A 2018 parliamentary memorandum cited an estimate of 4 million unregulated military-grade firearms in the UK. However, another report estimated that at least 120,000 illegal small arms are currently in circulation within the UK, and this number is rising. Recent data from the National Crime Agency (NCA) reported 6,233 offences involving firearms in England and Wales for the year ending September 2023, marking a 3% increase from the previous year. While this indicates a rise in firearm-related offences, it does not directly correlate to the total number of illicit firearms in circulation.

The proliferation of illicit firearms, unlimited illegal funding, and trained fighters from known terrorist units who have entered the UK illegally – or who are former radicalised ISIS or Taliban fighters – presents a critical challenge to national security. These factors significantly enhance the operational capacity of hostile actors. Today, we face more sophisticated and multi-faceted terrorist groups who have exposed vulnerabilities within national security frameworks. Advanced weapons and training give these well-armed adversaries the ability to overwhelm local law enforcement agencies. Traditional policing structures are designed to handle localised criminal threats rather than highly coordinated attacks employing military-grade weaponry. In the face of such threats, standard police response tactics will prove ineffective.

Another critical vulnerability is the speed at which conventional military forces can be deployed in response to urban terrorist threats. In simple terms, it would be too slow. Perpetrators have integrated with immigrant communities and other social enclaves to provide safe havens and evade detection. Weak border controls and ineffective immigration policies facilitate the movement of weapons and highly trained personnel across national boundaries. Illicit financial networks provide the necessary funding channels for terrorist organisations to sustain operations.

The Role of Special Forces in Countering Hybrid Threats

What the British public needs to understand is that the Gerasimov Doctrine is the blueprint for modern hybrid warfare. This doctrine is reshaping the global battlefield, characterised by a mix of conventional warfare (as seen in Ukraine), insurgency tactics, cyber warfare, misinformation, and criminal activities.

For rapid covert operations and intelligence-driven actions, Special Forces are uniquely trained to address hybrid terrorism. Their advanced training, operational flexibility, and ability to operate in politically sensitive environments make them a major threat to the Gerasimov Doctrine. The UK’s Special Air Service (SAS), Special Boat Service (SBS), Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR), and Special Forces Support Group (SFSG) have played a central role in counterterrorism operations. Their capabilities allow them to disrupt terrorist networks, conduct hostage rescues, and execute high-risk missions in hostile environments.

However, while Special Forces remain critical to countering hybrid threats, their operations are increasingly subject to scrutiny due to the possibility of hostile intelligence services. The SAS’s actions in Northern Ireland during the Troubles serve as an early example of how hybrid warfare tactics supported by Eastern Bloc countries were countered through intelligence-led special operations. In Afghanistan, British Special Forces were instrumental in dismantling Taliban and Al-Qaeda networks. The SAS and SBS conducted high-risk missions targeting insurgent leaders and engaging in night raids to capture or eliminate key figures. In the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Syria, British Special Forces have operated extensively against ISIS. In Syria, SAS units worked alongside US and French Special Forces to dismantle ISIS leadership, operating without official UK government acknowledgment of their presence. These missions are politically sensitive, requiring careful political handling about the legality of their operations under increasingly complex and counterproductive international law.

Conclusion

The modern battlefield is no longer defined by direct military confrontation but by surgical, covert operations, cyber warfare, and misinformation campaigns designed to destabilise nations from within. This is the essence of hybrid terrorism, and it is a tactic increasingly used by hostile states, particularly within the Eastern Bloc. British Special Forces, with their ability to operate in politically sensitive and denied environments, present the single greatest counter to these threats. The SAS, SBS, and SRR have honed their skills in urban warfare, intelligence gathering, and sabotage – capabilities that make them a direct threat to any state-sponsored operation attempting to disrupt security in the UK or its European allies. Unlike conventional forces, which are bound by the limitations of conventional warfare, Special Forces work in the shadows, operating with speed and agility to neutralise threats before they materialise.

For nations within the Eastern Bloc planning or facilitating hybrid attacks, the presence of British Special Forces is an unavoidable reality and a deadly deterrent. These units have already demonstrated their effectiveness in countering insurgencies. The same expertise will soon be leveraged to identify, track, and eliminate operatives linked to hostile intelligence services in the UK. Whether it is disrupting arms shipments, dismantling espionage networks, or preemptively neutralising state-backed sabotage efforts, Special Forces remain the most significant obstacle to any adversary hoping to conduct asymmetric warfare against the UK and its allies.

It is no coincidence that hostile states have intensified efforts to expose and discredit British Special Forces. Legal challenges, media leaks, and one-sided human rights investigations serve a broader purpose: to undermine the UK’s ability to counteract the very tactics being used against it. Those pursuing these legal actions are directly damaging UK interests. The strategic pressure to restrict covert operations aligns too conveniently with the interests of those seeking to wage hybrid warfare without consequence. The reality for those planning such attacks is clear: wherever hybrid threats emerge, British Special Forces will be watching, operating with precision, and striking when necessary. The Eastern Bloc understands this better than most, and their UK-based proponents’ attempts to dismantle this capability only confirm the threat they face.

The UK Government might learn from this Latin term: “Ut servus dominum protegat, ita dominus servos suos protegat.” “As the servant protects the master, so the master protects his servants” would be a more appropriate approach to these operations, rather than looking to scapegoat soldiers.

Francis Carr, a nom de plume, served in the SAS.