The Army manual sets out how an ambush should be mounted. The troops taking part are positioned to be able to fire into the ‘killing area’. The main body of soldiers form ‘assault’ or ‘killer’ groups charged with destroying the enemy party. On either side of these groups will be ‘cut-offs’ – smaller groups who can prevent stray enemy soldiers escaping. Other soldiers may be positioned to stop the enemy trying to outflank the main ambush party.
These tactics are not peculiar to the SAS, but are taught to the majority of soldiers entering the Army. However, the SAS has made a speciality of the ambush. Following selection, all SAS soldiers are taken to Brunei to be trained in jungle warfare. They spend much of their time learning how to carry out ‘Type A’ ambushes, those limited to a particular area where it is known the enemy can be intercepted. Those who have taken part in such training say that the SAS soldiers train to rake the ‘killing area’ with gunfire and shrapnel from claymore mines and necklaces of grenades. An SAS NCO maintains that these jungle patrols are ‘where all soldiering begins and ends’.
During the inquest in 1988 into the deaths of three IRA members in Gibraltar, the SAS officer ‘Soldier F’ denied suggestions that the decision to mount an ambush contained an assumption that the enemy party would be killed. He said that the aim of an ambush might also be to take prisoners. This may have been his interpretation of Army doctrine, but Land Operations makes clear that an ambush is an attack and implies that any prisoners, if it is part of the mission to take them, are survivors of such an assault. The manual deals with the arrest of terrorists under a different section. It goes on: ‘The aim of an ambush is thus usually achieved by concentrating heavy accurate fire from concealed positions into carefully selected killing areas which the enemy have been allowed to enter, but from which their escape is prevented by fire and possibly obstacles.’ It adds that such an attack would only normally be used in ‘Setting 4’, a counter-insurgency campaign verging on limited war in which the security forces had lost control of certain areas.
The increase in the amount of intelligence reaching security chiefs in Ulster by the early 1980s meant that they sometimes had foreknowledge of terrorist attacks. This information gives them a choice. In the words of someone who has run operations by the SAS in Northern Ireland: ‘There are two options – either to arrest with irrefutable evidence on which to base a prosecution or the other, which is to go in and shoot. The chances of being able to make an arrest under those circumstances are minimal because the terrorists will be armed.’
A decision to confront armed terrorists can be implemented as an ambush. If the terrorist decides to mount an attack, and the security forces to pre-empt them then, the officer adds, ‘the outcome is pretty obvious’. The change in late 1983 is therefore a shift – on some occasions at least – to the second of his options, the shooting option. There had been many occasions during the previous few years which demonstrated a preference for the other approach – for example the arrest of Seamus McElwaine and his gang in March 1981.
The general or senior police officer who wants to arrest terrorists must create the right circumstances to do so. In the McElwaine case this involved ensuring, through surveillance, that the men were surrounded in a house on an isolated farm. Had it been necessary, the soldiers could have sat outside the farmhouse for hours or days until those inside had surrendered.
On the other hand, confronting terrorists during an actual attack is likely to produce a shoot-out. The paramilitaries will be armed and may be in a state of mind where they are ready to use their weapons. Failing to intercept them carries a risk for the soldiers that the terrorists may escape. And, most importantly in terms of the law of minimum force as outlined by the Yellow Card, a party of terrorists approaching their target may well represent that immediate danger to life which justifies the security forces opening fire.
Besides the Yellow Card’s general rules of conduct concerning firearms, the specific nature of soldiers’ orders can have a bearing on the use of force in a particular operation. Army officers and NCOs are trained to give orders in a standard format. Orders normally involve groups of soldiers gathered around an officer or NCO as he explains the plan. They move through various headings, for example ‘friendly forces’ or ‘outline plan’. The most important, in seeking to understand whether such operations are within the law of minimum force, is the one headed ‘mission’. The use of the word ‘ambush’ in this section will carry a particular meaning to most soldiers.
The only published example of SAS orders for a mission in Northern Ireland concerns an operation in May 1976, following the discovery of what appeared to be a command wire for an IRA bomb near a border crossing in south Armagh. The SAS were operating under the aegis of the 3rd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, that night and the Commanding Officer decided to refer his plan to higher authorities for approval. His orders were reproduced in a book covering that tour. He told his brigadier that his aim was ‘to insert that evening (23 May) a covert patrol to try to ambush [author’s emphasis] the terrorists who would have to man a chosen firing point and probably lay out more wire’.
It is standard for the oral orders to SAS troops for operations in which they intend to confront the IRA to refer to the Yellow Card restrictions on the use of firearms, according to someone who has been present at such briefings. However, the soldier’s understanding of his task, if the word ‘ambush’ is used, appears to be clear
