THE IRISH OBSERVER: Patsy Gillespie, Human Bomb, Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein, PIRA

Saturday, October 24, 2020

Patsy Gillespie, Human Bomb, Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein, PIRA

Sinn Fein/PIRA Human/Proxy Bomb Attacks

Sinn Fein/PIRA had used Human Bomb attacks in the 1970s, however, the attacks were stopped when Sinn Fein/PIRA were consistently accused of being gutless cowards by forcing civilians to deliver bombs that they did not have the courage to deliver themselves.

Sinn Fein/PIRA would send personnel to places such as Columbia, Syria, Palestine and so forth, to teach paramilitary groups in those countries how to prepare and deliver Human Bombs.

In the 1986 Hindawi Affair, a Palestinian Arab terrorist 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 airliner to be introduced to his family in Damascus, Syria.

She was stopped by airport security at Heathrow, who discovered that he had planted a bomb in her suitcase before taking her to the airport to put her on the flight.

Patsy Gillespie Murder

Martin McGuinness personally sanctioned the Human/Proxy Bomb campaign in 1990, it was Martin McGuinness who directed the operation to kidnap Patsy Gillespie, who was used by the PIRA as the first human bomb in the 1990s Human Bomb Campaign, the PIRA forced Patsy Gillespie, to drive a large explosive device to a military checkpoint at Coshquin near Derry, where it exploded.

The bomb was set off while Patsy Gillespie was still in the driver’s seat, killing him and five soldiers, Stephen Burrows, Stephen Beacham, Vincent Scott, David Sweeney and Paul Worral.

It has long been established that Martin McGuinness was an MI6 Agent from 1986, so it is difficult to understand the logic behind McGuinness re-introducing the failed 1970s tactic of using Human Bombs. Two things could arise here, firstly McGuinness’s Handlers wanted to present McGuinness as a more ruthless terrorist than PIRA Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna, and therefore McGuinness should retake his position as Chief of Staff.

Secondly, although not exclusively, MI6 may have wanted to under-mine The PIRA campaign, by allowing McGuinness to adopt a tactic that had cost The PIRA both domestic and international support (i.e. Irish America) in the 1970s. Such perversions as set out here cannot be easily dismissed.

Peter North attempted Murder

Michael ‘Pete’ Ryan was the PIRA Commanding Officer, of The PIRA Unit dispatched by PIRA Chief of Staff, Kevin McKenna, to kidnap Peter North and force him to deliver a bomb to a British Army base. Michael ‘Pete’ Ryan had at his disposal several well-seasoned PIRA killers including Laurence McNally, Aidan McGurk, John ‘Dinger’ Bell and so forth.

Bizarrely, Michael ‘Pete’ Ryan also took Owen Smyth with him for the Peter North kidnapping. Owen Smyth was a strange choice, as Smyth had turned informer when arrested by the RUC in 1981 for the murders of Norman Stronge and his son James. In 1990, Pete Ryan was having a sexual relationship with Owen Smyth’s sister-in-law Dr Marian Smyth (was married to Owen’s Brother Brian), and Marian Smyth would give birth to one of Pete Ryan’s children after he was shot dead by the SAS in 1991.

Owen Smyth owned The Round House Bar in Monaghan Town; the bar had been left to Owen Smyth by Robert ‘Bobby’ Loane who was married to Smyth’s material Aunt. Smyth only opened his bar in the evening time on a Thursday, as Thursday in Monaghan Town was Social Welfare Day (Dole Day) and Smyth did not want Travellers in his bar.

So, a Thursday suited Owen Smyth to join his sister-in-law’s lover on a PIRA operation, and Pete Ryan would have facilitated Smyth’s request to ‘get involved’ as Ryan liked to think he was the Boss. At this time Owen Smyth was also an elected Sinn Fein member of Monaghan Urban Council.

The PIRA Unit made their way to Newtownbutler in County Fermanagh and at 9.30am, on Thursday, 22^nd November, 1990, they took over the home of Peter North

While Peter North’s parents were held at gunpoint, he was forced to drive a Toyota Hilux pick-up truck to Annaghmartin military checkpoint.

Peter North was forced to drive to a Northern Ireland security checkpoint with the biggest bomb ever made by the IRA had his legs badly beaten to stop him from escaping.

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 3,500 pounds (1,600 kg) of homemade explosives, the biggest IRA bomb until then. The same checkpoint was the subject of a heavy machine gun attack on 26 December.

Bizarrely, in 1994 as I was working as a retail security man in Belfast during recess from University, a fellow security man told me that he was on duty at the British Army check-point the day that Peter North drove the bomb into position. The now retired soldier told me that when Peter North shouted the warning, all of the soldiers, except for one, ran away from the bomb and Peter North.

The soldier who stood his ground and helped free Peter North from the Van into which he had been strapped and which contained the bomb, was a Black Solider called ‘Chalky’.

In the aftermath of the failed Peter North operation, Peter North identified Owen Smyth as one of the PIRA Unit involved in his kidnapping. Owen Smyth was arrested by Gardai in Monaghan Town and charged for his role in the kidnapping. Smyth when arrested admitted his role in the kidnapping.

When Owen Smyth was charged, he began to try and cover up the fact that he had again talked while in custody. Smyth began to ask members of Sinn Fein/PIRA to make false statements claiming that they had been in hi pub on the 22^nd of November 1990 and that Smyth was there all the time.

I was asked to make a false statement to help Smyth with his alibi, however, I refused as I was working closely with a member of East Tyrone PIRA on another project and I was trying to keep my head under the radar. Eventually, Smyth got 26 people to say they were in his pub and he was there all the time.

Smyth’s pub was a tiny one-room entity that could barely hold 20 people. In a Prime-time documentary in 2020 about William Hampton, Owen Smyth actually said that if there were 20 people in his pub it would be full. Smyth also said that his pub was full as Sinn Fein/PIRA were celebrating Mrs Thatcher’s resignation that day.

This is not credible, as Mrs Thatcher would only remain as a prime-target for Sinn Fein/PIRA if she held high office, once retired, any attempt on her life would not have the same impact as an attempt when she was serving Prime Minister.

Owen Smyth had the charges against him dropped in relation to the Peter North kidnapping, yet any credible investigation would have found that his alibi was nonsense. I was in The Round House Barr 22^nd November 1990, as I always went in on a Thursday evening when The Northern Standard (regional paper) was published and I would sit at the same bar and read the paper from cover to cover. Smyth was not there.

Human Bomb Security Consequences

For the first time in four years, in 1990, the British army sent more troops into Northern Ireland. Some 600 soldiers arrived in early December of that year as the province braced for an upsurge of violence.

“Don’t blame us. Blame the terrorists,” said the signs outside bomb-blasted checkpoints where traffic crawled in long lines as soldiers carefully checked every vehicle.

Four border checkpoints had been closed during darkness in a tacit admission by the army that it could not totally protect them at night.

Taking over routine security patrol duties, the newly arrived soldiers would free special undercover troops to mount more covert operations against PIRA terrorists along the border with the Irish Republic.

Britain now had 11,000 soldiers in Northern Ireland, the highest figure since the early 1980s.

Human-bomb attacks would kill six British soldiers and obliterate two security checkpoints. Two near-misses could have caused similar devastation, and survivors told grim tales of their ordeals.

Gerry Kelly was tied into his camper in October, 1990, with 200 pounds of explosives and forced to drive into a British army camp.

Miraculously, he managed to wriggle free, and the bomb failed to detonate.

“It was a ghastly ordeal and, frankly, I don’t think I’ll ever get over it,” Kelly said afterward. “I am now thinking of quitting Ireland completely.”

Kelly, whose wife and 7-year-old daughter were taken hostage, added: “I just kept thinking about my family and what would happen to them.”

A month later, the IRA loaded Peter North’s pickup truck with 3,300 pounds of explosives, the biggest bomb they had ever made.

His elderly parents were taken hostage and tied up. He was told to drive the truck to a checkpoint. He managed to raise an alarm and stagger clear. Only the detonator exploded.

“They battered Peter’s legs so that he couldn’t run from the van. Animals wouldn’t do something like that,” Maureen North said of her son. “We didn’t know what we were going to do without him.”

It was the fifth time in 13 years that the Protestant family had been attacked by the IRA. They have now gone into hiding.

Patsy Gillespie, a Catholic, was taken from his home and forced to drive his bomb-laden car to a checkpoint in Londonderry. The bomb killed him and five British soldiers.

On the same night, another British soldier died in another human-bomb attack, but the kidnaped driver, an elderly pensioner, managed to escape in time.

Sinn Fein/PIRA were convinced that they could maintain their core support in nationalist ghettos despite being widely condemned by politicians and clergy for the new tactic.