In June 1991, an SAS unit lay in wait in the village of Coagh, County Tyrone, after intelligence suggested an IRA team was preparing to assassinate an off-duty soldier. Within seconds of the gunmen arriving, three men were dead.


In episode six of SAS: The Shadow War, The Independent’s world affairs editor Sam Kiley meets ‘David’, the former SAS commander who planned the operation. He reveals how a British soldier was used as a decoy, how the trap was set and how the decision to open fire unfolded in a matter of seconds.


Decades of legal scrutiny followed. Alongside another extraordinary SAS encounter involving Bernadette Devlin, the episode asks the question at the heart of these operations: when do you arrest, and when do you shoot?

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