Covert SAS operation in Tyrone

A Dungannon man has told how he returned home on Thursday to find two armed individuals dressed in fatigues with their faces blacked out running up a field behind his house.

According to the 32 County Soveriengty Committee, the man’s wife and child had been walking when the family dog became agitated around hedges in the field behind the property.

When the man’s wife started looking into the hedge, two men emerged wearing combat gear and carrying holstered handguns. A strange car was then seen arriving on a small country lane behind the field and the men, who were apparently under-cover British soldiers, made off over the fields towards it.

The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, said that after he became aware of the suspicious activity, he drove up behind the car just as the under-cover soldiers made it inside.

As he pulled up behind the car, two uniformed members of the PSNI emerged and approached his vehicle, immediately searching him under the ‘Prevention of Terrorism Act’.

His car was also searched and he was verbally harassed, the 32CSM spokesman said, while the two under-cover soldiers remained seated inside their vehicle with hoods pulled up to hide their identity.

“This is a very disturbing development,” the spokesman said. “In the past the Crown Forces used these tactics to set up Irish Republicans for loyalist death squads.

“Undercover Soldiers were present when Roseanne Mallon was gunned down by a death squad led by the notorious loyalist murderer Billy Wright, not 10 miles from the site of this incident,

“It is obvious that the SAS is once again active in Republican East Tyrone, as is the British Army.

“A number of British Military helicopters have been seen in the skies over the East Tyrone area in this past couple of months with landings sited in remote rural areas

“It seems East Tyrone is once again the focus of a British military counter-insurgency campaign. Operations like the one uncovered by this man’s family is further proof of that campaign.”

He urged anyone who witnessed similar activity to report it to the 32CSM in their area.

Urgent Appeal