Ireland's OWN: History
30 June 2002
Nelson tip-off Saved SAS's Gibraltar 3 Op
—Sunday Life
ARMY intelligence agents saved the life of one of the IRA's Gibraltar Three — so the top secret SAS operation, in which he was shot dead along with his companions, could go ahead.
Vital information that Danny McCann was being targeted in west Belfast by the UDA, was given by Army spy Brian Nelson to his military intelligence handlers, just weeks
before a planned IRA bombing in the colony.
Both British military intelligence and MI5 already knew most of the details of the planned Gibraltar attack on soldiers — including the likely date and the names of the active service unit that would carry it out.
This top-level information is thought to have been provided to the security services by their IRA agent — code-named 'steak-knife'.
When Nelson reported to Army agents in early 1988, that McCann was to be shot at home in Belfast by the UFF, preparations for foiling the Gibraltar attack were well-advanced.
Operation Flavius had already been authorised at the highest level.
Security chiefs were anxious to ensure that the IRA team already selected should arrive safely in Gibraltar, where arrangements had already been made for them to be shadowed by MI5 agents and "intercepted" by SAS soldiers.
As a result, on the night the UFF gunmen planned to kill McCann, the entire area was flooded with troops.
Realising this, the UFF recce team warned the follow-up gunmen, and the murder bid was called off.
But there was no need for a second attempt.
In March 1988, McCann, Sean Savage and Mairéad Farrell were shot dead by the SAS, after crossing into Gibraltar from Spain.
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