SAS ambush and kill a 3 man IRA East Tyrone active service unit, 3rd June 1991

The coagh ambush was a military confrontation that took place in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, on 3 June 1991, during The Troubles, when a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) active service unit from its East Tyrone Brigade was ambushed by the British Army's Special Air Service (SAS) at the village of Coagh, in County Tyrone, whilst on its way to kill a part-time member of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR). The ambush resulted in the deaths of all three IRA men involved.
At 7.30 am on 3 June 1991, three Tyrone IRA paramilitaries - Tony Doris (21 years old), Michael "Pete" Ryan (37) (on the run at the time from the Royal Ulster Constabulary since 1981 after escaping from imprisonment in Belfast for terrorist related offences) and Lawrence McNally (39) - drove a stolen Vauxhall Cavalier from Moneymore, County Londonderry to the village of Coagh,[21] crossing the border of counties Londonderry and Tyrone, to kill a part-time Ulster Defence Regiment soldier, who was in his civilian life a contractor that worked with the security forces.Their intent, however, was known to the British security forces, having been revealed by either a Crown agent within the IRA itself, or from covert technical surveillance. In consequence a detachment from the British Army's Special Air Service was lying in wait for Doris, Ryan and McNally on both sides of Coagh's main street, and also in a red Bedford lorry at the scene