On 7 September 1990 UDR soldier Colin McCullough was shot dead by the IRA while in the company of his girlfriend at Oxford Island on the shore of Lough Neagh in the same area as the 10 November ambush.

[5] According to a 2000 report, the goal of the IRA unit, apparently members of the North Armagh Brigade led by the late Patsy Haughian, was only to abduct and interrogate Murphy about collusion between the RUC and loyalist militants, but things went wrong when Kendall and Dowey arrived to the scene in a car.

Unionist politicians called for tougher security measures; local Ulster Unionist MP David Trimble criticised Secretary of State Peter Brooke for ruling out the introduction of internment without trial in response to the incident and other killings in the preceding weeks and linked the attack to a landmark speech given by Brooke the previous day signalling to the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin that Britain had no "selfish strategic or economic interest" in Northern Ireland.

RUC Chief Constable Hugh Annesley visited the scene of the shootings and described the attack as "repulsive, futile and cowardly murder" and said "it is important to say yet again that the terrorists have no mandate from either Protestant or Catholic, north or south of the Irish border for such atrocities.

"[7] Social Democratic and Labour Party representative Bríd Rodgers categorised the killings as part of an ongoing cycle of so-called "tit-for-tat" murders and urged anyone with information to contact the police.