[1] During the late afternoon of 30 August 1988 a three-man active service unit from the Provisional IRA's East Tyrone Brigade consisting of brothers Gerard (29 years old) and Martin Harte (23), and their brother-in-law Brian Mullan (26), attempted to kill an off-duty member of the Ulster Defence Regiment, which IRA intelligence had previously identified for targeting from the regular route, timetable and vehicle of his civilian occupation as the driver of a delivery lorry.

[2] The IRA team drove in a hijacked car to the scene of the planned attack along the Omagh to Carrickmore road near Drumnakilly,[citation needed] looking for the delivery lorry with its distinctive commercial livery travelling along its usual route at that time, wearing boiler suits, balaclavas and armed with two AK-47 rifles and an old MK British Webley revolver.

[2] They found the lorry pulled up along the road's 10 miles length, with a man they took to be their target, who appeared to be replacing a flat tyre.

As they drove towards him they were suddenly attacked by a British Army detachment of soldiers from the Special Air Service Regiment, which opened automatic fire upon their vehicle from concealed positions about the roadside, killing all three IRA men.

[3][4] Local residents reported hearing several bursts of sustained gun fire during the incident, followed by single shots.