In May 1987, an eight-man unit of the Provisional IRA East Tyrone Brigade was ambushed and shot dead by the Special Air Service (SAS) during an attack by them on a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) rural police station at the village of Loughgall, County Armagh.

[11][12][13] A subsequent RUC and coroner's inquest found that Dallas had no discernible links with the UVF; and local residents later stated that he had been targeted on the basis of his former service with the British Army, and the fact of his being a prominent member of the Orange Order in the town.

[19] On 3 March 1991, the Ulster Volunteer Force carried out an attack at the village of Cappagh, shooting dead three Provisional IRA members and a Catholic civilian at Boyle's Bar.

[20] On 9 April 1991, the IRA's East Tyrone Brigade shot dead Derek Ferguson in Coagh (a cousin of local Member of Parliament Reverend William McCrea), stating afterwards that he was a paramilitary with the Ulster Volunteer Force.

[21] Historian Kevin Toolis includes as part of this cycle of violence the destruction of Glenanne UDR barracks in County Armagh, in which three soldiers were killed and 10 injured by an IRA truck bomb on 30 May 1991.

[22] At 7.30 am on 3 June 1991, three Tyrone IRA paramilitaries – Tony Doris (21 years old), Pete Ryan (35) (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,[23] 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.

[21] According to Toolis, the IRA believed the soldier was also an associate of the UVF and he was "notoriously hated and feared" by the local Nationalist community because of threats issued to Catholics at road checkpoints.

[25] 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,[26] and also in a red Bedford lorry at the scene.

[25] When the stolen car carrying the IRA men approached the scene the Special Air Service detachment opened sustained automatic fire upon it from close range.