The South Armagh area was considered to be a liberated zone already, since British troops and the RUC could not use the roads there for fear of roadside bombs and long-range harassing fire.

The first phase of Lynagh's plan to drive out the British security forces from east Tyrone involved destroying isolated rural police stations and then intimidating or killing any building contractors who were employed to rebuild them.

[10] Lynagh's plans met strong criticism from senior brigade member Kevin McKenna, who regarded the strategy as "too impractical, too ambitious, and not sustainable" according to journalist Ed Moloney.

This was in response to a complaint from Democratic Unionist Party Assemblyman William McCrea accusing the GAA of turning a blind eye to "republican terrorist" events in the last years.

[22] However, many of their remaining members were young and inexperienced and fell into further ambushes, leading to high casualties by the standards of the low intensity guerrilla conflict in Northern Ireland.

[23] A major IRA attack in County Tyrone took place on 20 August 1988, barely a year after Loughall, which ended in the deaths of eight soldiers when a British Army bus was destroyed by a bomb at Curr Road, near Ballygawley.

[28] On 16 September 1989, a British sergeant of the Royal Corps of Signals (Kevin Froggett) was shot and killed by an IRA sniper while he was repairing a radio mast at Coalisland Army/RUC base.

[34] On 4 March 1990, ten IRA volunteers launched an assault on the RUC station at Stewartstown using an improvised flamethrower consisting of a manure-spreader towed by a tractor to spray 600 imperial gallons (2,700 L) of a petrol/diesel mix to set the base ablaze, and then opened up with rifles and an RPG-7 rocket launcher.

[40][41] On 5 September 1990, an "engineering" IRA unit from the Tyrone Brigade, supported by armed militants,[42] planted a massive car bomb outside the RUC barracks at Loughgall.

[46][47] On 31 January 1992, an IRA van bomb blew up in downtown Dungannon, resulting in three people wounded and severe property damage[48] to the city centre and to the RUC/Army base.

[51] On 3 June 1991, three IRA men, Lawrence McNally, Michael "Pete" Ryan, and Tony Doris, died in another SAS ambush at Coagh, where their car was riddled with gunfire.

Ryan, according to Moloney, had led the mixed flying column under direct orders of top IRA Army Council member Thomas "Slab" Murphy two years before.

In the aftermath of the bombing, on 9 May, a sergeant mayor of the 1st Battalion, the Staffordshire Regiment was shot and killed by a soldier of his company in a blue-on-blue incident at the same spot, while taking part of a security detail around the devastated base.

[67] Another IRA bomb attack on 12 May 1992, against British troops on patrol near Cappagh, in which a paratrooper lost both legs, triggered a series of clashes on that date between soldiers and local residents in the staunchly republican town of Coalisland, on 12 and 17 May 1992.

Another street fracas five days later, on 17 May, between a King's Own Scottish Borderers platoon and a group of nationalist youths in Coalisland resulted in the theft of an army machine gun and a new confrontation with the paratroopers.

[77] IRA volunteers from the Tyrone Brigade also carried out attacks with automatic weapons on the RUC barracks at Dungannon, on 21 June 1992[78][79] and on the British Army base at Omagh, on 7 December 1992.

[85] On 19 January 1993 the brigade claimed that their volunteers uncovered and destroyed a British army observation post concealed in a derelict house in Drumcairne Forest, near Stewartstown.

[89] From mid-1992 up to the 1994 cease fire, IRA units in east and south Tyrone carried out a dozen bomb and mortar attacks against RUC and military bases and assets.

[91][95] A brigade statement claims that late on the evening of 26 April 1993, a "variation" of the Mark-15 was fired at a British Army position on an open field near the river Fury, a few miles east of Clogher.

[103][93] Ulster Unionist Party councillor Jim Hamilton denounced that an IRA unit riding on a three-vehicle motorcade launched the attack after travelling three miles from beyond the Irish border.

[104] On 6 June 1993, an IRA unit converted a stolen van in a "mobile mortar launcher" in the area of Pomeroy and slipped through British forces' surveillance to the RUC barracks at Carrickmore.

[113][61][114][110] A major ambush occurred on 12 December 1993 in Fivemiletown, when an RUC mobile patrol received intense cross fire from a brigade's active unit on the town's main street, and two constables were slain.

[120] The East Tyrone Brigade reported that they took over the area between the checkpoint and the border, set a roadblock, then drove a tractor carrying the mortar to the firing point and issued a 30-minute warning.

[121] On 27 May 1994, the British Army checkpoint at Aughnacloy was the target of an attack once again, when the compound came under automatic fire from an improvised tactical vehicle consisting of a Ford Transit van mounting a concealed heavy machine gun.

[122][61] Sources from the brigade released a detailed statement on the attack on Pomeroy security base, carried out in the first hours of 26 June 1994, claiming that they had fired a single 220 pounds (100 kg) Mark-15 barrack-buster bomb.

The unit, moving on two vehicles from the townland of Turnabarson, managed to snake into a heavy patrolled area to the firing point on Station Road and launched the shell by timer from a range of 70 yards (64 m).

Incidentally, the RUC vehicle was carrying in custody Pat Treanor, a Sinn Féin councillor from Clones, a border town in County Monaghan, Republic of Ireland.

[108] An IRA man was taken in custody in Newtownstewart, west Tyrone, on 10 July 1993, after being injured during a mishap while testing an improvised mortar in a barn near Dungannon whose firing pack exploded prematurely.

[148] A former UDR soldier (David Martin) was killed when an IRA bomb exploded underneath his car in Kildress, County Tyrone on 25 April 1993; it was claimed that he had loyalist connections.

[151][152] A gun attack on the home of DUP politician Willie McCrea on 10 July 1994 at Magherafelt, County Londonderry, was attributed to members of the East Tyrone Brigade.