IRA planned to completely knock out power supply in south east England, ex-member reveals
THE IRA planned to knock the entire power supply to the south east of England in a devastating bomb plot, an ex-member has revealed.
Former US marine John Crawley told the BBC that he was tasked with carrying out the audacious attack in the 1990s.
Crawley is one of the first-hand accounts in the final episode of the Beeb’s Spotlight on the Troubles: A Secret History.
In the show, the war between the IRA and the British intelligence is described by those who were on the front lines.
The Irish Republican Army embarked on a terrifying bombing campaign in 1996 after the UK government refused to allow Sinn Fein, the group’s political arm, to part in peace talks.
Despite the IRA bombing Manchester city centre and Canary Wharf that year – the series reveals how other plots were foiled by police and MI5.
BOMB PLOT
Crawley, who had previously been caught smuggling guns from the US, says he was arrested before he could carry out the assault in the south of England.
He said: “We were going to knock out the power supply of the south east of England.
"There may have been other operations after that, but we were caught before we could do that."
Crawley added that he was surprised that UK police did not kill him to send “a nice message” to any others plotters.
He said: “I wondered why they didn't kill us, because we'd have had men tooled up and everything.
"They knew where we were going and to this day, I don't know why they just didn't take us out of it because coffins coming back on the ferry would've been a nice message to anybody else looking to go.
"And believe me, there wasn't a lot of people putting their hands up to go to England."
On the other side of the war was John Grieve – who was in charge of Scotland Yard's anti-terror unit on the day of the Canary Wharf attack.
He told the BBC that Crawley and the other IRA bombers were "the A team".
The top cop said: "They were absolutely excellent and one of them, John Crawley, ex-US Marine Corps demolition specialist, this was the top sort of people for them to bring up.
"He just epitomised the cunning, skills, experience of the sort of people they were putting against us."
The final episode is on BBC One NI and BBC Four on October 22 and will be available to stream on iPlayer.
