| Ballygawley land mine attack | |
| Partof: | the Troubles and Operation Banner |
| Location: | Near Ballygawley, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland |
| Target: | Ulster Defence Regiment personnel |
| Coordinates: | 54.5283°N -7.2108°W |
| Date: | 13 July 1983 |
| Type: | Improvised land mine |
| Fatalities: | 4 soldiers |
| Perp: | Provisional IRA |
In the Ballygawley land mine attack of 13 July 1983, four soldiers of the British Army's Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) were killed by a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) land mine near Ballygawley in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. The soldiers were travelling in a convoy of armoured vehicles when the land mine was detonated remotely.
Since 1970, the IRA had been waging a guerrilla campaign against the British security forces in Northern Ireland. The IRA's East Tyrone Brigade was particularly active. The Irish Times reported: "This stretch of road has been a favourite ambush spot for successive generations of IRA men since the 1920s. [...] In March 1973 a British Army lieutenant was killed when his armoured car was blown up by a similar 500 lb landmine along the same road".[1] In February 1983 the IRA shot dead an off-duty UDR soldier in Ballygawley.[2]
On the morning of 13 July 1983, soldiers of the 6th Battalion UDR were travelling in a convoy of five armoured Land Rovers from St Lucia Barracks, Omagh to Ballykinler Barracks for a training exercise.[1] As the convoy was about to begin the long descent down Ballymacilroy Hill into Ballygawley, a 600lb land mine exploded under the last vehicle.[1] It had been planted in a culvert underneath the road and detonated remotely.[1] The blast threw the vehicle into the air and gouged a large crater in the road.[1] Three soldiers were killed outright and a fourth died later in hospital. The soldiers killed were Ronald Alexander (19), Thomas Harron (25), John Roxborough (19), and Oswell Neely (20), all Protestants from Northern Ireland.[2] [1]
Two men received life sentences for the attack and for the killing of RUC officer Paul Clarke in Carrickmore four months later.[1] In 1988, the IRA killed eight British soldiers in a bomb attack along the same road, in the Ballygawley bus bombing.[1]