Letter: If the IRA men at Loughgall and Coagh were soldiers on active duty then, as Michelle O’Neill put it, SAS had 'no alternative' to killing them

Rev Clements, whose father was murdered by the IRA, wrote last Saturday (April 13), criticising republican complaints about a security force ‘shoot to kill’ policy.

(Click here for another letter: ‘The action of the security forces at Loughgall and Coagh undoubtedly saved innocent lives in the future’)

The IRA men killed by the SAS at Loughgall and Coagh, were claimed by republicans to be soldiers on legitimate active duty. So there was, as Michelle O’Neill put it, “no alternative” to the SAS action.

Because if the lovely Michelle can assert with a straight face that there was no alternative to the IRA, a legitimate army of course, fighting a legitimate war, then under established conventions of war surely there was no alternative to their enemy ie security forces returning fire? Especially when IRA men were out fully armed on ‘active service’ to kill not only the enemy but non combatant, civilians.

Otherwise, it sounds a bit like Hamas and Iran whining about essentially the same scenario.

Davy Wight, Carrick