GARETH O’Connor was the target of a shoot-to-kill operation involving the SAS, it has been claimed.
Republican sources say Mr O’Connor was one of two men due to take part in a gun attack on British soldiers in Omagh, Co Tyrone, several years after the Good Friday Agreement was signed.
Details of the attack were revealed in ‘Charlie One’, a book by former Cork-born former undercover British soldier Sean Hartnett, which was published last year.
Hartnett, which is not his real name, claimed that the SAS were poised to kill the two-man Real IRA hit team as they prepared to carry out the attack at a cash machine near St Lucia British army base in the town.
The attack was abandoned after the motorcycle failed to start.
Hartnett (not his real name) did not make clear in his book when the shoot to kill operation was to take place, but he was operating in the north between 2001 and 2004.
According to a well placed republican source O’Connor, who was to be unarmed, was selected to drive the motorcycle while his passenger was to shoot the troops.
According to both Hartnett and the source the gunman was a former member of the Provisional IRA who had killed members of the security forces in the past.
