Newly-declassified State papers have revealed that three Irish soldiers killed in a roadside bomb blast were “deliberately targeted”.
Sligo native, Mannix Armstrong died along with Thomas Walsh from Tubbercurry and Fintan Heneghan, when a landmine exploded beside their truck in Lebanon on March 21, 1989.
The newly-declassified State papers state that the three soldiers were believed to be killed in a revenge attack over the abduction of a Lebanese explosives expert.
The report from the chief of staff at the time stated the “most plausible” explanation was that the soldiers were deliberately targeted as an act of revenge by supporters of a known Lebanese explosives expert who had been abducted by the Israelis the previous year from within the Irish battalion area.
Extra security measures were introduced after the attack, including a specialist search team trained in mine discovery.
