Barrack buster is the colloquial name given to several improvised mortars, developed in the 1990s by the engineering group of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
US soldier loading a M224 60-mm mortar. ... A Republican mural in Belfast depicting the hunger strikes of 1981. ...

The first barrack buster - known to the British security forces as the Mark 15 mortar - consisted of a 1 meter long gas cylinder with a diameter of 36 cm that contain around 70 kg home-made explosives and with a trajectory between 75 and 275 m. The cylinder is an adaptation of a commercial 'Kosangas' gas cylinder for heating and cooking gas used in rural areas in Ireland and Northern Ireland. It was first used in an attack on 5 December 1992 against a police station in Ballygawley in Northern Ireland.^[1]

Provisional IRA:s improvised mortars

The barrack buster belongs to a series of home-made mortars developed since the 1970s. The first such mortar - Mark 1 - was used in an attack in May 1972 and it was soon followed by the first of a series of improved or differentiated versions stetching into the 1990s:

• Mark 1 - 1972
• Mark 2 - 1972 -- Resulted in the first fatality when a British soldier was killed trying to defuse a misfired mortar projectile
• Mark 3 - 1973 -- During an attack on a police station a misfired mortar killed two IRA men (aged 16 and 27) operating the mortar
• Mark 4 - 1974 -- Used only in one known attack on 22 February 1974
• Mark 5 - 1974 -- Never used in any known attack
• Mark 6 - 1974
• Mark 7 - 1976 -- Longer version of Mark 6
• Mark 8 - 1976 -- Longer version of Mark 6
• Mark 9 - 1976
• Mark 10 - 1979 -- Its first use on 19 March 1979 caused the first deliberate victim - a British soldier - from a PIRA mortar attack
• Mark 11 - 1972
• Mark 12 - 1988 -- Not really a mortar but more of a bazooka
• Mark 13 - 1990 -- A spigot mortar
• Mark 14 - 1992
• Mark 15 - 1992 -- First mortar known as "barrack buster".
• Mark 16 - 1993
• Mark 17 - 1998?
• Mark 18 - 1998?

Three Mark 10 mortars using a mixture of ammonium nitrate and nitrobenzene - known as 'Annie' - as warhead were used on 7 February 1991 in an IRA attack on 10 Downing Street in London against British Prime Minister John Major and his War Cabinet during the first Gulf War. In March 1994 the Mark 6 mortar using Semtex warheads was used in three attacks on Heathrow airport.^[2]

The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) is a paramilitary group which aimed, through the use of violence, to achieve three goals: (i) British withdrawal from Ireland, (ii) the political unification of Ireland through the merger of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland , and (iii) the creation of an all... For other meanings, see Bazooka (disambiguation) The bazooka was a man-portable anti-tank rocket launcher made famous during World War II where it was one of the United States Armed Forcess primary infantry anti-tank weapons. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Nitrobenzene, also known as nitrobenzol or oil of mirbane, is a poisonous organic compound with an almond odor and chemical formula C6H5NO2. ... // Overview Number Ten Downing street is the official residence of the First Lord of Her Majesty’s Treasury and Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. ... Sir John Major, KG, CH, PC (born 29 March 1943) was the leader of the British Conservative Party and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1990 to 1997. ... Combatants UN Coalition Republic of Iraq Commanders Norman Schwarzkopf Peter de la Billière Khalid bin Sultan Saleh Al-Muhaya Mohamed Hussein Tantawi Saddam Hussein Strength 883,863 360,000 Casualties 378 dead, 1,000 wounded 25,000 dead, 75,000 wounded The Gulf War or the Persian Gulf War... Semtex is a general-purpose plastic explosive. ...

Use by other terrorist groups

These mortars have also been appropriated by other political militants using terrorist tactics. These mortars have been used by the Real IRA in the 2000s.^[3] Furthermore, what appears to be a similar or identical mortar technology has also been used by the FARC in Colombia. The transfer of this technology to the FARC was a central issue in the arrest in August 2001 and later trial of the so called Colombia Three group of IRA members that were alleged by Colombian authorities to have trained FARC in the manufacture and use of this mortar technology. Categories: Wikipedia cleanup | Organization stubs | Terrorist organizations in Northern Ireland | Rebellion ... The FARC-EPs flag The Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – Peoples Army, or FARC-EP) is a militant and revolutionary guerrilla group established in 1964-1966 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, and is Colombias... The Colombia Three are three individuals – Niall Connolly, James Monaghan and Martin McCauley – who are currently residing in the Republic of Ireland, having fled from Colombia, where they have been sentenced to prison terms of seventeen years for training FARC rebels. ...

Notes

1. ^ Geraghty 1998; Smith 2006.
2. ^ Geraghty 1998; Smith 2006.
3. ^ Smith 2006.

Bibliography

• Geraghty, Tony (1998), The Irish War: the Hidden Conflict Between the IRA and British Intelligence, Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Smith, Steve (2006),3-2-1 Bomb Gone: Fighting Terrorist Bombers in Northern Ireland, Sutton Publishing.