Proxy bomb

October 1990 proxy bombings
Part of the Troubles
Coshquin Cloghoge Omagh
Location	Coshquin, Cloghoge and Omagh, Northern Ireland
Date	24 October 1990
Target	British Army bases and checkpoints
Attack type	vehicle bombs
Deaths	7 (6 soldiers, 1 civilian)
Non-fatal injuries	14
Perpetrator	Provisional IRA

The proxy bomb (also known as a human bomb) was a tactic used mainly by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Northern Ireland during the conflict known as "the Troubles". It involved forcing people (including civilians, off-duty members of the British security forces, or people working for the security forces) to drive car bombs to British military targets, after placing them or their families under some kind of threat (i.e. as human shields or hostages). The tactic was later adopted by FARC in Colombia and by rebels in the Syrian Civil War. The tactic has been compared to a suicide bomb, although each bomber in these cases is coerced rather than being a volunteer.

The first proxy bombs took place in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. By 1973, increased searches and surveillance by the British security forces was making it harder for IRA members to plant their bombs and escape. In response, the IRA introduced the 'proxy bomb' tactic in March of that year. In these early proxy bombings, the driver and nearby civilians would usually be given enough time to flee the area before the bomb detonated. One of the proxy bomb attacks carried out by the IRA during this period took place in 1975, when an employee of Northern Ireland's Forensics Laboratory in Newtownbreda was forced to drive a car laden with explosives to the building. The explosion caused moderate damage, and operations resumed quickly. The Laboratory would be the subject of one of the largest IRA bombings in 1992, when a 1,700 kg van bomb abandoned in the laboratory parking lot demolished the facilities and caused widespread damage inside a radius of 1 km.

The proxy bomb was also used by Northern Irish loyalists, on at least one occasion. On 11 September 1974, masked gunmen in British Army uniform hijacked a car in Northern Ireland, placed a time bomb inside and forced the owner to drive it into the village of Blacklion in the Republic of Ireland. They claimed to be from the Ulster Volunteer Force and threatened to attack his family if he did not comply. The village was evacuated and the Irish Army carried out a controlled explosion on the car. They estimated that the bomb would have destroyed most of the village.