Editing Ulster Defence Regiment (section)

==Opposition forces==
During the concept stage of the UDR the major armed threat to the state was the [[Irish Republican Army (1922–1969)|Irish Republican Army]] (IRA).  Following a split in this organisation the [[Provisional Irish Republican Army]] (PIRA) was formed in December 1969,<ref>English p81</ref> just days before recruiting was to begin for the regiment.

PIRA became and remained the priority for the UDR, although threats to life and property also existed from other organisations. The [[Official Irish Republican Army]] (OIRA) (the remnants of the "old IRA") continued to commit acts of violence as did the [[Irish National Liberation Army]] (INLA), another offshoot from the "old IRA". Threats to the public peace also came from loyalist organisations such as the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), the [[Ulster Defence Association]] (UDA) which used the ''[[Pseudonym|nom de guerre]]'' Ulster Freedom Fighters when killing, and a selection of other groupings who emerged during the Troubles.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/118186/terror-groups-proscribed.pdf|archive-url=https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20130417024620mp_/https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/118186/terror%2Dgroups%2Dproscribed.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=17 April 2013|title=This attachment is being virus checked. – Inside Government|publisher=gov.uk|access-date=17 July 2013}}</ref> As the PIRA campaign continued throughout the 1970s and 1980s, it and other groups increasingly targeted Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers as well as others from the forces of law and order."<ref>English, p. 174</ref>

Methods of attack included sniping, [[Improvised explosive device|bombs]] and other tactics used by [[guerrilla]] armies when facing an enemy with superior forces. There were however open actions between the regiment and the IRA, which varied in style and tactics between the urban setting of Belfast and rural areas.{{citation needed|date=October 2015}}

There were few conventional attacks, but notably, on 2 May 1974, up to forty IRA men attacked the isolated 6 UDR Deanery base at [[Clogher]], County Tyrone. A sustained assault lasted for around twenty minutes, during which it was hit by rockets, mortars, and small-arms fire.<ref>Potter p126-128</ref> F/Private Eva Martin was fatally wounded during this attack, the first female UDR soldier to be killed by enemy action.<ref name=autogenerated4>Ryder p75</ref>

The IRA developed home-made mortars referred to as "[[barrack buster|barrack-busters]]". Normally fixed to the back of a commercial vehicle such as a builder's lorry, the vehicle would be parked in position near a barracks and the devices fired by timing device or remote controlled sending missiles made from gas cylinders into the barracks compound. The largest of these was 12 tubes fired at 3 UDR's Kilkeel base "The Abbey" in 1992.<ref>Davies, Roger (2001), "Improvised mortar systems: an evolving political weapon", Jane's Intelligence Review (May 2001), 12–15.</ref> Bases were also attacked in other ways such as the [[truck bomb]] which destroyed 2 UDR's [[Glenanne barracks bombing|Glenanne Barracks]] killing three soldiers and wounding many more.<ref>Potter pp351-354</ref>

Some mortars could also be fired horizontally.  The first recorded use of this weapon<ref>McKittrick p565</ref> was against a mobile patrol from 2 UDR on 1 March 1991.<ref name="Potter-p350">Potter p350</ref> Two soldiers died.  The funeral of one, Private Paul Sutcliffe, an Englishman, was held in [[Barrowford]], [[Lancashire]] – the only UDR funeral to be held outside Northern Ireland.<ref name="Potter-p350" /> The second casualty, Private Roger Love, from [[Portadown]] died after three days.<ref name="Potter-p350" />

On 8 November 1987 the Provisional IRA bombed the [[cenotaph]] at Enniskillen in what became known as the [[Remembrance Day bombing]].  200 UDR soldiers were about to march onto the square beside the memorial when the bomb exploded.<ref>Ryder p119</ref>

Because the UDR did not live in barracks like other soldiers but lived at home (in many cases with families), they were vulnerable to attack when off-duty.<ref name="Ripley-p48">Ripley, Chappell p. 48</ref> A number of soldiers were issued with personal weapons. Some of these were stolen from soldiers homes.<ref name="Potter-p79">Potter 2001, p. 79.</ref> Part-time soldiers were most at risk as they had day jobs which often took them to unsafe areas. Most UDR soldiers killed in the Troubles were attacked off-duty.<ref name="Ripley-p48" />

Forty-seven former soldiers were killed after leaving the UDR. Others, especially in the Fermanagh border area, were forced to move to safer areas, had to sell their homes and, sometimes, their land as a result of imminent threat.<ref name=autogenerated14>{{cite web|url=http://www.army.mod.uk/infantry/regiments/29516.aspx | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140403231240/http://www.army.mod.uk/infantry/regiments/29516.aspx|archive-date=3 Apr 2014 |title=The Ulster Defence Regiment – British Army Website |publisher=Army.mod.uk |access-date=2013-07-17}}</ref>

In February 2010 "about a dozen" former UDR soldiers in Mid-Ulster were warned by the PSNI that they were under threat from dissident Republicans.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8523705.stm | work=BBC News | title=Dissident threat for ex-soldiers | date=19 February 2010}}</ref>