Operation Flavius (also referred to as the Gibraltar killings) was a military operation in which three members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) were controversially shot dead by the British Special Air Service (SAS) in Gibraltar on 6 March 1988. The trio were believed to be planning a car bomb attack on British military personnel in Gibraltar. They were shot dead while leaving the territory, having parked a car. All three were found to be unarmed, and no bomb was discovered in the car, leading to accusations that the British government had conspired to murder them. An inquest in Gibraltar ruled that the authorities had acted lawfully but the European Court of Human Rights held that, although there had been no conspiracy, the planning and control of the operation was so flawed as to make the use of lethal force almost inevitable. The deaths were the first in a chain of violent events in a fourteen-day period. On 16 March, the funeral of the three IRA members was attacked, leaving three mourners dead. At the funeral of one, two British soldiers were killed after driving into the procession in error.

In late 1987, British authorities became aware of an IRA plan to detonate a bomb outside the governor's residence in Gibraltar. On the day of the shootings, known IRA member Seán Savage was seen parking a car near the assembly area for the parade; fellow members Daniel McCann and Mairéad Farrell were seen crossing the border shortly afterwards. As SAS personnel moved to intercept the three, Savage split from McCann and Farrell and ran south. Two soldiers pursued Savage while two others approached McCann and Farrell. The soldiers reported seeing the IRA members make threatening movements when challenged, so the soldiers shot them multiple times. All three were found to be unarmed, and Savage's car did not contain a bomb, though a second car, containing explosives, was later found in Spain. Two months after the shootings, the documentary "Death on the Rock" was broadcast on British television. Using reconstructions and eyewitness accounts, it presented the possibility that the three IRA members had been unlawfully killed. (Full article...)

Gibraltar Barbary Macaque

“	Britain's Gibraltar made possible the invasion of North-West Africa. Without it the vital air cover would not have been quickly established on the North African Fields.	”
— Dwight D. Eisenhower, a five-star General and the 34th President of the United States.

Field Marshal Sir Alexander George Woodford, GCB, KCMG (15 June 1782 – 26 August 1870), was a British Army officer. After taking part in the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland, he served in most of the battles of the Napoleonic Wars. During the Hundred Days he commanded the 2nd battalion of the Coldstream Guards at the Battle of Quatre Bras, the Battle of Waterloo and the storming of Cambrai. He went on to become lieutenant governor and brigade commander at Malta, lieutenant governor and brigade commander at Corfu and then commander of the British garrison on the Ionian Islands before being appointed Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Gibraltar. (Full article...)

• ... that Dorothy Ellicott was the first woman to be elected to two different Gibraltar Councils and was posthumously awarded the Gibraltar Medallion of Honour on Gibraltar National Day 2008?
• ... that in 1939, excavations beneath John Mackintosh Square in Gibraltar for the construction of an air-raid shelter revealed no signs of any foundations, suggesting it has always been an open square?
• ... that capital punishment in Gibraltar was last enforced in 1944 when British hangman Albert Pierrepoint travelled undercover to the territory to hang two young Spanish spies? (25 July 2012, 5,697 views)
• ... that the Gibraltar Museum houses the remains of a 14th-century Moorish bath house, once the private baths of the Governor of Gibraltar during the Marinid dynasty? (26 July 2012, 2,222 views)
• ... that the Europa Point Lighthouse at Gibraltar is the only lighthouse operated by Trinity House on continental Europe outside the United Kingdom? (27 July 2012, 4,122 views)
• ... that Giovanni Battista Calvi was an Italian military engineer who worked on many important Spanish defensive projects in the 1500s, to include those in the now British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar?

Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Cleanup : Economy of Gibraltar, Operation Flavius Expand : Llanito, History of the Maltese in Gibraltar, Roman Catholicism in Gibraltar Photo : Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Gibraltar Update : Demographics of Gibraltar, History of Gibraltar Verify : Pillars of Hercules, Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party Wikify : Demographics of Gibraltar, Death on the Rock

See also

• List of requested Gibraltar-related articles

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