BBC’s excellent documentary on The Troubles is now focusing on the intelligence war against the IRA

Gripping and insightful, it airs tonight and looks great.

While the opening three episodes of BBC's enthralling documentary series Spotlight on The Troubles: A Secret History have provided an in-depth retelling of the conflict, it appears that the next episodes will be delving into the murkier waters of espionage, collusion, and state secrets. As mentioned previously, the upcoming episode will focus on the Loughall ambush, an incident which occurred on 8 May 1987 in the village of Loughgall, Armagh.

During this firefight, an eight-man unit of the Provisional IRA's East Tyrone Brigade were shot dead after they loaded a 200lb bomb onto a stolen digger and smashed through the gates of the RUC barracks in Loughgall.

The bomb exploded and destroyed almost half of the base. Soldiers from the British Army's Special Air Service (SAS) then returned fire both from within the base and from hidden positions around it in a pre-planned ambush, killing all of the IRA attackers.

It resulted in the IRA's largest loss of life in a single incident during The Troubles. The shooting lasted for about 10 minutes with almost 1,000 rounds fired.

Innocent bystander Anthony Hughes was killed during the firefight and another bystander was also injured.

In 2001, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that 10 IRA men, including the eight that were killed at Loughgall, had their human rights violated by the failure of the British government to conduct a proper investigation into their deaths. The ruling also raised the question about why the killings occurred after long-running undercover intelligence operations offered the British state the alternative of capture and arrest. The court did not make any finding that these deaths amounted to unlawful killing. In tonight's episode of Spotlight on The Troubles: A Secret History, Jennifer O'Leary will examine how how agents of British intelligence infiltrated the Irish Republican Army, a tactic that led to the ambush at Loughall. https://twitter.com/BBCSpotlightNI/status/1178649601466912771 The official synopsis states: "One weakness in the IRA’s internal security was exploited to unlock many of the group’s secrets. She charts how Britain used informers and combined that advantage in secret intelligence with the use of special forces to take on one of the IRA’s deadliest units – a strategy that culminated with the Loughgall ambush, when the SAS killed eight IRA men attacking a police station. The programme shows that the aftermath of the attack only made the IRA’s informer problem worse." It appears that the espionage war is a new angle that the documentary series will be pursuing in the coming weeks because next week's feature, episode 5, will examine the ties between loyalist groups like the UDA and the British state. That particular synopsis states that episode 5 will focus on "how unionist anger grew as IRA attacks on the security forces killed members of their community. When Margaret Thatcher signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985, giving the Republic of Ireland political influence in the North, the anger spilled over into talk of insurrection. "The programme reveals how loyalist groups rearmed and used intelligence leaks from soldiers and police to boost their campaign of killing, including new information about MI5 agents operating inside the largest loyalist group, the Ulster Defence Association." If the next episodes are anything like the previous ones, viewers are bound to be enthralled. Spotlight on The Troubles: A Secret History airs at 9pm on BBC4 and BBC NI.