FAREWELL TO ARMS 4 : The Provo gun with a terrible power . . .

(From Irish Independent)

The rifles and Semtex may be gone, but, as Michael Mulqueen explains, the threat posed by some weapons shaped the peace process while others were virtually defunct

The Provisional IRA had only one type of rifle powerful enough to penetrate the body armour protecting British squaddie Stephen Restorick - and he was in its crosshairs. Lorraine McElroy recalled how the young soldier smiled as he handed her back her driver's licence. Moments later, he slumped to the ground, mortally wounded after a single bullet sliced through his body and grazed the skull of Mrs McElroy, a Catholic mother.

The Barrett 'Light 50' long-range sniper rifle used to kill Lance Bombardier Restorick (23) at a security checkpoint near Bessbrook, south Armagh in February 1997 and up to nine others in previous attacks, was not given up for decommissioning. Instead, it was seized shortly after the Bessbrook shooting in a high-risk security operation in Crossmaglen. But, recalling the circumstances of this killing now is important because it helps explain why the decommissioning of some IRA weapons matters more than others.

A weapon-of-choice for US military snipers, the American-manufactured 'Light 50' M82A1 semi-automatic was deployed in the first Gulf War to take out radar and other heavy Iraqi military targets.

In Northern Ireland, the 'snipers-at-work' in south Armagh proved how the British Army's standard body armour could not withstand its .50 Browning projectiles, which at ranges of up to two kilometres impact at over twice the speed of sound. In short, not only had the 'Light 50' the capacity to cause terrible injury and death, it could also strike a particular fear into the minds of soldiers and policemen patrolling the ground.

But the value to the IRA of the 'Light 50' was not simply that it offered a long-range sniping capability, which was both difficult for their enemies in the security forces to counter and psychologically unsettling for them. It also held the potential for political clout.