Protestant Action Force

The Protestant Action Force (PAF) was a cover name used by Ulster loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) when claiming responsibility for a number of attacks during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Sometimes these actions were carried out with the assistance of members of the security forces.^[1] The name "PAF" was first used in 1974 and attacks by individuals claiming to be members of the PAF killed at least 41 Catholic civilians.^[2] All of the attacks claimed by the PAF in Armagh and Tyrone counties from 1974 to 1976 have been linked to the Glenanne gang, which was a loose coalition consisting of members of the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade along with rogue Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldiers and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police officers. A six-year period of no attacks claimed by the PAF ended in 1982; during the 1980s, the PAF claimed 15 attacks in the Belfast area and two in County Armagh. UDR soldiers were convicted of two attacks in Armagh. The PAF claimed its last attacks in the early 1990s, all of which were in north Armagh and were alleged to involve members of the security forces.^[3]

A 2006 report by the Notre Dame Law School argued that the PAF was used by semi-independent groups within the UVF who intended to carry out attacks on their own initiative without the sanction of the paramilitary's senior leadership. The vast majority of the attacks claimed by the PAF occurred in a region between Belfast and Newtownabbey in Armagh and Tyrone known locally as the "murder triangle".^[4] On 24 November 1974, shortly after the first attack claimed by the PAF, an interview with three unidentified men was published in the Sunday World. They claimed to represent a loyalist group founded in 1971, that consisted of former British Army members and were engaged in an armed campaign against the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). In the interview, the three men, who claimed their group had killed 28 IRA members or sympathisers in the past two months, replied "no comment" when asked if they belonged to the PAF. Later in the interview, they stated: "You can say we are members of the Mid-Ulster unit of the Protestant Task Force."^[5]

In a September 1975 letter, retired Intelligence Corps officer Colin Wallace stated that most of the loyalist killings in Armagh and Tyrone in 1975, including the Miami Showband killings, were carried out by the PAF; Wallace also noted the existence of a rumour of the PAF's connection to a "special duties team" operating out of Thiepval Barracks in Lisburn.^[6]