GCHQ chronology of Omagh’s tragedy
Thursday, 18 September 2008
A photograph found by investigators in a camera buried in the rubble on Market Street, shows the Saturday afternoon scene just minutes before the bomb exploded. The red car, packed with explosives, is believed to have been in position by 2.20pm.
A phone number used by dissidents operating mainly in the Irish Republic was passed to Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) - a British intelligence agency responsible for providing signals intelligence and information assurance to the UK government and armed forces - some weeks prior to the Omagh bomb.
Special Branch officers say they asked GCHQ for live monitoring of the calls.
Two weeks before the attack on Omagh, the Co Down town of Banbridge was targeted by a car bomb. In the minutes preceding the blast GCHQ reportedly recorded a phone exchange between the bombers, which included the code phrase "the bricks are in the wall" - alleged to signal that the car was in place and the device armed.
Omagh
* Phone billing records showing a 14-second exchange between two mobiles indicate that the Omagh bombers began their journey in Castleblaney, in the Irish Republic, at around 12.40 on August 15. There were reportedly nine such exchanges both before and after the bombing.
One mobile is believed to have been in the 'scout' car, checking the road ahead was clear, while the other was with the driver of the car containing the bomb.
* A call was placed from a telephone box at a petrol station about 100m inside Northern Ireland near Jonesborough, south Armagh, to the 'scout' mobile.
Special Branch, who were monitoring the phone box, identified the voice as that of a senior Real IRA commander suspected of involvement in previous bombings.
* As one of the cars crossed the border into Aughnacloy at around 13.30, the words "we're crossing the line" were picked up from one of the mobiles.
* By 14.10 the cars were in Omagh. At around 14.20 the phrase "the bricks are in the wall" was picked up - the same coded phrase used by the Banbridge bombers.
* At 15.04 the bomb exploded, by which time the bombers are believed to have returned to the Irish Republic.
