In Belfast the sense of crisis grew with an escalation of violence in early 1971. In February the deaths took place, on the same night in north Belfast, of the first soldier to be shot by the IRA, and the first IRA member to be shot by the army. Three days later an IRA bomb placed on a County Tyrone mountain for members of the security forces instead killed five civilians on their way to service a BBC transmitter. Later in the same month two policemen were shot dead, again in north Belfast.
