IRA Claims Killing of W. German Woman

The Irish Republican Army said today that it shot and killed the West German wife of a British soldier as she sat in her car in a military housing area.

The attack Thursday night was the second at a British military installation in West Germany in a week and sent shock waves through the British military community here.

A British army spokeswoman said it was the first time a non-British citizen was killed in an IRA attack in West Germany.

“There is a mood of anger here that our families, not just soldiers, can no longer go about their daily business normally,” she said by telephone from the Muenchengladbach headquarters of the British Army of the Rhine.

“Soldiers are used to threats like this, but a family member gunned down in cold blood is very angering. You can protect against an attack on a barracks, but it’s a different matter entirely on a public street,” she said.

In a statement released in Dublin, Ireland, the IRA said:

“The woman killed was believed to have been a member of the British Crown Forces garrisoned in Dortmund. It has now emerged that she was the German wife of a British army staff sergeant.” The statement repeated a warning for civilians to stay clear of British army personnel.

“We are up against the cowardly actions of terrorists who go for innocent, defenseless people,” British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said today.

The mainly Roman Catholic IRA is fighting to drive the British out of Northern Ireland. Last week, it claimed responsibility for an attack near Muenster in which two British soldiers were seriously wounded.

Hans-Juergen Foerster, spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office in Karlsruhe, said the woman killed Thursday was 26. He declined to disclose her name until her relatives had been notified.