British army ends Northern Ireland operation

The British army's longest continuous military operation comes to an end at midnight when responsibility for security in Northern Ireland passes to the police.

Operation Banner lasted 38 years and involved 300,000 personnel, of whom 763 were killed by paramilitaries. The last soldier to die was Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick, who was shot at a vehicle checkpoint in 1997.

From tomorrow, there will still be a garrison of 5,000 troops in Ulster, but they will not be on active operations and will be available for deployment anywhere in the world.

Security will become the responsibility of the Northern Ireland police, and the British soldiers will have a limited role in supporting them.

Jean McBride, whose 18-year-old son, Peter, was shot dead by two Scots Guards in Belfast in 1992, today welcomed the handover.

"It is great to see them pulling out and to see things getting back to normality - but this is 15 years too late for me and a lot of other people like me," she said. "It's a pity they were not pulled out a long time ago."

Gerry Kelly, a former IRA prisoner who is now a junior minister in the Stormont power sharing government, said the British army's "brutalisation" had caused huge suffering.

"The British military was part of the security response to a situation that was political," he said. "It was a response that included torture, shoot-to-kill and collusion with loyalist death squads. The security response failed."

However, Jeffrey Donaldson, a senior Democratic Unionist MP, said political progress in Northern Ireland would not have happened without the British army.

"We would not have got to the place we are in today, with a relative degree of peace, had it not been for the contribution of the army in holding the line during what was a very intensive terrorist campaign," he said.

"I believe the army has achieved its objective in Northern Ireland in supporting the police in combating terrorism."

He warned that the troop presence in Ulster might have to increase in the future, if the peace is broken, saying: "We must not be complacent. We need to ensure we have the capacity, should the need arise, for the army to step into the breach to protect Northern Ireland. Hopefully, that will not need to happen."

John Welsh, a 66-year-old veteran of the Royal Ulster Rifles, expressed fears that the changes were "premature", adding: "There are too many hard heads and terrorists across the divide still about."

The armed forces minister, Bob Ainsworth, called the power change "the beginning of a new era", and said the military would become very much part of the community.

In a statement to MPs, he added: "We should take this opportunity to remember the commitment, bravery and sacrifice of all those who have served over so many years in helping deliver the current, more settled and more optimistic circumstances."