ADAMS WAS 'SECONDS FROM DEATH IN SAS OP' Soldier claims British plot.

Byline: VICTORIA McMAHON

GERRY Adams was seconds away from being assassinated by the SAS, a new book has sensationally claimed.

Orders had allegedly been given to execute the Sinn Fein chief and the notorious troops had their fingers on the triggers in 1973.

But the order was changed, with moments to spare, after Sinn Fein and the British Government struck a secret deal to begin talks with the IRA on ending the Troubles.

The claims are made in a book about undercover black operations in the North by an SAS operative, who uses the false name of Jack Gillespie to protect his identity.

He served during some of the bloodiest fighting in the 1970s leading a double life, posing as a press photographer as he went on intelligence gathering missions.

Gillespie claims he was moments away from squeezing the trigger on his submachine gun when the assassination attempt was called off.

He alleges M16 ordered him to kill Adams at a community centre in Andersonstown, West Belfast on June 23, 1973.

The SAS man, from Lanark in Scotland, writes: "I'm not sure how our actions changed what happened after that but we were ready. We were following orders."

An excerpt from Tom Siegriste's book SAS Warlord: Shoot To Kill reads: "It wasn't very often that a member of M16 asked you to go and assassinate the leader of the enemy forces.

"If the operation was successful... there would be thousands of people on the streets of Belfast rioting and worse...a night to remember.

"If it was ever leaked that this was an officially sanctioned assassination by the British Army, they would never hear the end of it.

"Adrenaline surged through Jack's body as he lay in wait, cradling the Thompson sub-machine gun in his arms.

"Watching the seconds tick past he parted his lips, sucking in a short, sharp breath ready to exhale. But as the radio crackled, Jack stopped dead. 'Zero to all units abort! Abort! Return to base. Over.'

"The blatant truth was that if one tenth of a second had clicked by, the mark and everyone surrounding him in the street and in the cars would have been dead, cut down in a hail of hundred rounds of annihilation.

"Gerry Adams was a very lucky man that day. A lucky man indeed."

However, the sergeant major, now 73, found his orders within the elite Military Reaction Force, clashed with his views on Ireland.

He said: "I never felt I was in enemy territory in Belfast, it was just like being back on the streets of Lanark. The IRA were fighting for what they believe is the right and justified cause - for a united Ireland."

Meanwhile, the retired soldier dubbed the Butcher Of the Bogside has refused to apologise to the families of the Bloody Sunday victims.

The Saville report was damning of Lieutenant Colonel Derek Wilford after he disobeyed a direct order by sending his Paras in, causing the death of 14 people.

But he refused to follow British Prime Minister David Cameron's and say sorry.

Wilford said: "I don't want to talk about it. It's all been said."

CAPTION(S):

TARGET Gerry Adams