Edward O'Brien

O’Brien was the first IRA volunteer to be killed following the Docklands bombing nine days earlier that signalled the end of the "cessation of military operations" ordered by the IRA leadership in 1994. A subsequent police search of his London address discovered 15 kg of semtex, 20 timers, 4 detonators and ammunition for a 9 mm Walther revolver, along with an incendiary device. The Walther pistol was discovered on him after his death.

Having joined the IRA in 1992, he was described in an Irish Republican memorial book as a thoughtful and strong-willed young man who very serious about his commitment but frustrated about not playing a more active role in Irish republicanism. Soon after he went to England to engage in paramilitary activity in an active service unit. Documents later recovered from O'Brien's residence indicated he was working for the IRA in Britain early as August 1994, collecting information on targets, and assembling bomb-making equipment during a seventeen-month ceasefire. O'Brien may have been responsible for a planting a bomb in a London telephone box on 15 February 1996 that was later deactivated by the police.

O'Brien was killed on 18 February 1996, when an improvised explosive device he was carrying detonated prematurely on a number 171 bus in Aldwych, in the West End of central London. The 2 kg semtex bomb detonated as he stood near the door of the bus. A pathologist found O'Brien was killed "virtually instantaneously" from "massive injuries", and it also caused injuries to seven passengers and the driver.

Edward O'Brien (18 September 1974 – 18 February 1996) was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer.