Nick Spanos and Stephen Melrose were Australian tourists shot dead in Roermond, the Netherlands by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on 27 May 1990, which stated it had mistaken them for off-duty British soldiers. The attack was part of an IRA campaign in Continental Europe. Background British military personnel had been stationed in West Germany since the end of the Second World War. The Provisional IRA had been carrying out attacks in mainland Europe since 1979. Between 1988 and 1990 it intensified its operations there. On 1 May 1988, three members of the Royal Air Force (RAF) were killed in two IRA attacks in the Netherlands. One of the attacks took place in Roermond. On 12 August, Richard Michael Heakin, a British sergeant-major was shot dead at Ostend, Belgium. In June 1989, a British base in Osnabrück was bombed and the following month a British soldier was killed by an IRA booby trap bomb in Hanover. Cars owned by British military personnel in Germany had distinctive number plates, which helped the IRA identify targets. In August 1988, following the killing of the three RAF members, they were replaced with standard British number plates. Critics of the move warned that British tourists would be at risk as their cars would be indistinguishable from soldiers' cars. On 7 September 1989 German civilian Heidi Hazell, the wife of a British soldier, was shot dead as she sat in a car outside a British Army married quarter in Unna. The car had British number plates. The IRA expressed regret for the death and stated she had been shot "in the belief that she was a member of the British army garrison at Dortmund". On 28 October 1989, IRA members opened fire on the car of RAF corporal Mick Islania. The corporal had just returned to the car from a petrol station snack bar in Wildenrath. Also in the car were his wife Smita and their six-month-old daughter Nivruti. Corporal Islania was hit by multiple rounds and died instantly; his daughter was killed by a single shot to the head. Smita Islania suffered shock. The IRA expressed regret for the child's death and stated its members did not know she was in the car. The shooting Nick Spanos (28) and Stephen Melrose (24) were Australian lawyers, based in London. They were in the Netherlands on a four-day holiday with Vicky Coss (Spanos's girlfriend) and