THE BODY TASKED with probing outstanding cases from the Troubles is to investigate the Narrow Water ambush in which 18 British soldiers were killed in Co Down in 1979.

The Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information (ICRIR) will also investigate the 1974 M62 coach bombing in England, which killed nine soldiers and three civilians.

They are among the latest cases that have been accepted by the commission and are in the information recovery stage.

The Narrow Water ambush occurred on 27 August 1979, as a convoy of vehicles transported Parachute Regiment soldiers from Ballykinler barracks to Newry, Co Down.

As they passed the old Narrow Water castle ruins outside Warrenpoint, the IRA remotely detonated the two bombs from a firing point across the Newry River in the Republic of Ireland.

Eighteen soldiers were killed, the highest death toll suffered by the British Army in a single day during the Troubles.

There was also a 19th victim – Michael Hudson, who had been visiting the Republic of Ireland from London, who was killed by army gunfire across the river following the blasts.

Nobody was ever convicted over the attacks.

The remains of an Army truck which caught the full force of an IRA bomb at Narrow Water in 1979 PA PA

The incident came just hours after Lord Louis Mountbatten, two members of his family and a Co Fermanagh teenager had been killed by the IRA in a boat bomb in Co Sligo.

The M62 coach bombing in West Yorkshire occurred on 4 February 1974.

The coach was carrying soldiers and their families back to their Catterick base when an IRA bomb hidden in the luggage compartment exploded.

Twelve people were killed, including two children aged five and two.

The ICRIR was created by the previous government’s controversial Legacy Act and is headed by former Northern Ireland Lord Chief Justice Declan Morgan.

Bereaved families, victims and certain public authorities can request the commission carry out an investigation into Troubles incidents.

While the Labour Government has said it will repeal and replace parts of the Act and reinstate inquests and civil cases, it is retaining the ICRIR.

Many bereaved families are unhappy with the retention of the commission and have vowed not to engage with it.

Victims have questioned the body’s independence and its ability to uncover answers about Troubles crimes.

The commission has previously revealed that it is carrying out an investigation into the Guildford pub bombings of 1974 and has also been asked to investigate the Kingsmill massacre in Co Armagh in 1976.