Two former members of the Official IRA have admitted to the Saville Inquiry that they fired at British soldiers in Derry on Bloody Sunday.
One has said he fired a single rifle shot before the deployment of paratroopers into the Bogside and the other has said he fired two pistol shots at the advancing paratroopers.
The Official IRA gunman who fired the rifle shot at paratroopers said he did so after hearing that two civilians had already been wounded by soldiers.
The second gunman admits he was the figure in a photograph seen firing two pistol shots at paratroopers as they advanced into the Bogside on January 30th, 1972, killing 13 civilians and wounding 13 others.
Their admissions are contained in eighty-one pages of statements submitted to the Saville Inquiry today by five men who were members of the Official IRA during the Bogside killings 31 years ago.
One of them also confirms in his statement that another Official IRA gunman was wounded during an exchange of shots with British soldiers hours after the Bloody Sunday killings.
The five, all of whom have been granted anonymity by the Inquiry's three judges, include the then Officer Commanding the Official IRA in the North-West. They are expected to give their evidence to the Inquiry next autumn.
In his statement to the Inquiry, the Official IRA gunman who fired the two pistol shots at the paratroopers said the Official IRA had been ordered to "maintain a defensive stance" during the Bloody Sunday march.
"No-one wanted to initiate any contact. We had friends and family members on the march and would not risk injury to them", his statement said.
"I had in my possession a .32 automatic pistol. I was carrying this as a personal protection weapon which was entirely authorised for command staff members", he added.
Meanwhile the Official IRA man who fired a shot from a .303 rifle prior to the Bogside killings, said in his statement that he went to an arms dump in Colmcille Court to retrieve a rifle after he realised that two civilians had just been shot in nearby William Street by a soldier as the Bloody Sunday marchers approached the Bogside.
"It was clear to me from the fact that he was aiming that he might fire again. He was pointing his weapon at the crowd and sighting along it. I took a split second decision and fired an aimed shot. When I next looked the guy had gone. I put the rifle in the boot of a car and it stayed there until after the army operation", his statement says.
The Inquiry continues.