THE hardline breakaway republican group, the Continuity Army Council (CAC), warned yesterday it would not be intimidated by the IRA, which it says is being used by Britain to divide and conquer the republican movement.
The warning came after reports that the IRA abducted two CAC members in Belfast recently.
The council is believed by security authorities to have been behind a number of bomb attacks in Northern Ireland and attempted operations in the Republic. The group has been described by the historian of the IRA, J. Bowyer Bell, as an "emerging secret army with the potential to create serious security problems".
Security sources believe it is made up of militants and disaffected members of the IRA who disagree with the peace process. The CAC has claimed responsibility for a number of operations, including the bombing of the Killyhevlin Hotel near Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, last summer.
In a statement issued to Ireland International News Agency in Dublin the CAC said that 10 days ago a further two "true republicans" had been abducted and interrogated by the Provisional IRA in Belfast.
The statement said the council would not be moved from its agenda of a new Ireland, free of British rule, by the British government and its forces or by anyone else. It added: " All Irish people and political groupings must not allow the British to divide us and set us against each other as they have in the past.
"Attempting to intimidate republicans and marking them out for attention by the British forces in the future is simply falling into the age old trap of divide and conquer.
The statement continued: "Irish resistance to English aggression will yet triumph".
The CAC has been linked to Republican Sinn Fein, the group which formed following the split in Sinn Fein in 1986 after the party dropped its policy of abstentionism. Republican Sinn Fein has denied that it has any connection with the CAC, but does share its political aims.