One of the six people arrested in France on suspicion of links to an IRA dissident faction was released today.
A second suspect was expected to be freed tonight but investigators planned to apply to a judge to extend the detention of the four others, said a judicial official. All six were detained yesterday.
The French suspects are believed to have links with the so called Real IRA, which claimed responsibility for Northern Ireland's deadliest bombing, a car bomb attack in 1998.
The six were held in the northern coastal regions of Cotes d'Armor and Seine-Maritime. Police also found two submachine guns, an automatic pistol and two silencers hidden in a barrel-sized container in a forest.
Officials are analysing computers and mobile telephones seized during the arrests. The 'Real IRA' claimed responsibility for a car bomb that killed 29 people and wounded more than 300 in Omagh on August 15th, 1998.