SCOTLAND YARD said yesterday that the IRA team which bombed the Docklands and ended the ceasefire made a dummy run about a month beforehand.
Commander John Grieve, the head of the British anti terrorist squad, said the IRA drove its Ford cargo lorry to Canary Wharf in mid January before driving it back to Ireland.
The objective was to test whether the lorry and trailer which carried the bomb could be driven into the City of London without arousing suspicion or being stopped at armed checkpoints.
"Because it (the IRA lorry) was under its complete, final, covert identity, it looks to us that this was a reconnaissance run or dummy run to see how far they could get with it," said Mr Grieve.
The police investigation was "promising", he said, and has revealed that the lorry was brought to England by ferry on January 15th, over three weeks before the Canary Wharf attack, and driven back to Ireland on the following day.
English and Irish politicians had believed that the IRA decided to end its 18 month ceasefire after the British Prime Minister, Mr John Major, unveiled his plans for elections in Northern Ireland following the publication of the Mitchell report on January 24th.
But Scotland Yard's announcement suggests that the IRA had agreed upon a provisional plan and target in London at the beginning of this year.
Scotland Yard sources also indicated that anti terrorist officers do not believe that Edward O'Brien, the IRA man who blew himself up in the Aldwych bus bomb, was part of the Canary Wharf team.
