Republican paramilitaries are believed to have been planning an attack on a British army barracks in Dungannon, Co Tyrone. A fully primed rocket launcher was found early yesterday in the garden of a house in Killymean Road, near a military base.
The weapon is from eastern Europe and is of a type never seen in the North, according to security sources. Dissident republicans are believed to have secured an arsenal of weapons from eastern Europe last year.
However, there is growing speculation that the planned attack could have been the work of dissident Provisional IRA members. Sources said tensions were running high in the area following house raids and the alleged harassment of republicans by the security forces.
Security sources believe republicans were aiming to fire the weapon at Killymean British army base which houses about 300 soldiers, including members of the Parachute Regiment.
RUC detectives investigating last Friday's attempted bomb attack at the Shackleton army camp in Ballykelly, Co Derry, yesterday released without charge a man who had been detained for questioning just hours after the attack.
Earlier this week the RUC released without charge another man who had also been arrested for questioning about the incident in which a bomb, containing 50lb of home-made explosives packed into three gas cylinders, was planted inside the camp's security fence close to the army's sleeping accommodation block. The bomb's timer unit exploded, but the main charge failed to detonate.