A cluster of incidents in the North this week bears out warnings that once-diffuse dissident republican groups are organising, cooperating, and attracting new recruits, writes DAN KEENAN, Northern News Editor
IT HAS BEEN a stark week. Dissident republicans opposed to the peace process have, in the course of a few days, murdered Derry man Ciaran Doherty, launched a bomb attack on Newry courthouse and narrowly failed to fire mortars at Keady police station in Co Armagh. The Newry bomb was the first dissident explosion since the BBC in London was attacked in 2001 and the first anywhere in the North since Omagh in 1998, in which 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, were murdered.
The current upsurge seems as sudden as it is alarming, but the warnings have been clear for a while. The British and Irish governments’ paramilitary watchdog, the Independent Monitoring Commission, has been spelling out the dangers since 2006.
Dissident groups are attracting young and angry men with only second-hand recollections of the Troubles. But they are now lining up alongside some older and more experienced paramilitary figures. They are deeply involved in underworld activities, including tobacco smuggling and fuel laundering, which are extremely lucrative. Their paramilitary capabilities, meanwhile, are improving to the point where they pose a growing threat to the shaky political institutions designed to stabilise the North’s uneasy peace.
Dissidents – not a term they would use about themselves – claim they are following a long-established tradition of physical-force opposition to British rule in Ireland. They see constitutionalism and power-sharing by the parties at Stormont as counter-revolutionary and as a de-facto acceptance of partition and the “British presence” in Ireland.
Consequently, they are also violently opposed to the republican leadership of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. It is no accident that this week’s violence follows the deal hammered out in Hillsborough earlier this month to transfer control of policing and justice to Stormont.
Under the tight timetable agreed between Sinn Féin and the DUP at Hillsborough, a justice minister will be selected by the Assembly on March 9th and powers will be transferred from London on April 12th, safely ahead of the British general election expected in May. The dissidents have picked their time carefully.
Last November, it was confirmed that inexperienced recruits were joining dissident groups, primarily the Real IRA, which split from the Provisionals in the wake of the ceasefires. At the same time, however, it was also established that, apart from this worrying development, there was a more sinister trend developing. Former republican paramilitary figures were, on an individual basis, lending support to the dissident campaign, thus adding a potent ingredient to the mix.
The Newry bomb could be the latest and most graphic example of this. It is believed that the 250lb bomb may have been constructed by the same individual who built the Omagh bomb, a factor which, if confirmed, would illustrate the links between the latest campaign of violence and the conflict of the 1990s.
Neither the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) nor the Garda Síochána have commented on this claim, but if it is true it would mean that the bombing of Newry is not an isolated incident but the latest in a long line of deadly attacks involving this person. These include the 1985 mortar attack on Newry police station (in which nine people died), the murder of a south Co Down businessman in 1990 and a range of other bombings in Northern town centres in 1998, including Omagh, the worst single atrocity of the Troubles.
It had been thought that dissident groups were poorly organised and equipped, split into factions and lacking paramilitary expertise. Sir Hugh Orde, the former PSNI chief constable, had called in a specialist group of British army intelligence officers and it was claimed that cells of dissidents had been well infiltrated.
There was evidence enough to support this claim, including a string of intercepted or failed bombing attempts. A large device, thought to have been destined for Ballykinler army base in Co Down, was abandoned by the bombers and subsequently defused.
But it is now evident that the level of threat is rising, that skills are improving and that young recruits, motivated in part by a perception that Stormont politics is not delivering, are being attracted to the dissident cause.
THE INTELLIGENCE PICTURE is complicated, showing a range of groups with different origins. The situation is now understood to be fluid, with ad-hoc arrangements and flexible co-operation between dissident groups right across Ireland.
The oldest of these groups is the Continuity IRA (CIRA), formed following the decision by Sinn Féin to accept the legitimacy of Leinster House in the 1980s. It holds to the idea that no parliament or assembly in either Dublin or Belfast carries any legitimacy.
The CIRA suddenly re-emerged in 1996 with a bombing attack in Fermanagh. Responsible for serious criminal activity, including so-called “Tiger kidnappings” and smuggling, and for recent acts of violence, it claimed responsibility for the murder of PSNI officer Stephen Carroll in Craigavon, Co Armagh last March.
It has also been linked to the deployment last year of an elaborate hoax explosive device in Co Fermanagh, designed to lure police officers into the area so that they could be attacked. It is thought that the group may also have had a connection with another bombing attempt in Armagh and the discovery of bomb-making materials and other weapons in Belfast.
The Real IRA, which claimed it shot dead Ciaran Doherty in Derry this week, is more prominent and is believed to be attracting most of the new recruits. It is divided between two clearly identifiable factions and was responsible for the murders of two British soldiers at Massereene army barracks in Antrim last March. Four others, including a pizza delivery man, were seriously injured. The organisation has warned the public not to supply police or army bases with services.
Despite a belief that the Real IRA does not have a significant base in Belfast, it is being held responsible for orchestrating serious violence in the Ardoyne area of the city on July 12th last, when at least one shot was fired at police lines. This incident was of particular concern, as it showed the dissidents’ ability to attract young people on to the streets to confront the PSNI and to make Sinn Féin appear inept in its attempts to maintain calm in the area.
The Real IRA has also been held responsible for a series of some 30 hijackings, hoax-bomb attacks and other street violence in Craigavon last year. In some of these incidents drivers were told that bombs had been placed in their vehicles and that they should drive them to police stations.
Last August, Real IRA members staged a show of strength in Meigh, near the Border between counties Armagh and Louth. They set up a road-block, displayed a range of weapons (including a rocket-launcher) and handed out leaflets to the public, warning them not to have anything to do with either the PSNI or the Garda. The organisation has said it intends to mount a paramilitary attack somewhere in Britain when it is opportune to do so.
There is also concern at the emergence of a group calling itself Óglaigh na hÉireann, the same name used by the Provisional IRA and the Republic’s Defence Forces. This is a small and highly localised grouping based in the Strabane area of Co Tyrone. But there are now fears that the title is also being used by members of either the Continuity IRA or the Real IRA when there is some form of co-operation or joint activity.
Added to the mix is the re-emergence of small groups, usually describing themselves as anti-drug vigilante organisations, who are committed to fighting anti-social behaviour and drug-dealing in parts of Derry and Belfast.
Confusingly, the strengthening of the dissidents has coincided with the confirmation by the Gen John de Chastelain’s Independent International Commission on Decommissioning that the INLA has put its weapons beyond use and is now committed to the political path.
The INLA was once among the most fanatical of republican paramilitary groupings and was responsible for around 125 deaths throughout the Troubles. Why it would opt to end its violence formally and get rid of its weapons at a time when dissident groupings are stepping up their offensives is unclear.
The murders of two soldiers and a PSNI officer last March prompted one of the most remarkable political events of last year. Martin McGuinness, himself a former IRA commander, appeared alongside a British chief constable and the leader of unionism to condemn the violence and to denounce those responsible as “traitors”. The violence of the past week saw another such act of political defiance, by First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister McGuinness at Stormont.
The DUP leader insisted that those at the head of the new political arrangements would not be beaten by the dissidents. He condemned them for offering only fear in response to the hope raised by the political co-operation between unionists and republicans. McGuinness called on those supportive of the murder in Derry this week to justify, to the public’s satisfaction, why Ciaran Doherty had been stripped, bound and shot in the head.
Relations between the DUP and Sinn Féin in the Stormont Executive have been openly difficult since devolution was restored in 2007. But the threat both parties face from the dissidents at this most politically sensitive time has emerged as a powerful incentive for them to make common cause.
