The detailed legal proceedings necessary to "designate" the Real and Continuity IRA as terrorist organisations in the US and cut off their right to raise funds should be completed within a fortnight, diplomatic sources in Washington have confirmed.
The process of designation was started by the Clinton administration and the new Bush administration has on several occasions confirmed that it intended to complete it.
The Real IRA has intensified its campaign over the past year and has carried out bomb attacks on MI6 headquarters and BBC offices in London. A new US State Department report claims the size of the group has almost doubled in the past year. Dissident republican sympathisers in the US will challenge the ban.
The Real IRA has up to 200 members plus possible support among disillusioned Provisional IRA activists, according to the report, `Patterns of Global Terrorism 2,000'.
The report also names a man it claims is the Real IRA's leader. The British and Irish Governments have lobbied Washington to ban Real IRA fund-raising and a move is expected within weeks.
Presenting the State Department's report to journalists on Monday, the co-ordinator for counter-terrorism, Mr Edmund J. Hull, made clear that designation of organisations was now "a rolling process" that did not coincide with the publication of the annual report.
Mr Hull said the Department keeps "under close watch a number of organisations involved in terrorism" and explained that the designation process is a cumbersome, "very rigorous" legal process. The Real IRA is among 15 non-designated terrorist organisations listed by the report in an appendix which briefly assesses each of them as well as the 29 designated groups.
The report estimates the Real IRA has 150 to 200 activists.
The Real IRA has "a wealth of experience in terrorist tactics and bomb-making" and is "suspected of receiving funds from sympathisers in the US". And the report quotes newspaper sources suggesting both it and the Continuity IRA have bought "sophisticated" weapons from the Balkans.
New York lawyer Mr Martin Galvin said Irish-Americans would oppose the ban. "Any ban would indicate that the British government recognises the Real IRA as the main threat to British rule in Ireland." Mr Galvin said republican fund-raising in the US was for "the families of Irish political prisoners" and he expected it to continue.
Welcoming the proposed ban, Mr Michael Gallagher, whose son Aidan was killed in the Omagh bomb, said: "The Real IRA is vigorously recruiting. Young people in particular are being targeted and they will certainly get more disillusioned mainstream IRA members.
"But the message coming from America is very clear. Americans are saying to these people, `We believe the conflict is over'."
Mr Victor Barker, whose son James was also killed in the Omagh bomb, said he was horrified at the estimated rise in Real IRA membership. "It is frightening that their numbers are increasing."