Brian Rowan: Their war is not over
The dissident republican bomb in Forkhill is one more reminder of the threat — one more close call, one more lucky escape.
The discovery of the device comes on the heels of the illegal checkpoint in the village of Meigh, where recently the Real IRA stepped out of the shadows.
The purpose of the bomb is easily answered. It was about trying to kill police officers. But that is only part of the intention. There is a wider purpose and a bigger project that is about destabilising the peace process.
The dissidents are pushing many buttons and trying to get a response. We know, because loyalists have said it publicly now, that those killings in March — when the dissidents shot two soldiers and a police officer — threatened decommissioning plans and almost forced a reaction.
What was the quality of the Forkhill device and what will that say about the construction of this bomb and who may have helped put it together?
One source spoke yesterday of those shootings at Massereene Barracks and in Craigavon earlier this year describing them as “own goals”.
“There was no popular mood for it,” he said.
But the dissidents are still trying to kill police officers and that source accepted they have “the capacity to do an enormous amount of damage before they wither on the vine”.
This activity is not just about attacking the security forces it is also about attacking Sinn Fein and attempting to destroy its strategy — a strategy that the dissidents would view as traitorous.
