RIRA ‘are planning suicide bombings’
A FORMER Real IRA man has claimed that the terror group are linking with Islamic terrorists in a bid to unleash suicide bombers
He claimed that the Real IRA was teaming up with Islamic terrorists in the Republic in an attempt to launch a fresh terror campaign in Northern Ireland and on the mainland.
The man, who cannot be named for his own safety, also said that he was prepared to testify in court against 25 Real IRA members if the security services agreed to give him a new identity.
“I can lock up 25 members,” the man, who for several years has been leaking information about the dissidents to the Garda, told the News Letter. The indiscriminate nature of what he claimed would be “suicide bombers in shopping centres” was one of the key reasons he left the Real IRA, he said.
“I left because of what I foreseen,” he said.”I knew where I was heading – we were going to use the Muslims and they were going to use us.
“I felt that these people were actually using us.”
Hezbollah, he claims, was the link between the Real IRA and Islamic extremists and, he says, at one point he attempted to stop gunpowder being passed on to an Islamic group in Dublin.
“The way they saw it, we both had a common cause – to get rid of the British. But I was anti-colonial, not anti-British.
“I had believed in a ‘fair fight’ with a soldier or a policeman, not shooting unarmed people or blowing up a shopping centre, which is what these people were wanting to do.”
He said that in his position within the paramilitary group he was aware of planned attacks, but not privy to the timing of an attack.
He said that after linking with Islamic terrorists, the Real IRA had all but abandoned using mobile phones, learning from them that they could easily be intercepted.
He said that they instead spoke in semi-code, often in loud bars, when passing sensitive information.
They would also access an email account, where the password was changed every other day, and leave information within draft emails, which were never sent so were less likely to be picked up by the security services.
The man claimed that he refused offers of money for providing information to MI6.
“I told them that I didn’t want money or staying in fancy hotels or anything like that. The girl said ‘Yes, this is possible’.
“I just wanted a deposit on a council terrace house and a passport to get out of here.
“They said it was fine to be in touch with Willie Frazer and other people but then after a few weeks they told me that phoning Willie Frazer was a problem.”
The man, who initially contacted the PSNI, is angry at the way he says he has been “abandoned” by the security services and claims that they have endangered his life.
“There’s about a 30 per cent chance that I’ll be alive by the end of the week… the information which they didn’t get from me will be lost, but not all of it,” he said, hinting that some of his knowledge has been secreted in other locations.
The man referred to an “awakening”, seemingly religious, in his life which made him question his membership of the terror group.
For some time, he said, he has been passing information to the Garda but, believing Garda members were compromising his security, he decided to contact Willie Frazer and crossed the border to meet him and, eventually, British intelligence.
The NIO declined to comment on the case, in line with the Government’s policy of not discussing the work of the intelligence services.
