Dissident threat ‘highest since Omagh’
The dissident threat is higher than at any time since the Omagh bombing almost 12 years ago, PSNI sources have claimed.
Police chiefs also believe rival factions in the Real IRA and Continuity IRA have come together as never before to mount a series of late night attacks with bombs assembled in south Armagh and north Louth.
Former members of the Provisional IRA, opposed to the Sinn Fein peace strategy of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness are suspected of involvement in preparing some of the devices, according to security sources.
Police believe dissidents are developing technical skills, as well as increasing numbers and growing confidence.
The threat level has been assessed as “severe” since February 2009, one below “critical”.
Shortly after the assessment, Sappers Patrick Azimkar and Mark Quinsey were shot dead outside Massereene army barracks in Antrim.
Constable Stephen Carroll was also killed when his patrol car was ambushed in Craigavon, Co Armagh.
Recently, bomb attacks occurred outside a courthouse in Newry and at Palace Barracks in Holywood, where the new Northern Ireland M15 headquarters is based.
A PSNI source said: “There is an element of skills which would have been available to the Provisional IRA, which are still obviously apparent in the construction of some of these devices.”
Senior PSNI officers fear the dissident capability is back to where it was in the run up to the August 1998 Omagh atrocity when they blasted several towns and villages.
The source added: “The situation has got worse since the threat was raised to ‘severe’. This is probably as severe a situation as we’ve seen since that Real IRA bombing campaign of 1997 going into 1998…. It feels to us, just looking at it in every way, that this has picked up in terms of intensity and severity.”
The car bomb which went off outside Palace Barracks was deliberately timed to coincide with the transfer of policing and justice powers to Stormont.
Police are now wary the dissidents may attempt to disrupt the political process in the run-up to the General Election.
There have been 10 attacks so far this year as well as the murder by the Real IRA of Kieran Doherty, 31, in Derry in February.
Up to 50 other potential incidents, including targeting, have been disrupted according to sources.
Following the attack on PSNI officer and Irish language specialist Peadar Heffron, who was critically injured in a car bomb blast in January, officers have tightened personal security measures.
The source said: “They are very conscious about proving their operational worth and showing their credibility. They are not doing things on a wing and a prayer as before.
“Over time they have been unsuccessful in the detonation of these bombs. They are now successful and we have to assume they have actually worked on the design and build.
“Undoubtedly there are former (Provisional) IRA people deeply embedded in these organisations.”
