A fresh upsurge of dissident republican violence in Northern Ireland was orchestrated by a new nucleus of former IRA members who have defected from the Provisionals. Veterans of the Provisional IRA’s North Armagh brigade were behind the 24-hour wave of shootings, blast bomb attacks and riots that rocked the Craigavon area at the beginning of last week.
Senior security sources in Northern Ireland pointed this weekend to a small but dedicated number of former North Armagh brigade republicans who they say pose a major threat to the peace process.
“They include one ex-prisoner who served life for murder and another responsible for a series of assassinations around North Armagh,” one police officer said this weekend. “This core cannot be dismissed as amateurs or newcomers to the dissident scene. They have experience and a track record behind them which makes them good recruiting sergeants for kids around them.”
The violence in Craigavon means that in almost every corner of Northern Ireland there have been short outbursts of dissident terrorist activity over the last six months. Last month, dissidents linked to a Continuity IRA unit fired an improvised rocket at a mobile patrol.
Although no one was killed or injured, the attack was significant because it was the first time the dissidents had used semtex to set off a rocket-propelled grenade. Until then, it appeared that the dissident groups did not have access to the Czech-made plastic explosive, which the Provisional IRA was meant to have destroyed in the arms decommissioning process two years ago.
Its presence is an indication that some of that explosive was taken from Provisional IRA stashes and given to dissidents.
Attacks have taken place in Derry, Tyrone, Fermanagh and now Armagh. Significantly, none of the republican groups opposed to the power-sharing government between Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionists — the Real IRA, Continuity IRA or a new group known as Oglaigh na hEireann — have mounted any major attacks in the Belfast area.
Police patrols came under fire from a sniper, two blast bombs were thrown and police vehicles were attacked with petrol bombs and stones during 24 hours of disturbances in the Tullygally and Drumbeg areas of Armagh.
By the end of last week, some calm had been restored to the nationalist districts, although residents said there had been heavy-handed police raids on homes.
Graffiti on walls and bus shelters warns of more violence. One even warned that anyone cooperating with police probes into the disturbances would be shot.
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