The head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Sir Hugh Orde, has confirmed that the level of threat from dissident republican terrorism in Northern Ireland is the highest since he became chief constable seven years ago.
Orde said on Thursday that it would be a “fair assessment” of the present security situation that the threat levels from the Real IRA and other groups are now at a critical level.
It is understood that one of the reasons why both the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and MI5 (UK security service) have raised the threat level is due to the increased sophistication of the dissident republicans’ bomb-making abilities.
Security sources in the Irish Republic this week said that a recent car bomb left abandoned last month in Castlewellan, south Down, contained a new type of anti-handling booby-trap device that almost killed a number of British Army bomb disposal officers.
The sources also revealed that a former Provisional IRA bomb maker from the south Down area who was responsible for a land mine attack that killed four locally recruited British soldiers in a blast in the mid-1980s has joined the dissidents.
One security official said the device left in Castlewellan had “spooked” the British military and the wider security forces. He said the short term strategy of groups like the Real and Continuity IRA is to target and kill Catholic members of the PSNI to deter others from joining the police service as well as to create maximum political embarrassment for Sinn Fein.
“What they dearly want is to see a scenario where a leading Sinn Fein figure is pictured or filmed walking behind the coffin of a dead Catholic PSNI officer. Then the dissidents can point and say that their former comrades have truly joined the establishment,” the sources said.
Speaking in Belfast after he briefed Northern Ireland’s Policing Board on Thursday afternoon, Orde said: “We have said consistently that the threat has increased against police officers. We are very clear — they [the dissidents] are very determined to kill police officers going about their normal duties and keeping people safe.”
The PSNI chief constable also rejected Sinn Fein accusations that he and the security services were exaggerating the present terrorist threat.
“I am not in the business of talking it up, I say it as I see it. Currently I think the threat is high, our officers are fully aware of that but you will not see a step change in policing because our policing style is commensurate to the threat as we perceive it,” Orde said.
Asked about the republican dissidents’ bomb-making abilities, Orde said: “Fortunately no one has been killed by a dissident republican attack to date. But we do take them seriously as some officers have been injured, although we have been lucky to some extent.
“They [dissident republicans] continue to push it to the edge because they show a reckless disregard for anybody’s life. You only have to look at Castlewellan, a large bomb abandoned near a school. They were more than happy to leave that device and run away regardless of who might have been killed as a consequence,” he said.
He refused to comment in detail when questioned if there was a secondary, booby-trap device on that bomb.
“That’s an investigation that is still under way. What we are saying is that it was a viable device and it shows their determination to kill and maim whenever they have that opportunity,” he said.
Orde also claimed that anti-terrorist operations conducted by the Garda Siochana (Irish Police) in the Irish Republic had saved PSNI officers’ lives north of the border.
“The cooperation we get from Commissioner Fachtna Murphy [Gardai head] and An Garda Siochana is superb.
“There is no doubt that officers in Northern Ireland are alive today because of the activities of An Garda Siochana. That continues and I am meeting the commissioner next week. We have good relations and that is essential on the island of Ireland to deal with this small residual group of people who are determined to wreck all that has been achieved,” Orde said.
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