The commanders of Ireland’s two police forces pursued a common strategy on Thursday for catching Irish Republican Army dissidents responsible for a new wave of violence, amid fears their next attack could be a car bomb.
Commissioner Fachtna Murphy and other senior officers from the Republic of Ireland discussed better coordination of anti-terrorist activities with Chief Constable Hugh Orde, commander of the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Their talks at Orde’s headquarters in Protestant east Belfast focused on intensified surveillance and eavesdropping of members of two splinter groups, the Real IRA and Continuity IRA, which claimed responsibility for the past week’s fatal shootings of two soldiers and a policeman.
Both breakaway groups are strongest along Northern Ireland’s 360km border with the Irish Republic. The frontier was once dotted with British surveillance towers and fortified road checkpoints, but today it is military-free in keeping with Northern Ireland’s peace process.
The Republic of Ireland’s police force, the Garda Siochana, said three of its elite squads — the National Surveillance Unit, Emergency Response Unit and Special Detective Unit — had deployed officers to the border, where they were providing shadowy backup to an overt show of strength designed principally to reassure the public.
Since Tuesday, police on the Republic of Ireland side have been stopping and searching vehicles bound for Northern Ireland. The searches cover only the biggest of more than 100 cross-border roads.
Thursday’s security conference coincided with public mourning by Northern Ireland’s security forces.
The British Army held a memorial service in honor of two Corps of Royal Engineers soldiers — Cengiz “Patrick” Azimkar, 21, and Mark Quinsey, 23 — who were gunned down on Saturday outside their army base as they collected pizzas from delivery men.
They were the first soldiers killed in Northern Ireland since 1997. The Real IRA claimed responsibility for that ambush, which also wounded two other soldiers and both pizza couriers.
And hundreds of mourners arrived at the home of Constable Stephen Carroll, 48, to attend his wake in advance of Friday’s funeral.
Carroll, an English-born Catholic and 23-year veteran, was shot through the head Monday as he sat in his patrol car. The Continuity IRA said it killed him.
His widow, Kate, gave an interview to Ulster Television that was broadcast across Britain and Ireland. She spoke of their last moments at the door as he went to work — and he wondered aloud whether the dissidents might try to kill him that night, with barely 18 months to go to retirement.
“He thought this war was over, but obviously not, and I just can’t believe that this has all started up again,” Kate Carroll said.
She nonetheless expressed the hope that his killing might be the last of Northern Ireland’s four-decade conflict, which has already claimed more than 3,700 lives.
“I just hope he hasn’t died in vain,” she said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese