THE PSNI, Garda Síochána and British and Irish security services remain on high alert against the threat from dissident republicans and are devoting considerable resources to tackling them, according to senior security sources.
The security agencies in Britain and Ireland and on both sides of the Border are co-operating in combating groups such as the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, senior sources said yesterday.
“They are a continuing threat and we continue to devote resources to them,” said a senior British counter-terrorism official yesterday.
“They continue to take up our time and effort in dealing with them.” Security sources say the dissident threat is on an altogether different and smaller scale than that posed by al-Qaeda and other militant Islamist groups in the UK, but nonetheless the dissidents were being treated seriously and monitored closely.
MI5, which has opened a new state-of-the-art base in Holywood, Co Down, has the lead role in gaining intelligence on the dissident groups.
While much of the Holywood operation relates to intercepting and monitoring the operations of Islamic and other global terror groups, a significant element of MI5’s work in Northern Ireland is targeting the dissidents.
The police, MI5 and intelligence services in the Republic are well aware that the dissidents intend to mount gun and bomb attacks aimed at killing police officers and British soldiers.
Earlier this month the Continuity IRA issued a threat against Customs officers and Driver and Vehicle Agency staff in the North who deal with the PSNI.
Hitherto, there has been a general consensus that the dissidents lacked capability in terms of the amounts of explosives and sophisticated weaponry at their disposal. But there is a concern that through restructuring and more concerted attempts to import arms and explosives they are slowly developing capability.
One such alleged arms importation was disrupted in January when an Irish man and an Irish woman were arrested in a “sting” operation in Lithuania on suspicion of attempting to buy a significant stock of guns and explosives.
Last month the Continuity IRA carried out a landmine attack on a police patrol near Roslea, Co Fermanagh, in which two PSNI officers suffered minor injuries.
Last November two Catholic officers were seriously wounded in separate attacks in Derry city and Dungannon, Co Tyrone.
Dissidents were also blamed for the murder in Derry last month of Emmett Sheils, who was shot dead while attempting to prevent a suspected armed gang of dissidents targeting another man.
PSNI chief constable Sir Hugh Orde has regularly warned of the threat from dissidents and of their intention to destabilising the political process, a warning also replicated in the findings of the Independent Monitoring Commission.
The counter-terrorism official said that much of the threat from the Real IRA and Continuity IRA and a new group calling itself “Óglaigh na hÉireann” was concentrated in Derry, Fermanagh and Tyrone.
The Guardian reported yesterday that a hard-core group of 80 dissidents posed the main threat, and that their short-term aim was to kill a Catholic officer to try to intimidate others from joining the PSNI.
The report added that prison officers were now on the target list and that PSNI officers with counter-terrorism experience were being transferred from Belfast to Fermanagh, Derry and Tyrone to work against the dissidents.
