SINN FEIN, following a foiled bomb attack on a leading Derry republican, has challenged the Northern Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, to say if he believes the loyalist paramilitary ceasefire is still intact.
Sinn Fein named Mr Liam Duffy, a former republican prisoner, as the target of an apparent murder bid in the Waterside area of Derry on Saturday. British army bomb experts defused the booby trap device which was placed under Mr Duffy's car outside a house in the Gobnascale area of Derry.
RUC sources are blaming the UDA in Derry for the attempted attack on Mr Duffy, a Sinn Fein director of elections in the mainly Protestant Waterside of the city.
It has also raised concerns that the UDA now has new commercial explosives. It was reported at the weekend that the commercial explosive Powergel was used in the car bombing which injured the north Belfast republican, Mr Eddie Copeland, eight days ago, an attack also blamed on the UDA.
Mr Gerry O hEara, Sinn Fein's Northern chairman, said the failed bomb attack in Derry highlighted a recent pattern of attacks and death threats against leading republicans.
He said that in addition to recent threats to the Sinn Fein leader, Mr Gerry Adams, and leading ardcomhairle member Mr Martin McGuinness, one of the party's West Belfast councillors, Mr Alex Maskey, was told by the RUC his life was in danger.
Mr Maskey, who has survived a number of attempts on his life was warned by the RUC at the weekend that he should step up his personal security because of the latest threat, according to Mr O hEara.
Considering these threats, along with the attempts to murder Eddie Copeland and Liam Duffy, will Patrick Mayhew, through his security sources which he has never been slow to quote when it concerns republicans, now state in unequivocal terms whether or not he considers the loyalist ceasefire to be over?" Mr O hEara added.
A Northern Ireland Office spokesman said Sir Patrick Mayhew had recently made it clear that, in accordance with the multiparty talks ground rules, it was for the parties to decide whether or not the loyalist fringe parties - should remain in the negotiations.
Mr McGuinness said nationalists and republicans must be "extremely vigilant" against attacks. He believed the Derry booby trap bomb was the work of loyalists - although he did not rule out the involvement of British dirty tricks".
"As with the incident in Ardoyne, this event will almost certainly not be claimed. This suits the loyalists and the British government," he said.
So far the Ulster Democratic Party and the Progressive Unionist Party, respectively linked to the UDA and UVF, have refused to condemn the attack.
Meanwhile six people were lasts night released after being questioned following a major security operation in West Belfast which began on Friday.
The six were arrested in a house in Dermotthill Park. Police say components of a suspected explosive device were found in the house. Police would make no comment on a report in yesterday's Belfast Sunday Life that the security operation was mounted following what may have been a premature explosion in the house as the device was being assembled.
. The RUC in Newry last night released a man whom they had questioned in connection with the discovery of the body of a 47 year old man at Carrickvista, near Bessbrook in south Armagh early yesterday morning.
A police spokeswoman said he was being released pending a report on the case being submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions. It is understood that there was no paramilitary involvement in the killing.
