SAOIRSE32

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**Appropriately enough, on YAHOO News. The FBI - still FOF…

Terror Expertise Not Priority at FBI

By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer
Sun Jun 19, 1:11 PM ET

WASHINGTON - In sworn testimony that contrasts with their promises to the public, the
FBI managers who crafted the post-Sept. 11 fight against terrorism say expertise about the Mideast or terrorism was not important in choosing the agents they promoted to top jobs.

And they still do not believe such experience is necessary today even as terrorist acts occur across the globe.

“A bombing case is a bombing case,” said Dale Watson, the FBI’s terrorism chief in the two years after Sept. 11, 2001. “A crime scene in a bank robbery case is the same as a crime scene, you know, across the board.”

The FBI’s current terror-fighting chief, Executive Assistant Director Gary Bald, said his first terrorism training came “on the job” when he moved to headquarters to oversee anti-terrorism strategy two years ago.

Asked about his grasp of Middle Eastern culture and history, Bald responded: “I wish that I had it. It would be nice.”

“You need leadership. You don’t need subject matter expertise,” Bald testified in an ongoing FBI employment case. “It is certainly not what I look for in selecting an official for a position in a counterterrorism position.”

In a development that has escaped public attention, FBI agent Bassem Youssef has questioned under oath many of the FBI’s top leaders, including Director Robert Mueller and his predecessor, Louis Freeh, in an effort to show he was passed over for top terrorism jobs despite his expertise. Testimony from his lawsuit was recently sent to Congress.

Those who have held the bureau’s top terrorism-fighting jobs since Sept. 11 often said in their testimony that they — and many they have promoted since — had no significant terrorism or Middle East experience. Some could not even explain the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, the two primary groups of Muslims.

“Probably the strongest leader I know in counterterrorism has no counterterrorism in his background,” Bald insisted.

The hundreds of pages of testimony obtained by The Associated Press contrast with assurances Mueller repeatedly has given Congress that he was building a new FBI, from top to bottom, with experts able to stop terrorist attacks before they occurred, not solve them afterward.

“The FBI’s shift toward terrorism prevention necessitates the building of a national level expertise and body of knowledge,” Mueller told Congress a year after the suicide hijackings, as lawmakers approved billions of new dollars to fight terrorism.

Despite the testimony of its managers, the FBI said it has fundamentally reshaped itself to ensure the field agents on the ground who work the cases have the necessary skills, training and background for fighting terrorism. It noted it hired or redeployed more than 1,000 agents to counterterrorism and hired an additional 1,200 intelligence analysts and linguists.

“We fundamentally changed the criteria for hiring special agents and intelligence analysts to ensure that we get the critical skills, knowledge and experience we need to address today’s threats,” Assistant Director Cassandra Chandler told the AP.

“New agents receive personalized training from Muslim leaders. Street agents and managers in every field office have gotten to know the Middle Eastern and Muslim communities in their territories and regularly attend training sessions sponsored by community leaders,” she said.

Daniel Byman, a national security expert who worked on both congressional and presidential investigations of terrorism and intelligence failures, reviewed the Youssef case for the court. Byman concluded the spurned agent is one of the government’s most-skilled terrorism fighters and that the FBI overall remains weak in expertise on the Middle East, terrorism and intelligence liaison.

“Many of its officers — including those quite skilled in other aspects of the bureau’s work, lack the skills to work with foreign governments or even their U.S. counterparts,” Byman concluded.

“Knowing about counterterrorism would help a supervisor ensure a proper investigation and avoid missing important aspects of the case,” he said.

Watson, who oversaw the first two years of transformation, testified he could not recall a single meeting in the aftermath of Sept. 11 in which FBI leaders discussed the type of skills or training needed for counterterrorism.

Youssef’s lawyer, Steve Kohn, pressed further.

“What skill sets would they need to better identify, penetrate and/or prevent a future
Osama bin Laden-style terrorist attack?” Kohn asked.

Watson answered: “They would need to understand the attorney general guidelines for counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigation.”

“Anything else?” the lawyer inquired.

“No,” Watson answered.

John Pikus, who held a key supervisory job during the reallocation of agents from traditional crime-fighting to terrorism, testified that the FBI did not create new screening standards to promote terrorism experts to its upper ranks.

“Strengthening up the criteria for selection,” Pikus answered when asked where the FBI was deficient in its terrorism hiring.

Pat D’Amuro, one of the FBI’s most-experienced senior managers in terrorism, testified that when he was brought to Washington to oversee the Sept. 11 investigation, eventually promoted to executive assistant director, he brought lots of agents with him from New York who had terrorism backgrounds.

But rather than conducting a systematic search for the bureau’s most talented Middle Eastern and terrorism agents worldwide, D’Amuro testified, he brought to Washington the agents he personally knew had worked successfully on al-Qaida and other terrorism cases.

He said that in later promotions, Middle East and terrorism experience was helpful but not mandatory, noting the FBI also must deal with terrorism from domestic sources and the
Irish Republican Army.

“It could be a benefit. When you look for managers, you’re looking for people that can lead people, manage people, knows how to conduct an investigation, knows how to collect certain intelligence or information, you know,” he testified.

When asked if he had any formal terrorism training that justified his appointment as the No. 3 FBI official, Bald said, “It would have been on-the-job in the counterterrorism division.” Bald entered the counterterrorism division in 2003 after leading the FBI’s Baltimore office during the Washington sniper case.

The assistant Bald brought in to run the division last year gave a similar account.

“It’s a tremendous learning experience, the seat that I’m sitting in. You learn every single day about this,” Deputy Assistant Director John Lewis testified.

When asked whether he, as the FBI’s former counterterrorism chief, could describe the differences between Shiite and Sunni Muslims, Watson answered, “Not technically, no.”

He also said that his assertion a few years ago that bin Laden had been killed — a declaration that conflicted with
CIA assessments and fresh video evidence — was not based on fact. “It’s my gut instinct,” he answered.

Youssef, the agent suing the bureau, was credited with improving relations with Saudi Arabia during the late 1990s as bin Laden’s threat grew and the bureau struggled to solve the case of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing.

He received a special award from the intelligence community for meritorious work and was singled out by his managers for “continuous creativity and perseverance” in terrorism cases. Saudi officials said they regarded Youssef as the most skilled U.S. agent in conducting lie detector tests on Arabic-speaking suspects.

But after Sept. 11, Youssef repeatedly was passed over for top-level headquarters jobs in terrorism. Instead, he was offered same-rank positions in budgeting or exploiting intelligence from terrorism documents.

Freeh, the former FBI director who left that job three months before the terrorist attacks, testified that he believed Youssef should have gotten an important terror-fighting job in the post-Sept. 11 era

“I think, you know, given his experience, certainly his language, you know, domestically he would probably have a much more required role and be of greater help back at headquarters,” Freeh said.

One FBI supervisor, just-retired Agent Paul Vick, testified that Youssef had the “many skills that were badly needed” after Sept. 11 and the FBI’s failure to utilize him was “inappropriate and a waste of a very important human resource.”

___

Here’s the deal: I can’t get the Google site search code to fit in the sidebar without running over the margin, but it works really great for finding articles within this blog, so I will make a post of it and put the link to that single post in the links list off to the right. The post follows this one. The link is already installed and called, as if you couldn’t figure it out yourself, ‘GOOGLE SITE SEARCH’. The other search box on this template doesn’t work.

I’ve experimented with site searches on all three of the SAOIRSE32 blog sites which all have the exact same posts, and it is very interesting to me what Google does with different URLs. If I type ‘robert mccartney’ into the Blogspot search, I get 6 references, zero at the livejournal site, but 324 references on this Blogsome.com site. I am not surprised because Google has the unobtrusive text ads on the sidebar here, and I get 100’s more referrals to this site than to anywhere else from Google. The moral of the story is that for site search of this blog, using this link is the most effective:

:: SAOIRSE32 Site Search ::

—————————–

WWW http://saoirse32.blogsome.com

THE BLANKET

Quis Separabit? The Short Strand/Markets UDA

Big Sam, Artie and me were drinking in the Lawnbrook Social Club. It was discussed that we go out and get a Taig … I remember Artie hitting him with a hatchet and telling him to keep quiet … I reached down and cut his throat with a butcher’s knife
- Shankill Butcher Billy Moore

Anthony McIntyre • 29 May 2005

It is not as if republican society lacked some early warning system. It wasn’t - nor did it have to be - state of the art, even mildly sophisticated, but it was there. So dispirited were local republicans in South and East Belfast that some had taken to terming the local IRA the ‘hallion battalion.’ Almost a year before sadists and psychopaths converged on Robert McCartney, murder in mind, the Times Ireland correspondent David Lister boldly asserted that:

In the Short Strand and Markets areas, “justice” is dispensed by an IRA unit which counts among its ranks a rapist, a paedophile, a former joyrider and a man who once attacked a woman by burning her breasts with an iron…

>>>Read on

————————-

Irish Examiner

PSNI urged to explain Kelly return to jail

19/06/2005 - 4:43:43 PM

Northern Ireland police chief Hugh Orde was urged tonight to state clearly why IRA bomber Sean Kelly was put back behind bars.

Mr Kelly was returned to jail yesterday by Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain for breaching the terms of his early release under the Good Friday Agreement.

However nationalist SDLP justice spokesman Alban Maginness said the re-arrest, which Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams has described as deplorable, raised serious questions about the prisoner which needed to be addressed.

“If it is proved that Mr Kelly has been re-engaged in terrorist activity then some serious questions must be asked,” the North Belfast Assembly member said.

“Under the terms of prisoner release negotiated under the Agreement this is the most serious breach and re-arrest is the only option.

“Given this arrest and re-imprisonment it is now incumbent on the Chief Constable and the authorities to demonstrate clearly that the reason for Mr Kelly’s re-arrest is based on substantial evidence of his re-offending.”

Mr Kelly, aged 33, was originally jailed for bombing a fish shop in 1993 in the Shankill Road area and killing 10.

He was released with other prisoners in July 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

Mr Hain said yesterday he had ordered the Shankill bomber’s re-arrest because security intelligence indicated Mr Kelly had become involved again with terrorist activity.

“I am satisfied that Sean Kelly has become re-involved in terrorism and is a danger to others and while he is at liberty, is likely to commit further offences,” he said.

“On the basis of security information available to me, I have decided to return Sean Kelly to prison with immediate effect.”

Mr Hain also warned he would not hesitate to suspend the licence of other prisoners who got early release under the Good-Friday Agreement if they presented a risk to the safety of others.

Independent Sentence Review Commissioners will now consider Mr Kelly‘s case and decide whether to revoke his licence.

K-Meleon

K-Meleon 0.8.2 (but not the latest version) is my browser of choice because it runs rings around Firefox, standard Mozilla browsers, Opera and IE–and that’s even with a fast connection. If you are on dial-up, it is indispensable. My one complaint was that I didn’t know how to block those annoying flash ads which stall your navigation and sometimes cripple you entirely if you are on a slow connection. Finally I found a page on the K-Meleon wiki which explains how to modify your settings files in order to block that trash flash. It’s easy to do and works wonderfully well. Now, unless I actually WANT to see the flash (you just click on the logo), all I see is this:

Ahhhhhh, bliss!! Click >>>here to learn how.

Waiting for the IRA

19 June 2005
By Paul T Colgan

The North is moving into a critical period in the coming weeks following high-profile meetings between the Taoiseach and Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams about the standing down of the IRA.

With the unionist marching season nearing its height, sources on all sides are growing concerned that any potential for political movement that may follow an IRA decision could be lost amid civil and political unrest.

Sinn Féin sources said they expected the Irish and British to “put it up to the DUP’‘ following an IRA statement that is believed to be imminent.

It is understood that republicans are offering a substantial move towards standing down the IRA, but that this will fall short of what is currently being demanded by Ian Paisley’s party.

Observers point to the comments made by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern last week when he said he would be satisfied that the IRA could become a “commemorative organisation’‘.

Ahern’s contention that he has never used the word “disbandment’‘, when talking about what he expects from the republican movement, is seen as indicative of where talks between the government and republicans now stand. Government sources said the word “disbandment'’ was not in their lexicon.

“Both governments, at different times in the past, when this issue has been raised, have made it clear to us that it’s a word they wouldn’t be using,” said a republican source.

“Their concentration has been on what they describe as ‘an end to activities’. That’s the criteria they were talking about, going back as far as Blair’s ‘acts of completion’ speech in 2002.

“It’s not part of anyone’s vocabulary who’s interested in moving things forward.”

‘Disbandment’ has loaded connotations for republicans and implies that the organisation has been forced to retire from the scene.

‘Standing down’, the term favoured by the republican leadership, while signalling a complete end to activities, leaves open the possibility that the IRA may be resurrected at some stage in the future if republicans deem it absolutely necessary.

Republicans said the four meetings between Adams and Ahern since St Patrick’s Day were initiated by Sinn Féin. They said that, contrary to media reports, Ahern had not set out to lay down the law to Adams but had engaged in talks about what may be possible in the coming months.

The consultation between the IRA leadership and its grassroots membership is thought to have been fraught with difficulties. The demand for photographs of decommissioned IRA weaponry was a non-runner from the very beginning and the IRA leadership is not even believed to have raised the possibility of giving in to this demand during its meetings with IRA members.

Instead, the most likely way forward for the organisation appears to be a statement signalling its intention to fade into the background, accompanied by substantial decommissioning in private.

Sources pointed to Gerry Adams’ Wolfe Tone commemoration speech at Bodenstown last year as being a clear signal as to where he sees the IRA going.

Adams said: “Sinn Féin believes that it is possible to achieve a comprehensive and holistic package, which deals with all of the outstanding matters in away that is definitive and conclusive.”

One senior republican, when asked what he believed the IRA needed to do in the weeks ahead, stressed this weekend that the words “definitive and conclusive’‘ signalled “most clearly where Gerry’s head is at’‘.

The newly-elected Sinn Féin MP for Newry and Armagh, Conor Murphy, will deliver the address at today’s Wolfe Tone commemoration. The two governments will be studying the text of his speech closely to see which way the wind is blowing.

“Bodenstown gives us a chance to talk to our own people,” said a source. “From the perspective of republicans, it’s not a matter of what the IRA may now do but how the governments are going to respond.

“The consultation process within the IRA is still ongoing and we expect them to come back within the next few months. There is a lot of speculation about Drumcree Sunday and talk of government deadlines, but it’s entirely a matter for the IRA itself,” he said.

Meanwhile, nationalists and republicans have been alarmed by a number of illegal Orange marches in recent days and have expressed concern that elements within loyalism will do their utmost to make an IRA transition into a new mode as difficult as possible.

Two illegal loyalist marches have gone ahead in east Belfast, with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) responding by cautioning Orange Order Grand Master Robert Salters.

The order’s annual Somme commemoration on July 1, referred to as the “mini-twelfth’‘, will see up to 20,000 loyalists take to the streets.

Last week, unionists warned that the event could descend into a “Drumcree-style’‘ situation if the PSNI moved in to block the march.

The march had been deemed illegal, as organisers were refusing to add their names to application forms.

Drumcree Sunday takes place on July 10, raising fears that a stand-off at the huge Somme march could lead to a swelling of numbers in Portadown the following week.

The Parades Commission said on Friday that it was prepared to show “flexibility’‘ over the application row, prompting hopes that the issue could be resolved.

“What we need is a quiet summer,” said a source. “If we’re trying to work against a backdrop of illegal marches and unrest, then we could lose the summer entirely. It would knock movement towards a deal off course, if not permanently, then for a couple of months at the very least.”

Sinn Féin

Anger at re-jailing of Belfast republican

Published: 19 June, 2005

Sinn Féin North Belfast MLA Gerry Kelly has said that the arrest of North Belfast Republican Sean Kelly and the revoking of his licence is a deplorable decision and accused the British Secretary of State of acquiescing to the demands of unionists and securocrats opposed to the Peace Process.

Mr Kelly said:

“Sean Kelly has done nothing to warrant this harsh decision and should be released without delay.

“This was a calculated decision that will increase tensions in North Belfast and elsewhere in the middle of the marching season. It was a cynical decision.

“It was a serious mistake for Peter Hain to acquiesce to the demands of unionists and securocrats opposed to the Peace Process in signing the order for Mr Kelly‚s licence to be revoked.

“Mr Hain will compound this error of judgement unless he acts to reverse this decision. Deliberate attempts by anti-agreement securocrats and unionists to undermine the peace process should be resisted by Irish government.

“Mr Kelly was released under the Good Friday Agreement and has played an important role in support of the Agreement and the peace process. He has also played an invaluable and positive role in keeping the situation calm at interfaces in North Belfast.”ENDS

An Phoblacht

Remembering the Past: IRA Volunteers execute Wilson

BY SHANE Mac THOMÁIS

click to view: Sir Henry Wilson

On the morning of 22 June 1922, Sir Henry Wilson was returning to his home in Easton Place in London, having just unveiled a war memorial at the city’s Liverpool Rail Station.

He had paid his taxi driver, and was feeling for his keys, when two IRA men came up behind him, pulled out revolvers and shot him. With an arm wounded by the first two bullets, he half drew his sword. The two IRA men fired a total of nine bullets at Wilson before attempting their escape, but they were surrounded by an angry crowd and arrested by police.

Wilson’s body was taken and laid on a couch in his study. Bernard Spilsbury, the pathologist, arrived at the scene and carried out an examination. Wilson was shot in the left forearm, twice in the right arm, twice in the left shoulder, in both armpits, and twice in the right leg. Both armpit wounds had fatally pierced Wilson’s lungs.

A servant of imperialism, Wilson had served as a British soldier from the early 1880s. He rose to the command of the Staff College at Camberley, Surrey. He played a leading part in the Curragh Mutiny of 1914, surreptitiously encouraging some British Army officers who refused to lead troops against Ulster opponents of Irish Home Rule.

During the Tan War, he set up the undercover Cairo Gang, which was wiped out by the IRA’s Squad in 1920. He even threatened to resign if Kevin Barry was not hanged.

As MP for Down after 1921, he was Sir James Craig’s parliament’s military advisor, with £2 million at his disposal to carry out whatever measures were necessary “regardless of consequences’”. He was directly responsible for setting up the B Specials and for the anti-nationalist pogroms of 1921-’22.

The captured IRA men were identified as Reginald Dunne (also known as John O’Brien) and Joseph O’Sullivan (also known as James Connelly). Both men were members of the IRA and aged 24 years’ old. O’Sullivan had lost a leg at Ypres in the First World War (where Wilson, as assistant chief of the general staff, had sent many a young man to his death in the finest tradition of lions led by donkeys) and this had hampered his escape from the scene. Instead of making his own escape, Dunne stayed to try and aid his comrade.

The killing shocked the British public. A newspaper had the headline “Hang the butchers of Wilson”. The London Times newspaper, a mouthpiece of the British imperialism, wrote:

“Field-Marshall Sir Henry Wilson, the famous and gallant soldier, was murdered yesterday upon the threshold of his London home. The murderers were Irishmen.”

In Belfast, Sir James Craig adjourned the Northern Parliament, having declared “Sir Henry Wilson laid down his life for Ulster”… Lady Wilson let it be known that no one who had negotiated the Treaty would be welcome at her husband’s funeral. All the British Ministers were assigned armed bodyguards and the public gallery in the House of Commons was closed.

It is still not certain who gave the order for the assassination of Wilson. Reginald Dunne had been a friend of Collins in the London IRB organisation and there is other evidence to link Collins and Rory O’Connor with the deed. Dunne had met both of them when in Dublin earlier in the month.

Dunne and O’Sullivan were tried at the Old Bailey on 18 July and sentenced to be hanged in Wandsworth Prison on 16 August. Collins, who said to General Joseph Sweeney that “it was two of ours that did it’”, attempted a rescue attempt. Joe Dolan and Tom Cullen were sent to London by Collins. At the same time the IRA sent several Cork Volunteers over, including Frank Cremins, Billy Aherne and Dinny Kelleher.

In the end, no escape effort was attempted, and pleas for reprieves were turned down. Dunne and O’Sullivan were hanged together on 10 August 1922, in a double execution at London’s Wandsworth Prison. They were both buried within the prison grounds. In July 1967, their remains were repatriated to Ireland. A Tricolour that Reginald Dunne had placed on the coffin of Terrence MacSwiney was placed by a relative on the coffin of O’Sullivan. They were re-buried in the republican plot at Deansgrange Cemetery. At their graveside a day after they were reinterred on 9 July 1967, three IRA men fired a volley to honour their sacrifice.

In a speech which Reginald Dunne prepared, but was not permitted to deliver from the dock, he said:

“We took our part in supporting the aspirations of our fellow-countrymen in the same way as we took our part in supporting the nations of the world who fought for the rights of small nationalities… The same principles for which we shed our blood on the battlefield of Europe led us to commit the act we are charged with.

“You can condemn us to death today, but you cannot deprive us of the belief that what we have done was necessary to preserve the lives and the happiness of our countrymen in Ireland. You may, by your verdict, find us guilty, but we will go to the scaffold justified by the verdict of our own consciences.”

On 22 June 1922, 83 years ago, IRA Volunteers Reginald Dunne and Joseph O’Sullivan executed Sir Henry Wilson in London.

An Phoblacht

**This has already been posted on, but here is a pic of the mural

Suicide awareness mural unveiled

click to view

The Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams, speaking at the unveiling of a mural dedicated to the many young people from West Belfast who have taken their own lives over the past number of years, praised the courage of their families who have carried their burden of grief with such dignity.

The idea for the mural came from young people from the Beechmount area who are based in the Blackie Centre.

According to Adams, up to 60 people from across the North have committed suicide so far this year. In the previous couple of days, said the Sinn Féin President, two young people from the Shankill had been found dead. He praised the courage of a number of families of suicide victims from the Shankill who came to the unveiling.

Also speaking at the mural launch was local community worker Evelyn Gilroy, whose daughter took her own life in recent years. She thanked the young people of the area for their initiative and welcomed the many bereaved families who were at the ceremony.

Unison.ie / Irish Independent

Apartments could be built on top of Mountjoy Prison graves

JEROME REILLY

THE remains of up to 40 executed men and women buried at Mountjoy Prison could be entombed beneath new apartment blocks to be built when the prison moves to a new location.

The Department of Justice has yet to address what to do with the remains - including those of ‘Quare Fellow’ Bernard Kirwan - buried within the walls of the Dublin prison.

Mountjoy historian Tim Carey told the Sunday Independent: “It’s a very sensitive issue. After all, if there is a decision to exhume the remains and relocate them, it may mean contacting families who would not want to revisit that particular chapter in their family history.”

Because there is no clarity about who is exactly buried where, there is even the possibility that the whole issue of DNA identification using descendents of the convicted murderers may arise.

“The response so far about issues relating to the relocation have been a little glib,” Mr Carey added.

“There could be those who will propose to have the burial plot preserved but it would seem a little strange to have a memorial to those executed by the State in the middle of a block of apartments or a shopping centre.”

Mr Carey, whose book Mountjoy: The Story of a Prison is now in its third reprint, said that some of the most sensational murder cases in Irish history ended with a hanging in the gallows house at Mountjoy.

In 2001, 10 IRA volunteers executed by the British Government in 1921 were exhumed and given State funerals. Kevin Barry, Thomas Whelan, Patrick Moran, Patrick Doyle, Bernard Ryan, Frank Flood, Thomas Bryan, Thomas Traynor, Edmond Foley and Patrick Maher had been hanged and then buried in the grounds of the ‘joy.

Kevin Barry’s mother died in 1957, and it was her dying wish that her son be exhumed from the grounds. That wish was granted when his remains and those of his compatriots were reinterred in a special new plot at Glasnevin Cemetery.

It’s unlikely that there will be a similar clamour to reclaim the remains of William Mitchell, a Black and Tan who murdered a Justice of the Peace called Robert Dixon in Dunlavin in 1921.

Another whose remains lie in Mountjoy is Annie Walsh, who murdered her husband to claim the insurance and ran off with a young nephew. She was the last woman to be executed in Ireland.

The new prison campus that will replace Mountjoy will be situated on a north Co Dublin site that has cost the Government nearly €30m.

The Observer

Shankill bomber back in prison

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Sunday June 19, 2005
The Observer

Sean Kelly - BBC photo

IRA BOMBER Sean Kelly, who killed 10 people in the 1993 Shankill Road atrocity that pushed Northern Ireland to the brink of civil war, is back behind bars today over his involvement in recent sectarian riots in Belfast.

His arrest comes as confrontations caused by the province’s marching season threaten to destabilise the peace process.

An expected IRA statement on its own future - and the possibility of the organisation eschewing violence for good - has been put on hold due to tensions, particularly in Belfast.

The Irish government said the IRA’s response to Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams’s call for the organisation to enter a purely peaceful mode had been postponed at least until August over fears of continued violence across Northern Ireland this summer, following Friday’s nationalist rioting in the Ardoyne area of the city.

In a further sign of deepening community tensions The Observer has learnt that all contacts across the divide in north and west Belfast, between the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force on one side and republicans on the other, were severed this weekend.

The loyalists cut the cross-community links after nationalist attacks on Protestant marchers on Friday.

Last night Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, said he was satisfied that Kelly had become re-involved in terrorism and was a danger to others.

Police stopped a car that Kelly was travelling in at Carlisle Circus in north Belfast early yesterday and arrested him. Kelly was pictured at a riot last month following Glasgow Celtic’s defeat at Motherwell and the loss of the Scottish Premier League to rivals Rangers.

The 33-year-old IRA man, whose bomb killed nine Protestants as well as his fellow bomber Sean ‘Bootsy’ Begley, was caught on film leading a nationalist mob attacking loyalist homes at Twaddel Avenue, a sectarian interface in north Belfast, just minutes after the match ended. Unionist politicians demanded that that Kelly be put back into jail.

He had been out on licence since July 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, which granted a de facto amnesty for all jailed loyalist and republicans.

The Independent Sentence Review Commissioners will consider now Kelly’s case and decide whether to revoke his licence.

• Sinn Fein has reinstated five of the 12 party members who were suspended after the murder of Robert McCartney in January because they followed Adams’s instructions to give statements to Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan.

A sixth person gave a statement to Mrs O’Loan but the party will decide his fate ‘in due course’, a spokesman said. Four others resigned and two were expelled for not obeying the Sinn Fein leader.

BBC

Sinn Fein lifts five suspensions

Robert McCartney was stabbed outside a Belfast bar on 30 January

Sinn Fein has reinstated five of the 12 party members it suspended following the murder of Robert McCartney.

The party said the 12 had been in or near Maginnis’ bar, Belfast, when Mr McCartney was attacked on 30 January.

Four had since resigned, two been expelled, and a decision on the only member still suspended would be made in due course, a spokesperson said.

Two men were charged in connection with Mr McCartney’s death and remanded in custody earlier this month.

Sinn Fein said it had investigated whether those suspended members had followed party president Gerry Adams’ call for party members to give witness statements.

‘Made statements’

The two expelled members had refused to follow his instructions.

“The remaining six have all made statements to the Police Ombudsman and are continuing to co-operate with her office,” a spokesperson said.

“Five of these have had their suspensions lifted, with immediate effect, as they have complied with Sinn Fein’s direction on this matter.

“A decision on the sixth person will be made in due course.

“Sinn Fein will continue to do all that we can to help the McCartney family.”

Mr McCartney’s sisters and partner have frequently met senior politicians in their campaign for justice over the killing.

They met US President George Bush at the White House in Washington in March and have also met with US special envoy to Northern Ireland, Mitchell Reiss and the Irish Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern.