SAOIRSE32

Derry Journal
19 August 2008

The families of four Derry men held under anti-terrorist legislation in the Republic have accused local Sinn Fein activists of removing graffiti in support of the men.

The families of Gary Donnelly, Michael Gallagher, Martin O’Neill and Paddy McDaid have also accused the republican leadership of ‘gross hypocrisy”, claiming the graffiti was painted over ahead of the national hunger strike commemoration march in Derry on Sunday.

The ‘Journal’ was contacted by several residents of Creggan, Bishop Street and the Bogside who insisted they had witnessed Sinn Fein activists removing the slogans on the march route 30 minutes prior to the commemoration.

A sister of Gary Donnelly, who has spent the last five months on remand in Dublin awaiting trial, challenged Sinn Fein to explain why the graffiti was removed.

“What gives these people the right to decide which graffiti can stay or go. Why did they not want people to see it?” Ms. Donnelly asked.

“It appears Sinn Fein wants our family silenced and they are using any tactic they can to get us to go away.”

A relatives of Michael Gallagher, another of those in jail, said: “It’s as if we are fighting the occupation and the Sinn Fein leadership at the same time.

“They marched on Sunday with their anti-internment and ‘the struggle goes on’ banners but yet they actively removed slogans calling for the support of jailed republicans.

“These slogans are as valid as the anti-internement graffiti of 30 years ago - they are the struggle continued.”

A spokesperson for the 32 County Sovereignty Committee said: “Sinn Fein brought this march to Derry in order to hit our support base which they know is growing. They are trying to curtail this support by any means necessary and this is further evidence of that.”

However, a spokesperson for Sinn Fein flatly rejected the claims: “Our elected representatives are currently fighting the legislation these four men are held under and we oppose internment in all its forms. However, on Sunday, Sinn Fein activists had more to do organising and running a very successful commemoration than to be thinking of graffiti.”

Derry Journal
19 August 2008

Sinn Fein has defended a decision to display a replica machine gun during the annual hunger strike commemoration in Derry.

Thousands of republicans were in Derry on Sunday to commemorate the ten hunger strikers who died in Long Kesh prison in 1981.

However, the organisers have come under fire from unionists after a man dressed in military uniform wielded a machine gun as part of an historical re-enactment during the parade.

DUP Junior Minister Jeffrey Donaldson said: “I think it is wholly inappropriate that people should display any kind of weaponry, whether it is replica or not.

“Symbolism like this should not be used, particularly from our party’s perspective.”

A spokesman for Sinn Fein said the replica firearm was no more than a prop for the “historical re-enactment” of the 1957 Brookborough Raid, one in a series of attacks mounted by the IRA in the early phase of the Border Campaign of 1956-62. He said it was one of two replica guns used in the re-enactment.

The spokesman added: “Jeffrey Donaldson should be more concerned about removing real weapons from unionist paramilitaries rather than criticising an historical commemoration committee for using replica weapons.

“His comments are in stark contrast to his reaction when more than 100 armed loyalist paramilitaries attacked nationalists during a bonfire in Coleraine on August 9.”

IAIS
08/19/08

The Continuity IRA has admitted it carried out the rocket attack on a police patrol in County Fermanagh at the weekend.

A caller using a recognised codeword said the dissident paramilitary group launched the mortar at three police officers in Lisnaskea on Saturday night.

Yesterday police revealed that Semtex had been used for the first time by dissidents in the attack.

The three officers were attacked while on patrol in Lisnaskea`s Lower Main Street.

The deputy Chief Constable, Paul Leighton, said it was the first time Dissidents have used the substance in an attack.

‘It’s significant in that there was Semtex in that explosive charge. It didn’t go off, but there was Semtex in it,’ he said.

None of the officers was injured, but two were treated for shock.

Britain’s Northern Ireland Security Minister Paul Goggins claims the attack was carried out by “criminals” trying to return Northern Ireland to its violent past.

He has vowed those responsible will not succeed because the North has moved on.

Speaking at the scene, local Ulster Unionist MLA Tom Elliot demanded urgent action to curb the growing number of attacks, including a recall of the British army if needed.

BBC
18 August 2008

Police officers and republicans have launched separate compensation claims over the theft of security files from Castlereagh police station in 2002.

More than 100 officers are claiming nervous shock and financial loss over being forced to move house.

About 50 republicans whose details were on the documents are also seeking damages.

The case was adjourned at the High Court on Monday to allow discussions about the cases.

The files were stolen from a Special Branch office during the break-in on St Patrick’s Day, 2002.

Three men walked in to what was supposed to be a highly secure room packed full of sensitive security information, tied up a police officer and stole dozens of files.

NIALL DUMIGAN in Belfast
Irish Times
19 August 2008

ONE OF the North’s best-known priests is to leave his north Belfast parish in Ardoyne next month for Paris.

Fr Aidan Troy, who gained worldwide recognition in 2001 for his role in the Holy Cross primary school dispute, will be taking up a new post at an English-speaking parish in the centre of the French capital.

Fr Aidan Troy came to prominence in Ardoyne during the Holy Cross School dispute in 2001 when, under British army and police protection, he escorted children and parents to the school after loyalists picketed it.

Fr Troy, a native of Bray, Co Wicklow, and a member of the Passionist Order, spent seven years at Holy Cross parish, joining as a rector in 2001. Upon his arrival he was immediately confronted with escalating community tensions between the divided loyalist and nationalist communities.

This unrest culminated with a long-running loyalist picket near Holy Cross primary school, making headlines worldwide.

Fr Troy was also an important community leader in the Ardoyne area and in 2006 intervened in the dispute between the Orange Order and nationalist residents to help a number of contentious parades pass off without incident.

In 2004 he intervened following a spate of teenage suicides in north Belfast by helping to set up a confidential counselling service for troubled young people.

He also called for direct dialogue with paramilitary groups operating in the area, stating he would go “anywhere, anytime” to help resolve the issue.

Speaking of his departure, he said that he was sad to be leaving Ardoyne and that he would “miss the place enormously”.

“I’m really heartbroken, but in my way of life you are moved on after a certain number of years and my superior and his advisers suggested I take this change.

“I remember when I was in Rome for seven years and I was asked to come to Belfast, I thought it was the end of my life. So when I was asked to leave here, in conscience I couldn’t say ‘oh no I won’t do that’,” he told BBC Radio Ulster.

Fr Troy also acknowledged that community relations have improved substantially since he took up his post, saying: “We are going out on a quieter summer and I know the amount of hard work which went into that.

“I stood beside people from every side of the divide working towards that.”

By Michael McHugh
Scotsman
19 August 2008

A SPECIAL Branch agent was involved in the shooting of a man by republicans outside a school in Northern Ireland, an inquest heard yesterday.

The death of Kevin McAlorum, 31, near Belfast in June 2004 could have been avoided, his family claimed. The Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) was blamed after the father of two was ambushed in his car outside Oakwood Integrated Primary School in

Derriaghy, Co Antrim. A lawyer, Sean Patterson, told the adjourned hearing in Belfast that the victim’s brother, Brian McGuinness, had raised serious concerns with him.

“An intelligence report held by the police shows that this matter was avoidable, and it is his understanding that this would show the involvement of an informer he believes to be protected or known by Special Branch,” he said.

The former investigating officer, Detective Superintendent Roy McComb, of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, denied any knowledge of the intelligence dossier.

Mr McAlorum, a construction worker from Lisburn, suffered at least five bullet wounds after his car was rammed by a white van as it left the school, having dropped off his children.

The van driver sprayed the windscreen with shots as onlookers dived for cover.

The hearing was adjourned to allow the matter to be further investigated.

Liam Clarke and John Mooney
Sunday Times
August 10, 2008

The PSNI’s most senior analyst says it will be years before the IRA ‘withers’ through natural wastage.

The IRA army council still remains intact and is unlikely formally to disband in the foreseeable future, according to the PSNI’s most senior intelligence analyst.

The politically sensitive assessment from assistant chief constable Peter Sheridan comes as the British and Irish governments ask the Independent Monitoring Commission to report on the existence of the army council by September 1 and the DUP demands its dissolution.

Sheridan says the council is not replacing those who die or resign, but predicts it will be years before it “withers” through natural wastage.

Last night a senior source in garda intelligence went further, saying the IRA had recruited in recent years and still held arms despite decommissioning. He believed it was maintained in “shadow form”, was encouraging members to train in foreign armies and was capable of attacks.

“It has reduced in size but it is there,” the source said. “The organisation is dedicated to following a political path but it will not disband to the point where it could not carry out an operation if it needed to.”

His words echo the assessment of the IMC in February 2006 when it said the IRA retained “a range of weapons and ammunition” beyond that needed for self-protection.

Sheridan, whose crime operations department has overall responsibility for intelligence and analysis in the PSNI, believed the remnants of the IRA would be around for years to come, but stressed: “They aren’t a security threat.”

The assessment will still infuriate the DUP, which is demanding the dissolution of IRA structures before agreeing to devolution of policing and justice powers to the assembly.

“Significant progress has been made but we will not be content until every vestige of IRA structures has gone,” said Jeffrey Donaldson, the party’s security spokesman.

But Anthony McIntyre, a former IRA commander, said: “I don’t believe Ireland has seen its last IRA murder.”

Times Online
David Sharrock
19 August 2008

Semtex explosive formerly belonging to the Provisional IRA was used in a terrorist attack on police officers in Northern Ireland at the weekend, marking a dangerous escalation in the capabilities of so-called ‘dissident’ republican groups intent on reigniting the province’s long and bloody conflict.

Two police officers narrowly escaped death or serious injury on Saturday night in the border town of Lisnaskea, Co Fermanagh, according to Paul Leighton, the Deputy Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

The most alarming element of the rocket attack was the detection of Semtex – an explosive imported into Ireland in vast quantities in the mid to late 1980s by the Provisionals as a gift from Colonel Muammar Gadaffi of Libya.

The Provisional IRA was meant to have decommissioned its stockpiles of weaponry in what had proved to be the most difficult part of the peace process to accomplish, with an independent group led by the retired Canadian General John de Chastelain overseeing the operation. The decommissioning process was formally concluded in 2005.

The main loyalist terrorist groups which followed the Provisional IRA’s lead and declared their campaigns of violence over have never decommissioned their arsenals, but never possessed the same quantities or calibre of weaponry.

The admission by the police that Semtex was used confirms a long-held suspicion that the Provisionals never surrendered all their weaponry and suggests that some of its members are now actively assisting the dissidents – in groups such as the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA – or have crossed over into their ranks, taking with them resources previously controlled and held by PIRA.

Mr Leighton said the rocket attack was the latest in a series of attempts by dissident groups to kill police officers, the main objective of republican terrorists.

He said: “It is significant in the sense that there was Semtex in the explosive charge. It did not go off but there was Semtex there. Where it came from, I don’t know.

“It is similar to devices that used to be used in the province by other groups.

“But when it [the Semtex] was passed over to different groups, how it came to be in their possession, I don’t know at this point in time.”

Mr Leighton said that three officers were on patrol in Main Street, Lisnaskea, shortly after 11pm on Saturday when the attack was launched.

Two officers standing on the street and a third colleague sitting in a police vehicle nearby were targeted when republicans armed with an improvised rocket launcher jumped from a passing car and launched the device.

The officers dived for cover and only escaped with their lives because the main explosive charge in the rocket did not detonate. They were treated for minor injuries and shock.

Republican terrorists have been responsible for seven other murder attempts of police officers in the last year.

“I am not responsible for decommissioning,” added Mr Leighton. “I don’t know where the weaponry has come from. For me it looks as if it came from old stocks.”

“As far as I am aware it is the first time they have used Semtex. It does not appear to be new Semtex. So it does not raise a concern with me that they have a new supply of Semtex.”

In fact, the Real IRA, which splintered from the Provisionals over the course of the peace process, used Semtex in an attack on Hammersmith Bridge, west London, in 2000.

Dissident republican attacks are on the rise. In June, 150lb of homemade explosives was planted in a milk churn and beer keg in a landmine-style booby-trap for police officers near the village of Roslea, also in Fermanagh.

Two police officers lured to the area by a hoax phone call escaped death or serious injury because only the detonator exploded.

A Unionist politician said that the Army should return to the streets of Northern Ireland to combat the growing threat.

Fermanagh Ulster Unionist assembly member Tom Elliot said there had been repeated murder attempts.

“I’m not so sure with the reduction of police resources in the province and the removal of the Army that the PSNI have the resources at this present time to deal with this escalation, and if it’s not nipped in the bud very quickly it will get worse.

“I think if the police don’t have the resources themselves, they may need to bring the Army back in for a short period,” he said.

For some years the security assessment of republican terrorists has been high on intent but low on capability. Dissident groups are believed to have between 80 and 100 active members.

A small hardcore are these are experienced terrorists who were previously members of the Provisional IRA, while the majority are committed to the dissident cause but who lack operational experience.

Behind the active members it is estimated that there may be 250-300 others willing to lend support and some assistance.

The areas of greatest support are Londonderry, Tyrone, Fermanagh and north Armagh.

In Lurgan last year, dissidents tried to attack police officers with a new kind of mortar that was more sophisticated than those previously used by the Provisional IRA.

And in November, they shot and wounded two police officers in Londonderry and Dungannon, Co Tyrone. In May a police officer suffered serious leg injuries when a bomb containing commercial explosive exploded under his car near Castlederg, Co Tyrone.

Police in Northern Ireland no longer have the lead role in counter-terrorism, having passed it to MI5 staff based in their new Northern Ireland headquarters in Holywood, Co Down.

As was always the case, informers are the most valuable asset to counter-terrorist officers and it is thought that a number of highly-placed agents have led to successes such as the disruption of efforts to import new weapons from eastern Europe.