Provo calendar images ‘depict terror’

UNIONISTS have accused the IRA of continuing to promote terrorism, at a time when its political representatives claim the provisionals are ready to decommission, after pictures in a republic calendar show masked gunmen in recent training exercises.

The photographs are on sale in the 2005 Republic Resistance Calendar in Sinn Féin’s headquarters in Belfast. The premises on the Falls Road houses the offices of Gerry Adams and other party leaders, who appeared close to agreeing a historic power-sharing deal with Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) earlier this month.

One of the main stumbling blocks which has pushed hopes of a breakthrough back into the New Year was the DUP’s insistence that any decommissioning of IRA weapons stockpiles should be photographed and the pictures published, a condition which was unacceptable to the Republican leadership.