Real IRA vows to continue violence
Hardliners on the outside, mostly from the North, issued a statement warning people to stay away from British army barracks and police
stations.
The caller to a newspaper in Derry said: "We warn all civilians to stay away from military installations and Crown Force personnel. "A number of recent attacks have had to be aborted due to the presence of civilians in the vicinity. Anyone entering military installations does so at their own risk."
No reference was made to a lengthy statement, issued over the weekend by prisoners in Portlaoise prison, that called for the "Army Council" to stand down.
The prisoners with the exception of three claimed the present leadership's "financial motivations far outweigh their political commitment." The Real IRA, heavily involved in smuggling cigarettes, is estimated to amass nearly 5m a year.
Nearly 40 prisoners are being held in Portlaoise and a further 30 are in jail in the North. Three are serving sentences in England.
In the statement, the organisation claimed responsibility for a coffee-jar bomb attack on Castlederg Police
Station in Tyrone. They have also been blamed for a series of hoax bomb alerts in the centre of Belfast and at Belfast International Airport.
Michael Gallagher, whose son Aidan was one of 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, killed in the group's bomb attack on Omagh in August 1998, said the statement was a clear message that the Real IRA are going to continue killing innocent people.
"The only people who have decided to pursue a peaceful path are those who are locked up in jail and are powerless to do anything about it,"
Mr Gallagher said.
It looks as if it is business as usual for the Real IRA even though there is obviously an internal split, Mr Gallagher added.
The statement was phoned with a recognised code word to the Derry Journal newspaper, where civilian workman David Caldwell was killed in a Real IRA bomb attack on a Territorial Army base in August.
