Ten men held after raid on ‘terrorist camp’

TEN men were being detained by gardaí last night after the discovery of a suspected terrorist training camp in Co Tipperary.

Gardaí said the men are believed to be aligned to the dissident republican organisation, the Continuity IRA.

An eleventh person, a 10-year-old boy believed to be a relation of one of the arrested men, was also found at the training camp.

The scene, a remote and heavily-forested area at Knocknaree outside the village of Ballymacarbery, was sealed off last night pending the completion of a technical examination.

Garda experts are continuing to comb the woods today and are expected to conduct further searches in other locations around the Waterford-Tipperary border.

A number of firearms, believed to be two rifles and two shotguns and an undisclosed quantity of ammunition, were seized.

Other paramilitary paraphernalia was also recovered, gardaí said.

The men are aged in their late teens to late 40s.

They are from the Waterford city, Dungarvan, Limerick and Wexford areas.

They were being held last night at garda stations across the south-east in Cahir, Clonmel and Tramore.

Officers from the Harcourt Street-based Special Detective Unit in Dublin and the National Surveillance Unit, backed up by gardaí from Clonmel and Waterford swooped on the terror suspects in early afternoon.

According to gardaí, the successful operation followed months of painstaking planning and undercover work.

Gardaí said there was no struggle at the scene and no firearms had been discharged.

The forest is part of the Comeragh Mountain range on the Dungarvan to Clonmel road.

The men, who are all being held under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, can be held for up to 72 hours before being either charged or released.