Real IRA leader's grand plan for a new powerful republican movement fails

REAL IRA leader Michael McKevitt desperately wanted to create a new powerful republican movement by forging closer links with the other dissident republican organisation still bent on pursuing the "war."

Yet it was only after his arrest that they began co-operating on a regular basis.

McKevitt's plan foundered on the fact that the leading strategist and most influential member of the Continuity IRA personally disliked the Dundalk man. "When you had McKevitt in charge, there was a big difference. He and the CIRA never got on. Now the interaction between the two groups is becoming more and more prominent every day," said one garda source.

Two months ago, in Iniskeen, Co Monaghan, the makings of a bomb potentially twice the size of the one left in Omagh was discovered. A number of people have been arrested and charged with various offences, including membership of the CIRA.

But this is an area where the Real IRA are strongest, along the Border, and it is thought the two groups are so close to be almost indistinguishable. The remnants of McKevitt's organisation are, however, deeply involved in criminal activity and, it's claimed, more interested in lining their own pockets than contributing to "the cause." This was the reason, according to McKevitt and the majority of other jailed members of his organisation, for a falling-out between those inside and outside Portlaoise.

The 53-year-old father-of-five effectively ruled the organisation was being disbanded. No, it isn't, replied those on the outside. But gardaí who have tracked the career of McKevitt are sceptical. "The problem we have is that if you go back to Omagh, McKevitt called a tactical ceasefire, so any division at the moment could be presumed to be tactical for the purpose of negotiating a deal with the Government," said one senior member.

"At the end of the day, no one likes to do time. Two, three, four years, they can suffer the consequences. Fifteen to 20 years is very, very difficult. And then you realise your former comrades (the Provisionals ) have taken a different course of action and are living the result of that strategy and you are languishing in prison.

"You begin to doubt and think of any move to put yourself in a favourable position to get out."

There is, however, no doubt McKevitt and the remnants of his organisation clashed over strategy and that the Dundalk man told members to cut links with purely criminal elements. It appears they ignored him and also began to move close to the CIRA.

The threat from dissidents has significantly decreased in recent years, intelligence sources maintain. But there's still a threat. "One bomb, like Omagh, and you're right back to the start," said one.

While the arrest of nine suspected dissidents at a training camp in Waterford could be regarded as a coup, it also suggests that the groups retain the power to recruit. The intelligence services know many of the main members of the

RIRA are in jail, but one cautioned that there are "still a good few of them doddling around the place."

And it only takes a few with bomb-making expertise to cause havoc. In addition, they continue to recruit Provisionals.

Crucially, however, six years after the birth of McKevitt's organisation, the Provos remain largely in control in south Armagh. That in itself illustrates how McKevitt's grand plan for a new republican movement has failed.