Garda chief targets blast attacks

THE Garda commissioner has appointed a senior officer to investigate the source behind the recent spate of hand grenade attacks in Dublin.

Noel Conroy has requested that the officer also examine the sharp rise in pipe bomb incidents in the last year.

Detective Superintendent Pádraig Kennedy, attached to Store Street Garda Station, has been tasked with the job.

There have been three grenade blasts in Dublin in the last seven weeks.

Military grenades, also known as fragmentation grenades, are far more powerful than pipe bombs and pose a significantly greater risk of serious injury or death.

“The same (type of) grenades have been used in two of the attacks, they have the same number,” said a Garda source.

“The commissioner has appointed someone to look into it and see what the story is, where the grenades came from and the source.”

Det Supt Kennedy will also examine the jump in pipe bomb attacks in recent months and try to determine the sources of them.

Gardaí believe many of the more sophisticated pipe bombs may have been manufactured by a republican explosives expert thought to be living in Co Louth.

It is speculated he made a batch and sold the bombs to criminals.

The more recent grenade attacks are linked with the INLA terrorist group, which is supposed to be under a ceasefire.

An INLA boss is thought to be behind a grenade attack in Dublin’s south inner city on June 26.

That attack is thought to be linked to an INLA extortion racket involving local drug dealers.

The number on the grenade lever found at the scene was the same number on a grenade lever found at the scene of a blast in nearby Crumlin two days later.

Gardaí suspect the same INLA unit supplied the grenade for the second attack.

Gardaí at Store Street are investigating the first grenade attack, which occurred at Summerhill in the north inner city on May 24. The lever number found at the scene was different to the other two.

Sources believe the grenades could be an “unfortunate spin-off” from peace in the North, with explosives bosses eager to offload military supplies, earning cash in the process.

There have been a number of pipe bomb attacks, or finds, in Dublin in recent months. There were also finds in Tipperary which are thought to be linked with Limerick gangs that have connections both with paramilitary groups and Dublin gangs.