Dissident republican detonations up four-fold in six months

DISSIDENT republicans have detonated four times as many explosives in the last six months, compared to the previous six months.

The Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) said three times as many dissidents had been charged on either side of the border from January to October 2010 as had been charged for the whole of 2009.

In its latest report, the IMC said the various dissidents groups continued to pose a “substantial and potentially lethal threat”.

It noted that the British Government had recently raised the threat level from moderate to substantial.

The IMC said the two factions of the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA had attacked members of the security forces in the North which “could have led to the loss of life or to very serious injury”.

It said: “Over the past two-and-a-half years dissidents steadily increased the number of improvised explosive devices they deployed and the proportion of these which detonated.

“During the period under review the number deployed was roughly double that of the previous six months and the number detonated went up nearly four-fold. The material found by An Garda Síochána since the end of this period is a cause for further concern.”

This referred to two seizures of explosives last month, both belonging to one of the Real IRA factions.

On October 14, gardaí found three kilogrammes of TNT explosives, more than a dozen fully assembled detonators and an improvised mortar bomb from an underground hide outside Dunleer, Co Louth.

On October 11, gardaí uncovered a bomb component factory in Wexford and arrested 10 people.

The IMC said the dissident groups engaged in serious crime. It said two Real IRA men were arrested following an armed robbery in Dublin in June.

The IMC said that of the two Real IRA factions, Óglaigh na hÉireann was “by far the most active and dangerous”.

It said: “The high level of dissident activity would undoubtedly have led to many more deaths, injuries and destruction had it not been for the operations of the law enforcement and security agencies North and South and their ever closer cross-border co-operation.

“In the North and South combined, some three times the number of dissidents have been charged with terrorist offences, including membership, from January to October 2010 as in the whole of 2009, and the number of arrests nearly doubled.”