McGuinness urges unity against dissident groups

DISSIDENT groups attacking the peace process are a threat to the public and must be faced down by politicians, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness has said.

His comments came a day after his party president Gerry Adams warned people against offering any shelter to violent factions.

Mr McGuinness said the breakaway groups faced united opposition from political parties and he urged communities to “remain steady” against the threat.

The Stormont Deputy First Minister spoke out as detectives questioned three men over the murder of Catholic police officer Ronan Kerr, who was killed outside his home in Omagh.

A 33-year-old man was detained in the Co Tyrone town on Friday over the booby trap bomb attack that killed the 25-year-old on 2 April.

On Friday, police were also given five more days to question a 26-year-old man arrested in Scotland on Wednesday and re-arrested on Thursday, plus a 40-year-old man arrested near Omagh on Thursday.

Dissident republicans opposed to the peace process were blamed for the attack, and the same extremists are believed to be behind a 500lb van bomb police discovered near the border town of Newry on Thursday.

There are fears the abandoned device was intended for a town centre and could have caused loss of life on the scale of the 1998 Omagh massacre.

Mr McGuinness said of the groups: “Over the course of recent years it appears that they do have a limited capability, but you can’t rule out anything.

“I think the greatest danger from these groups is to the local community.

“If you look at the people that have been killed by these groups they are mostly from the nationalist/republican community.”

He told the BBC: “I think what we have to do is be very steady in ourapproach. Peter Robinson and I and other colleagues within the Executive aretotally and absolutely united.”

In a direct appeal to the small support base for the dissidents, Mr Adamswarned against sheltering what he described as anti-peace factions.