Suspected Real IRA supporters 'mounting support network'

French police today arrested five people suspected of links to the Real IRA and uncovered a cache of weapons.

Police took one suspect into custody in the ferry port city of Dieppe, Normandy, where they found two submachine guns, an automatic pistol and two silencers.

Four others were detained in the Cotes d’Armor region in Brittany.

Police said the five were suspected of a role in mounting a support network for the IRA dissidents.

The suspects, whose names were not released, were identified as Bretons, natives of Brittany. The region is home to a small Breton separatist movement.

French investigators opened an inquiry into the case in August after receiving a tip from British intelligence agents, police said.

Anti-terrorism police, intelligence agents and counterintelligence services took part in the operation.

The suspects were being transferred to Paris. Under France’s anti-terrorism law, they can be held for a maximum of 96 hours without being placed under investigation.

The Real IRA admitted it was behind the car bomb that killed 29 people and wounded more than 300 in Omagh on August 15, 1998.

The faction and another dissident group, the Continuity IRA, continue to mount sporadic attacks in Northern Ireland.