De Chastelain calls on loyalists to disarm

The IRA's decommissioned arms included ammunition, rifles, machine guns, mortars, missiles, handguns, explosives and explosive substances, General John de Chastelain has said.

The general added that the IRA's disarmament is "not an end to the mandate" of the international decommissioning body and he called on loyalist paramilitaries to give up their weapons.

He also called on political representatives to use their influence to progress decommissioning by these groups.

Unionists have dismissed previous acts of IRA decommissioning as meaningless due to the decommissioning body's failure to reveal details of what exactly was decommissioned.

For that reason, the IRA agreed to allow two Catholic and Protestant churchmen to witness its final act of disarmament.

Those independent witnesses - Catholic priest Alex Reid and former Methodist president Harold Good - said today that they could verify the truth of General de Chastelain's statement and were "utterly certain" about its veracity.

They said they had spent several days watching the general and his colleagues going about the destruction of "huge amounts" of weaponry and explosives.

They said it was clear "beyond any shadow of doubt" that "the arms of the IRA have now been decommissioned".