Key report on paramilitarism comes under scrutiny

Unionists in the North will today scrutinise a report on paramilitary activity to see whether the IRA is honouring its pledge to wind down its operations.

The Independent Monitoring Commission, the ceasefire watchdog, will publish its 12th report focusing on loyalist and republican terror groups.

The latest report by the four-member body is seen as being critical to talks involving the North's parties next week in Scotland aimed at restoring power-sharing at Stormont.

With the North's politicians facing a November 24 deadline to revive devolved government, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and British prime minister Tony Blair will hope that today’s report provides positive mood music in the run up to talks next week in St Andrews in Scotland.

Since becoming largest party in the North in November 2003, Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists have refused to form a power-sharing government featuring Sinn Féin because they do not believe the IRA has totally severed involvement in paramilitary and criminal activity.

Last year the IRA declared an end to their armed campaign and also completed their disarmament programme.

Senior DUP figures will look closely at today’s report to see how far they have gone down the road of ending all criminal and paramilitary activity.

However they will also be examining what the report has to say about the murder in April of former Sinn Féin head of administration Denis Donaldson, who was unmasked as a British spy in December.

Unionists believe Mr Donaldson, a former comrade and close friend of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, was killed by members of the IRA but will want to know whether the IMC believes the leadership of the organisation sanctioned it.

There will also be considerable interest in what the commission has to say about the changes taking place within loyalism.

The Ulster Volunteer Force is believed to have undergone an internal consultation on its future but is awaiting the outcome of the current talks process before it declares what future direction it may take.

The largest loyalist paramilitary organisation, the Ulster Defence Association, has also signalled it is looking at its future in a post-conflict situation.

On Monday, it was confirmed that the South East Antrim brigade had broken away from the organisation and embarked on its own initiative of post-conflict transformation – although this was greeted with scepticism in some quarters.

The IMC report will also focus on the activities of the Loyalist Volunteer Force and hardline dissident republican groups such as the Real IRA which carried out the 1998 Omagh bombing.

The IMC consists of Richard Kerr, a former deputy director of the CIA in the US; John Grieve, an ex-anti terrorist chief at the Metropolitan Police; retired Irish civil servant Joe Brosnan; and Lord Alderdice, a former leader of the cross community Alliance Party and former speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The report will be published as the Taoiseach arrives in the North to attend an economic conference.