Belfast robbery - Terrorist link would derail power share

WHILE there is still no official confirmation that yesterday’s €30 million bank robbery in Belfast was a paramilitary operation, all the indications suggest it may have been.

It is unclear whether the IRA, in one or other of its guises, or loyalist criminals were behind the audacious heist. What is clear, however, is that it had the precision and professionalism of a military operation.

It required discipline and a high degree of organisation to carry off the elaborate plan, which involved taking bank managers and their families hostage before the cash centre vaults were rifled.