Northern Ireland Troubles, Is the "War" back on?

REAL I.R.A Attack kills British soldiers.





It has been reported that the Real IRA has claimed responsibility for last night's attack in which two British soldiers were shot dead in Co Antrim.

It is understood the dissident republican group made a phone call to a journalist in the Sunday Tribune newspaper and used a recognised codename.

The two soldiers were shot dead and four other people seriously injured during the attack on a British Army base in Antrim town.
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The attack began shortly before 10pm as pizzas from a local business were being delivered.

During two long bursts of gunfire, the two soldiers in their 20s were shot dead and four people, including two civilians, were seriously injured.

The PSNI has confirmed that two of the men injured were the employees of a pizza delivery company.

One man has been named locally as 19-year-old Anthony Watson. His condition has been described as serious. The condition of the second man, a 32-year-old Polish national is said to be critical.

The other two injured men were British soldiers at the base.

The gunmen made off as a fleet of ambulances rushed to the scene.

Chief Superintendent Derek Williamson said: 'I have no doubt in my mind this was an attempt at mass murder.

'Last night two very young men lost their lives in a very callous and a very ruthless attack by terrorists who have no thought and had no thought last night for anyone who was in the vicinity.

'It's clear from what we know at this stage that the terrorists not only wanted to kill soldiers who were there last night, but also tried to kill those two pizza delivery men.Massereene

'The gunmen, having fired an initial volley of shots, moved forward when people were on the ground and fired additional shots at those people on the ground.'

Police are understood to be examining a car found abandoned in the nearby town of Randalstown. Officers are trying to establish whether the vehicle was used in the shooting.

The Irish and British governments have affirmed their commitment that the will of the people will be upheld in Northern Ireland, following an attack in which two British army soldiers were shot dead last night.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen condemned the attack and conveyed by phone a message of sympathy over the deaths to the British Prime Minister.

Gordon Brown described the attack as 'evil' and said 'no murderer' would derail the peace process.

PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde has said there are no plans to increase the number of special forces in Northern Ireland.

He said: 'We have all the resources we need to do it and find the people responsible for this, who not only deliberately and determinedly drove an attack home on the British military establishment, but who were also equally determined to try and kill ordinary members of the community at the same time. People should reflect on that.'

Meanwhile, hundreds of people walked silently to the edge of the police cordon earlier today and stood together amid the floral tributes.

Local priest Father Tony Devlin said 'We don't want to go back to this. Nobody wants to go back to this in any way at all. We don't want those years of the past, they were horrible years for everyone'.

People from different churches hugged one another and some wept openly as the short impromptu service came to an end.

Massereene Barracks is the Northern Ireland headquarters of the British Army's engineering division.

Since the Good Friday Agreement, the number of soldiers there has been reduced and the base is due to be closed next year.

Dissident republican groups carried out gun attacks on police officers in Derry and Dungannon last year and they have repeatedly said they want to kill PSNI members.

It is 12 years since Lance Bombadier Stephen Restorick was shot in the back while manning a British Army patrol in Beesbrook, Co Armagh.

Until last night, he was the last British soldier killed in Northern Ireland.

Political condemnation

There has been widespread condemnation of the killings.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown (below) insisted that the killings would not derail the peace process.Gordon Brown

'I can assure you that we will bring these people to justice,' Mr Brown vowed in his first comments on the shootings.

'No murderer will be able to derail a peace process that has the support of the vast majority of the people of Northern Ireland and we will step up our efforts to make the peace process one that lasts and endures.'

The Taoiseach Brian Cowen said violence had been utterly rejected by the people of this island and a tiny evil group could not undermine the will of the people to live in peace together.

A spokesperson for the US State Department called on all parties in the North to unequivocally reject what he called such senseless acts of violence, whose intention was to destroy the peace that so many had worked hard to achieve.

The Northern Secretary Shaun Woodward described the shooting as an 'act of criminal barbarism'.

Northern Ireland's First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness were due to travel tomorrow to the US but have postponed their visit.

The DUP leader said the shootings were a 'terrible reminder of the events of the past'.

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams (below) said: 'Last night's attack was an attack on the peace process. It was wrong and counter-productive.

Gerry Adams'Those responsible have no support, no strategy to achieve a United Ireland. Their intention is to bring British soldiers back onto the streets. They want to destroy the progress of recent times and to plunge Ireland back into conflict.'

Speaking at the scene, the local MP William McCrea of the DUP expressed support for Chief Constable Orde in tackling the heightened threat from dissident republicans.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin said the attack will not be allowed to undermine power-sharing and peace in Northern Ireland.

'I condemn absolutely this murderous attack,' he said.

He added: 'The targets of this attack are the Irish people, north and south.

'This is an attempt to undermine the remarkable progress of recent years.

'The perpetrators of this assault have no mandate. They will not be allowed to succeed. They must be brought to justice.'

President Mary McAleese has expressed her shock and dismay at last night's attack.

The President condemned the violence in the strongest terms and said that her thoughts and prayers were with the families of those who had been killed and with the injured.

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern has confirmed that the Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy has been in touch with the PSNI Chief Constable.

They are due to meet in the coming days along with senior officials on both sides.

Opposition leaders have also condemned and offered their condolences to the families of those killed and injured.

Fine Gael's Enda Kenny and Labour's Eamon Gilmore called for the public to co-operate with the PSNI and gardaí to bring those responsible to justice.

The Massereene attack comes after repeated warnings about the capacity and intentions of dissident groups, by Sir Hugh Orde. It was disclosed last week that the dissident threat level had been officially raised to "severe" -- the second highest alert in the North.

This came in the wake of the recent attempted car bombing of a British Army barracks at Ballykinlar in Co Down and an attack on an Orange Hall in Fermanagh. Anti-terrorist officers say there has been some crossover of personnel between the Real IRA and Continuity IRA recently. But they dismissed reports that the dissidents had set up a co-ordinated, cohesive command structure.

Since the Omagh bombing, the Real IRA has split up into several factions. A row in Portlaoise jail between the group's so-called chief of staff, Michael McKevitt, and his second in command, Liam Campbell, resulted in a deep division and the formation of separate outfits.

A third faction, led by a hardliner based in Derry, has been responsible for a series of terrorists attacks, including attempts to murder members of the PSNI, in the past 18 months.

The killing of 2 British soldiers has stunned Irish American supporters of the peace process.
the peace process in the United States.

Most major US papers including the Washington Post, New York Times, and LA Times carried reports about Saturday's killings both in their print and on-line editions. The attack was also covered by major electronic media outlets as well.

Congressman Peter King, a Republican from New York who has been a longtime supporter of Sinn Fein and the peace process, issued a statement saying: “I strongly condemn this cowardly and deadly attack.

“It is important that these murderers be brought to justice as quickly as possible.”

In a statement issued from Washington, Irish National Caucus president Sean McManus branded the killings a “terrible development”.

“I was so hopeful that Stephen Restorick, whose parents have shown such fortitude and dignity, would have been the last British soldier to be killed on Irish soil,” said Fermanagh-born Fr McManus

“It is so wrong and so crazy to have that happen now, as if there were no peace process.

“There is certainly no support among Irish-Americans for this terrible development.”

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph from his hometown of Philadelphia, Ancient Order of Hibernians president Seamus Boyle echoed Fr McManus’s sentiments.

“There would be no support among the Ancient Order of Hibernians for any of these splinter groups,” he said.

“This attack happens at a time when the peace process has been in place for about 10 years now, and people were just starting to get used to it.”

Mr Boyle said the AoH is “always concerned about the peace process because it is so fragile”, but he added that he believed dissidents will not succeed in derailing it.

Special Forces deployment may have sparked assault on Barracks.



The decision of the Northern Ireland police chief, Sir Hugh Orde, to deploy undercover British special forces against dissident republicans highlighted the controversial and emotive history of the troops during the Troubles.

Nationalists have repeatedly accused the SAS of conducting a dirty war, including assassinations, during the years of violence. Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister and former IRA leader, described the move as "stupid and dangerous".

One theory is that the announcement on Friday that the Armed Forces Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR) was being drafted back into Northern Ireland to keep watch on suspected dissident republican terrorists may have accelerated the timing of the attack on the army base.

Although the shooting would have required considerable planning, including regular monitoring of visitors in and out of the Massereene Barracks in Antrim, the confirmation by Hugh Orde, the PSNI chief constable, of the arrival of the SRR appears too coincidental to be dismissed.

The unit deployed, the Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR), was formed four years ago with the specific aim of targeting international terrorism. However, the core membership is drawn from 1st Battalion, The Parachute Regiment and Signals Regiment and many would have seen previous service in Ulster. Much of the covert-intelligence gathering skills of the SRR have also been honed in the province.

The 400-strong group was the first regiment-sized special forces unit to be formed for nearly 50 years. They have their headquarters, like the SAS, in Hereford and fall under the command of the Director of Special Forces.

Members of the SRR were put on the ground in Northern Ireland after a car bomb weighing 300lb was found at Castlewellan in County Down. Their main function, according to defence sources, was to carry out deep cover surveillance, including electronic eavesdropping, rather than take part in immediate offensive operations. "It wasn't a question of them kicking down doors and shooting people in the middle of the night" insisted a senior officer "but providing some much needed intelligence for the police."

The SRR had served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Members were on duty in Basra taking part in an operation to rescue special forces soldiers seized by Shia militiamen in September 2005. They have also been involved in the freeing of hostage Norman Kember in March 2006 and the so far unsuccessful attempts to free five Britons who were seized from the Finance Ministry in Baghdad in 2007.

In Afghanistan, troops from the SRR deployed to Helmand and Kandahar and are said to have played a vital role in a series of operations, a so-called decapitation campaign, in which Taliban leaders were killed. The unit's main role on those occasions was to gather information on the movement of the targets.

The SRR was also reported to have been involved in the operation which led to the killing of innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes after the 7/7 bombings in London. Members were said to be providing "technical support" for Scotland Yard anti-terrorist officers.

Policeman murdered in new dissident outrage
Officers ambushed beside school

By Shane Phelan and David McKittrick in Belfast
Tuesday March 10 2009

A POLICEMAN was murdered in an ambush in the North last night, sparking fears of a major escalation of violence after the killing of two soldiers at an army barracks on Saturday.

The attack happened in Craigavon's Lismore Manor district, a predominantly Catholic area.

The incident is understood to have happened near Lismore High School at Brownlow.

Police came under attack while investigating suspicious activity near the school.

Dolores Kelly, an SDLP member of the North's Policing Board, said: "We are tonight staring into the abyss and I would appeal to people to pull back.

"I certainly would want to offer my sympathies and condolences to the family of the officer who has been murdered tonight and to the wider police family," added Ms Kelly, who is a member of the Stormont Assembly.

No group is claiming responsibility for the latest shooting.

Local independent councillor Kieran Corr said traffic checkpoints were set up around the Lismore area immediately after the shooting.

He said his son, who had been in a local youth club nearby, had heard a number of gunshots.

Parts of the area are known to have strong Real IRA support, said Ulster Unionist Party councillor Ronnie Harkness.

"There has been a lot of burning of vehicles and nonsense like that but that is not indicative of the local people. It is a very small number," he said.

The latest shooting came after it was revealed that the gunmen who killed the two British soldiers sprayed the army barracks with at least 60 bullets.

Police said they were "making progress" in the massive manhunt as more details emerged of the cold-blooded attack, which lasted just 30 seconds.

Investigators said the murders of British army engineers Mark Quinsey (23) and Patrick Azimkar (21) -- which were captured on CCTV -- had the hallmarks of being carried out by seasoned gunmen.

As leaders on both sides of the political divide united in condemning the atrocity, the families of the two soldiers told of their grief.

Mark's mother, Pamela, collapsed when she heard the news.

His sister, Jaime (25), who was rushing home from a backpacking trip in Thailand, said on her Facebook page: "RIP Mark, I love you so much. I haven't stopped crying, flying home now."

There was also grief at the north London home of the Azimkar family where Patrick's mother Geraldine, who is of Irish descent, and father Mehmet, a carpenter who originally came from Turkey, sought solace with relations.

Two senior Cabinet ministers are expected to travel to London tomorrow for an urgent security summit in the wake of the shootings.

Justice Minister Dermot Ahern and Foreign Affairs Minister Micheal Martin are to meet the North's security minister Paul Goggins and Northern Secretary Shaun Woodward, amid fears the peace process could be destabilised by the killings.

Details of the summit are to be finalised today, but officials said London, rather than Belfast, would be the venue for the talks.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen yesterday vowed that the republican dissidents behind the brutal murders would not succeed in their attempts to derail the peace process.

A meeting between Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy and the North's Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Orde, scheduled for later this week is also expected to be brought forward in light of the shooting at Massereene Barracks in Antrim.

Although the Garda have not been officially asked to assist in the murder hunt, there have been ongoing informal contacts on the increased dissident republican threat in recent months.

A massive manhunt is underway for the terrorists behind Saturday night's atrocity, believed to be Real IRA members operating from Belfast and Lurgan, Co Armagh.

The young British army engineers were shot dead as they went to collect a pizza delivery from the barracks' entrance.

The attack had particularly audacious features, with the killers not bothering to set fire to the getaway car which they abandoned 11 kilometres away.

They left the car, a Vauxhall Cavalier which was bought two weeks ago, intact.

During the shooting the gunmen first shot the four soldiers and two pizza delivery men, then advanced on them and fired again at the entrance of the barracks.

The condition of three of the injured is described as stable and comfortable.

The most seriously injured was a 32-year-old Polish pizza delivery man who is in a serious condition with gunshot wounds to his chest and abdomen.

British army chief Brigadier George Norton described as a "callous and clinical" attack.

Investigators hope clues can be gathered from the recovered car, as well as from CCTV footage from the barracks.

The attack had a level of planning which indicates that surveillance had almost certainly been carried out on the base, so that the gunmen were able to lie in wait for the delivery van.

No particularly notorious republican activists are known to live in its vicinity, so the search for the killers will spread to other parts of the North.

- Shane Phelan and David McKittrick in Belfast

The Continuity IRA has claimed responsibility for the murder of PSNI Constable Stephen Carroll.

In a coded message, the dissident republican group said the shooting in Craigavon was carried out by its north Armagh battalion.

It said: 'As long as there is British involvement in Ireland, these attacks will continue.'

2 Arrested over killing of psni officer.




PSNI detectives investigating the murder of Constable Stephen Carroll in Co Armagh have arrested two men.

The men, aged 17 and 37, were arrested in the Craigavon area of Co Armagh.

The older man was detained at around 5pm.
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Both men are being questioned by PSNI detectives in the Serious Crime Suite at Antrim police station.

The arrests follow a day of police activity in the area around the scene of the killing.

Earlier, the Continuity IRA claimed responsibility for the murder.

In a coded message, the dissident republican group said the shooting in Craigavon was carried out by its north Armagh battalion.

It said: 'As long as there is British involvement in Ireland, these attacks will continue.'

There has been widespread condemnation of the killing.

At around 9.45pm last night, police responded to a request for assistance from a member of the public at Lismore Manor in the town.

Two police vehicles arrived in the area. As officers got out of one of the vehicles, gunshots were fired at them.

48-year-old Constable Carroll (right) was struck by gunfire and subsequently died from his wounds.

The victim, who was married with children and lived in the Banbridge area of Co Down, had more than 20 years' experience and was well known in the area.

He is the first policeman to be murdered in Northern Ireland since 1997 and his death comes two days after the Real IRA killed two British soldiers in Antrim.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen said it was with deep sadness and disgust that he learned of what he called the despicable murder of a policeman as he was doing his duty in serving the community.

Mr Cowen said Constable Carroll was serving all the people of Ireland and protecting the peace people now treasure.

He said the PSNI has the full support of all the Irish people in tracking down those responsible, whom he called evil people.

Mr Cowen confirmed the Justice and Foreign Affairs ministers are to meet with the Northern Ireland Secretary on the issue tonight.

Hugh OrdePSNI Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde (left) said the killing would not affect how the PSNI responded to incidents and it would continue to deliver its service to the community.

He said: 'We are used to being attacked, but we will not step back. It is a sad day for the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

'Today a police officer with his colleagues responding to a call for help from a vulnerable person in the community was gunned down.

'This will not put off me or my officers delivering the service we do to the communities we are paid to protect. That will continue unrelenting, as it has done in the threat that we have been facing for nine to 12 months.

'We will continue to deliver that service regardless of the threat but mindful of it.'

The Chief Constable spoke with Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy this morning, with Commissioner Murphy promising that gardaí would continue the current levels of co-operation.

Mr Murphy added: 'The murders carried out in the last number of days in Northern Ireland represent a serious attack on the fundamentals of democracy itself.'

The Commissioner said he was due to meet the Chief Constable next Thursday, where recent events will be high on the agenda.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has condemned the killing and said: 'There will be no return to the old days.Gordon Brown

'These are murderers who are trying to distort, disrupt and destroy a political process that is working for the people or Northern Ireland. They will never be allowed to destroy or undermine the political process.'

Northern Ireland's First Minister and DUP leader Peter Robinson said he was sickened at the attempts by terrorists to destabilise the community.

He said those responsible would not be allowed to drag the community back to the past.

Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has said those responsible for the attack were traitors.

Mr Robinson and Mr McGuinness were on their way back to Northern Ireland from London, and have again deferred their planned departure for the US.

Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward said the renewed violence would not stop the peace process.

Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said dissidents were unwittingly wrecking their goal of a united Ireland.

'When Northern Ireland was de-militarised, it was a normal society. We don't want to go back,' he said.

'What paramilitaries have done for 40 years in the name of Ireland has been to militarise that part of Ireland and put whatever unity of the island further and further away.'

President Mary McAleese expressed her outrage saying those who carried out the killing and that of the two soldiers were acting in utter defiance of the clearly expressed will of the Irish people.

John O'DowdLocal Sinn Féin Assembly member John O'Dowd (left) said the shooting was wrong and would not advance the goals of republicans.

Fine Gael Leader Enda Kenny TD said: 'This murder is a despicable outrage by a tiny minority which is determined to undermine civil society.

'This miniscule group of people cannot and will not be allowed to destroy the peace that everyone in society benefits from.'

SDLP MLA and Policing Board member Dolores Kelly said the PSNI needed the support of the community to tackle those who wanted to turn back the clock.

Ulster Unionist deputy leader Danny Kennedy said people would not allow themselves to be dragged back to a darker, bloodier world.

The Police officer gunned down in a carefully plannedplanned ambush in Co Armagh last night was a married man with children, it emerged today.

The officer, who was on duty in Craigavon when the shooting occurred, has been named locally as Constable Stephen Carroll from Banbridge.

The dead policeman was an experienced officer who had been in the force for more than 20 years. Constable Carroll, believed to be in his 40s, was murdered as he responded to a call for help from a woman, described by police as a “vulnerable person”, who said her house was being attacked.

Two police vehicles went to the scene at around 9.45pm yesterday and as officers got out they were shot at. The victim was reportedly sitting in his car providing cover when he was shot in the head at close range.

The killing comes just days after the Real IRA murdered two soldiers outside Massereene Army base in Antrim and injured four others, including two pizza delivery men.

Mark Quinsey (23), from Birmingham and Patrick Azimkar (21), from London, were unarmed, off-duty and due to fly to Afghanistan in the early hours of Sunday morning with their regiment.

There has been widespread shock and revulsion at the murderous actions of the dissidents.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemned the murder and insisted there would be no return to “the old days.”

The Chief Constable said it will not put his officers off protecting the community.

The Police Federation today said it is now seeking an urgent reappraisal of all aspects of the security situation.

Federation chairman Terry Spence said the murder brings further horror to Northern Ireland.

As long as Britain remains in any part of Ireland there will be Irishmen who resist.


NEIL CARNDUFF in Belfast

REPUBLICAN SINN FEIN: THE PRESIDENT of Republican Sinn Féin, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, was last night unavailable for comment on the murder of Constable Stephen Paul Carroll.

However, the comments made by Mr Ó Brádaigh in reference to Saturday’s murder of two British soldiers in Antrim also apply to the killing of the PSNI officer, said vice-president Des Dalton.

While recognising that “everyone regretted loss of life”, Mr Ó Brádaigh said on Sunday that “the hard realities of the situation in Ireland must be faced”.

He said: “As long as the British government and British occupation troops remain in Ireland, there will be Irish people to oppose their presence here.”

Republican Sinn Féin is thought by the PSNI and the Garda to be the political wing of the Continuity IRA, the splinter group responsible for Constable Carroll’s murder. A spokesman for the party criticised Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness for their “brazen political hypocrisy” in urging republicans and nationalists to help the police with their investigations into the killings.

Joe Lynch from Ballinacurra Weston, in Limerick, the Republican Sinn Féin chairman in the southside of the city, said: “The fact is the republican movement they joined is still intact despite their best efforts at destroying it by selling out and surrendering to the British and accepting partition and British occupation.

“Adams and McGuinness have the gall to parade to the graves of men and women who died in the cause of Irish freedom while acting as agents of the British crown against true republican people.

“Not only should they stay from republican graves in future, they should also cease using the name Sinn Féin because they have disgraced it.”

Just to add my bit to this saga..

Personnely i think the murder of that Psni officer or any other police officer is disgusting,to do such a thing in the name of Ireland makes me sick to be honest.

I don't share the same opinion on those British soldiers killed,obviously i don't want anymore life lost in the name of Ireland but Britain has no right to be ruling any part of this Island so if there soldiers are killed while occupying part of this country then that's their own an the British government's fault.

The way i see events going is the splinter IRA groups wont get to sustain a prolonged campaign,they don't have the manpower or the financial backing,or the support of the community.

The R.IRA AND C.IRA between them have about 100 active members here in the South and maybe 150 in the North according to most sources,and their support base is minimal.

The only way i see them been able to bring about a scenario where they would be capable to sustain an armed campaign is if they can draw the British army into doing something stupid,as in killing an innocent Catholic etc etc,then they might get the support.

I hope for the sake of everyone on this island that these latest events are isolated events and not the beginning of something more sustained.

I do hope to see the day when Ireland becomes united,BUT THIS SHOULD BE DONE THROUGH THE BALLOD BOX AND NOT GUN.

Tommy.

Mass protest against Dissidents.

52pm UK, Wednesday March 11, 2009
Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Northern Ireland to protest against the murders of two soldiers and a policeman.

Protests against violence

Birds-eye view of part of the protests

And shortly before the demonstrations began, the Pope denounced the "abominable" killings by dissident republicans.

Speaking to pilgrims in St Peter's Square in Vatican City, Benedict XVI said the "acts of terrorism" seriously endangered the political process aimed at achieving peace and justice.

Pope Benedict XVI

The Pope in Vatican City

Police officer Stephen Carroll, 48, was shot in Craigavon, Co Armagh, on Monday night.

Soldiers Mark Quinsey, 23, and Patrick Azimkar, 21, died from bullet wounds outside the front gates of Massereene Army barracks in Antrim on Saturday night.

Send your message of peace and solidarity to the victims' families on Twitter.

Many thousands have been attending silent vigils organised by trade unions outside Belfast City Hall, Londonderry Guildhall and Newry Town Hall.

Meanwhile, Gordon Brown has vowed violent extremists will not be allowed to destroy the peace process in NI.

Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown

The Prime Minister, speaking to the Commons, said: "The peace marches... on the streets of Northern Ireland show what I saw in Northern Ireland on Monday and what we are seeing right across the country.

"The unity against violence of the people and their representatives; the defiance and the determination to stand up to the evil and criminal violence; and the unyielding resolution to say with one voice that the peace that the people of Northern Ireland are building, no murderers should ever be allowed to destroy."

Sappers Cengiz Azimkar and Mark Quinsey

Patrick Azimkar and Mark Quinsey

Meanwhile, police are continuing to question a 37-year-old man and 17-year-old youth about the murder of Constable Carroll.

They were arrested yesterday as police carried out searches on the Drumbeg estate, which overlooked the small residential cul-de-sac where officer Carroll died.

He had been answering a call from a distraught woman who had a brick thrown through her window.

Searches in the estate, which is bedecked with Continuity IRA (CIRA) graffiti, are still ongoing.

And piles of flowers for Constable Carroll are still building up at the spot where he was shot.

Police attacked by Petrol Bombers.


PATRICK LOGUE

Police investigating the murder of two British soldiers in Antrim last weekend were attacked by masked petrol bombers after they made a number of arrests and carried out searches in Lurgan, Co Armagh last night.

One officer was injured when he was hit on the arm with a brick and a number of teenagers were arrested after the trouble, which also saw disruption to train services in the area.

A police spokesman said the trouble centred on north Lurgan and advised motorists last night to avoid the area, particularly Lake Street. He said rioters used stones, bricks, petrol bombs and other missiles against police search teams.

The trouble flared after PSNI officers made three arrests in relation to the Real IRA murder at Massereene British army base last Saturday. One of those arrested is a 41-year-old prominent republican in Lurgan. Men aged 32 and 21 were also held yesterday and another man was arrested in the Antrim area last night.

Two people, a man (37) and a woman (30) were arrested in Craigavon in relation to the murder last Monday of Constable Stephen Carroll in the town by the Continuity IRA. A gun and ammunition were also seized. A total of five people are now being questioned about this killing.

Dissident republicans number around 300 and are “disrupted, infiltrated and disorganised “, PSNI chief constable Sir Hugh Orde said this morning.

Sir Hugh was speaking as a total of nine people were being questioned about the murders of two British soldiers in Antrim by the Real IRA last weekend and the murder of a policeman by the Continuity IRA in Craigavon on Monday.

"These groups are small. The Real and Continuity IRA are disrupted, infiltrated and disorganised," Sir Hugh said in a newspaper article and in a BBC interview this morning.

"We are working flat out with the security services and other specialists to disrupt and arrest them and lock them up for the rest of their lives."

Sir Hugh said dissident groups had tried at least 25 times to kill police officers over the last 18 months.

Sinn Fein,Dissident Republicans vie for Catholic support


LURGAN, Northern Ireland (AP) -- Graffiti on the Catholic side of town condemn Sinn Fein politicians as British stooges. Alongside black-stenciled images of masked gunmen, slogans proclaim allegiance to IRA dissidents who fatally shot a policeman a few miles away.

On Saturday, teenage boys here blocked roads and threw bricks and Molotov cocktails at police who arrested a local man wanted for the killing of two off-duty British soldiers.

Sinn Fein has persuaded most of Northern Ireland's Irish Catholics to accept peace through compromise. But the Irish nationalist party still struggles for the loyalty of job-hungry, lawless Catholic neighborhoods like Kilwilkie, on the wrong side of the tracks in this mostly Protestant town.

If Sinn Fein cannot win over such pockets of bitterness and alienation, the dissidents could grow in numbers and strength - and eventually mount far deadlier attacks than this month's shootings of soldiers and a policeman. Analysts say power-sharing - the central achievement of Northern Ireland's 1998 peace deal - could not survive a sustained campaign of paramilitary bloodshed.

Sinn Fein pleasantly surprised its Protestant partners in government this month by calling on its backers to help police track down and imprison the gunmen. But the move means Sinn Fein has finally put itself on a collision course with dangerous die-hards in its own working-class base - people who still inspire a potent mixture of fear and reverence.

"You wouldn't want to be seen by certain neighbors calling the police, let's leave it at that," said Marie, a Catholic mother of four pushing her two youngest children in a stroller uphill from Kilwilkie, past the railway line, to the Protestant center of Lurgan.

Like several other residents interviewed before and after Saturday's riots, Marie would talk only if her last name and other details of her identity were concealed.

"The fear is back," she said. "When the `troubles' were on, you were always afraid of what the other side might do to you up in town. Now you're much more afraid to speak your mind for fear of what your own people might do to you back home."

The fear in Kilwilkie centers on supporters of Colin Duffy, whom police and locals alike regard as the IRA godfather figure of the neighborhood. He was repeatedly charged with IRA murders and other crimes in the 1990s - including for shooting two policemen through the back of the head in what was the IRA's last fatal attack - but was never successfully prosecuted.

Duffy publicly broke away from Sinn Fein last year and joined a new group fronted by IRA veterans called Eirigi, "Rise up" in Gaelic. The group said it wasn't promoting dissident violence but understood why people might want to keep attacking security forces in a state that remains firmly British territory.

Police arrested Duffy on Saturday on suspicion of involvement in the first deadly dissident attack March 7, when a splinter group called the Real IRA opened fire on off-duty soldiers collecting pizzas from two delivery men. Two soldiers were killed and four others, including both civilians, were badly wounded.

Duffy's mostly teenage acolytes covered their faces with masks, scarves and hoods - and bombarded police for hours. Because of their heavy protective equipment, officers reported only one minor injury. Sinn Fein, which often deploys officials to calm crowds and prevent riots in Belfast, was nowhere to be seen.

The area's Sinn Fein representative in the Northern Ireland Assembly, John O'Dowd, lives in the neighboring town of Craigavon. It was there that the Continuity IRA shot to death a policeman March 9 as his unit responded to an emergency call near the hard-line Catholic Drumbeg housing project.

O'Dowd called that killing "murder," a word that Sinn Fein never used when describing the IRA's killings of nearly 300 police from 1970 to 1997.

He said he has been trying to talk sense to dissident leaders in the area for more than a year, but they rejected his overtures.

"There is no point in building a power-sharing agreement, a new society and a new policing service just for people to take shots at them and kill people who are part of that new creation," said O'Dowd, 41, who unlike the previous generation of Sinn Fein leaders never spent time in prison for IRA convictions.

O'Dowd conceded that Sinn Fein's call for its supporters to tell police about the dissidents in their midst "is placing myself and others in my party in great personal difficulty. But we're prepared for that."

He said some of the dissident leaders "were never with us. Some may have been in the past, and they went away. And I'm glad they went away."

Just as police officers are having to increase their personal security precautions across Northern Ireland, so are Sinn Fein activists. They have learned from the fratricidal history of Irish republicanism - when splits lead to bloody feuds - that it could just be a matter of time before the Real IRA, Continuity IRA or another band of alienated militants turns its guns on republican peaceniks.

Some analysts even openly wonder whether Martin McGuinness - the former IRA commander who is Sinn Fein's top official in the power-sharing government - might face a dissident assassin's bomb or bullet someday. McGuinness infuriated the dissidents last week, before leaving on his current United States trip, by calling them "traitors to the island of Ireland."

Belfast commentator and author Malachi O'Doherty said McGuinness was taking the same blunt-spoken road as Michael Collins, the key figure in the old IRA's 1919-21 war of independence against Britain. When Collins signed a treaty that accepted the partition of Ireland and created a new southern state still symbolically tied to Britain, he was assassinated by the anti-treaty IRA faction within the year.

"I am not concerned about my safety and my security," McGuinness said during a public appearance Sunday in New York City. "I am not going to be intimidated."

Attached Image (Click thumbnail to expand)

belfasttelegraph.co.uk
A dark and evil monster rears its head again
By Norman Baxter
Sunday, 15 March 2009


I once met an individual who was a close comrade of the leaders of both the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA. The story related was one of two conflicting ideologies.


The Continuity IRA fixated on killing British people to promote the Irish language and a mystical land of the Gaels.

Real IRA leaders with no interest in the Irish language or Irish culture; motivated simply by the use of violence to further racketeering and personal wealth.

These self-styled revolutionaries are little more than delusional criminals seeking to justify their blood lust through the medium of Irish nationalism and self profiteering.

Age has now reduced most of these men to the role of mafia godfathers.

But they have been aided by the deception of the Provisional IRA.

General De Chastelain reported on January 19, 2006, that he had been informed by security sources in Northern Ireland that “they had intelligence to the effect that some individuals and groups within the IRA have retained a range of arms including handguns”.

Where are these weapons now? If we are to believe that the Provisional IRA has dissolved, who now controls these weapons?

It would appear that failure to decommission all weaponry has enabled semtex, rocket launchers and other munitions to migrate to dissidents.

The inhuman savagery which stole the lives of Sappers Mark Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar's and Constable Stephen Carroll not only shattered the families of these decent human beings, but exposed a dark and evil monster seeking to re-assert itself in our society.

This monster of republican pedigree, styles itself under nebulous titles such as ‘Real IRA' and ‘Continuity IRA'.

Last week's horror highlights the illusion of the peace process.

The reality is that our horrendous past stalks us; it has not been dealt with nor left behind.

This failure provides succour and motivation to those who perpetuate terrorism.

The public demonstrations of political unity between unionists and republicans is to be welcomed; but they mask the philosophy which drives forward militant republicanism.

Why do the Real and the Continuity IRA continue to persist? Why do they advance their cause through extreme violence and murder?

The answer rests in their allegiance to a mythical Gaelic Socialist republic advocated by Clarke and Connolly in the 1916 Irish Republican Proclamation and enshrined in the IRA's ‘Green Book'.

This same ‘Green Book' that all IRA members have sworn allegiance too.

Republican Sinn Fein and the 32 County Sovereignty Committee firmly believe the provisional movement has betrayed their apocryphal Republic.

Indeed, a casual reading of the IRA 'Green Book' makes it difficult to understand how the Provisional IRA manoeuvred from a campaign of murder to the embracement of new political and policing structures in Northern Ireland.

A welcome metamorphosis, although not yet completed.

Whilst the provisional movement accepted the Belfast Agreement and are jointly administering Northern Ireland from within the United Kingdom, their rationale has not left the battlefield nor have they brought closure to their self proclaimed struggle.

This is evidenced by the significant delay in issuing a statement of condemnation on the Antrim murders, reminiscent of the hours after the Omagh massacre where a flurry of consultations were required before an agreed form of words could be released.

Examine the language used by the leadership of the provisional movement this week.

Just enough censure to meet the threshold for a modern Stormont 'democrat'.

They spoke of an unwanted war, Ireland as a nation being betrayed and they sanitised cold blooded murder into phrases such as ‘killed' and ‘slain'.

These are echoes of combat. There was no need to apologise for 30 years of Provisional IRA terror and murder; and we were told that dissident killings are wrong as there is no political justification. This language gives psychological support to these terrorists. This is the underlying problem which strengthens dissident republican resolve.

All political leaders must acknowledge that terrorists are criminals and shooting soldiers and police officers in cold blood is not part of a romantic war and never was.

The threat to public safety in Northern Ireland has been further exasperated by a skills transfer from the provisionals to these groups.

The provisional IRA is rooted in the same distorted ideology as their former colleagues who have chosen to reject the new republican strategy. This is a barrier to long term peace.

Whilst the provisional movement is not joined at the hip with the dissidents, they are chained at the ankles in the mire of 30 years of murder and terrorism, and bound by the insidious rules within the IRA's ‘Green Book'.

The murders at Antrim and Craigavon are a stark reminder that the past must be resolved.

Effective operational policing has saved countless lives in recent months with the police being very successful in disrupting the majority of dissident attacks saving countless lives. Sir Hugh Orde has been an effective chief constable, but he cannot solve the problem of a divided society entrenched in the past.

The police need public support to continue to arrest and disrupt dissidents who have demonstrated a lethal capability in an expanding number of areas.

Society also needs a robust criminal justice system which will convict terrorists brought before the courts.

Perhaps more importantly we need politicians who can be transformational and relegate the rhetoric of the past to the past.

The dissidents will not be defeated until the provisional movement shred their allegiance to the ‘Green Book' and mature into democrats who can recognise murder and criminality immediately.

They are the role models for the dissidents — it is time they changed their script.

It is also time for both loyalist and republicans to deliver up all illegal weapons in our society, project openness and honesty and unconditionally support the police.

It is time to tear up the Green Book and relegate it to the dustbin of history.

Sectarian Church killers leads Dissadents


A former republican terrorist who took part in one of the most appaling sectarian atrocities in Northern Ireland is now the leader of the Real IRA, the group which claimed the recent killing of two soldiers in Co Antrim.

The man was one of three gunmen who opened fire with automatic weapons on the congregation of the Darkley Pentecostal Church in south Armagh, killing three worshippers and injuring seven.

The attack took place during the Sunday evening service on November 20, 1983. It caused deep shock because it was the first time that republican gunmen had targeted a Protestant religious service.

The 60-strong congregation was singing the hymn Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb when the gunmen burst in and fired more than 40 shots, killing William Brown (59), Victor Cunningham (39), and David Wilson (44). The Pentecostalists were known throughout Ulster for their simple, peace-loving lifestyle. The attack was the work of the INLA, an extreme group still in existence.

The gunman, now in his 50s, drifted out of the INLA and was involved in the Provisional IRA before aligning with the Real IRA when it was set up in 1997.

He left after the Omagh bombing in August 1998 but returned some years later, using the terror group name to cover his smuggling and other criminal activities.

He is wealthy and lives in a substantial house in the border area. According to Garda sources, the man has assumed control over Real IRA operations in areas where the group is active in Fermanagh, Armagh, Down and south Londonderry.

The group has been involved in training members from Northern Ireland in sniping and other gun attack tactics in the Cooley mountains in Co Louth. There are also suspicions that there may be a cross-over with the Continuity IRA, which claimed the murder of Constable Stephen Carroll who was killed by a sniper in Craigavon.

In a statement issued last week, the Real IRA's political wing, the 32-County Sovereignty Movement, blamed the government for failing “to pursue the objective of a Sovereign Irish Republic”.

Following the posting of the statement on the Indymedia website, there were a number of postings in support of the murders, but also a number condemning them.

The extreme political group, Eirigi, also moved last week to distance itself from the murders in Northern Ireland claiming none of its members was involved.

However, two people who have been describing themselves as “Eirigi activists” for the past year were among those arrested in connection with the killings.

The PSNI has arrested 11 people in connection with the three murders. Under Britain's anti-terror legislation introduced in the aftermath of the July 7 bombings in London in 2005, suspects can be held for up to 28 days without charge.

DUBLIN (AP) -- Northern Ireland's senior judge ordered the immediate release Wednesday of six suspected IRA dissidents being interrogated over recent killings of soldiers and police, ruling that their 11-day detention was illegal.

Detectives released the suspects but re-arrested the most prominent figure in the group, former Irish Republican Army prisoner Colin Duffy, without explanation. The other five covered their faces as supporters drove them away from a police interrogation center at high speed.

Lord Chief Justice Brian Kerr ruled that all six were being held illegally. While Britain's Terrorism Act permits suspects to be questioned for up to 28 days, subject to judicial permission each week, Kerr said a lower-ranking judge who extended their detention last weekend to 14 days had mishandled the case.

Detectives have spent the past two weeks arresting and interrogating suspected IRA dissidents over this month's killings - the first of British security forces since 1998, the year of Northern Ireland's Good Friday peace accord.

Two off-duty, unarmed British soldiers aged 21 and 23 were gunned down outside an army base as they collected pizzas March 7; two other soldiers and both pizza couriers were wounded. Two days later, a 48-year-old policeman was fatally shot through the back of the head as he sat in his patrol car.

The first two suspects to be taken into police custody - a 17-year-old boy and former Sinn Fein politician Brendan McConville - were arrested March 10 and charged this week with killing the policeman and possessing an assault rifle and ammunition.

The teenager was arraigned Tuesday. His name was not released because he is under 18, the age of adulthood in British criminal courts.

McConville didn't speak during his first court appearance Wednesday. He was ordered held without bail pending his next court appearance April 3. His lawyer said he intended to deny the charges against him.

Police announced Wednesday night that a third suspect, a 21-year-old man, had been arrested and charged with concealing information about the killing of the policeman. His arraignment was set for Thursday.

McConville was a town councilman for Sinn Fein until 1997, when the IRA stopped its 27-year effort to force Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom.

He opposed Sinn Fein's landmark 2007 moves to forge a power-sharing government with Northern Ireland's British Protestant majority and to begin supporting the police force. But Sinn Fein said Wednesday he had already been expelled from the party for undisclosed reasons.

McConville pleaded guilty last year to possessing ammunition and gun parts, but received a suspended three-year sentence after a judge accepted his explanation that he had found the material in a plastic bag and kept it for novelty's sake.

Lawyers representing Duffy and the five others said they planned to file lawsuits to win Duffy's freedom as well as cash damages against the British government and police.

Kerr ruled that the judge who approved a seven-day extention to the men's custody had failed to consider whether their original arrests were lawful. He said this was required under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Britain's security minister for Northern Ireland, Paul Goggins, said Kerr had ordered the six men freed "on a very narrow procedural ground."

Duffy's family in Lurgan, a bitterly divided town southwest of Belfast, issued a statement accusing the Northern Ireland police of demonstrating "complete disregard" for Kerr's ruling and pursuing a decades-old vendetta against Duffy.

Duffy, 41, was convicted of killing a former soldier in Lurgan in 1993, but was freed on appeal three years later after the key witness against him was identified as a member of an outlawed Protestant gang.

He was back behind bars within a year after police identified him as the gunman who committed the IRA's last two killings before its cease-fire: two Protestant policemen shot point-blank through the backs of their heads while on a Lurgan foot patrol in June 1997.

That case against Duffy collapsed after the prosecution's key witness suffered a nervous breakdown and withdrew her testimony. Two years later, Protestant extremists assassinated Duffy's lawyer, Rosemary Nelson, with a booby-trap bomb attached to the bottom of her car.

---

On the Net:

Duffy to maintain innocence

The tip of a latex glove containing the DNA of prominent republican Colin Duffy was found in the getaway car used by the Real IRA to gun down two British soldiers in Antrim, a court has heard.

Amid a huge security presence the 41-year old appeared in Larne Magistrates’ Court yesterday and was charged with two counts of murder.

He was also charged with five counts of attempted murder and one count of possession of a firearm and ammunition with intent to endanger life.

High-level security was also in place outside the court and on roads throughout the seaside town.

A packed public gallery filled with supporters watched as Duffy, from Lurgan, Co Armagh, dressed in a black jumper and jeans, walked into the dock handcuffed.

Sappers Mark Quinsey (23) of Birmingham, and Patrick Azimkar (21) of London, were killed as they collected pizzas from outside Antrim's Massereene Barracks on Saturday March 7.

Detective Chief Inspector Jeffrey Smyth told Magistrate Robert Alcorn that he could link Duffy to all the charges, saying that a tip of a glove was found in the footwell of the car that was used in the shooting.

He said: “This is not trace elements — this is a full DNA profile. “It was inside a latex glove found on the floor of the Vauxhall Cavalier.”

He conceded later that only the tip of the glove had been found.

Mr Smyth said the DNA profile was the only forensic evidence which has so far connected Duffy to the shootings but added: “There are over 1,000 exhibits in this case.”

He said exhibits were being examined in Northern Ireland and in England but other results had so far come back negative.

Det Chief Insp Smyth said that police were relying on three facts in the case, which included forensic evidence, CCTV footage and witness evidence.

He said the PSNI would be opposing an application for bail due to a number of |reasons including the risk of absconding.

However defence Barrister Mark Mulholland said Mr Duffy would not be at risk.

He added that bail should be granted on the grounds that Mr Smyth had not given sufficient basis for it to be denied and |remand in custody would be a contravention of Duffy's human rights.

Mr Alcorn denied the application for bail and the accused was placed in custody until April 21 when he will appear at Antrim Magistrates court via videolink.

As Duffy was led away handcuffed cheers and claps of support were given by supporters which included his wife.

Speaking outside court Paddy Vernon, Mr Duffy's solicitor, said his client still maintains his innocence and will be applying for bail on Monday.

Charged, then taken away

Victoria O’Hara was in court as prominent republican Colin Duffy was charged

Looking tired and emotionless, Colin Duffy was slowly led into the dock at Larne Magistrate’s Court. Dressed in a black jumper and jeans Duffy held on to a brown coat as he acknowledged the public gallery packed with supporters, then fixed his gaze straight ahead.

Surrounded by police inside and outside the courtroom the 41-year-old, from Lurgan, spoke only when asked if he was Colin Duffy.

He replied quietly: “I am”.

And after all charges were read out —including two murder charges, five attempted murders and possession of a firearm and ammunition with intent to endanger life— and asked if he understood them he nodded, “Yes”.

Duffy still remained expressionless when a police officer told the court that a fingertip of a glove was found with his DNA profile on it in the getaway vehicle.

When District Judge Robert Alcorn refused the application and remanded him in custody Duffy calmly rose from his seat.

A number of sighs could be heard from the public gallery but raising his hands while still in cuffs the defendant gave a wave to his supporters. Cheers and applause erupted.

The cheers continued outside while the defendant was driven away in a blacked out car.

Minor scuffles between a crowd who had gathered outside and some supporters of the republican broke out. Police quelled the trouble and within minutes the tension had diminished

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IRA dissidents burn cars, block Belfast roads

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DUBLIN (AP) -- Suspected IRA dissidents and their supporters hijacked cars Monday in working-class Catholic areas of Northern Ireland in a coordinated effort to block roads and threaten police stations, police said.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland said it was receiving a wave of reports of vehicles being hijacked by masked gunmen in several parts of Belfast and in the Kilwilkie district of Lurgan, a power base for Irish Republican Army dissidents southwest of Belfast.

Some vehicles were being set on fire in roads to disrupt traffic at rush hour, while others were abandoned near four Belfast police stations and on Northern Ireland's major motorway near Lurgan.

Police said they were treating all the abandoned vehicles as potential car bombs, although they cautioned this was unlikely. They urged motorists to avoid Kilwilkie and parts of Catholic west Belfast entirely.

Monday's upheaval came at the end of a month in which IRA dissidents shot to death two soldiers and a policeman - the first killings of British security forces since 1998, the year of Northern Ireland's peace accord.

Police said at least two cars were hijacked in Lurgan's Kilwilkie district, the power base of suspected IRA dissident Colin Duffy. Duffy, 41, was charged last week with murdering the two soldiers.

One of the hijacked cars was abandoned on the M1 motorway, which connects Belfast to Dublin, 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the south. Authorities shut part of the motorway as a precaution.

One abandoned vehicle - which police said did not contain a bomb - was left near the Stormont Parliamentary Building, the center of Northern Ireland's power-sharing government between the British Protestant majority and Irish Catholic minority.

The coalition's Protestant leader, First Minister Peter Robinson, said the rising dissident IRA threat would not spur Protestants to sever links with Sinn Fein, the IRA-linked party that represents most Catholics today.

"The criminal terrorists responsible for the series of bomb scares and hijackings are beneath contempt and have no support whatsoever in the community," Robinson said.

The hijackings and security alerts also coincided with a widespread breakdown of Belfast's traffic lights system. Police in a statement called that an "unfortunate coincidence."

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I have a question... You may all have read the troubles around the football match between Northern Ireland - Poland this weekend... Anyway there was a big riot etc... i guess you know the drill when football hooligans is involved.

anyway, i read that a group called Éirígí did carry our organized attacks against the poles, also civilian polish workers. My question is, is that a fraction of the IRA?

Eirigi in English means 'Rise up',they're a break away group from Sinn Fein,so NO they're not a faction of the IRA as such,they're political not militant,but they would have very strong links with the Real IRA.

Trying to provoke a Loyalist response

POLICE BELIEVE that dissident republicans who are suspected of orchestrating a series of disruptive incidents in different parts of Northern Ireland over recent days are working to a number of aims, including attempting to provoke violent loyalist reaction.

There were more hoax security alerts in Belfast, Fermanagh and north Down yesterday. They followed the dozens of hijackings and hoax bomb alerts, mainly in Belfast, over Monday and Tuesday.

On Tuesday night petrol bombs were thrown at the Orange Hall at Clifton Street near Carlisle Circus in north Belfast. The attack happened while 50 Orangemen were inside. No one was injured.

The main road from Newtownbutler, Co Fermanagh, to Clones, Co Monaghan, was closed yesterday because of a warning of a dissident republican bomb. This was eventually declared a hoax.

British army bomb disposal experts were called out to deal with a suspicious object found at a petrol station in west Belfast late on Tuesday night. A number of families were forced to leave their homes during the alert. The device was also declared a hoax as was an object discovered at Balloo Avenue in Bangor, Co Down.

PSNI chief constable Sir Hugh Orde will today update the policing board on the extent of the threat from dissident republicans, following the murders of British soldiers Patrick Azimkar and Mark Quinsey and PSNI Constable Stephen Carroll, and following the recent series of mainly hoax bomb alerts.

Part of the ambitions of dissident groups appears to be to provoke a reaction from loyalist paramilitaries, according to security sources.

“Police are also conscious that they might be trying to lure police into further ambushes,” said one source. “Part of their planning might also be to ‘blood’ new recruits and to try to create an impression that they have some public support, when all the evidence is that they haven’t.”

All the incidents have been condemned by mainstream politicians in Northern Ireland. Sinn Féin Assembly member for North Belfast Caral Ní Chuilín said the attack on the Orange hall was a case of “blatant sectarianism”.

“Those behind the attack need to realise there is no support whatsoever for this kind of activity from our communities,” she added.

DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds said the attack was “designed to raise tensions even further in a week when republicans have tried to hold communities in north Belfast to ransom with their hijackings and violence.

“Now it seems that the objective is to raise sectarian tension by attacking this major Orange Hall in the constituency.”

Those responsible should be ostracised and brought to justice, he added.

Describing the attack as “political vandalism” local SDLP MLA Alban Maginness said “these criminals will not be allowed to sabotage the agreed Ireland we have worked so hard to achieve”.

Alliance leader David Ford said the incidents would only strengthen people’s resolve to resist the dissidents.

“Northern Ireland has emerged from the past few weeks of turmoil more united than ever. Dissidents need to wake up and accept that they will not destabilise the community. They will not succeed,” he said.

Forty years for teenage murders
A man has been jailed for at least 40 years for the murders of two teenagers in County Armagh nine years ago.

28-year-old Steven Leslie Brown, also known as Steven Revels, murdered teenagers David McIlwaine and Andrew Robb in February 2000.

On Friday, the judge said they "ranked amongst the most gruesome murders of the past 40 years in Northern Ireland".

Outside court, the father of David McIlwaine said he believed other people were involved in the death of his son.

He added that he had asked for a meeting with Steven Brown.

When Brown was convicted last month, the judge, Mr Justice Gillen, said that having watched him give evidence, he had "no doubt whatsoever" that he had seen a man "whose hands had been engaged in the executions of these two young victims".

'Horrific injuries'

Much of the evidence in the trial came from Mark Burcombe, who was present when the teenagers were killed.

Burcombe, from Ballynahinch Road in Lisburn, was initially charged with the murders, but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge after agreeing to give evidence against Brown.

He was jailed in 2008 for two-and-a-half-years.

The murder trial heard that Andrew Robb, 19, and David McIlwaine, 18, were drinking with Brown, Burcombe and Noel Dillon, who has since killed himself.

Andrew Robb is said to have made disparaging remarks about Richard Jameson, the alleged UVF commander, gunned down by the LVF two weeks previously.

A Crown lawyer said Brown "took unkindly" to the remarks, and drove the group to an isolated country road outside Tandragee where the friends were repeatedly stabbed, suffering horrific injuries to their throats and stomachs.

Giving evidence to the court, Burcombe claimed he saw Brown repeatedly stab David McIlwaine as he lay on the ground and, that afterwards, Brown threatened that if he told anyone, he would cut Burcombe's throat.

Burcombe admitted he had not told the police the whole truth when he first came forward in November 2005, after the murders were featured in the BBC's Crimewatch programme, but denied he was lying to cover up his own role.

He also denied suggestions by Brown's defence that he made up his testimony at the behest of the UVF in order to frame Brown.

The prosecution case against Brown also included a "confession" to a woman known only as witness F, and forensic evidence showing that two tyre tread marks at the scene of the murders matched two tyres on Brown's Peugeot 205 car.

It was also said that pieces of green plastic found at the scene matched the top of an aerosol canister found outside Brown's house; and Brown's DNA was found on David McIlwaine's jacket.

Neither teenager was connected to any paramilitary group.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_n...and/7980879.stm

Published: 2009/04/03 11:41:01 GMT

Eirigi in English means 'Rise up',they're a break away group from Sinn Fein,so NO they're not a faction of the IRA as such,they're political not militant,but they would have very strong links with the Real IRA.

I heard the catholic Poles only attacked protestants before/during and after the match?Can you confirm Don?

Eirigi in English means 'Rise up',they're a break away group from Sinn Fein,so NO they're not a faction of the IRA as such,they're political not militant,but they would have very strong links with the Real IRA.

I heard the catholic Poles only attacked protestants before/during and after the match?Can you confirm Don?

You are correct.

There would have only been protestants at the game,Catholics from the North support the Republic of Ireland football team NOT Northern Ireland so it would've been protestants they were fighting with,loads of Poles from the South went up to the match with Ireland flags with C. IRA written across them lol.

Northern Ireland football team fans are very sectarian,every one of them are protestants an hate us here down South,the feeling is mutual by the way

But it was the Poles who went looking for trouble.

The Polaks had some thousands lads up North smashing everything up that looks protestant.LOL.

They caused a lot of damage ok mate,are you Polish?

Teenager arrested over killings


DUBLIN (AP) -- Northern Ireland police arrested a 19-year-old man Thursday on suspicion of gunning down two British soldiers last month, the first such slayings in more than a decade of peacemaking.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland said the suspected IRA dissident was arrested in the overwhelmingly Irish Catholic village of Bellaghy. He faced interrogation over the March 7 attack on off-duty, unarmed soldiers who were collecting pizzas outside an army base. Two died and four others, including two pizza couriers, were wounded in a hail of bullets fired by two masked men.

Members and supporters of Irish Republican Army dissidents have staged more than a dozen car hijackings and bomb hoaxes this week across Northern Ireland, and also tossed Molotov cocktails at a Protestant community hall in Belfast, in hopes of raising communal tensions to breaking point.

On Thursday, British army explosives experts used remote-controlled robots to investigate two suspicious objects that had been left near a Protestant state school on the edge of Catholic west Belfast and a nearby gymnasium in a Catholic area. Police declared them both to be hoax bombs containing no explosives.

So far, leaders of both the British Protestant and Irish Catholic sides of the community have united against the dissidents and no other paramilitary group has joined the violence. But police say one of the dissidents' goals is to provoke outlawed Protestant groups to break their own 1994 cease-fire with a retaliatory attack against the Catholic community.

Britain's secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Shaun Woodward, said leaders of illegal Protestant paramilitary groups deserved credit for not taking the IRA dissidents' bait.

"We should give them the recognition here they deserve. They actually acted with proper leadership qualities. They went out into their communities and said: 'Do not respond. Do not take a life for a life,'" Woodward said.

The Northern Ireland police commander, Chief Constable Hugh Orde, briefed a Catholic-Protestant panel of politicians in Belfast about his force's efforts to hunt down the dissidents attacking Northern Ireland's 16-year-old peace process.

A splinter group called the Real IRA claimed responsibility for the gun attack on the army base. The victims - army engineers aged 21 and 23 who were only hours away from beginning a tour of duty in Afghanistan - were the first soldiers killed in Northern Ireland since the IRA cease-fire of 1997.

Bellaghy is the power base of prominent dissident figure Declan McGlinchey, who was arrested last month and questioned about the March 7 attack but released without charge. He is the son of Dominic "Mad Dog" McGlinchey, a former commander of an IRA breakaway group who was assassinated by colleagues in front of his son in 1994.

Police last week charged another prominent Irish republican, Colin Duffy, with murdering the two soldiers. Duffy previously was acquitted on charges of murdering the IRA's last two victims before its cease-fire, a pair of Protestant policemen on foot patrol who were shot through the back of the head at close range in June 1997.

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No i am Dutch.I also follow allot of the news concerning football violence.

Exclusive - Real IRA: We will take campaign to Britain
http://www.tribune.ie/news/article/2009/ap...aign-to-britai/

Irish Catholics would not attack Poles as they are Catholic too..Also Polish goalkeeper BORUC is celtic fcs keeper which loads of Irish Catholics support.

Shankill Butcher William Moore found dead in flat was due to face questioning

By Deborah McAleese
Monday, 18 May 2009

Police were today investigating the sudden death of one of the leaders of the notorious Shankill Butchers gang, which carried out a series of savage sectarian murders of Catholics in the 1970s.




Serial killer William Moore (60), who was jailed for life in 1979 for his part in the gang’s sadistic killings, was found dead in his north Belfast home yesterday.

Officers were called to his flat in the loyalist Mount Vernon estate at 7.45am yesterday. The circumstances surrounding his death are being investigated, however his death is not thought to be suspicious.

Moore was due to be questioned by the Historical Enquiries Team about the murder of a west Belfast man in 1974, one year before the Shankill Butchers officially began their killing spree.

John Crawford (52), from Andersonstown, was abducted and beaten before being shot dead by a UVF gang close to Milltown Cemetery. Historical Enquiries Team detectives were to quizz Moore about his role in the killing.

In 1979 Moore was given 14 life sentences for his involvement in 19 murders, 11 of which he admitted.

He was released from the Maze Prison in 1998 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, despite a judge's recommendation that he should never be freed.

The trial judge, Mr Justice O'Donnell told him: "You pleaded guilty to 11 murders carried out in a manner so cruel and revolting as to be beyond the comprehension of any normal human being.

"I'm satisfied that, without you, many of the murders would not have been committed... I see no reason whatsoever, apart from terminal illness, why you should ever be released."

The judge added that if Moore was ever released it should not be for at least 35 years.

Moore, a butcher by trade, supplied an assortment of knives and cleavers used by the gang to carry out random abductions of Catholics who were then tortured, mutilated and killed. He is alleged to have personally slit the throat of one victim, and kicked another to death.

Moore also drove a black taxi used by the gang to cruise the streets of Belfast seeking Catholics to kill. Some were intercepted merely because they were walking "in the wrong direction" towards Catholic parts of the city.

The gang also killed several rival loyalists as a result of petty feuds.

Moore became leader of the Shankill gang, taking over from Lenny Murphy who was jailed in 1976 and subsequently convicted of firearms offences. To divert suspicion from himself Murphy ordered the Butcher slayings to continue. Murphy was shot dead in 1982 after his release from jail. The assassination was carried out by the IRA, but it was strongly suspected that it had been set up by fellow members of the UVF.

After a victim escaped alive, the Shankill Butchers were rounded up by police and most of them broke down and confessed, although they were too terrified to implicate Lenny Murphy. They stood trial in February 1979.

During his trial the court was told that Moore committed the throat cuttings himself, encouraging the rest of the gang to torture the victims.

In recent years Moore was reportedly involved in many types of criminality, including drug dealing. He is believed to have been running a drugs ring with the help of a drugs gang in Scotland.


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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^The sickest and most perverted scum ever to spawn from the Troubles,What they did to some Catholics was so horrific i don't even think any Hollywood horror movie has come close,they skinned one man alive an put him lying in a bath of SALT,truly evil men.

I know the IRA went all out for a number of years to get these scum but only managed to kill 2 of them,the fact that the Shankill Butchers terrorized the Catholic for so long showed up the IRA as not nearly efficient as they would have you believe.

Nine men are being questioned by police in Co Londonderry over the murder of Catholic father-of-four Kevin McDaid.

Mr McDaid (49) was beaten to death by a loyalist mob just yards from his home in the Heights area of Coleraine on Sunday.

Detectives have confirmed they were treating his death as sectarian.

Senior investigating officer Detective Chief Inspector Frankie Taylor said tensions were running high in the area but urged the nationalist community not to retaliate.

“There has been a lot of speculation as to what had happened. I would appeal for people from this area not to retaliate over what has happened to Kevin. It is not what Kevin would have wanted, it is not what Kevin’s family want and on their behalf I would appeal for calm in the area. Let the police get on with the investigation.”

He added: “The principal motive at this stage is sectarian. This was an attack by Protestants on Catholics. Retaliation will not help the name of Kevin. We need anybody with information to come forward and help Kevin. Unfortunately Kevin can’t speak for himself, so we need those people to come forward and speak on his behalf.”

Mr McDaid, a plasterer by trade who volunteered as a community youth worker, was savagely beaten by a loyalist mob who descended on the estate hours after Rangers won the Scottish Premier League. Eyewitnesses said the thugs jumped on and kicked the victim’s head. The police have yet to determine which, if any, weapons were used although there are reports that the gang was armed with pickaxe handles and baseball bats.

It is understood there was a dispute about flags prior to the attack. A number of tricolours had been erected but were removed a short time before the killing. Mr Taylor said police had been in the area at the time and officers were last night being “debriefed”.

He said: “We believe a large group of men came into this area and Mr McDaid and a number of others were attacked. I would appeal to this community in the Heights area to come forward with any information they have in relation to what took place. It’s clear there was a sequence of events that took place before the assault on Mr McDaid and we need that information, we need those people to come forward.

“It is one line of inquiry that we are looking into that there were flags on the lampposts and that they were removed just prior to the attack on Mr McDaid. I should say Mr McDaid is an individual who worked very closely with the police and with other statutory and voluntary agencies to try and improve this area and to try and help individuals in this area.

“Clearly his intention was to make the Heights a better place for everyone to live in. He has been brutally beaten.

“This was an unfolding event and it was going on over a period of time so the police were here at different stages of the evening and those police officers that were present will be fully debriefed on the information they can provide.”

Mr Taylor played down reports that people in the Heights felt abandoned by local police, and he said patrols would be stepped up in the area in the wake of the attack.

“The district commander, who is in charge of the whole operation at this stage, will be looking very closely at events in this area over the coming days. People should be reassured that the police are here to provide a service to everybody.”

Mr Taylor said police had so far received a “great response” from locals but he urged anyone with information to come forward.

Throughout yesterday forensic teams combed the scene for clues. Among the items bagged and taken away for examination was a large plank of wood, beer cans which had been strewn across the murder scene and a cardboard box.

Meanwhile another man, 46-year-old Damien Fleming, was last night fighting for life. It is understood he was transferred to the Royal Victoria Hospital yesterday afternoon.

DI Taylor said detectives were treated his attack as attempted murder. “He remains critical in hospital and at the minute we are treating the assault on him as attempted murder. We may well be looking at a second murder here.”

Yesterday afternoon trouble flared in other parts of Coleraine.

At Market Street in the town centre police came under attack from stones and bottles and a number of loyalists held a tense stand outside the Scots Bar for much of the day.

Loyalist Death squad came in taxis to kill 'Catholics'.


Locals claimed a loyalist “lynch mob” descended on the Heights area of Coleraine in taxis and cars intent on killing a Catholic.

The fatal assault on community worker Kevin McDaid (46), described as “someone who would do anything for anybody”, has left the close-knit community completely stunned.

A plasterer by trade but interested in building community relations, Kevin McDaid strived to make the area a better place for those living in the socially deprived, mixed estate. He was attacked while trying to prevent his children from being caught up in the trouble that flared following Sunday’s Rangers and Celtic football matches.

Throughout yesterday a steady stream of ashen-faced mourners arrived at the police cordon at the edge of terraced row where Mr McDaid, his wife Evelyn and three of their four sons lived. Most people couldn’t comprehend what happened.

Kevin Mr McDaid, described as hard-working and popular, was beaten and jumped on about the head just yards from his house at Somerset Drive. He managed to stagger a few yards but collapsed and died almost on his back doorstep. His eldest son Ryan (22) who had seen the attack found him lying on the ground.

Fighting back tears he said his father’s face had been totally battered, all his teeth were knocked out and he was bleeding badly.

He said: “I was there when it happened. We heard screaming and shouting and Damien Fleming was lying on the ground. There was a gang of about 70 people arrived, they came up in cars and taxis and jumped out.

“We were totally outnumbered. There was nothing we could do, they were local UDA members.”

The North is on the brink again lads,fucking hell.

Funeral for loyalist mob victim

Kevin McDaid was beaten to death outside his home in Somerset Drive
The funeral Mass for Kevin McDaid who was beaten to death by a loyalist mob will take place at St John's Church, Coleraine, later.

The Catholic father-of-four was attacked near his Somerset Drive home in the town last Sunday.

His friend, Damien Fleming, who was also attacked, remains critically ill in hospital.

Nine men have been charged in connection with Mr McDaid's murder and the attempted murder of Mr Fleming.

Trouble flared in the Heights area of Coleraine last weekend after Rangers won the Scottish Premier League over rivals Celtic.

Mr McDaid's family said they were concerned police were involved in "negotiations" with loyalists on the day he was killed.

However, Assistant Chief Constable Judith Gillespie said officers worked to ease tensions and came quickly to his aid.

On Friday night, a band parade in Coleraine, which organisers diverted to avoid the area where the murder happened, passed without incident.

Parish priest Father Charlie Keaney said some Rangers supporters had left their football shirts in tribute outside Mr McDaid's house.

UDA rebels decommission and condemn McDaid killing
Henry McDonald
The Observer, Sunday 31 May 2009

Amid fears of resurgent sectarian tensions this summer, following the murder of a Catholic youth worker last week, one of the most dangerous factions of the Ulster Defence Association has revealed it is about to decommission its arms.

The UDA's rebel South East Antrim Brigade confirmed this weekend that it is preparing to hand over guns, ammunition and explosives before the British government's decommissioning deadline in August. In an exclusive interview with the Observer, the leader of the UDA brigade said the weaponry will be surrendered to Canadian General John de Chastelain and his team of international arms decommissioning experts.

While the UDA's South East Antrim Brigade refuses to recognise the authority of the mainstream UDA leadership based in Belfast, the faction said loyalist disarmament was inevitable and desired by the entire Northern Irish community. The area controlled by the faction has been home to some of the most hardline and notorious loyalist terrorists of the Troubles. They included John "Grugg" Gregg, the UDA gunman who shot and wounded Gerry Adams during an assassination attempt on the Sinn Féin leadership in 1984. Gregg was shot dead in 2003 during an internal UDA feud by members of Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair's C-Company faction.

South East Antrim stretches from the northern suburbs of Belfast up to Larne and across to Ballymena and Antrim town. Although the "Brigade" area does not include Coleraine, the town where Catholic youth worker Kevin McDaid was murdered last Sunday night, the UDA leader condemned the killing, as well as the attempted murder of Damien Fleming, who remains on a life support.

McDaid was set upon by a gang of up to 15 loyalists after the climax of the Scottish Premier League football season. "No one should lose their life because of a football match. There should be full co-operation with the police investigation into this murder," the UDA man said.

On disarmament, he said: "Everybody wants to do this, everybody is now on board. Something has to be done by August, so it's better we take the initiative and do it before then. It's right, not only inevitable, to do it now." He added that handing over the illegal arsenal to General de Chastelain's commission was part of the "going-away exercise" aimed at ending loyalist paramilitarism.

"The last report by the Independent Monitoring Commission noted that the South East Antrim Brigade was moving in the right direction. That ends with the arms given up and the group becoming an old ex-comrades' association and nothing more. You have to remember that in this brigade area a lot of our former members are now in their 60s and 70s. They want all the trappings of paramilitarism gone, including the guns. No one needs them.

"The pace of change in this area will not be dictated by what other loyalist groups do or don't do, although we think the other UDA brigades and the UVF and Red Hand Commando are probably moving in the same direction. The weapons, like the conflict, are a thing of the past."

The recent upsurge in dissident republican terrorism and the murders in March of two British soldiers and the first PSNI officer would not deflect his brigade from decommissioning, he said.

"We can't allow the republican dissidents to dictate our political agenda any more. They don't want us to decommission; rather they want to portray us as a threat to the nationalist community and they can then paint themselves as their defenders. We are not falling into that trap."

He would not give an inventory of how many weapons the UDA in South East Antrim still controls. However he said De Chastelain would be given enough proof to convince the public that their arms were put beyond use. "The whole community will be put at ease by what is going to happen with the arms and our wholly peaceful intent," he said.

He added that some outstanding issues, such as a welfare programme for "ex-combatants", would have to be worked out with the British government in the run-up to the arms handover: "There could be up to 2,000 ex-UDA members living in this area, many of whom need jobs, have health problems related to time in jail or other issues connected to the conflict, who all have to be looked after."

Friday, 5 June 2009 11:26 UK
Lawyer jailed for inciting murder

A Londonderry solicitor who pleaded guilty to inciting loyalist paramilitaries to murder has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Manmohan 'Johnny' Sandhu, 41, also pleaded guilty to four charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice at Belfast Crown Court.

The charges were brought after police secretly recorded his interviews with clients at Antrim police station.

Sandhu originally denied the charges, but changed his plea last week.

The charges against Sandhu, of Colby Avenue, arose from the attempted murder of taxi driver Jonathan Hillier in Newtownards in August 2005 and the murders of Jameson Lockhart and Andrew Cully.

An earlier court hearing was told that Sandhu, who practises out of offices in Limavady, incited members of the UVF to murder Mr Hillier as he recovered in hospital in August 2005 from a failed attempt on his life.

The prosecution said Sandhu phoned an unknown person from Antrim police station and indicated that Mr Hillier "should be taken out".

The lawyer also attempted to pervert the course of justice surrounding the investigation into the shooting.

In another secret recording, Sandhu was overheard coaching his client, Christopher Dinsmore, who was accused of murdering Jameson Lockhart.

Mr Lockhart was shot as he sat in a lorry on the Lower Newtownards Road in Belfast in July 2005 during a power struggle between the UVF and LVF.

Sandhu told his client how to explain how gloves with cartridge discharge residue came to be seized from his house.

According to transcripts read at an earlier court hearing, Sandhu initially suggested Mr Dinsmore joined a rifle club to explain the residue, and then he suggested that he say they belonged to murdered UDA boss Jim Gray.

Friday, 5 June 2009 08:46 UK
Man is injured in city shooting

A man has been injured in a paramilitary-style shooting on the Glen Road in west Belfast.

The 34-year-old was shot in the wrists and ankles by a number of men who then fled the scene just before 2300 BST on Thursday.

He was taken to hospital but his injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.

The police want anyone who was on the Glen Road near the Rosnareen and Culmore area to contact them.

A police spokesperson said a motive for the attack remains under investigation.

PSNI murder accused refused bail


A NORTHERN Ireland police officer and his family had to be relocated amid claims that a teenager accused of killing Constable Stephen Carroll was gathering intelligence for terrorists, the Belfast High Court heard yesterday.

Prosecutors also alleged that cartridge discharge residue similar to the ammunition used in the shooting was found in 18-year-old John Paul Wootton’s car.

Details emerged as Wootton, of Collingdale, Lurgan, Co Armagh, was refused bail due to fears he may flee if released. He is charged with the murder of Constable Carroll, who was ambushed and killed at Lismore Manor, Craigavon in March. Wootton is also accused of possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life, collecting information likely to be of use to terrorists, and membership of the Continuity IRA.

Prosecution counsel Christine Smith said the 48-year-old victim was responding to a 999 report of a broken window when two shots were fired into his police car. A postmortem has established he died from a single gunshot wound to the head. The killing, just 48 hours after two soldiers were gunned down by the Real IRA at an army base in Antrim, was later claimed by the Continuity IRA.

According to Ms Smith, Wootton – then aged 17 – was arrested the day after Constable Carroll was killed and held for nearly two weeks in Antrim.

Throughout his detention period he refused to answer questions or co-operate, it was claimed.

She said the investigation revealed that a Citroen Saxo car owned by the accused was parked 137m from the scene of the murder and was driven off within minutes of the shots being fired.