Post by earl on May 2, 2008 16:50:51 GMT
New militant group threatens Ulster peace
A new militant republican organisation has emerged in Northern Ireland to threaten the peace process, the body monitoring the paramilitary ceasefires warned yesterday.
The International Monitoring Commission, which was set up to report on the status of the ceasefires, identified the organisation Oglaigh na hEireann (Army of Ireland) as active in killings, riots and targeting police officers for assassination. It is opposed to the peace strategy of Sinn Féin and the mainstream IRA.
In its 17th report, the commission also stated that members and past members of the Provisional IRA were involved in the murder of a south Armagh man, Paul Quinn, in October. He was beaten to death in a farmhouse shed by up to a dozen men and his family have accused local members of the Provisional IRA of organising and carrying out the murder.
The commission blamed Oglaigh na hEireann for the murder in February of Andrew Burns, a local member of the organisation, which has its base in Strabane, Co Tyrone. It said the organisation believed Burns, shot dead in Co Donegal, was working as a police informer.
The IMC blamed the new organisation for bomb attacks on Strabane police station and accused it of orchestrating violence at local St Patrick's Day parades also directed at police.
Oglaigh na hEireann had been "seriously active" over the last six months, the commission said.
The IMC's chairman, Lord Alderdice, would not say which larger republican group the new organisation had evolved from. The Guardian has learned that the movement is made up of former activists from the Provisional IRA's defunct East Tyrone brigade, one of the most active and dedicated paramilitary forces during the Troubles.
"Oglaigh na hEireann remains a continuing and serious threat, including to the lives of members of the security forces," the IMC said. Overall the dissident republican forces were "chaotic and disparate". On the mainstream IRA, the IMC concluded that it is now totally committed to peaceful politics. "In so far as PIRA [Provisional IRA] is concerned, we assess that in practice this transformation is all but complete," the report noted. The IMC also said that although the killing of Quinn involved past and present members of the mainstream Provisional IRA, the murder had not been sanctioned or organised by the Provisional IRA leadership.
Alderdice declined to comment on reports from south Armagh that witnesses to the crime, including men abducted by the gang that killed Quinn, had been subjected to a campaign of intimidation.
Several of Quinn's friends had been kidnapped and forced to lure the south Armagh man via mobile phone to a farm just across the border into the Irish Republic, where he was beaten to death. The Guardian has learned that the chief suspects in the fatal beating include a former employee of a Sinn Féin politician.
Alderdice denied the IMC had come under political pressure from Dublin or Downing Street to exonerate the IRA leadership of having a role in or knowledge of the Quinn murder.
The IMC said that while the main loyalist paramilitary organisations, the UVF and UDA, had "signalled a desire to follow a more peaceful path" there was still no indication that either group was prepared to decommission their illegal arsenals.
A new militant republican organisation has emerged in Northern Ireland to threaten the peace process, the body monitoring the paramilitary ceasefires warned yesterday.
The International Monitoring Commission, which was set up to report on the status of the ceasefires, identified the organisation Oglaigh na hEireann (Army of Ireland) as active in killings, riots and targeting police officers for assassination. It is opposed to the peace strategy of Sinn Féin and the mainstream IRA.
In its 17th report, the commission also stated that members and past members of the Provisional IRA were involved in the murder of a south Armagh man, Paul Quinn, in October. He was beaten to death in a farmhouse shed by up to a dozen men and his family have accused local members of the Provisional IRA of organising and carrying out the murder.
The commission blamed Oglaigh na hEireann for the murder in February of Andrew Burns, a local member of the organisation, which has its base in Strabane, Co Tyrone. It said the organisation believed Burns, shot dead in Co Donegal, was working as a police informer.
The IMC blamed the new organisation for bomb attacks on Strabane police station and accused it of orchestrating violence at local St Patrick's Day parades also directed at police.
Oglaigh na hEireann had been "seriously active" over the last six months, the commission said.
The IMC's chairman, Lord Alderdice, would not say which larger republican group the new organisation had evolved from. The Guardian has learned that the movement is made up of former activists from the Provisional IRA's defunct East Tyrone brigade, one of the most active and dedicated paramilitary forces during the Troubles.
"Oglaigh na hEireann remains a continuing and serious threat, including to the lives of members of the security forces," the IMC said. Overall the dissident republican forces were "chaotic and disparate". On the mainstream IRA, the IMC concluded that it is now totally committed to peaceful politics. "In so far as PIRA [Provisional IRA] is concerned, we assess that in practice this transformation is all but complete," the report noted. The IMC also said that although the killing of Quinn involved past and present members of the mainstream Provisional IRA, the murder had not been sanctioned or organised by the Provisional IRA leadership.
Alderdice declined to comment on reports from south Armagh that witnesses to the crime, including men abducted by the gang that killed Quinn, had been subjected to a campaign of intimidation.
Several of Quinn's friends had been kidnapped and forced to lure the south Armagh man via mobile phone to a farm just across the border into the Irish Republic, where he was beaten to death. The Guardian has learned that the chief suspects in the fatal beating include a former employee of a Sinn Féin politician.
Alderdice denied the IMC had come under political pressure from Dublin or Downing Street to exonerate the IRA leadership of having a role in or knowledge of the Quinn murder.
The IMC said that while the main loyalist paramilitary organisations, the UVF and UDA, had "signalled a desire to follow a more peaceful path" there was still no indication that either group was prepared to decommission their illegal arsenals.
