Gardai have this evening (Saturday 22nd May, 2010) arrested two dissident republicans in an intelligence lead operation at Mountpleasant, outside Dundalk, County Louth. One of the men arrested is a former PIRA bomb maker now in his 50s. The two men were arrested while preparing two six foot long gas cylinders that were to be packed with explosives. Both cylinders had been extensively engineered in line with similar bombs used by the PIRA in the early 1990s.
Both men are now being held at Drogheda Garda station in County Louth under Section 30 of the Offences Aganist The State Act. Both men have surrendered their clothes which will now be sent to the Gardai forensic lab for testing. Both men have been photographed, finger-printed and DNA swabs taken. Both men are refusing to answer any questions in relation to the bomb materials that they were found in posession of. All interviews are being tape recorded.
It is known that dissidents were preparing an attack in Fermanagh/South Tyrone in the event of a Unionist getting elected to that seat in the recent Westminster election, however, that attack was put on hold, after Sinn Fein took the seat, as it was believed that Unionist in-fighting would result from that Unionist failure and a dissident attack would serve no useful purpose at that time other than distract unionist minds.
The dissidents are believed to have at least one other significant bomb prepared and that attack will take place within the next couple of weeks.
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