Terrorism

The Independent Monitoring Commission said today that while dissident republican groups are becoming increasingly violent, they enjoy little support and are not a danger to the Northern Ireland peace process.

The IMC's23rd report on paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland, submitted today to the Irish and British governments, found that mainstream republican and loyalist organisations continue to follow a peaceful path.

While the commission warned that dissident groups, including the Real IRA, are wedded to violence, it concluded that the militants had failed to secure the type of public support that the Provisional IRA had in the past.

Dissidents have been responsible for a series of shootings and bombings in recent months, including a recent attack on MI5’s Northern Ireland headquarters. However, the IMC said these groups were incapable of derailing the peace process.

“In particular, the range and nature of RIRA’s (Real IRA) activities in the six months under review were, by any yardstick, a very serious matter,” said the IMC report. “However it is important to point out that this is in no way a reappearance of something comparable to the PIRA (Provisional IRA) campaign.

“There are a number of ways in which RIRA’s present activities differ from that campaign. For example, the political context is entirely different, with the Belfast Agreement in 1998, supported by the overwhelming majority of the people of Ireland North and South, and the community support for the developments which have flowed from it, most recently the devolution of policing and justice.

“Operationally, RIRA does not have comparable resources in terms of personnel, money, organisation and cohesion, or range of weaponry and expertise, and it has not matched the range and tempo of PIRA’s activities.”

The IMC added: “It has neither significant local nor international support. While the threat from RIRA is dangerously lethal, it is also politically marginal.”

The sole murder attributed to paramilitaries in the past six months was the Real IRA killing of Kieran Doherty in Derry last February. The Real IRA claimed he had been involved in drug-related activities, an allegation rejected by the victim’s family.

The report found that the Continuity IRA remains a “major threat” despite being less active in recent months than the Real IRA. It said the CIRA has members in the Belfast, Fermanagh, Newry and Craigavon areas in the North and in Dublin, North Louth and Limerick in the Republic.

The CIRA is continuing to recruit and train members and was responsible for a number of attacks on drug-dealers and others engaged in anti-social activity, it said. “We conclude that CIRA remained a major threat. It was bent on improving its terrorist capability through recruitment, training and the acquisition of weapons. It undertook a number of shootings and other violent attacks, instigated public disorder and its members remained heavily engaged in a wide range of serious crime, some of it involving violence.”

The commission noted that the INLA had decommissioned all its weapons and explosives in December 2009. While describing this as a “major step forward”, it said there is in evidence of a reduction in the involvement of INLA members in non-terrorist criminal activity. “Although the organisation may take the view that this does not amount to an armed struggle, it is illegal paramilitary activity which it is our responsibility to monitor."

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said the findings of the report show there remains “a small number of individuals who refuse to heed the democratically expressed wishes of their fellow Irishmen and women”.

He said these “thugs” had failed in their efforts to stop the Belfast Agreement and derail the devolution of policing and justice powers to Stormont. “Ultimately their tactics of violence and destruction will fail full stop,” he said.

Northern Ireland secretary Owen Paterson said the threat posed by dissident republicans is not comparable to that from the Provisional IRA in the past, “not least because of community support for the political process”.

In terms of loyalists, the report said there was no evidence that the various groups were engaged in paramilitary activity. However, it said some loyalist groups remained involved in crime, particularly the UVF.

“Of the paramilitary-style assaults during the period that can be attributed to a particular loyalist group, the largest number were committed by UVF members,” it said.

It said dissident loyalist groups such as the Orange Volunteers and the Real UFF were established in response to the activities of dissident republicans. While they have carried out some acts of violence, they have generally focused on sectarian hate crime and do not have widespread support.