A BATTALION of 500 Royal Regiment soldiers flew into Ireland yesterday. Secuirty sources said the troops would be confined to barracks.
However, they would be ready to patrol the streets if the IRA launched further attacks, the sources said. There are now more than 17,000 soldiers in the North.
The RUC Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Annesley, and the British Army GOC, Lieut Gen Sir Roger Wheeler, have been briefed by British intelligence on the "current perceived level of threat", the sources said.
British government insists the decision was "a precautionary measure to ensure the armed are fully able to provide - support to the RUC if required".
The SDLP deputy leader, Mr Seamus Mallon, said the move displayed remarkable insensitivity. "The announcement presupposes further and continuing violence. That will inevitably cause apprehension on the ground and the potential for confrontation in the areas where the soldiers will be deployed", he said.
"In this time of tension and concern for the future, the British government has chosen to again beam reassurances in the direction of one community while increasing fear in the other."
A Sinn Fein spokesman, Mr Gearoid O hEara, said the British government had yet to learn there could be no military solution to a political problem. He accused London of refusing to move away from a "war footing".
He described the redeployment as "a deliberate insult" to nationalists. "The RIR - like its predecessor, the UDR - has been responsible for a concerted campaign of harassment, intimidation, brutality, and collusion against the nationalist community," he said.
The Irish Republican Socialist Party, the INLA's political wing, also condemned the redeployment. A spokesman, Mr Ciaran McLaughlin, said: "If a renewed military presence should be accompanied by increase of oppressive actions, the hand of republican socialists may be forced in defence of working class areas."
However, the DUP's justice spokesman, Mr Ian Paisley jnr, welcomed the return of the troops. "This is not a cosmetic exercise," he said. "The government is obviously acting on military intelligence that something terrible is going to happen in Northern Ireland."