A planned memorial to victims of the Omagh bomb atrocity was hit by a new row today.
Even though a special tribute has now been commissioned, relatives of some of those murdered in the "Real IRA" attack have threatened to erect their own monument.
They boycotted an official unveiling of the Dublin-based design team's plans over their demands for an inscription that declares dissident republican terrorists were to blame for the August 1998 outrage.
The narrative on the memorial, which was announced in Omagh today, has still to be agreed. But Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was among the 29 people killed in the bombing, claimed those involved are refusing to guarantee the form of words requested.
He said: "If the memorial working group and the council are unwilling to address the issue, we will mark the spot. We will take appropriate action to make sure the truth is told. Some people might view that as a threat, but if the truth is a threat people can judge for themselves.
"We will have no choice other than to address the issue ourselves. "There can be no ambiguity over what happened on August 15 1998, and no dancing around words can distract from the truth."
Mr Gallagher and others in the Omagh Support and Self Help Group, which represents some of the bomb victims' families, withdrew from the process to identify an appropriate memorial over the wording dispute.
