THE INDEPENDENT Monitoring Commission is today expected to confirm the growing threat from dissident republicanism.
It comes as one of the dissident paramilitary groupings, Óglaigh na hÉireann, insisted its actions can achieve a united Ireland.
The commission’s latest report to be published today is expected to substantiate the recent warnings from security and intelligence sources that the dissident threat is increasing and that membership of the organisations is growing.
Senior members of Óglaigh na hÉireann, viewed as a group that split from the Real IRA with its main focus in Co Louth, Belfast and with some representation in Derry, told the Belfast Telegraphthat it had 80-100 members in Belfast drawn from the Provisional IRA, the Real IRA, the INLA and new recruits.
Security sources assess that the various dissident groupings now have over 600 members.
The group – which said it was responsible for the car bomb attack in January which seriously injured PSNI constable Peadar Heffron and a bomb that exploded close to the MI5 base in Holywood, Co Down in April – said it “would take time” before it was in a position to mount a “sustained campaign”.
A member of its “army council” and two members of its “general headquarters staff” told security correspondent Brian Rowan that trying to mount a major campaign of violence at this stage would be counterproductive for the group.
“I think we would be playing right into the hands of the British,” he said. “To go at it full steam would increase momentum short term, but we believe ultimately would fail within a very short period of time.”
Asked if the group was planning attacks in Britain, as MI5 has warned, a spokesman said it would “decide where and when it attacks”. He would not comment when asked if Mr Heffron, who lost a leg in the car bombing, was targeted because of his involvement with the GAA and the fact he spoke Irish.
He said the group had no “desire to replicate or be a morph” of the Provisional IRA. “They failed, so why would we want to copy them.” “There is a forging together of political opposites that is much easier to undermine and defeat than the war that the Provisionals had,” added one of the spokesmen.
He said the group’s goal was a 32-county socialist republic.
“We think a war can create the conditions where republicans can create dialogue that will fulfil republican objectives.” He added: there were “cordial” relations between the group and other dissidents but did not believe there was “any sharing of expertise”.
