Senior police sources on both sides of the Border believe the same republican dissidents who carried out the Omagh atrocity have regrouped and are almost certainly planning some new form of terrorist campaign.
The group known as the "Real IRA" is the dominant force in a new coalition, which has consumed the few remaining members of a smaller group which called itself the Continuity IRA.
Despite reports suggesting the splinter republican group, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), has joined in some form of coalition with the dissidents, security sources say this has not happened and that by and large no significant INLA figures are attached to the new group.
However, the new organisation, styling itself "Oglaigh na hEireann", Eireann", has support from figures in the Republic and in the United States who have previously been involved in illegal money-raising activities for the Provisional IRA.
The new group has also attracted some young recruits who have had little or no previous involvement in republican paramilitary activity.
The Garda stepped up its surveillance on this group earlier this year. Information which emerged as a result of its operations suggested the new group was actively re-organising and training new members. However, there has been no indication until recently about what its intended targets might be.
It is strongly suspected the group might have been plotting to carry out some form of bomb attack to try and destabilise the delicate political negotiations being conducted by Senator George Mitchell in Belfast.
The group's main intention appears to be carrying on a terrorist campaign with the intention of embarrassing the Sinn Fein leadership and preventing any chance of consent being reached between pro-agreement republicans and unionists over a Northern assembly.
This is similar to the "strategy" associated with the "Real IRA" between September 1996 and the spring of 1997. In that period, the group tried to carry out at least two bomb attacks on civilian targets to try and disrupt the talks leading to the Belfast Agreement.
The group tried to plant a car bomb at Aintree racetrack in Liverpool and another bomb was due to be exploded in a town in the North while the Sinn Fein leadership was in Washington for important talks on St Patrick's Day last year.
After the agreement was signed, the "Real IRA" decided to carry out bomb attacks on civilian targets in the North, culminating in the Omagh bombing on August 15th last year when 29 people were killed and 300 injured.
The "Real IRA" called a ceasefire after Omagh, but Garda intelligence at the start of the year suggested the group was re-organising and was intent on relaunching itself, possibly using a new name. This appears to be what has happened.
The "Oglaigh na hEireann" group is, in effect, the "Real IRA" re-assembled with the inclusion of a small number of Continuity IRA figures from Belfast and Derry. Senior Garda sources pointed out that some of the Continuity IRA figures were already working with the "Real IRA" by the time of the Omagh bombing so "Oglaigh na hEireann" is simply a new title for the same group.
The leadership is still based around the same group of people living in Dundalk and south Armagh who plotted and carried out the Omagh bombing.
The Provisional IRA appears to be aware that this group has been re-organising and two weeks ago kidnapped a man in Derry and threatened him. Last year, the Provisionals visited the homes of several members of the "Real IRA" and assaulted several of them.
According to sources in republican areas, there has been a number of arguments and fights in republican pubs and clubs in south Armagh, west Belfast and Derry between pro- and anti-agreement republicans.
Police sources say the dissidents are still involved in organising a series of meetings in Border areas and are attempting to build up support in republican areas in the North.
Current estimates are that the dissidents may have between 70 and 100 people who might be expected to be involved in acts of terrorism.