The RUC said yesterday that battery packs for SAM-7 missiles were found on Saturday night when army bomb disposal experts were called to deal with a suspicious object off the Gortseraheen Road, in Pomeroy, Co Tyrone. A forensic examination yesterday established that two of the packs had been fired previously.
Mr Michael McGimpsey, an Ulster Unionist Party Assembly member for South Belfast, said he was "concerned" at the find. "The public has been led to believe that all Provisional weapons were in deep hides in the Irish Republic, and now we find that power packs for SAM7 surface-to-air missiles are discovered around Pomeroy. "The next logical question is, where are the missiles and, in the current political climate, what do the IRA need missiles for?
"The discovery reinforces the absolute obligation for decommissioning. There must be a credible and verifiable commencement to the process before Sinn Fein can take up ministerial positions," he said.