Garda sources believe that extreme elements associated with the Continuity IRA, a breakaway republican group, are responsible for the threats to Protestant clergy in the Border area.
The threats coincide with an increase of training activity in the Border area which is being attributed to breakaway republicans associated with both the Continuity IRA and the newer 32-County Sovereignty Committee.
According to Garda sources, there is evidence of both groups increasing in size. The sources say that the activity taking place is related to the preparation of bombs and testing of weapons.
According to sources in the Border area, it is also believed that a number of key hard-line republicans close to a former chief of staff of the Provisional IRA may have defected to one or other of the breakaway republican groups.
The threats to Protestant clergy in the Border area are being taken seriously by gardai in the light of these developments.
There is particular concern that an Armagh man, who is believed to have led the Provisional IRA gang which carried out the massacre of 10 Protestant workmen at Whitecross in January 1976, is among those now associated with the breakaway republican elements. This man had been prominent in Sinn Fein in Monaghan but, according to usually reliable local sources, he appears to have shifted his affiliations to the breakaway elements.
The cover-name used in the anonymous threats to the clergymen - the Catholic Reaction Force - is very similar to the cover-name used by the Provisional IRA in claiming the Whitecross massacre. Those killings were claimed in the name of the South Armagh Republican Reaction Force.
According to Garda sources, there has been a steady drift away from the mainline Provisional IRA since the calling of the latest ceasefire in July. The killing by loyalists of nine Catholics in Northern Ireland since December is said to have quickened the pace of recruitment to the breakaway republican elements.
There is concern that the growth of these breakaway groups might put pressure on the Provisional IRA to call off its ceasefire. However, according to Garda sources, the Provisional IRA military leadership remains closely in line with the views of its political wing, Sinn Fein. There is also no evidence that the Provisional IRA has allowed significant amounts of its arms to fall into the hands of the dissidents.