Confusion about the different groups should not distract from the fact that this is a moment of opportunity for dissident republicans, and one they are increasingly capable of exploiting, writes GERRY MORIARTY, Northern Editor
IN TRYING TO make sense of the alphabet soup of dissident republican organisations one thing remains clear: they are growing in threat and capability. And whether particular actions are claimed by the Real IRA, the Continuity IRA, Óglaigh na hÉireann or the purported new dissident group labelling itself “the IRA”, it seems some of the new-found paramilitary competence is coming from former Provisionals. Not many of them, but enough to make a dangerous impression.
From a propaganda perspective it has been a good period for the dissidents. Their claim to have murdered Constable Ronan Kerr of the PSNI – “the recent execution of the RUC member in Omagh”, as they put it – earned them headlines in Ireland and Britain and elsewhere. The dissidents gained further column inches and airtime when, on Easter Monday, a masked Real IRA man in Derry pledged to murder more police officers. He also referred to the imminent visit to Ireland of Queen Elizabeth and criticised the GAA and the Catholic Church.
There is a real threat. Last week the PSNI took the serious step of telling the public to be vigilant about the activities of dissident groups, starkly warning that they are intent on killing more officers “in the coming days and weeks”.
So this has been a promising week for the dissidents, bringing with it an official acknowledgment of a heightening of their threat and some sense that if they are not countered they have the potential to undermine hard-won political stability.
The group that recently told the Belfast Telegraphit had murdered Kerr called itself the IRA, a claim that is quite a taunt to Sinn Féin and the bulk of former Provisional IRA members, now superannuated, who have held firm with the peace process. "They are not the IRA. The IRA is history," the Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams responded.
But Adams must know that there will always be fundamentalist republicans who cannot accept the path Sinn Féin has taken. He must know too that there are some former mainstream republicans who, although previously supportive, are now, out of ideology, jealousy, spite or boredom, disaffected.
Several organisations are campaigning under dissident banners. There is the Real IRA, as manifested in the city cemetery in Derry this week. There is its offshoot Óglaigh na hÉireann (ONH), led by a senior former Real IRA member from Co Louth who is associated with the imprisoned dissident leader Michael McKevitt. ONH is generally viewed as the more dangerous of the two Real IRA factions, with particular strength in Belfast.
Then there's the Continuity IRA. Last year The Irish Timesreported that this had split into two groups, one loyal to its Republic-based leadership and still viewed as the paramilitary wing of Republican Sinn Féin, the other with a membership mainly in Belfast but aligned with a Limerick leadership.
Last week the Andersonstown Newsreported that the Continuity IRA has split into three groups. One faction has returned to the old-guard Continuity IRA; the second supports a well-known criminal/republican from the Ballymurphy area of west Belfast; the third is run by a west Belfast dissident loyal to the Limerick outfit. The newspaper also reported that other members of Continuity IRA have moved to the Real IRA and ONH.
There is also the new grouping that claims to have murdered Kerr in the car bombing in Omagh four weeks ago. It seems odd that it would reveal itself now, considering that this narrows the investigative field for the police.
This group is said to be Belfast-led, with significant support in areas such as Tyrone, Lurgan and south Armagh. In its statement it said it was completely separate from all the other dissident organisations but was “committed to working with other republicans”.
What the intelligence and security services are assessing is whether it is correct, as is claimed, that the group is mainly made up of former Provisional IRA members, aged from their late 30s to their 50s and with considerable paramilitary expertise. The emergence of such an organisation would constitute a further, and serious, ratcheting up of the dissident threat. The security forces are also trying to ascertain whether former Provisionals from east Tyrone are involved.
Security sources acknowledge that, in general, dissidents have improved their bomb-making techniques. The fear is that former experienced Provisional IRA members, aligned with the new grouping, are helping to provide that expertise.
There is concern that a number of former east Tyrone Provisionals, some whom were very senior in the IRA, have moved from passive disaffection with the peace process to active support of the dissidents. “There is no doubt that the dissidents have a capability that they lacked before, and they are getting it from somewhere,” says one senior security source. “They can make things go bang that previously they couldn’t make go bang.”
What is, at first glance, curious about the new group’s statement to the Belfast Telegraph is that it said it was involved in the March 2009 murders of the British soldiers Patrick Azimkar and Mark Quinsey at the Massereene barracks in Co Antrim – although these killings were also claimed by the Real IRA. The group also said it was involved in the car-bombing that seriously injured the PSNI constable Peadar Heffron in January last year and that it carried out the bomb attack on the headquarters of the Northern Ireland Policing Board in the Belfast Harbour area 18 months ago, even though these were claimed by ONH.
But there needn’t be any contradiction here. What security and republican sources say is that there is growing co-operation between the organisations and that, furthermore, there are floaters who drift between the groupings or act independently in various paramilitary actions.
One security source says the long-standing intelligence view is that, even though the Real IRA claimed the Massereene attack, the two killings were in fact carried out by veteran and hardened dissidents who were “non-aligned”. It is thought that it suited them, as a distraction, to allow the Real IRA to make its claim.
None of this is new to the security services, whether the PSNI, Garda or MI5. The security focus has long shifted from whether particular actions were carried out by the Real IRA, the Continuity IRA or ONH to which individuals were likely to have been involved. “What’s important is who did it, rather than what group did it,” says the security source. “It comes down to individuals. The organisations they claim to represent is becoming of less importance.” As to why these previously non-affiliated individuals should now go public, the source’s rather uncertain view is that “we have known for some time of these non-aligned people – they are small in number but maybe they felt it was time for a branding”.
It seems clear that there is little point in talking to any of these groups at present. Fr Michael Canny, in Derry, offered to engage in dialogue but was rebuffed. The response is therefore likely to be mainly security-focused, in the hope that an increasingly disgusted public will provide the police with information to help their battle against the dissidents.
The more clandestine intelligence route also will be used. Arguably one of the key reasons the Provisional IRA ended its war was because it was so heavily infiltrated, as in the cases of Freddie Scappaticci, Denis Donaldson and others, who were exposed as high-level informants.
The PSNI has been given a budget of £250 million (€280 million) specifically for use against the dissidents over the next four years. Some of this money will be used to recruit informants and to plant agents.
The challenge for the police will be in providing a service to the public while separately addressing the dissident menace. Striking the proper balance will be demanding and complicated, but in terms of the propaganda battle it will be important to get it right. There was criticism of the PSNI for not making immediate arrests at Derry City Cemetery on Easter Monday, but such actions can be hugely counterproductive in propaganda terms.
The dissidents are paying a price for their so-called successes. More and more of them are being arrested; more and more are ending up in prisons North and South. A peripheral but high-stakes security contest of attrition has begun, and it will continue for the foreseeable future. In the meantime politics and ordinary everyday living, much removed from the dissident lunacy, will continue.
