Police in Northern Ireland are to mount a major security operation against dissident republicans over the next number of days, a senior officer announced today.
The planned increase in police checkpoints and patrols comes in the wake of Monday night’s car bomb attack in Derry, the latest in a series of attacks blamed on dissidents this year.
No one was injured when the 100kg car bomb detonated near a hotel and bank in Derry but substantial damage was caused and traffic was severely disrupted for days.
PSNI deputy chief constable Judith Gillespie told the monthly meeting of the NI Policing Board that the public may face disruption as a result of the operations.
“Over the coming days you will see an increase in police activity across Northern Ireland as we continue our efforts to prevent serious harm and keep our communities safe,” she told the board in Belfast.
“I acknowledge that on occasion this increase in police activity may serve to delay or disrupt people going about their legitimate business and we’ll certainly seek to minimise the impact of that but we would ask people for their patience and understanding over the coming days.”
Assistant chief constable Alistair Finlay said the upcoming security operation had not been prompted by specific intelligence.
“From time to time in our professional assessment we will put down a different footprint across Northern Ireland to disrupt and suppress those who want to bring harm and misery to communities, and that’s what we are doing,” he said. “We’ve done it in the past, we’ll do it again.”
Mr Finlay said it was not clear whether Monday’s attack, the first time a device has exploded in an area which was not close to a specific security force target, marked a change in tactics by the dissidents to targeting civilian buildings.
Detectives are still trying to establish if the bomb was left there deliberately or abandoned en route to a police station.
“We know where the bomb was left, but we don’t know what the target was because they (the dissidents) are not telling us that,” he said.
Mr Finlay appealed for the public to remain vigilant and report any suspicious activity to the police.
The threat level posed by dissidents in Northern Ireland has been classed as severe for the last 18 months.
Last month MI5 warned that an attack in Britain was also now likely.