Security review lists dissident republicans as threat to UK

DISSIDENT REPUBLICANS are among the biggest security threats to the United Kingdom, along with al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism, cyber-crime and natural disasters, following a major review of national security by British ministers and top officials.

The dangers posed by the dissident groups are highlighted in a document, A Strong Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: the National Security Strategy, which sought to prioritise the risks facing the UK in coming years.

The report comes just a week after head of MI5 Jonathan Evans said the dissident groups posed “a real and rising security challenge” given the “persistent rise” in their activity and ambitions in recent months.

His warning came after the Real IRA claimed it is prepared to launch attacks against financial targets, saying it had “a track record of attacking high-profile economic targets and financial institutions such as the City of London”.

Explaining the decision to rank dissident republicans “in the top tier of risk”, senior officials said the threat posed is substantial, but lower than that from al-Qaeda.

“We have made a distinction in the threat levels between international terrorism and Northern Ireland terrorism. International terrorism is higher but the conclusion of ministers is that an attack in the UK from dissident groups from Northern Ireland was significant enough in terms of the combination of its impact and its likelihood to be worth putting into the top tier,” said one official.

Asked to explain why dissident republicans are judged to be capable of “high-impact attacks”, when this is doubted in many quarters, another official said: “We can’t go into that evidence. You will just have to take it from us that it is right that [they] should be in that first category. We can’t go into it further.

The national security review document states: “At home, there remains a serious and persistent threat from residual terrorist groups linked to Northern Ireland.

“Although these groups have no coherent political agenda and lack popular support, the frequency of terrorist incidents has increased over the last 18 months: there have been 37 attacks on national security targets this year to date, up from 22 in the whole of 2009.”

Later, it referred again to Northern Ireland: “The security situation is unlikely to improve in the short term. There have been an increasing number of disruptions and arrests by the security forces, but these groups are resilient . . . We know that they aspire to mount attacks in Great Britain.”

Last week, the Garda arrested two men with a pipebomb in Waterford, while the PSNI in Omagh, Co Tyrone, charged Daniel Turnbull (30) with planning a murder attempt.

In Omagh, the PSNI also arrested three men in a car that contained a loaded revolver and bullets hidden in a sock, while a second cache of arms was found in follow-up searches.

In his speech last month, the head of MI5 said the British security services had “perhaps” given “insufficient weight to history over the last 100 years which shows that whenever the main body of Irish republicanism has reached a political accommodation . . . a hardliner rejectionist group would fragment off and continue with the so-called ‘armed struggle’ ”.