ALTHOUGH no one has yet claimed responsibility for the mortar bomb attack on a British army base in the German town of Osnabruck last night, the assault bears the hallmarks of the IRA. But Sinn Fein insisted in Dublin last night that it had no knowledge of the attack.
If the IRA is responsible, it is the first time in more than six years it has targeted British soldiers in continental Europe.
The IRA, which has often used home-made mortars in the past, favours the weapons for their simplicity and case of use. Earlier this week the Garda said it had developed a new mortar, following an arms find in Clonaslee, Co Laois.
The Clonaslee haul, including 60 kilos of Semtex, mortars, detonators and firearms, was found in a raid on a bunker at a farm. The previous discovery of an IRA arms factory was in 1992 in Meath.
Perhaps the most audacious mortar attack was in February 1991 when the IRA came within yards of wiping out the British Prime Minister, Mr John Major, and his Gulf war cabinet.
In March 1994 the IRA outwitted security forces and launched 12 mortar bombs over four days on London's Heathrow airport. The bombs failed to explode but security sources suggested they had not been primed to give an idea of what the IRA could do.
In 1985, nine policemen were killed when the IRA launched a mortar attack on a police station in the border town of Newry in Northern Ireland.
The IRA has not attacked British troops in Europe since May 1990, when they gunned down two Australian tourists in the Netherlands after mistaking them for off-duty soldiers.
It was blamed for attacks on British servicemen in West Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands which killed six soldiers and one infant in 1988.
Three air force men were assassinated in shooting and bomb attacks in the Netherlands, a British soldier was shot by gunmen in at Ostend and a corporal was blown up in Hanover.
In October 1988 a soldier and his six-month-old baby were shot dead at a petrol station in the German town of Wildenrath, near the Dutch border.
In March 1987, 30 people were injured by a car bomb at British forces headquarters at Rheindahlen while the same Osnabruck barracks hit yesterday were damaged by a bomb in June 1989, although no one was killed.
The latest attack came on the day that Mr Major and other leaders of the G7 group of industrialised nations approved 40 recommendations for fighting terrorism and organised crime across the globe during a conference in Lyon, France.
Earlier yesterday, at a London press conference, the chairman of Sinn Fein, warned that the IRA could strike again.