British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair today came under a joint attack for making distinctions between terrorist groups in Northern Ireland and Osama bin Laden's al Qaida network.
Conservative leader Mr Iain Duncan Smith and Ulster Unionist Party leader Mr David Trimble urged the government to rethink its new anti-terror legislation and end the distinction between domestic and international terrorists.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, they said there was no difference between the hijacked airliner attacks on New York and Washington and atrocities like the Omagh bombing in 1998.
MPs will debate the detail of the Government's Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Bill as it reaches its committee stage in the Commons today.
"It follows that there should be no question of recognising, or creating in law, different categories of terrorist organisation," Mr Duncan Smith and Mr Trimble wrote.
"Yet this is precisely what this government has done. We support the move to introduce new powers - as we would any effective anti-terrorist measures.
"Yet these measures should apply equally to all those suspected of involvement in terrorism. That should include organisations in the United Kingdom."
The pair added: "By creating different classes of terrorist, the danger is that all terrorists will be encouraged to believe that, if only they persist, sooner or later they will succeed.
"That is why, at this late stage, we urge the Government to think again and end the anomaly that it has created."
PA