ANALYSIS: The 600lb device made safe near Forkhill is the latest in a worrying series of failed attempts, writes GERRY MORIARTY
EVEN A defused bomb is a boost for dissident republicans. Nobody died at Forkhill, thankfully, and this will be a disappointment to the group that planted the 600lb explosive.
But they will be happy they have reinforced the point that they remain a serious threat to life and limb and to the new political dispensation.
It will be worrying for the British and Irish security and intelligence forces and also for the British and Irish governments, and the Northern political leaders as they try to bed down devolution.
The group that prepared, assembled, transported and planted the bomb near Forkhill in south Armagh was hoping for what is rather unhappily described as a “spectacular”. That means significant or huge loss of life. While nobody has admitted responsibility for the bomb the Real IRA, which has strength in the general Louth/south Armagh area, would seem the most likely suspects.
A bomb weighing 600lb obviously can cause terrible carnage. The Real IRA Omagh bomb which claimed the lives of 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, was 500lbs. That too was assembled in Louth/south Armagh.
Fortunately, through good police work, intelligence, luck or all three, the British army was in a position to render the device safe after almost a week of carefully checking the area.
The PSNI believes that the bomb was targeted at them. But residents living nearby also would have been in mortal danger such was the size of the device.
The command wire led across the Border to a firing point in Co Louth. This suggests that the dissidents were planning what is known as a “come-on”: a trap to lure police to the bomb site when the bomb would then be exploded. Dissidents have tried such action before.
MI5 continue to place the level of dissident threat at “severe”, just one level down from the highest “critical” assessment. That has been the case since before the Real IRA killed two British soldiers in March and the Continuity IRA shot dead PSNI Constable Stephen Carroll in the same month.
This development will increase anxiety for the PSNI, gardaí, and the British and Irish intelligence services including MI5, which has chief responsibility for tracking the movements of dissidents and trying to prevent them becoming even more dangerous.
Security sources admit that they can be difficult to combat. “The problem with the dissidents is that they don’t have a unified structure. They are factionalised and geographically disparate groups, and that makes them harder to deal with,” explained one senior source.
The police and intelligence services might know the dissidents are planning an attack or attacks. But pinpointing where these attacks will happen can be difficult because of the fragmented nature of the groups, the source added.
Before the killings of the two British soldiers and police officer, former PSNI chief constable Sir Hugh Orde made clear that it wasn’t a case of if the dissidents would cause death and/or serious destruction, but when. And that remains the case.
Security sources have always acknowledged the serious intent of the dissidents, but felt they didn’t have sufficient capability and capacity to mount sustained attacks.
While that is still the case they acknowledge ruefully that the Real IRA and Continuity IRA are improving their capacity and capability. “They are becoming more sophisticated; there is no doubt about that,” said a senior source.
They point to the 300lb bomb found and defused in Castlewellan, Co Down, in January.
That device was destined to be exploded at the British army base in Ballykinlar, Co Down, in January. Moreover, they also point to the various components of a 100lb bomb found in Roslea in Co Fermanagh in May, possibly targeted at the police.
Other incidents illustrate how the dissidents are widening their operations. They involve homemade grenades, shootings, “punishment” attacks, fomenting serious rioting at Ardoyne, attempting to muscle in on the Sinn Féin protests at Rasharkin during the recent loyalist bands parade, and the staged illegal vehicle checkpoint in Meigh in south Armagh over two weeks ago.
Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson know that part of the dissident strategy is to sow discord between Sinn Féin and the DUP, to destabilise the peace that took so long to establish. It will be another test of their leadership and their political sophistication.