Break-away Workers' Party members in Belfast involved in setting up a political group claim they are being attacked and intimidated by members of a paramilitary group associated with the Official IRA.
According to sources in west Belfast, paramilitary elements once known as the Official IRA strongly oppose the emergence of the new group. The Official IRA was supposed to have been disbanded in the early 1970s but is believed to have continued, known as "Group B".
According to sources, Group B members are involved in drugs and other crime in the North. One member from the Falls Road is reported to have participated in an attempt to shoot a woman in west Belfast who will appear as a witness in a criminal case against a Co Antrim loyalist with whom the Group B man has drug-dealing associations.
There have also been assaults and acts of intimidation against former associates in the Official republican movement in Belfast who are forming a political party to be known as Republican Left.
The party, which may run candidates in local government elections, issued a statement recently saying it supported the Belfast Agreement and urged a Yes vote in the May 22nd referendum.
The first incident happened on December 7th when a supporter of the new party had his car burned outside his Roden Street home at around 11 p.m. The man, who wishes not to have his name published, said that two nights later, at about 7 p.m., RUC officers broke down his front door and treated him and his children roughly.
The man, who is separated, was looking after his two boys aged 12 and 15, and a five-year-old girl. He claims one officer held him and kept asking if there were any weapons in the house, which was searched thoroughly.
On May 2nd, his car was burned again. One member of the new group said: "There appears to be a systematic campaign against this man. The raid on his house by the RUC Special Patrol Group is sinister and very worrying given the context of the campaign against him by these people."
The figure said republicans in the city suspected some members of Group B had close links with the RUC's Special Branch.
Last Thursday another RL sympathiser was attacked by two men in the forecourt of a filling station on the Springfield Road. An associate claims the man who was attacked had had a public row with a former Official IRA figure who is now the head of Group B.
It is suspected this figure had directed that the man, who is 47, and a former Workers' Party activist, be beaten up.
The man received hospital treatment, and video footage of the incident is being handed over to the RUC.