Sinn Fein minister Mr Martin McGuinness tonight dismissed as "bogus, malicious rubbish" claims that he is now the chief of staff of the IRA.
In a statement issued tonight, the Mid Ulster MP denied reports in some Sunday newspapers that he has been appointed to the top post in the paramilitary organisation.
In an angry rebuttal of the claims, Mr McGuinness said the reports were designed to provide "cover and credence" to unionist attempts in the Northern Ireland Assembly to remove him and Ms Bairbre de Brun from the province's power sharing executive tomorrow.
Newspapers quoted British and Irish security sources as alleging the Northern Education Minister was made IRA chief of staff at a meeting of the terror group's seven-man Army Council in Dundalk in the Irish Republic on September 27.
The move was interpreted by security sources as a sign that republicans are preparing for an act of IRA decommissioning, with those committed to political strategy gaining the upper hand.
But Mr McGuinness responded tonight: "Reports in some newspapers over the past few days quoting the usual `security sources' are total and absolute rubbish.
"It is no coincidence that these stories from the same journalists and quoting the same sources surface every time there is a crisis in the political process.
"It is obvious that the timing of these reports is designed to give cover and credence to the exclusion motion being put to the Assembly by David Trimble tomorrow.
"I have no doubt that this non-story has been released by the usual securocrats who have never missed an opportunity to undermine the Irish peace process and try to bolster the wrecking tactics deployed politically by David Trimble and that manifests itself through violent unionism on the streets in the guise of the Ulster Defence Association."
Mr David Trimble's Ulster Unionists and the Rev Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists have tabled two separate motions in the Assembly to remove Mr McGuinness and Ms de Brun from office tomorrow.
To succeed, under Assembly voting procedures the motions must command a majority of unionist MLAs and a majority of nationalists.
But with Sinn Fein and John Hume's moderate nationalist SDLP opposing them, both motions are expected to fail.
The spotlight will then fall on Mr Trimble's Ulster Unionists to see if their ministers will resign from the power sharing government in a bid to force Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid to suspend the political institutions.
PA