Dissident republican groups pose an increasing security challenge in Northern Ireland and may strike in Britain, the head of the MI5 security service said.
The variety of small armed groups did not have broad public support but seemed to cooperate with each other increasingly, launching attacks with a growing variety of methods, director general Jonathan Evans said last night.
"We have seen a persistent rise in terrorist activity and ambition in Northern Ireland over the last three years," he said in a speech to security industry professionals in London. MI5 is Britain's domestic security service.
"While at present the dissidents' campaign is focused on Northern Ireland we cannot exclude the possibility that they might seek to extend their attacks to Great Britain as violent Republican groups have traditionally done," he said.
"Therefore, while we do not face the scale of problems caused by the Provisional IRA at the height of the Troubles, there is a real and increasing security challenge in Northern Ireland."
Attacks by nationalist splinter groups are at their highest level since a the Belfast Agreement in 1998.
The groups include the Real IRA (RIRA), which told the Guardian newspaper this week that British banks and bankers were now potential targets and it was confident of increasing the effectiveness of its attacks.
In March 2009, the RIRA claimed responsibility for the killing of two British soldiers and the Continuity IRA (CIRA) killed a policeman.
Mr Evans said the assumption in 2007 was that the residual threat from terrorism in Northern Ireland was low and likely to decline further as time went on and as the new constitutional arrangements under the St Andrews Agreement were put in place.
"Sadly that has not proved to be the case," he said, adding that while the attacks primarily targeted the police they were reckless and often put members of the public at risk.
"Perhaps we were giving insufficient weight to the pattern of history over the last hundred years which shows that whenever the main body of Irish republicanism has reached a political accommodation and rejoined constitutional politics, a hardliner rejectionist group would fragment off and continue with the so-called 'armed struggle."
Reuters