In an operation simultaneous with the arrest of five people in France, gardaí in Dublin arrested two "Real IRA" suspects.
The men, both in their 20s and from the Republic, were detained in raids at two locations in west Dublin around 7 a.m.
They were taken to Lucan and Clondalkin Garda stations, where they were being held last night under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act. They can be held for up to 72 hours without charge.
Their arrest were part of a major Garda operation into the activities of the "Real IRA" and followed intelligence received from the French authorities. The Irish operation involved officers from the Garda crime and security branch, Garda headquarters and the Special Detective Unit, Harcourt Square.
Four middle-aged French men and one woman spent last night in jail in Rennes, Brittany, after they were arrested on suspicion of obtaining weapons for the "Real IRA", the group that broke away from the Provisional IRA and killed 29 people in the Omagh bombing.
French police also seized a small weapons cache buried in a forest near Dieppe, Normandy.
They had been observing the cache, which contained two sub-machineguns, an automatic weapon, two silencers and 130 rounds of ammunition, and arrested one suspect because he returned repeatedly to the spot.
The other arrests occurred hundreds of kilometres away in the Côte-d'Armor region of Brittany. The arrests were the culmination of a joint Irish and French operation which started in August. British intelligence officials are also understood to have been participated.
The Garda announced that two Irish men in their 20s, believed to be involved with the Bretons, were arrested in Dublin.
But despite the arms seizure and arrests at a crucial time in the Northern Ireland peace process, French sources called for caution.
All the French suspects are over 40, and most are over 50. They are known to be deeply committed to promoting Breton language and identity, but have no police records and no known contacts with the Breton Revolutionary Army. One is a municipal councillor in the town of Guincamp. The woman is in charge of the twinning of Guincamp with Shannon.
French sources said the Breton suspects would almost certainly claim they had no idea their Irish friends were associated with the Michael McKevitt faction of the "Real IRA". McKevitt, who was arrested through the testimony of a paid FBI informant, was convicted of directing terrorism and sentenced to 20 years in August.
The Irish suspects can be held for 72 hours, and the French suspects for four days. Based on their questioning by police, the French detainees will either be released or taken to Paris to be charged with assisting a terrorist organisation.
"The fact that they are held in Rennes rather than Paris would seem to indicate that they are seen as "small fry".
A French judiciary source thought the arrests were a preventive measure related to the IRA's recent act of decommissioning and scheduled elections in Northern Ireland on November 26th.
"The Irish and British and French don't want any risk of attacks at a time like this," he said. "These people had phone contact with suspected members of the 'Real IRA', and there was travel between France and Ireland. The intelligence services suspect something is going on, but it's not clear what. So they cast a wide net."
"These 'Real IRA' people want to continue their campaign to 'rid their country of the dreaded foe'. They haven't realised the game is over," said another source, adding that the "Real IRA" had been actively sourcing weapons on the Continent for the past six months and that Brittany might be one of their avenues.
As a former quartermaster for the IRA, McKevitt would have known the IRA's weapons suppliers. The Breton suspects are not perceived as a threat to France.
"The quantity [of weapons] is not significant; the link [with Breton nationalists] is," a reliable source said.
By the standards of Northern Ireland, the Breton militants are a tame bunch. Their "cause" has claimed one life, a woman employee at a McDonald's restaurant who was killed in a bomb blast. But the Breton Revolutionary Army has links to the Basque separatist group ETA.
