Return of IRA Assassins??

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 6:37 pm

Return of the IRA assassins... but why won't Gerry Adams condemn British soldiers' killers? | Mail Online

Galbally · Post by **Galbally** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 1:06 am

oscar;1154061 wrote: Return of the IRA assassins... but why won't Gerry Adams condemn British soldiers' killers? | Mail Online

I think that article is highly misleading actually, I think both Gerry Adams, and Martin McGuinness have rightly condemned the Real IRA attack on the barracks, as have all mainstream Nationalist and Republican politicians.

There has been widespread condemnation and revulsion across Ireland (and in Northern Ireland particularly) across both communities at the murder of these 2 soldiers. Catholics and Protestants in the North don't want war, they don't want military occupation, they don't want soldiers or civilians killed, they don't want bombs in shops, they don't want to go back to the horrific past.

They want to have a peaceful democratic society that both sides of the religious divide can share in, and its obvious that both sides will need to work harder together to make sure that extremists like these Real IRA people don't hijack the agenda.

Bez · Post by **Bez** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 4:19 am

I have heard Gerry Adams speak live on the radio and he clearly condemned the events of the weekend and reiterated that they can only move forward by TALKING. There are and I guess always will be totally opposite political views in Northern Ireland and who knows when total reconcilliation will be achieved, but talking is the only answer. My heart goes out to the lovely Irish people who must be in fear of the future. People must stand firm and I hope we don't see any knee jerk reactions to what has happened .

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 9:31 am

I mentioned this on another thread, but reckon it's worth linking to here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7931271.stm

Martin McGuinness commenting on the attack.

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 10:51 am

Scrat;1154399 wrote: I hope you are correct Galbally and I believe you are when it comes to what the people want but some small portion may not. They can make things pretty miserable.

Best of luck. Gerry Adams may be condeming the murders. To me it means bugger all. It still remains a fact that there is a splinter group out there who want to ignite the troubles again. This ties in with an interview by one of our ministers recently when he said they have know this has been brewing for a long time. The SAS will be back in Ireland. They will be simply viwed as British Soldiers. I'm fearfull.

BTW.... Congrats on your Knighthood Ted.......... NOT

mikeinie · Post by **mikeinie** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 11:53 am

Even though they call themselves ‘the real IRA’ they are not, those days are over and these murderers (nothing more than that), should be hunted down. They have no support and I hope people do not believe that this is starting again.

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 12:06 pm

mikeinie;1154519 wrote: Even though they call themselves ‘the real IRA’ they are not, those days are over and these murderers (nothing more than that), should be hunted down. They have no support and I hope people do not believe that this is starting again. I agree Mike but even if they are not 'The Real IRA' they are a splinter group acting in the name of the IRA. If a minister comes out BEFORE the killings and says that SAS will be in Northern Ireland because this is brewing....what else don't we know?

dubs · Post by **dubs** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 3:17 pm

It seems to me they've been expecting something like this to happen for some time.

Return of secret army unit was sign of growing Ulster fears - Times Online

pinkchick · Post by **pinkchick** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 3:24 pm

dubs;1154698 wrote: It seems to me they've been expecting something like this to happen for some time.

Return of secret army unit was sign of growing Ulster fears - Times Online
Yep! I agree

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 4:41 pm

oscar;1154061 wrote: Return of the IRA assassins... but why won't Gerry Adams condemn British soldiers' killers? | Mail Online

Well Martin McGuiness certainly did! Whoever did this is operating outside the traditional infrastructure and is just an opportunist looking for a return to anarchy and lawlessness.

Trouble with moving from strife to peace is that it's hard to build trust but easy to inflame a volatile situation. There are too many people with a vested interest in anarchy willing to exploit that fact but, hopefully, enough people now believe that peace is possible and will refuse to take the bait.

We surely cannot go back to the Troubles now

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 4:44 pm

oscar;1154484 wrote: Gerry Adams may be condeming the murders. To me it means bugger all. It still remains a fact that there is a splinter group out there who want to ignite the troubles again. This ties in with an interview by one of our ministers recently when he said they have know this has been brewing for a long time. The SAS will be back in Ireland. They will be simply viwed as British Soldiers. I'm fearfull.

BTW.... Congrats on your Knighthood Ted.......... NOT

You will always get the splinter groups who profit from trouble who try to make the trouble continue. What is important is the will of those with the power to enforce it.

If we allow the few to dictate to the many then we are lost indeed.

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 4:49 pm

Bryn Mawr;1154773 wrote: You will always get the splinter groups who profit from trouble who try to make the trouble continue. What is important is the will of those with the power to enforce it.

If we allow the few to dictate to the many then we are lost indeed. I hope so Bryn. Not just for Ireland..... not just so we do not have to deploy troops in NI again but also, no more Brighton bomb, Hyde Park etc etc. I don't want to see a return to any of it.

Correct me if I'm wrong but did the Thatcher regime finally admit that the IRA was unbeatable.?

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 4:55 pm

oscar;1154776 wrote: I hope so Bryn. Not just for Ireland..... not just so we do not have to deploy troops in NI again but also, no more Brighton bomb, Hyde Park etc etc. I don't want to see a return to any of it.

Correct me if I'm wrong but did the Thatcher regime finally admit that the IRA was unbeatable.?

Any terrorist organisation with the support of the population in the area in which it operates is unbeatable - there are many examples of this.

I think that the people of Ireland can now see their way to a negotiated peace and no longer support the paramilitaries.

At that point the terrorist organisations revert to being criminals and can be taken out as such.

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 4:59 pm

Bryn Mawr;1154783 wrote: Any terrorist organisation with the support of the population in the area in which it operates is unbeatable - there are many examples of this.

I think that the people of Ireland can now see their way to a negotiated peace and no longer support the paramilitaries.

At that point the terrorist organisations revert to being criminals and can be taken out as such. Yes, and why i said in the other thread about the killings that the police need to deal with this as a criminal murder only. If the victems proffessions are used and the Army involved it could take it further. Better to confine it as a criminal act and leave it with muder detectives and not the military.

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 5:02 pm

oscar;1154789 wrote: Yes, and why i said in the other thread about the killings that the police need to deal with this as a criminal murder only. If the victems proffessions are used and the Army involved it could take it further. Better to confine it as a criminal act and leave it with muder detectives and not the military.

It was the suggestion that, because Gerry Adams had not explicitly (at that time) come out and condemned it, we should send the army in again that I was objecting to.

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 5:07 pm

Bryn Mawr;1154796 wrote: It was the suggestion that, because Gerry Adams had not explicitly (at that time) come out and condemned it, we should send the army in again that I was objecting to. in MHO, i fear Gerry Adams will be between a rock and a hard place right now. God forbid, the thought of the British army back on the streets of NI. Gerry Adams surely would not endorse this notion.

If this group can be tracked and arrested even by use of the SAS, it could be the end of it. My fear is that they are not tracked immediately, carry out more killings, and the government will have to act one way or another.

Galbally · Post by **Galbally** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 5:09 pm

Unfortunately a PSNI officer has also been shot dead tonight in Craigavon, and pipe bombs were left outside the Sinn Fein offices in Belfast, and outside a police station in Lurgan. Its all very alarming I am afraid, I'm not sure where this is leading, but its fairly obvious the that the Real IRA are trying to create a response here either from the security forces or from Loyalist Paramilitaries. I really thought these days were behind us, its terribly sad to see this happening again, I just hope it can be contained before it spirals any further.

Post by **Bryn Mawr** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 5:13 pm

Galbally;1154808 wrote: Unfortunately a PSNI officer has also been shot dead tonight in Craigavon, and pipe bombs were left outside the Sinn Fein offices in Belfast, and outside a police station in Lurgan. Its all very alarming I am afraid, I'm not sure where this is leading, but its fairly obvious the that the Real IRA are trying to create a response here either from the security forces or from Loyalist Paramilitaries. I really thought these days were behind us, its terribly sad to see this happening again, I just hope it can be contained before it spirals any further.

I pray that all sides in this can keep their cool and go after the bastards that are stirring it rather than going for their traditional enemies.

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 5:17 pm

Bryn Mawr;1154816 wrote: I pray that all sides in this can keep their cool and go after the bastards that are stirring it rather than going for their traditional enemies. Amen :yh_pray:yh_pray:yh_pray:yh_shamrk:yh_shamrk

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 5:19 pm

Galbally;1154808 wrote: Unfortunately a PSNI officer has also been shot dead tonight in Craigavon, and pipe bombs were left outside the Sinn Fein offices in Belfast, and outside a police station in Lurgan. Its all very alarming I am afraid, I'm not sure where this is leading, but its fairly obvious the that the Real IRA are trying to create a response here either from the security forces or from Loyalist Paramilitaries. I really thought these days were behind us, its terribly sad to see this happening again, I just hope it can be contained before it spirals any further.
Oh God.....these headlines are not good.

News | Mail Online

Tomorrow's paper

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 5:23 pm

Daily Mail

Sir Hugh Orde, the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland, knew last week that something was very wrong. So did MI5, which recently admitted that 15 per cent of its resources are still devoted to countering terrorism in the province.

Orde was so worried that he requested the deployment of surveillance specialists from the SAS Reconnaissance Group, soldiers who covertly track Islamist terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq.

His request was based on his fear that dissident republican groups were trying to escalate attacks on members of the security forces. Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams exhibited his usual slippery ambiguity when he characterised the suggestion as 'a retrograde step' which would be ill-received among fellow republicans. His former IRA comrade, Martin McGuinness, called it 'stupid and dangerous'.

Flowers left at the scene of the shooting at Massereene Barracks in Antrim

In fact, it took only about 36 hours for Orde's fears to be realised with Saturday night's attack which left two young British soldiers dead.

The Real IRA, which claimed responsibility for the killings, was the creation of the Provisionals' former Quartermaster General, Michael McKevitt, and his wife Bernadette Sands McKevitt, the younger sister of IRA member Bobby Sands who died while on hunger strike in 1981.

More...ED MOLONEY: Now Sinn Fein MUST break with their old friends

MAIL COMMENT: A fragile peace in Northern Ireland

Return of the IRA assassins... but why won't Gerry Adams condemn British soldiers' killers?

These ultra-republican purists rejected the entire Northern Ireland peace process and split from the Provisionals in 1998, arming themselves with weapons McKevitt was well-placed to locate, as well as buying additional guns and explosives from Croatia and Slovakia. Sentenced to 20 years in jail in 2003 for 'directing terrorism', McKevitt is alleged to have been involved in the Omagh bombing.

This group of fanatical republican fundamentalists have been responsible for an increasing number of shooting attacks on policemen, while last month the security forces only narrowly succeeded in defusing a 300lb bomb intended for an Army barracks.

Although the Government will be concerned to minimise the threat the group poses to the overall peace process, this attack indirectly draws attention to the wider problem of how paramilitary groups have been tacitly allowed to dominate entire communities, provided they confined themselves to organised crime and kneecapping of juvenile delinquents.

It is an illusion to think that the absence of bombs has meant the rule of law has been re-established in hard-line loyalist or republican areas in Northern Ireland.

Anyone former terrorists dub a delinquent or drug dealer - in other words, anyone who crosses them - is liable to be beaten up with baseball bats and iron bars until he flees the province.

The IRA's mafia-like activities have carried on unabated. Everything from so-called 'tiger kidnappings', where they stalk and hold a bank employee to facilitate a robbery; fuel laundering, where the pink dye is removed from cheap agricultural diesel which is then resold at the full price; smuggling of alcohol and tobacco; fake mortgage applications; insurance fraud - all of these continue to be used to fund gangsterism.

This highlights the folly of dealing with terrorists. Tony Blair's former chief of staff Jonathan Powell suggests that we should be talking to Hamas, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda, using the 'success' of the peace process as an example of what can be achieved. That is beginning to look a very hollow boast indeed. Not only are sections of Northern Ireland effectively run by the paramilitaries but the attacks on British soldiers have begun again.

TODAY'S POLL

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Close All polls Click to view yesterday's poll results Yesterday's statements by Adams and McGuinness were notable for not directly condemning the murders - Adams even went so far as to suggest that Orde's request for a stepping up of security had 'played into the hands' of the gunmen. But in private the pair will be furious. Their claim to be the leaders of the republican movement rests on their ability to deliver the ceasefire they promised.

They will also be aware that the Real IRA cannot just be dismissed - as Peter Mandelson said yesterday - as a splinter group of no importance. The history of Irish republicanism has been built on splits and divisions. Adams, McGuinness and the rest of the Provisional IRA were dismissed as nothing more than a splinter group when they walked out of the Official IRA in 1969, but in the following years the Provisionals became the most lethal terrorist group in the world.

The dangers of this weekend's attack are not just confined to the increased risk to British forces. The police will once again become targets, and should dissident republicans attack loyalists then there is a very real danger of tit-for-tat killings between the two communities.

There is a tragic irony in all this. Almost all the players in the peace process - except for honourable Unionist politicians such as David Trimble or Ken Maginnis - have climbed aboard the lucrative bandwagon of 'conflict resolution', lecturing the world on how to talk terrorist organisations into peace. (Even Martin McGuinness has had luxury junkets to Sri Lanka to talk about forging a peace deal with the Tamil Tigers).

Meanwhile, in their own back yard, we now discover that republicans have been armed and waiting.

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 5:39 pm

Cop killed in N Ireland | The Sun |News

Tomorrow's Sun

fuzzywuzzy · Post by **fuzzywuzzy** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 6:32 pm

I was stunned yesterday when my 10 year old told us he knew how to make a mobile phone bomb. Apparently You get C4 and a couple of wires and attach it to a mobile phone and then ring that phone:-2 I'm sure there's more to it than that but what shocked me was how does my 10 year old know what C4 is?..............I didn't even know.

Terrorism is a growth industry at the moment ...................maybe nommie should be looking into it?:yh_rotfl

Post by **Oscar Namechange** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 7:06 pm

fuzzywuzzy;1154891 wrote:

Terrorism is a growth industry at the moment ...................maybe nommie should be looking into it?:yh_rotfl
I can't believe you have just said that!! Especially coming from you who was so upset about the Al-Quaeda bombing in Bali.

Have you any idea how seious this is?