UK > History > 2011 > Northern Ireland (I)

Riots erupt in Nothern Ireland

after Protestant marches

BELFAST | Wed Jul 13, 2011
3:15am EDT
Reuters
By Conor Humphries and Ian Graham

BELFAST (Reuters) - Police fired plastic bullets and water cannon at Catholic youths in Northern Ireland's provincial capital Belfast on Tuesday after rioting erupted when a Protestant parade passed their estate.

Sporadic violence erupted across the British-ruled province on the culmination of a season of parades by pro-British Protestants to mark a 17th-century military victory, a tradition many Catholics say is provocative.

Around 200 people threw bottles, slates and petrol bombs in the mainly Catholic Ardoyne area of Belfast after police moved in to prevent them confronting the passing Orange Order parade.

Two cars were set on fire and dozens of rounds of plastic bullets were fired. Police said a number of officers were injured.

Most of the 500 or so parades across the province passed peacefully, but police reported rioting in Londonderry, Newry and Armagh as well as the Markets area in central Belfast.

Three decades of fighting between mostly Protestant loyalists who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom and Irish nationalists, mainly Catholics, who want it to be part of a united Ireland tore the province apart during a three-decade period known as the "Troubles."

A 1998 peace agreement paved the way for a power-sharing government of loyalists and nationalists. Violence has subsided, but police say the threat from dissident groups opposed to the peace deal is higher than it has ever been since it was signed.

A small Orange Order parade passed the Ardoyne estate in near silence with one drummer keeping time after a government commission ordered marchers not to play their traditional drums or flutes.

A few dozen residents held a silent protest as they passed, while a small group of women sang the Irish national anthem.

But hundreds of others were pinned by police vans and officers in riot gear into an estate a hundred meters (yards) from the marchers, a move residents said was heavy-handed.

"It's the same thing every year. It's aggravation," said Jim, a 47-year old health worker watching the parade. "We're surrounded up here. It's no wonder the kids have so much hatred."

Marchers were marking King William of Orange's victory over the Roman Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, which helped to secure Protestant supremacy in Ireland.

Pipe bands and drummers from Scotland joined local groups decked in orange banners and British flags for hundreds of marches across the province.

"It's a celebration, we don't want any trouble," said Eddie Whyte, 42, as he marched past Belfast City Hall on Tuesday morning. "If they are offended by the British flag, maybe they shouldn't be living in this country."

Two dozen police officers were injured in nationalist rioting on Monday night as Protestant youths lit hundreds of bonfires, many draped in Irish flags, to mark the July 12 holiday.

Catholic and Protestant politicians have called for calm in recent days and urged people not to go into the streets to protest against the parades.

"We must not allow the progress that has been made to be thwarted by those who want to drag us back to the past," Northern Ireland's First Minister Peter Robinson said.

Police said they had also come under attack on Tuesday evening in the mainly Catholic Markets area of Belfast, with rioters throwing bricks and fireworks and setting a car on fire. A car was hijacked and set alight in Armagh.

 

(Reporting by Ian Graham and Conor Humphries, Editing by Michael Roddy)

    Riots erupt in Nothern Ireland after Protestant marches, R, 13.7.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/13/us-irish-riots-idUSTRE76B73O20110713

Irish militants warn of bomb in central London

LONDON | Mon May 16, 2011
9:23am EDT
Reuters
By Adrian Croft

LONDON (Reuters) - Irish militants opposed to the peace process with Britain warned of a bomb in central London on Monday, a day before Queen Elizabeth makes a historic visit to Ireland, security sources said.

"A bomb threat ... has been received relating to central London today. The threat is not specific in relation to location or time," London police said in a statement.

A security source said the caller had used a codeword known to the police, lending credibility to the threat.

The warning came on the eve of the first visit to Ireland by a British monarch in a century and a week before U.S. President Barack Obama makes a state visit to London.

Police said earlier that a security alert had led to the closure of the Mall, a broad avenue leading to Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth's residence, but refused to say what had prompted it.

Despite a 1998 peace deal mostly ending Northern Ireland's three decades of conflict, violence by dissident Republicans opposed to the peace process has been increasing in the British-ruled province.

A Northern Irish republican militant group, the Real IRA, told Queen Elizabeth, head of state of Ireland's former colonial master, last month she was not welcome on Irish soil.

 

'REAL IRA'

British member of parliament Patrick Mercer said last year he believed militants from Northern Ireland hoped to stage attacks on the British "mainland."

The last Irish-related attack in London came in March 2001 when a powerful car bomb exploded outside the BBC's London headquarters. Police say the Real IRA, a republican splinter group opposed to the IRA's ceasefire, was behind the blast. One man was wounded.

The IRA mounted several bombing operations in England during its campaign. Such attacks were more difficult than actions in northern Ireland, since the guerrillas lacked support networks; but they arguably had more impact on the British government.

The IRA staged its most spectacular attack in 1984 when it blew up the Brighton hotel where Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was staying, along with her chief ministers. She narrowly escaped, but five people were killed.

Britain's interior ministry said in a statement: "We face a real and serious threat from terrorism ... There is a continuing need for vigilance and the public should report any suspicious activity to the police."

The police said the threat of Irish-related attacks was considered lower than the overall threat to Britain from international terrorism which remains at severe, the second heighest level on a five-step scale.

 

(Additional reporting by William Maclean; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

    Irish militants warn of bomb in central London, R, 16.8.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/16/us-britain-security-idUSTRE74F24620110516

Timeline: Worst bomb attacks on mainland Britain

Mon May 16, 2011
8:43am EDT
Reuters

(Reuters) - British police said Monday they had been warned of a bomb in central London, a day before Queen Elizabeth makes a historic visit to Ireland.

Here is a timeline of some of the worst bomb attacks on mainland Britain by Irish dissident groups in the last 35 years.

February 1974 - Coach carrying soldiers and families in northern England is bombed by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Twelve people killed, 14 hurt.

October-November 1974 - Wave of IRA bombs in British pubs kills 28 people and wounds more than 200.

July 1982 - Two IRA bomb attacks on soldiers in London's royal parks kill 11 people and wound 50.

December 1983 - IRA bomb at London's Harrods department store kills six.

October 1984 - Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's cabinet narrowly escapes IRA bomb that kills five people at Brighton hotel during Conservative Party's annual conference.

September 1989 - Bomb at Royal Marines Music School in Deal, southeast England, kills 11 and wounds 22.

February 1990 - Explosion at Army recruitment center in Leicester, central England. Two wounded.

May 1990 - Seven wounded by blast at Army Educational Service headquarters in London suburb of Eltham.

May 1990 - One soldier is killed and another wounded by car bomb in Wembley, north London.

June 1990 - Soldier is shot dead at train station in Lichfield, central England.

February 1991 - IRA comes close to killing Prime Minister John Major and key cabinet members in a mortar attack on Downing Street. One of three mortar bombs slammed into garden behind building, exploding within 50 feet of the target.

April 1992 - Huge car bomb outside Baltic Exchange in London's financial district kills three people and wounds 91.

March 1993 - Bombs in two litter bins in Warrington kill two boys aged three and 12.

April 1993 - IRA truck bomb devastates Bishopsgate area of London's financial district, killing one and wounding 44.

February 1996 - Two people die when IRA guerrillas detonate large bomb in London's Docklands area.

March 2001 - Car bomb explodes outside BBC's London headquarters. Police say the Real IRA, a republican splinter group opposed to the IRA's ceasefire, was behind the blast. One man was wounded.

May 2011 - A warning comes from Irish dissident republicans opposed to the peace process in Northern Ireland.

 

(Writing by David Cutler; London Editorial Reference Unit)

    Timeline: Worst bomb attacks on mainland Britain, R, 16.5.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/16/us-britain-security-bombings-idUSTRE74F30T20110516

Northern Ireland police defuse huge bomb on Dublin road

NEWRY, Northern Ireland | Sat Apr 9, 2011
2:41pm BST
Reuters
By Ian Graham

NEWRY, Northern Ireland (Reuters) - Police in Northern Ireland defused a 500-pound van bomb near the main Dublin-Belfast road on Saturday, a device which they say may have been built by dissident Republicans to cause "huge devastation" in a nearby town.

The bomb, roughly the same size as one that dissident Republicans used to kill 29 people in Omagh 1998, was discovered underneath a motorway bridge south of Newry after two warning calls on Friday. The incident comes a week after suspected dissidents carried out their first killing of a policeman in two years.

"Had it exploded it would have caused huge devastation or loss of life," Chief Superintendent Alasdair Robinson told journalists. The "sophisticated" bomb contained 500 pounds (225 kilogrammes) of explosives, he said.

There has been a surge in activity in recent weeks, by a rag-tag of Republican groups opposed to the 1998 peace agreement which largely ended three decades of violence that killed more than 3,600 people.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bomb, but police said a phone call to warn about the bomb used a code word previously used by dissident Republicans.

Robinson said it may have been abandoned en route to its ultimate target due to a larger than normal police presence in the area.

The bomb was packed into a wheelie bin in the back of a Ford Transit van which had been stolen in Maynooth in the Irish Republic in January, Robinson said.

The device was one of the biggest made by dissidents in recent years and dwarfed the 300 pound (136 kilogramme) device which exploded outside Newry courthouse last year causing extensive damage.

Army bomb disposal experts carried out a number of controlled explosions during an 18 hour operation before a police spokeswoman said the device had been made safe.

The operation caused extensive traffic disruption and forced the closure of the main north-south railway line nearby.

"We could have had another example of mass murder on our hands today," said Jonathan Bell, a member of the Democratic Unionist Party who sits on the Northern Irish policing board.

A week ago 25-year-old Constable Ronan Kerr was killed when a booby-trap a bomb exploded under his car in Omagh, an attack police suspect was organised by dissident Republicans to scare Catholics from joining the north's police force.

Detectives said they had detained a 33-year-old near Omagh on Friday night in the third arrest connected with the murder. On Friday police were granted an extra five days to question the first two suspects.

(Editing by Conor Humphries, David Stamp and Mike Nesbit)

    Northern Ireland police defuse huge bomb on Dublin road, R, 9.4.2011
    http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/04/09/uk-irish-bomb-idUKTRE7380ZD20110409

Omagh and the limits of the politics of peace

The new Omagh tragedy highlights the country's political problems,
and Cameron's duty to help solve them

Monday 4 April 2011
The Guardian
Peter Preston
This article appeared on p28 of the Main section section of the Guardian
on Monday 4 April 2011. It was published on guardian.co.uk at 09.00 BST
on Monday 4 April 2011.

t's a "wicked and cowardly act", says the British prime minister. "And a pointless act of terrorism," echoes his new Dublin counterpart. These guys, whoever they may be, are "betraying their community", says Martin McGuinness. Absolutely, echoes his new sort-of Stormont boss, Peter Robinson, "they're Neanderthals". One dead policeman, blown up by a car bomb outside his Omagh home; so many voices from north, south, east and west condemning any hint of a return to random killing.

You can choose to be reassured if you wish. Northern Ireland's grand coalition still functions (with Robinson, not Paisley). In the 13 years since the last, traumatic Omagh bomb signalled a formal end for even the Real IRA, peace has survived, flourished, become normality.

Why, isn't the Queen off to Dublin soon? Didn't Chancellor Osborne dip his hand in our pockets to bail out Ireland's tottering banks? Who on earth wants to see a few demented deniers, with leftover lives to kill, reignite the carnage because they are bored, mad or terminally stupid? There is surely no "continuity" for this soiled brand of republicanism, only oblivion? Globalisation, take it away.

Yet this commonsensical chorus only takes you so far. It clears the bloody detritus of the past; it provides a suitably united response to the murderers who remain; but somehow it still fails to address or secure the foundations of a quite different future.

Nationalism (as chronicled by the Guardian in Catalonia and the Basque country last week) is an itch that can never be quite scratched away. It is the politics of real or supposed deprivation. Those bastards over there – in Madrid, or London – aren't being fair! Only we, ourselves, alone, can provide such fairness. Wreathe that struggle in mists of rhetoric and selective history and there's a potent refrain that declines to die. It may fall silent for a decade or two. But you can't ever be sure that it's gone forever unless other fresh tunes totally drown it out.

So here's the next challenge, beyond simple condemnation, for Westminster, the Dáil and for Stormont. It's been vital for Catholics and Protestants to come together in government, for the polar opposites of the Democratic Unionist party and Sinn Féin to show they can rule in relative amity. This was always the mandatory first stride towards sanity and away from the turmoil of terror. But it was only a first stride – and until something more akin to normal politics takes over, with one lot in and another lot out because the electorate says so, until the essential arguments are all about schools, hospitals, roads and taxes, then the past will never be wholly exorcised.

There's nothing impossible about such progress. Indeed, at local council level, it is part of the existing landscape. But, in a Stormont still defined by religion and mythic decisions, the old talk and old constituencies linger on, lighting fires on mean constituency streets.

PC Ronan Kerr, a young Catholic policeman – his RUC choice a symbol of reconciliation – died horribly on Saturday. His killing is all about the past (and perhaps a little about the boredom of political stasis as usual). It was wicked to kill him, as No 10 said; but it's also a touch cowardly for those who represent the huge, rational majority not to want to move on as well.

Northern Ireland has lost prominence in the UK affairs; its secretaries of state have small salience and not much to do. Its problems, in Downing Street terms, are labelled "solved". They aren't. Not in terms of pursuing a few mad men, but in terms of driving the whole dynamics of political change. We may praise Messrs Major and Blair, among many others, for what they helped bring to pass in Belfast. But now David Cameron is part of that future, too.

    Omagh and the limits of the politics of peace, G, 4.4.2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/04/omagh-bomb-politics-stormont-nationalism

Northern Ireland: Not the end of history yet

The murder of Ronan Kerr is not a random event.
It is unquestionably part of a continuing pattern

Monday 4 April 2011
The Guardian
Editorial
This article appeared on p30 of the Main section section of the Guardian on Monday 4 April 2011. It was published on guardian.co.uk at 00.01 BST on Monday 4 April 2011. It was last modified at 00.02 BST on Monday 4 April 2011.

The booby-trap bomb killing of a young police officer in Northern Ireland at the weekend feels like a horror risen from the grave, a brutality erupting out of a dark and almost forgotten past. For people of the murdered 25-year-old Constable Ronan Kerr's own generation, who have grown up in the years during which Northern Ireland has been at peace, his killing will have been specially incomprehensible. Surely such violence – and in Omagh of all places – was now a thing of the past? Was it not just last week that first minister Peter Robinson was claiming that the 5 May Northern Ireland assembly elections will be the first in which the main issues will be everyday ones?

The answer to these questions remains yes. And yet the murder is not a random event. It is unquestionably part of a continuing pattern. The killing of Constable Kerr comes days after a large bomb was defused outside the courthouse in Derry and two men were shot in Dublin during what is said to have been a dispute among dissident republicans. The gun and the bomb – and the clandestine infrastructure and networks that go with them – have not disappeared. And a threat remains on the mainland too. It is less than six months since the home secretary said an attack in Britain by Irish terrorists is now a "strong possibility".

The killing of a Catholic police officer was a political act as well as a criminal one. It was clearly designed to frighten Constable Kerr's co-religionists out of a police career. But the days when Northern Ireland's police could plausibly be depicted as sectarian enforcers against oppressed Catholics are long past. Policing has been reformed. The 50:50 recruitment drive has meant that 30% of officers are Catholics now. This line must be defended. It was good, therefore, to see all sides rising instinctively to that responsibility this weekend. The murderers must be caught. But their attempt to wreck police reform must be defeated too.

As always, however, there is a deeper story. Northern Ireland remains culturally divided in spite of the heroic transformations of the recent past. On the margins – quite big margins, judging by a 2010 survey that gave them an estimated 14% support – some republicans remain wedded to ancestral agendas and to the rewards of outlaw ways of life. Some of the old republican dogs refuse to learn new peaceful tricks. Meanwhile a new generation has grown up which embraces the criminal glamour of the past – especially in grim economic times both sides of the border – that their elders have forsworn. They may not be many. But there are enough of them, and enough fellow travellers, to matter. Their threat will remain real for far longer than most of us would like to admit.

    Northern Ireland: Not the end of history yet, G, 4.4.2011,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/04/editorial-ireland-murder-ronan-kerr

Omagh murder fuels fears

that terror groups have new weapons

Anti-ceasefire republicans better-organised,
say security forces as booby-trapped car kills 25-year-old Ronan Kerr


Share Henry McDonald and Richard Norton Taylor
Guardian.co.uk
Sunday 3 April 2011
20.56 BST
This article was published on guardian.co.uk at 20.56 BST on Sunday 3 April 2011.
A version appeared on p4 of the Main section section of the Guardian on Monday 4 April 2011. It was last modified at 01.46 BST on Monday 4 April 2011.

Republican dissidents have perfected a new generation of weapons with which to launch a fresh terrorist offensive, senior security sources have told the Guardian.

The security sources in the Irish Republic, already concerned about a renewed undercar booby-trap bomb threat, say anti-ceasefire republicans have been working on a mortar bomb device, one of which was seized recently near Dublin.

In a further worrying development Irish security sources told the Guardian that a new form of TNT explosive had been discovered during a Garda raid on a republican dissident arms dump in Dunleer, Co Louth last year.

Security sources in Britain have also indicated that the threat from the dissident republican terror groups has become more pronounced in recent weeks. MI5, which has overall responsibility for security in Northern Ireland, states on its website: "There have been increasing signs of co-ordination and co-operation between republican terrorist groups."

The revelations come as the investigation continues into the murder of newly qualified Catholic police officer Ronan Kerr. The 25-year-old died after a booby-trap bomb placed underneath his car parked outside his home in Omagh exploded shortly before 4pm on Saturday.

Kerr had only graduated from the police training college in December and was one of a new generation of Catholic officers.

At a press conference in Belfast on Sunday Chief Constable Matt Baggott said those behind the Omagh murder had "killed a peacemaker". He branded Kerr's killers as a "potent and dangerous minority" and added: "A mother has lost her brave son, made all the more horrific that it is Mother's Day today."

On Sunday night Kerr's mother, Nuala, said the aim of a neutral police service should be upheld: "This is at a time when we are striving for a neutral police force for the good of our country and I urge all Catholic members not to be deterred by this. We all need to stand up and be counted and to strive for equality.

His death provoked anger across Ireland and the world with the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, condemning those responsible.

On a visit to the murdered constable's family in Beragh, just outside Omagh, Northern Ireland's first minister, Peter Robinson, said the attack was "despicable and evil". The Democratic Unionist leader said he was confident that despite the targeting of the Catholic policeman more young Catholics would join the PSNI.

"I know my fellow citizens and they will not be deterred from joining the police by those behind this terrible terrorist murder," he said.

Gerry Adams, the Sinn Féin president, described the killing as "futile", while unionists said it was time to clamp down on the republican dissidents.

The ongoing dissident threat has made it one of the busiest years so far for bomb disposal experts, with security forces on both sides of the Irish border bracing themselves for a fresh terrorist offensive.

A senior security source said the Republic's security forces had found a sophisticated technical element to a new mortar bomb launcher which Irish police recovered during an operation on the M1 motorway linking Dublin to Belfast late last year.

The device was potentially more deadly and accurate than the mortar bomb launchers used in Northern Ireland in recent times, the security source stressed. The mortar find and the explosives indicate that republican terror groups opposed to the peace process have improved their engineering techniques and secured new war material from eastern Europe.

The lethal bomb blast brought back memories of the Omagh atrocity in August 1998 when 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, were killed in a Real IRA car bombing. It was the single biggest atrocity of the Ulster Troubles.

Before Saturday's murder the Real IRA and Óghlaigh na hÉireann (ONH) had resumed their bomb and hoax bomb attacks across Northern Ireland. A car bomb was left by the Real IRA outside Derry city's courthouse last Sunday evening and put the lives of the public, including choirboys practising in the nearby Church of Ireland cathedral, at risk. Meanwhile an ONH hoax bomb caused widespread disruption in north Belfast last week.

The recent upsurge in dissident republican violence followed a lull over the last few months. This was partly due to a series of intelligence successes against the anti-ceasefire republican groups, mainly by the Garda Síochána in the Republic.

According to security sources there has been a slow but significant movement of former Provisional IRA individuals to the dissident groups which are now estimated to total between 700 and 800 active members.

They said recruitment to the dissident groups had been encouraged by the economic climate and increasing unemployment in Ireland, and youngsters who have joined the groups have no memory of the security measures imposed during the Troubles, the sources said.

In addition, the IRA and Sinn Féin no longer have the power or influence to stop attacks.

    Omagh murder fuels fears that terror groups have new weapons, G, 3.4.2011,
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/03/omagh-murder-ireland

Horror in Omagh as bomb kills Northern Ireland policeman

Booby trap bomb kills 25-year-old officer preparing to drive to work
as David Cameron condemns 'wicked and cowardly' attack

Sunday 3 April 2011
The Observer
Henry McDonald
Ireland correspondent
This article appeared on p1 of the Main section section of the Observer
on Sunday 3 April 2011.
It was published on guardian.co.uk at 00.24 BST on Sunday 3 April 2011.
It was last modified at 00.24 BST on Sunday 3 April 2011.
It was first published at 18.18 BST on Saturday 2 April 2011.

Dissident republican terrorists have killed a young police officer in Omagh. The victim was only a schoolboy when the worst atrocity of Northern Ireland's Troubles was visited upon the same town 13 years ago.

A booby-trap car bomb killed Constable Ronan Kerr outside his home in Omagh, where 29 men, women and children were murdered in 1998. At the time of that massacre Kerr was only 12.

The murder of the young Catholic police officer united unionists and nationalists across Ireland, all of whom vowed to oppose those republicans determined to destabilise the historic power-sharing settlement in the north.

David Cameron "utterly condemned" the bomb attack. "Those who carried out this wicked and cowardly crime will never succeed in dragging Northern Ireland back to a dark and bloody past," he said. "Their actions are rejected by the overwhelming majority of people from all parts of the community."

Referring to the murdered police officer, the prime minister said: "Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and his friends. This is a terrible tragedy for all who knew him and served with him, and for a town that had already suffered so much."

Kerr died after the device exploded beneath his car shortly before 4pm as he was driving to work at his local police station. He is the second member of the Police Service of Northern Ireland to die at the hands of republican dissident paramilitaries opposed to the peace process.

The 25-year-old, who only graduated from police training college three weeks ago, lived in the Highfield Close area of the Co Tyrone town. Families were evacuated from the area as the security forces searched for secondary explosive devices. The scene of the blast was close to the home of the Tyrone Gaelic football team.

Suspicion will fall on one of the three republican dissident terrorist groups that have resumed their violent campaigns in the north of Ireland over recent weeks. Ireland's recently elected prime minister, Enda Kenny, also condemned those behind the murder last night describing it as a "pointless act of terrorism".

The province's first minister, Peter Robinson, said it was an evil act by a minuscule group that wanted to drag Ireland back into the past but that the community would unite against such violent threats.

Sinn Féin's president, Gerry Adams, sent his condolences to the family of the murdered officer. "Sinn Féin is determined that those responsible will not set back the progress of the pace and political process," Adams said.

The Ulster Unionist leader, Tom Elliott, described the attack as "evil and cowardly", while Democratic Unionist Jonathan Bell said he was devastated over news of the police officer's murder. He called Kerr a "young hero serving his entire community".

The attack in Omagh will conjure up memories of August 1998 when a Real IRA car bomb exploded in the centre of the market town. With the death of 29 people and two unborn children, Omagh was the single biggest loss of life during 35 years of conflict in Northern Ireland.

No one was convicted of direct involvement in the atrocity although some of the families of Omagh's victims later took a landmark civil action against a number of men they claimed were leading figures in the Real IRA. The alleged Real IRA leaders are currently appealing against a high court ruling in Belfast last year that they must pay compensation to the victims and their families.

The Omagh bomb also resulted in a damning police ombudsman report that severely criticised the former Royal Ulster Constabulary's handling of intelligence material prior to the attack. The atrocity came just five months after the Good Friday agreement was signed marking a historic compromise between unionism and nationalism.

Although a faction of the Real IRA declared a ceasefire in response to public outrage over Omagh, more militant dissidents broke away and formed a number of units dedicated to thwarting the peace process. One of those organisations became Óglaigh na hÉireann (ONH). The group has attracted a number of former IRA bombers. Last year it detonated a bomb underneath the car of a Catholic police officer, Peadar Heffron. Heffron was a well-known Gaelic footballer and lost his legs in the blast, which was similar to the one that killed the PSNI officer in Omagh.

In March 2009, a Continuity IRA sniper shot Constable Stephen Carroll in Craigavon, just 24 hours after the Real IRA had murdered two British soldiers outside a military barracks in the town of Antrim.

    Horror in Omagh as bomb kills Northern Ireland policeman, O, 3.4.2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/02/omagh-booby-trap-bomb-policeman-killed

Omagh murder of officer stirs memories of 1998 atrocity

Families of 1998 bombing victims say it is 'simply unbelievable'
that dissident republicans could strike in the town again

Henry McDonald
Ireland correspondent
Guardian.co.uk
Saturday 2 April 2011
23.18 BST

On hearing the news of another terrorist outrage in Omagh, Michael Gallagher felt a shiver run down his spine. Reports of an explosion close to the centre of the Co Tyrone town evoked painful memories of another Saturday afternoon 13 years ago when Gallagher's life was changed for ever. It reminded him of that day in August 1998 when a massive car bomb exploded in the centre of Omagh killing 29 men, women and children, including his son Aidan.

Since the atrocity, Gallagher has been the most vocal campaigner seeking to bring the killers to justice. His struggle has taken him to London, Washington and Madrid. He has led the battle through the courts and made history by using a civil action to name, shame and sue the leadership of the Real IRA. Nothing, however, prepared him for yesterday's news that terror had returned to Omagh.

Expressing his disbelief that the dissidents had struck again in the town, he said: "After what happened here in August 1998, it is simply unbelievable that these people would strike here again. I am extremely angry at that, and extremely sad at the loss of this young man's life. The people who did this care nothing about the lives of people or their feelings."

But Gallagher's frustration and ire were not just directed towards whichever dissident republican group placed the device under Constable Ronan Kerr's car. He also criticised the British and Irish governments over their approach to dealing with the dissident threat. He challenged the nationalist community to take more steps to ostracise and isolate the anti-ceasefire organisations.

"After all that we've done, the governments are still not taking these people seriously. How many other people are going to be murdered before the Catholic community, from which these people come, and the supposedly best intelligence agency in the world [MI5], take these people on and resolve this?"

When Gallagher lost his son, Kerr was just starting secondary school. A pupil at Omagh Christian Brothers school, the Catholic police officer had only recently graduated from the PSNI's training college when he became a target for the terror group.

Joe Byrne, a councillor from Omagh, has himself risked the wrath of the anti-ceasefire republicans for joining the Northern Ireland Policing Board. Byrne pointed out that the young officer had lost his life within 200 metres of a stadium that is a source of tremendous pride throughout the county of Tyrone. "The attack happened very close to Healy Park, which is home to the Tyrone County Gaelic football club," he said, referring to one of Ireland's most successful GAA teams in recent years.

Byrne said that hundreds of people must have passed the car, with the bomb attached beneath, just an hour before it detonated. "The Omagh mini-marathon was held in the town on Saturday and part of the route went past Highfield Close. That means the people taking part in the fun run had ran past that poor young policeman's car. What a contrast!"

Like Gallagher, Byrne recalled the chaos, mayhem and destruction that the Real IRA wrought upon Omagh in 1998. As the dead of that atrocity were buried in places as far away as Co Donegal and Madrid, politicians such as Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern and Bill Clinton vowed that never again would terrorists shake Northern Ireland to its foundations with such atrocities.

On that day, the lives of a rural town were shattered with Omagh resembling a battlefield. The fronts of shops, cafes and pubs were blasted open by the force of the explosion. Victims were carried on pub tables into buses to transport them to the small hospital at the edge of the town.

The car park of that hospital later became a makeshift heliport as British army helicopters moved the more serious casualties to hospitals in Belfast. The town's leisure centre later became a grim "clearing house" of information for families checking if their loved ones had been killed or injured.

No one imagined that normal life would be disrupted again by such an outrage. But the sight of families, some carrying suitcases stuffed with clothes, some of them walking with small children, being evacuated from homes beside where Kerr had died resurrected painful memories of the worst massacre of the Troubles.

Kerr's murder occurred less than two weeks after the PSNI announced that it had abandoned its policy of positive discrimination in favour of Catholic recruits. The 50:50 recruitment drive first introduced by the PSNI's original chief constable, Sir Hugh Orde, had been deemed a success as it had taken Catholic membership up to more than 30%, as opposed to the days of the RUC when it was well below 10% of the force.

This was seen as an indication of normalisation of security. Yet it was also the prime motivation for the Real IRA, Óglaigh na hÉireann and Continuity IRA's continued targeting of Catholic officers.

While the overwhelming majority of nationalists and Catholics support the peace process and the policing reforms, this violent minority regard anyone joining what they deem a "British police force" as traitors.

By a bitter twist of irony the fate that met Constable Kerr yesterday was the same one meted out to one of Gallagher's brothers back in the early 1970s. He had also been a Catholic recruit to the security forces, in his case the Ulster Defence Regiment. He, too, had been labelled a traitor to the republican cause and murdered.

In the minds of those behind this latest murder, they are doing nothing more than their predecessors and sometimes estranged comrades used to do when the Provisional IRA was still in existence.

    Omagh murder of officer stirs memories of 1998 atrocity, G, 2.4.2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/02/omagh-murder-officer-1998-atrocity

Car bomb kills policeman in Northern Ireland

BELFAST | Sat Apr 2, 2011
6:44pm EDT
Reuters
By Ian Graham

BELFAST (Reuters) - A policeman was killed when a bomb exploded under his car in the Northern Irish town of Omagh Saturday, the first killing in the British-controlled province for two years.

Ronan Kerr, a 25-year-old constable who had only recently graduated from police training college, died outside his home, a police spokesman said.

The murder comes after an upsurge of shootings and bombings targeting police by nationalist groups that splintered off from the Irish Republican Army (IRA) when it abandoned its armed struggle to unite Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland.

The attack was quickly condemned by the British, Irish and U.S. governments and the main political parties representing Northern Ireland's Catholic and Protestant communities, including Sinn Fein, former political wing of the IRA.

It was the first fatal attack since March, 2009 when a militant republican splinter group shot dead a policeman, two days after another militant group ended more than a decade of peace by shooting dead two soldiers outside their base.

A 1998 peace deal mostly ended the conflict that killed 3,600 people and was fought between predominantly Catholic nationalists and mainly Protestant unionists who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom.

Security officials have also thwarted a number of attempted bombs since then, but the peace process is not seen as facing a fundamental threat.

Officials said the policeman killed Saturday was a Catholic. Recent nationalist attacks have been aimed at newly-recruited Catholic police who -- under a targeted recruitment drive -- now make up 30 percent of the force in a province where police were once predominantly Protestant.

"HEINOUS AND POINTLESS"

Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein, which supports the Republican goal of a united Ireland but has renounced violence, said the party "is determined that this reprehensible act will not set back the progress of the peace and political process."

Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson, whose Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) shares power with Sinn Fein, said he and the people of the province were outraged.

"I have absolute no doubt that the overwhelming number of people in Northern Ireland want to move on. It is only a few Neanderthals who want to go back. They will not drag us back to the past," Robinson said in a statement.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said those who carried out the "wicked and cowardly crime" would not succeed in dragging Northern Ireland back to its bloody past.

South of the border, Ireland's new Prime Minister Enda Kenny called the attack "a heinous and pointless act of terror" while U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the perpetrators represented "the failures of the past."

The policeman's home town of Omagh was the scene of the worst single attack in Northern Ireland's three decades of violence when 29 people died in a Real IRA car bombing in 1998.

Two policemen have lost legs in booby trap explosions over the past two years and an officer's girlfriend was hurt when her car was targeted outside his east Belfast home.

(Writing by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Matthew Jones)

    Car bomb kills policeman in Northern Ireland, R, 2.4.2011,
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/02/us-irish-bomb-idUSTRE7311X520110402