republican dissidents such as the ira, morphed into these new organisations, is that they are attacking the security services rather than what we saw in previous years. attacks on infrastructure that included some attacks on members of the public. i think the narrative this time is different. i think the first of all, organisations like the newer ira who have morphed out of other organisations such as the continuity ira and the real ira, do not have the same sort of capacity and capability that the ira who are represented politically hard in the past. and so the days of the large thousand pound, £2000 bombs are probably not with us any more. which is why they are constraining their attacks to relatively low level
Dissident republicans may have fired shots at private helicopter mistaking it for PSNI aircraft A Garda checkpoint on the Monaghan/Fermanagh border. Picture by Ronan McGrade/Pacemaker Press 20 January, 2021 01:00
In August 2019 a bomb exploded yards from the border at Wattlebridge on Cavan Road in Co Fermanagh
DISSIDENT republicans may have fired shots at a private helicopter on Co Fermanagh after mistaking it for a PSNI aircraft.
The Continuity IRA claimed it had fired a high powered Dragunov sniper rifle - a weapon favoured by the Russian military - at the PSNI helicopter in Wattlebridge, close to the Co Cavan border last Thursday.
CIRA may have targeted private helicopter in Russian sniper rifle claim Police have said the Continuity IRA may have fired at a civilian helicopter 19 January, 2021 14:30
Police have said dissident republicans may have shot at a private helicopter as it flew over Co Fermanagh.
The Continuity IRA had claimed it fired a high powered Dragunov sniper rifle, a weapon favoured by the Russian military, at the PSNI helicopter at Wattlebridge, close to the Co Cavan border last Thursday.
However, police have denied the helicopter was used in the area on that day and suggested a civilian aircraft may have been targeted.
would british authorities be looking to first, bill? reporter: well i mean british terror authorities keep and indeed the domestic intelligence service mi5 keep a large number of groups on their radar screen, including for example groups called the real i.r.a., the continuity i.r.a., the remnants of the terror campaign that plagued this city for 20 years in the 1970s and 1980s. so they will be completely open-minded about this, but obviously speculation will turn to islamic radical groups including isis. isis has called for precisely this kind of attack in the past throughout europe to use whatever weapons at hand, knives, cars, whatever, to