generalspeaking: IRA Redux : Violence on the Horizon

Thursday, August 22, 2019

IRA Redux : Violence on the Horizon

"I am of the firm belief this [bombing] was a deliberate attempt to lure police and ATO [Ammunition Technical Officers] colleagues into the area to murder them."
"We've six attempted attacks to murder police officers this year. ... When you add all that up, we do believe that there is a time for reflection and a time to question what type of society we want to live in here."
"Many of us ... sense that things are becoming more entrenched and progress that has been made is slipping back a little bit."
"Terrorism of this nature is a societal problem. We shouldn't take our peace for granted."
Deputy Chief Constable Stephen Martin, Police Service of Northern Ireland

"Slipping back a 'little' bit"; quite the understatement, that. The Irish Republican Army resurrected, back for phase two, brought back by popular acclaim in some quarters. Police do, of course, suspect that the Continuity IRA [New IRA] representing two small Irish nationalist militant groups claiming responsibility for several recent attacks, were also responsible for the blast, where no injuries resulted, but a very emphatic message was delivered of more to come.

Militants? Hardly; that soft wording fails to describe what the IRA represented in their hey day of murderous atrocities committed with a sense of entitled impunity. An attack planned for the town of Craigavon last month alongside a bomb discovered under an officer's car in Belfast in June bespeak similar attacks which failed to succeed in causing actual deaths but did succeed in putting authorities on notice, all tracked to what the police politely call nationalist militants.

The lethal estrangement between the two sects of Christianity, Protestant and Catholic, behind the carnage, the threats, the murders, the fear, which authorities denied had anything much to do with religion and everything to do with territorial ambitions. In the bombing that took place in County Fermanagh where police were investigating a suspicious device on Saturday discovered to be a hoax, the scene was set for another explosive device nearby exploding at 10:35 a.m.

Police at the scene of the explosion near Fermanagh Pacemaker

Timed to go off as an army bomb disposal team -- Ammunition Technical Officers -- along with police were close to the scene. This accords with the recent months of attacks on police in Northern Ireland. Groups opposed to British rule, still seething over the betrayal of their cause by the 1998 peace accord ending decades of sectarian violence. The message: the IRA lives! And remains invested in its life-and-death struggle to reclaim what they feel is theirs alone.

Deputy Police Chief Martin indicated that despite having no intelligence that would link Monday's attack to Brexit, he felt it likely that uncertainty over Britain's departure from the European Union along with Northern Ireland's suspended government impacting on the future added to tensions and precipitated the attacks.

Britain's sole land frontier with the European Union on departure from the EU with or without a transition agreement represents the single most contentious portion of negotiations.

Irish nationalist and pro-British politicians condemned the blast that took place on Monday. But that violence is once again taking centre-stage in Northern Ireland, resurrecting bitter animosities is clear enough, as it was when a New IRA gunman opening fire at police during a Londonderry riot in April saw journalist Lyra McKee shot dead.