Northern Irish police have raided 15 homes, including some belonging to a prominent Irish republican family in a security operation directed at dissident republican activity.
Four men were arrested after 15 houses were targeted by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in the Woodville area of Lurgan, north Armagh, on Wednesday morning.
Mandy Duffy, a republican activist from North Armagh, confirmed in a Facebook post that the homes of her family were searched. “Here we go again … A number of Duffy family members’ homes currently being raided from early this morning … End British policing in Ireland!”
Three of the four men detained, two aged 22 and the other 24, were arrested in Lurgan. A 46-year-old man was detained in Coalisland in Co Tyrone while PSNI officers with dogs raided the homes in Lurgan.
All four men were taken to Belfast to be questioned by the PSNI. The Democratic Unionist MP for Upper Bann, David Simpson, said he backed the security operation but was worried about increasing reports of dissident activity in the area.
The Ulster Unionist assembly member Doug Beattie said the searches highlighted “the proactive approach the PSNI have in disrupting this type of [dissident] activity”.
Sinn Fein assemblywoman Catherine Seeley condemned those who had earlier left a suspect device nearby. “This security alert and house searches has brought nothing but disruption to the local community in the Kilwilkee estate,” she said.
The Lurgan/Craigavon area is one of the few strongholds of dissident republican groups opposed to the power-sharing settlement in Northern Ireland. In 2009 gunmen from the Continuity IRA shot dead PC Stephen Carroll in Craigavon. He was the first-ever member of the reformed PSNI to be murdered by paramilitaries.
