Ten dissident republican suspects have been arrested in Northern Ireland as part of an island-wide police operation against the New IRA.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland joined forces with the Garda Siochána in the Irish Republic for 48 hours to carry out arrests and searches. The ten people arrested were being held in PSNI custody suites in Belfast.
One security source in the city described the cross-border police operation as a “massive crackdown” on the militant group.
The PSNI said on Tuesday that officers had made a number of arrests under the Terrorism Act across Northern Ireland in connection with an ongoing investigation into New IRA activities.
Properties were raided in Derry, East Tyrone and Belfast during the two PSNI operations.
In Ireland at the same time, gardaí raided properties in Cork, Kerry, Dublin and Laois, but no arrests have been made there.
A spokesperson for the Garda Siochána said a number of searches had been carried out as part of the PSNI-led operation.
“The searches … are part of ongoing operations to combat the activities of the New IRA. [They] are being conducted by members of the special detective unit assisted by local gardaí and regional armed support units.”
The New IRA is the largest, and is regarded by the security forces as the most dangerous, of the armed republican dissident groups that are opposed to the political settlement in Northern Ireland.
The New IRA is the biggest of the dissident republican groups operating in Northern Ireland. It has been linked with four murders, including the shooting of journalist Lyra McKee in Derry in April 2019.
The group is believed to have formed between 2011 and 2012 after the merger of a number of smaller groups, including the Real IRA, which was behind the 1998 Omagh bombing.
Its presence is strongest in Derry, north and west Belfast, Lurgan in County Armagh, and pockets of Tyrone, including Strabane.
In January 2019 the group was responsible for a car bomb outside the courthouse in Derry. The explosives-laden car was left on Bishop Street on a Saturday night, and scores of people, including a group of teenagers, had walked past before it detonated.
The New IRA also claimed responsibility for a number of package bombs posted to targets in London and Glasgow in March 2019.
Its numbers were recently strengthened with the defection of a number of experienced republican paramilitary veterans from the hardline Continuity IRA.
The New IRA’s last victim was the journalist Lyra McKee, who was shot dead in April 2019 during an attack aimed at police officers during a riot in the Creggan area of Derry city.
Despite the public outrage over McKee’s murder, the New IRA remains an active force in Derry and last weekend staged an armed show of strength near a bonfire in the city.
• This article was amended on 19 August 2020 to correct references to the Garda Siochána.
