Irish detectives are questioning two men over the discovery of explosives in Dublin in a garda operation directed against dissident republicans.
The men, in their 30s and 40s, were arrested on Wednesday night after their car was stopped by gardaí on the Naas Road in the west of the city.
Members of the garda’s armed emergency response unit stopped the Skoda Fabia car near an industrial estate and found explosive materials in sacks inside the vehicle.
The pair arrested have been taken to two garda stations in Dublin while Irish Defence Forces’ bomb disposal experts took away six sacks for examination. It was later confirmed that they contained commercial explosives.
Last month the New IRA admitted responsibility for murdering the Northern Ireland prison officer Adrian Ismay after a bomb exploded in a van in which he was travelling.
The New IRA is the largest of the hardline Irish republican factions who are opposed to the peace process and the power-sharing political settlement in Northern Ireland.
Just prior to the 100th anniversary of the 1916 rising in Ireland against British rule, the New IRA denounced what it described as “the phoney peace” and vowed to continue its armed attacks on the security forces and other targets in Northern Ireland.
Although the terror groups claims lineage back to the 1916 rebels, the majority of nationalists and republicans in Northern Ireland have demonstrated through the ballot box in recent years that they support Sinn Féin’s peaceful strategy to try to obtain a united Ireland.
