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Ulster on alert over dissident IRA bomb plot
Paul Waugh12 Mar 2009
British and Irish police were on alert today for a Real IRA bomb plot following reports that a large device had been smuggled into Ulster.
Sources in Dublin and Belfast suggested that a spike in "intelligence traffic" indicated a plan to explode a bomb as dissident Republicans sought to further their campaign.
The claims came as the bodies of the two British soldiers murdered by the Real IRA were being flown back to the UK today.
Police constable Stephen Carroll, who was shot dead by the Continuity IRA on Monday in Craigavon, was also being buried today after a requiem mass in his home town of Banbridge, County Down.
Sir Hugh Orde, chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, was meeting his opposite number in the Irish police, commissioner Fachtna Murphy, to discuss joint efforts to combat the threat.
Intelligence reports suggested the Real IRA bomb had been transported across the border from the south on Monday.
One veteran security officer said: "The red light went up on Monday and there is a panic that the next thing to happen is a bomb somewhere in the North.
"The problem is that no one either in the PSNI or the Garda appears to have specific intelligence where it is destined for."
The security forces believe the device is similar in size to the 300lb car bomb that dissidents left abandoned in Castlewellan, County Down, last month.
Police investigating the murder of 48-year-old Mr Carroll revealed they had arrested an 18-year-old man.
Last night, families and friends of the two British soldiers visited the scene of their murder at Massereene Army base in County Antrim. Mark Quinsey, 23, from Birmingham and Patrick Azimkar, 21, from London, were shot dead on Saturday.
In Dublin, Irish premier Brian Cowen said co-operation between police on both sides of the border had never been closer.
He said he would be joining Northern Ireland's first minister, Peter Robinson, and deputy first minister, Martin McGuinness, in the US. The two leaders flew out yesterday for a visit lasting a week.
Loyalist groups stressed today they would not order revenge attacks for the killings.
They said that Mr McGuinness's denunciation of the dissident Republicans as "traitors to the entire island of Ireland" had been very helpful.
Pope Benedict XVI described the murders as "abominable acts of terrorism".
