Britain placed on high alert

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, MARCH 5. Britain was placed on high security alert today amid fears of more terrorist violence by Irish Republican dissidents after Sunday's bomb explosion at the BBC television centre in West London which was widely seen as an attempt to sabotage the peace process in Northern Ireland.

The Scotland Yard warned of ``more attacks in the coming days'' and the head of its anti-terrorist branch, Mr. Alan Fry said: ``We are dealing with ruthless terrorists who are prepared to use ruthless tactics without any care for the consequences of their actions.'' Downing Street, denouncing the attack as a ``cowardly act'', said there were forces outside the peace agreement who wanted to ``turn the clock back to the days before the Good Friday agreement.'' The Ulster Unionist chief and the First Minister of Northern Ireland, Mr. David Trimble called it an attempt to ``destabilise'' the peace process which has been deadlocked for several months over the Sinn Fein's reluctance to order its armed wing, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), to put its arms dumps beyond use.

Though no arrest was made until this morning, the police were convinced that the Real IRA - the renegade IRA faction opposed to the Good Friday Agreement - was behind the incident and were looking for a tall man with a Northern Irish accent who bought a red taxi in which the bomb was planted. The Real IRA consists of highly motivated men who broke off from the mainstream IRA after it signed the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 and in recent months they have stepped up their violent campaign in a bid to emerge as the real inheritors of the Irish Republican legacy. They are also recruiting those in the mainstream IRA who are disillusioned with the peace process and experts think that the speed with which the Real IRA has been able to accumulate arms suggests some form of cooperation with hardliners in the mainstream IRA.

The arrest of a mainstream IRA activist last week while moving around in suspicious circumstances near an army barracks in Essex has reinforced this assessment. The police are looking for an accomplice, again a mainstream IRA youth released from jail as part of the Good Friday Agreement. ``We don't exactly what they were up to. It looks as if it was some kind of a reconnaissance...preparation for something'', a police ``source'' told The Guardian.

Yesterday's bomb blast coincides with the 20th anniversary of ``martyrdom'' of 10 Republicans who died after a hunger strike and both the Real IRA and the mainstream group are keen to claim the legacy of what is regarded as a landmark event in the Republican struggle. With the Real IRA growing in strength, the hardliners in the mainstream IRA have started asserting themselves and a few days ago a senior leader declared that the ``war is not over''. ``The anniversary (of hunger strike) is seen by dissident IRA leaders as the perfect opportunity to emphasise what they regard as the `treachery' of the decision by the provisional IRA to support the Good Friday Agreement and halt its campaign of violence against British targets,'' one commentator said. The fact that the dissidents were able to target a high- profile building in the heart of London was seen as an indication of their growing confidence and observers said unless the Government, the Unionists and the Sinn Fein moved quickly to kickstart the stalled peace process there was a danger of the initiative slipping from their hands. A compromise package envisaging the start of arms decommissioning by IRA in exchange for reduced British security in the province and finetuning of the proposed police reforms is already on the table and efforts are being made to push it. ``In the end whether or not the peace process can proceed depends largely on whether Sinn Fein is willing to risk a split in its ranks by engaging in some form of decommissioning,'' The Times commented editorially echoing a widespread view.

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Section  : International
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