A dissident republican organisation has come out of the shadows and spoken about how it has twice tried to kill the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Orde.
The group, which was formed three years ago, admitted responsibility for several bomb and gun attacks. A representative of its leadership said it had wanted to keep its existence secret until it was "in a position of strength".
It was disclosed last week that police officers in west and north Belfast have been warned to vary their routes to and from work because of the risk of ambush.
The group's spokesman claimed it was preparing to wage a low intensity campaign against specific police and economic targets. He said it had been responsible for 46 bomb alerts during a major US investment conference in Belfast in May.
The group's spokesman told the Sunday Tribune it was behind seven shootings and beatings of alleged drug dealers and paedophiles in west Belfast in recent months and that it ordered one alleged drug dealer out of the North last week. The group is understood to be strongest in Belfast.
Its spokesman said it had recently recruited former high-ranking Provisional IRA figures for whom "Sinn Féin signing up to policing was the final nail in the coffin". The paramilitary group, which calls itself 'Oglaigh na hEireann' (ONH) or 'the IRA' is linked with figures who left the Real IRA in acrimonious circumstances.
In a statement from Portlaoise prison in 2002, a group of Real IRA inmates – including Mickey McKevitt – denounced their external leadership and said political conditions weren't right for an armed campaign. However, three years later ONH became active.
Its spokesman said the organisation had hidden a remote control device in undergrowth at Gideon's Green in Newtownabbey, Co Antrim, in May 2005. "It was to be detonated as Hugh Orde ran past as part of relay team in the Belfast marathon. However, volunteers present decided not to detonate the bomb because of the risk to civilians."
The spokesman said ONH had planted a device in hedges at the PSNI's social club in Newforge Lane Belfast where, it had heard, Orde was due to arrive. The bomb failed to detonate.
He said it had also planted an elaborate hoax device in a marquee at Down Royal race-course where Orde was due to be present. "We could have made it a real one (device) but there were 200 people in the marquee. We haven't got to the al-Qaeda stage yet," the spokesman said. The group was responsible for firing mortars at Craigavon PSNI station in 2006, he said.
The spokesman claimed the PSNI wasn't dealing with ordinary crime in nationalist areas and that ONH was behind a spate of punishment attacks in west Belfast over recent months including: ordering an Andersonstown man, found guilty in court of downloading pornographic images of children, to leave the country; shooting a Springfield Road man whom it claimed was involved in burglary, drug-dealing and joyriding; shooting an alleged Turf Lodge drug dealer; smashing up the house of an alleged Lenadoon heroin dealer and of an alleged child abuser from New Barnsley; breaking the legs of an alleged Twinbrook paedophile; and ordering two alleged drug dealers to leave the country.
