Who are the New IRA?
The New IRA is believed to have been responsible for a number of attacks in Derry in recent years, including an attempt to kill a police officer by planting a bomb under his car outside his home in 2017. It claimed responsibility for firing shots and throwing grenades at police during nights of disturbances in Derry last summer.
In January 2019 a car bomb exploded outside Derry City Court House, luckily injuring no one and causing little damage. Two men in their twenties were detained hours after the explosion and two other men aged 34 and 42 were arrested in the city the next day. We have people in their nappies when the Good Friday agreement was signed at the front of this new terror wave.
In March 2019 five parcel bombs were sent from the Irish Republic to addresses in Great Britain, four were delivered, only one partially initiating when it was opened, and one was returned to a sorting office in the Republic of Ireland where it was discovered and dealt with. The New IRA were blamed.
Now, at the height of the Christian Calendar, the PSNI are blaming the New IRA for the death of Lyra McKee, a journalist covering nights of disturbance on the Creggan Estate in Derry, similar to what had happened last year. Two teenagers were arrested for the shooting, at 18 and 19 they weren’t born when the Good Friday Agreement was signed 21 years ago. Somehow in those intervening years they were groomed into thinking republican terror was the way forward. That is clearly a rot at the centre of elements of the community and that rot killed Lyra McKee.
Formed in 2012 following a merger between groups including the Real IRA and Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD), which was predominantly active in the northwest of Northern Ireland, it has been responsible for the murders of two prison officers.
David Black (52) was shot dead as he drove to work in Co Armagh in 2012, while Adrian Ismay died 11 days after a bomb exploded under his van in Belfast in 2016.
The Real IRA, emerged toward the end of 1997 and were blamed forthe 1998 Omagh bomb, which claimed the lives of 29 people and unborn twins, the worst atrocity of the Troubles.
It was also claimed that the Real IRA were responsible for the deaths of two British soldiers in 2009 outside the Massereene Barracks in Antrim and has been linked to other gun attacks, bombings and other criminality across the UK and Ireland.
In 2014 Forbes Israel carried out a study into the wealth of terror organisations across the globe. Most dissident republican groups, such as the Continuity IRA and all of the loyalist terror groups failed to make the Forbes list.
Forbes Israel top 10 of terror:
1 Isis £1.3bn
2 Hamas £638m
3 Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) £383m
4 Hezbollah £319m
5 Taliban £255m
6 Al-Qaeda and affiliates £96m
7 Lashkar e-Taiba £64m
8 Al-Shabaab £45m
9 Real IRA £32m
10 Boko Haram £16m
However, significantly the Real IRA came in at number 9 sandwiched between Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram with a £32 million annual turnover. This money comes from extortion, smuggling, drug running, robbery and other organised criminal activities. The link between serious and organised crime and terror couldn’t be clearer.
The New IRA have no cause, they have no political agenda, they are fed by the politics of ‘nay’ espoused by all of the main political parties in Northern Ireland. They are a serious and organised criminal; organisation who, for kicks, use terror tactics to maintain a presence in society. They are no more than little bullies with guns and bombs extorting the future of the children of Northern Ireland. It’s time to stop.
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