Omagh booby-trap bomb kills policeman

[bijou]

Deadly terrorism returned to the scene of the worst atrocity of the Northern Ireland Troubles when a booby-trap car bomb exploded in Omagh.

One police officer was confirmed killed in the blast underneath a car in Highfield Close in the Co Tyrone town. The officer, a local Catholic named as Ronan Kerr, had been preparing to drive to work in the local Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) station. The bomb exploded shortly before 4pm, close to a Gaelic sports club in a new housing development off the Gortin Road, near the town centre.

Suspicion for this latest bomb attack will now fall on one of three republican dissident terror groups that have resumed their violent campaigns in the north of Ireland over recent weeks. ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/02/omagh-booby-trap-bomb-policeman-killed

[redwhit]

Is there any indication that there are connections with the previous report in Londonderry?  Have there been more homegrown crazy rumblings over there?

[bijou]

Is there any indication that there are connections with the previous report in Londonderry?  Have there been more homegrown crazy rumblings over there?

No one's claimed responsibility but there are some dissident groups. The theory  is that it was either the Real IRA or the Continuity IRA, but while they never really went away there does seem to be an uptick in activity.

[redwhit]

No one's claimed responsibility but there are some dissident groups. The theory  is that it was either the Real IRA or the Continuity IRA, but while they never really went away there does seem to be an uptick in activity.

That's disturbing.  Are there any guesses as to the reason behind the increased activity? 

The reason I ask is that, while taking an Irish history course a few years ago, I was casting about for a term paper project and came across some interesting connections between some IRA branches and the PLO.  Interesting, yes, but I didn't think I had the time to pull that one off.  So now I'm starting to wonder about other connection.

[bijou]

That's disturbing.  Are there any guesses as to the reason behind the increased activity? 

The reason I ask is that, while taking an Irish history course a few years ago, I was casting about for a term paper project and came across some interesting connections between some IRA branches and the PLO.  Interesting, yes, but I didn't think I had the time to pull that one off.  So now I'm starting to wonder about other connection.

  There are many connections between the various groups, they trained FARC members http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/farc-ira-pr.cfm

...Such statements tally with that made in March by the acting commander in chief of U.S. Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Gary D. Speer, who stated that links existed between Latin America and transnational terrorist organizations including the IRA, Hezbullah, Hamas, Islamyya al Gama’at (IG), and the Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA). Speer also said that Southern Command had long been monitoring terrorist activities in the region, including such incidents as the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in 1992 and the Jewish-Argentine Cultural Center in Argentina in 1994 (attributed to Hezbullah), the capture of the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Peru by the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movements (MRTA) in 1996, and the pattern of narco-terrorism in Colombia generally. However, The IRA training of FARC members represents an alarming development, not least as the Irish group is widely held to be among the most proficient practitioners of terrorism in the world. Moreover, if claims that such training has occurred are believed, it may cost the IRA heavily in terms of the support it has traditionally enjoyed in the United States, and lead to the organization being viewed as having a global reach.

Allegations of a FARC-IRA connection arose after the arrest of three Irishmen in Bogotá in August 11, 2001. The men, James Monaghan, Martin McCauley, and Neil Connolly, were traveling using false passports, and found to have traces of explosive on their belongings. ...

PLO: http://www.crethiplethi.com/ira-plo-cooperation-a-long-cozy-relationship/israel/2010/

for example.

[redwhit]

Thanks for that.  I didn't know about the IRA-FARC connection.  That's a little spooky.

[bijou]

An update

Omagh bomb 'may have used Libyan Semtex'
Police are investigating whether the bomb that killed a police officer in Northern Ireland was made using explosives supplied to the IRA by Col Gaddafi's regime in Libya. ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/northernireland/8425587/Omagh-bomb-may-have-used-Libyan-Semtex.html