DISSIDENTS ARMS HAUL NEW IRA GUNS USED IN MURDER BIDS ON POLICE OFFICERS
A DISSIDENT republican weapons haul contained guns which may have been used in attempts to murder police officers, detectives believe.
The cache was found in a residential boiler house that caught fire on Rodney Drive in west Belfast on Wednesday.
Two AK-47 assault rifles, two sawn-off shotguns, a high-powered rifle with a silencer fitted, three pipe bombs and more than 100 assorted rounds of ammunition were stored in the outhouse.
Yesterday police said they believe the weapons belonged to the so-called New IRA and may have been stored without the knowledge of the resident of the property.
The guns, bombs and bullets were found on top of a domestic boiler. Officers say the blaze may have been triggered when one ignited due to the heat.
Detective Superintendent John McVea said: “It beggars belief that anyone would store items as volatile as bombs and bullets in a hot environment.
“This is simply reckless, stupid and shows total disregard for the safety of local residents.
“Anyone with an ounce of sense would have known that live ammunition and pipe bombs mixed with heat is a recipe for carnage.
“What is more concerning is that they actually didn’t care at all that they were putting the lives of this entire family neighbourhood at significant risk of death or injury.
“These people are beneath contempt and I am asking for the community to stand up against these parasites.”
Police believe the AK-47s may have been used in two separate dissident attacks on police — one at Rossnareen Avenue in west Belfast in November 2015 and the other on a garage forecourt on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast in January 2017.
In the first attack a police car on patrol was ambushed and hit by up to eight bullets.
Armour plating and bulletproof glass was credited with saving the lives of the two officers in the vehicle.
In the second attack a policeman survived despite being shot three times when gunmen opened fire on him as he got out of a parked police car at the Crumlin Road garage.
Officers said that it was a miracle no members of the public were injured as bullets flew across the busy petrol station forecourt.
Det Supt McVea (right) added: “The Crumlin Road shooting in particular was reckless and showed total disregard for members of the public as bullets entered the filling station shop, narrowly missing customers and passing motorists.”
The detective said he believed the weapons were moved into the boiler house on Monday after 9pm. He urged anyone who saw anything suspicious in the alleyway behind Rodney Drive to come forward.
Mr McVea said it was possible the resident of the property was unaware and had been “exploited” by the terrorists.
A neighbour first reported the fire, with the occupant of the house then also calling the emergency services to alert them to the blaze.
A 35-year-old man who was arrested under the Terrorism Act on Wednesday was later released unconditionally.
While the cause of the blaze is still under investigation, the detective said it was possible one of the illegal items stored on top of the boiler had sparked it. Mr McVea also declined to be drawn on the suggestion that the weapons had been moved ahead of another planned attack on police.
“The one thing I am pleased about is that these weapons are no longer in the hands of the terrorists and they have been put beyond use,” he added.
“It’s a significant haul of weapons in today’s terms within terrorism and it is with pleasure that these weapons are no longer in the hands of these terrorists.”
Mr McVea added that despite the weapons seizure the New IRA still posed a “severe threat”.
SDLP councillor Tim Attwood said the stockpiling of weapons in a residential area was extremely concerning.
“Twenty years after the Good Friday Agreement, it is alarming that we still have groups actively arming,” he said.
“The message is very simple: there is no place for this in our society.”
The Alliance Party’s Stewart Dickson welcomed the weapons’ seizure.
“There is now no longer the possibility of these weapons being used in an attempt to murder or injure police officers or others, as they may have been before,” he said.
“These dissidents have no support in the wider community and all who want a safer, more secure Northern Ireland must condemn them.”