LYRA’S KILLING AND VIOLENT DISSIDENTS THE ‘NEW IRA’
A DISSIDENT Republican group – known as Saoradh and aligned to the so-called New IRA – has acknowledged that dissidents were responsible for the murder of Lyra McKee.
Saoradh yesterday claimed in a statement that the 29-year-old was ‘accidentally killed’ when an armed ‘republican volunteer’ fired shots at the PSNI, who were in the area conducting a search of a house.
The New IRA, which has around 50 activists and another 200 logistical supporters operating on this side of the border, has a stronghold in Derry. It was established in 2012, following an alliance of former factions of the Real IRA, the Derry based Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD), and some other small factions.
The Real IRA had been highly active in the Derry-Donegal region, and had formed links with the organisation’s section in Dublin when it was led by Alan Ryan.
Ryan’s murder was followed by a shake-up in the Real IRA in the capital, and the reformed group was taken under the control of Tallaght-based Kevin Braney, before it merged into the New IRA.
A murder sentence of life imprisonment, imposed on Braney by the Special Criminal Court in February, dealt a major blow to the New IRA as he had been regarded by antiterrorist officers as its most important figure this side of the border.
Most of its terrorist members here are located in the Border counties and in Dublin, with a smaller grouping in Cork.
They are mainly involved in providing logistical support for active units involved in terrorist attacks in the North, supplying explosives and arms, as well as vehicles and safe houses, while also raising funds through robberies and extortion.
The New IRA is also assessed to be more advanced technologically in developing explosive devices than any of the other IRA renegade groups, and has become more skilled at counter surveillance as a result of undergoing training in Eastern Europe.
Since the start of this year, the terror group has been planning to exploit the possibility of a hard Brexit by stepping up its campaign in Northern Ireland, with particular focus on security targets.
It has been linked with four murders including the shooting of Ms McKee in Derry on Thursday night.
The other murders include PC Ronan Kerr, who was killed by an under-car bomb in Omagh in 2011.
The group is also linked to the deaths of prison officers David Black, shot as he drove to work at Maghaberry Prison in 2012, and Adrian Ismay, who died in 2016 after a bomb exploded under his van outside his home in east Belfast.
This year, the New IRA was responsible for a car bomb outside the courthouse in Bishop Street, Derry. The explosives-laden car was left on the city centre street on a Saturday night in January, and scores of people, including a group of teenagers, had walked past before it detonated.
The group also claimed a number of package bombs posted to London and Glasgow in March.
‘Shake-up in the Real IRA’