Western Mail

Hard Ireland border could be terror target

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SENIOR police officers in Northern Ireland have warned MPs that a hard post-Brexit border would be an obvious area of attack by dissident republican terrorists.

Giving evidence to the House of Commons Brexit Committee in Co Armagh, the PSNI’s Deputy Chief Constable Drew Harris said any infrastruc­ture along the border would give terror groups “a further rallying call to drive their recruitmen­t.”

“They have a focus on this. They see it as an opportunit­y.

“Infrastruc­ture on the border would be an obvious point for dissident groups to rally around and attack,” Mr Harris added.

He said the threat from dissident republican­s remains severe and that there were four attempts on the lives of police officers over the past year. There were also 58 shooting and over 32 bombing incidents.

The Deputy Chief Constable outlined a number of shared European initiative­s which have helped in the fight against crimes including human traffickin­g and drug smuggling. He told the committee he would be concerned if the shared systems were lost.

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