Home BreakingNorthern Ireland: dissident republicans suspected of an attack on a police officer

Northern Ireland: dissident republicans suspected of an attack on a police officer

23.02.2023

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Police in Northern Ireland arrested three men on Thursday in the investigation into the attempted murder of a police officer on Wednesday night, in which suspicions fall on ‘violent dissident republicans’, rekindling painful memories of the province’s bloody past British.

Seriously injured, the experienced policeman, a member of the police force for 26 years, “fights for his life” and was operated on, explained to the press Simon Byrne, of the Northern Irish police. His condition is considered “critical but stable”.

John Caldwell was shot several times by two men while at a sports complex in the central British provincial town of Omagh during football training with children, including his son. Unanimously condemned, this attack comes a month and a half from the 25th anniversary of the peace agreement that ended the conflict in Northern Ireland.

If the investigation does not rule out any leads, it focuses on that of “violent dissident republicans”, hostile to belonging to the United Kingdom, and in particular on the new IRA, according to the police.

“It is tragic and sad that some are still trying to take us back to the past,” Commissioner Simon Byrne said, announcing the arrest of three men aged 38, 45 and 47 “in connection with the attempted murder of John”. .

The attack has not yet been the subject of any claim.

“There is absolutely no tolerance for such attacks by the enemies of our peace,” the leaders of Northern Ireland’s five political parties said in common.

They underline the “anger” of the local population, in a city marked by the deadliest attack in the Northern Irish conflict. On August 15, 1998, after the signing of the peace agreement, a car bomb attack claimed by an IRA dissident group left 29 dead and 220 injured.

In Omagh on Thursday, MP Órfhlaith Begley (Sinn Fein) praised the unity of political leaders to AFP. “The community reaction clearly shows that there is no support for violence in the region,” she said.

“There is no place” here for the perpetrators of such “acts of terror”, said Daniel McCrossan, a local elected official from the nationalist SDLP party. They will have “nowhere to hide”.

The New IRA, a splinter republican group from the Irish Republican Army, has admitted responsibility for two attacks in recent years.

In April 2021, a bomb was planted under a policewoman’s car in front of her home.

The group had also admitted being responsible for the death of Lyra McKee, a journalist killed in April 2019 while covering clashes in the city of Londonderry.

The new IRA had apologized to the relatives of the young woman, explaining that she was alongside the police.

These events had raised the specter of the “Troubles”, this violence having opposed for three decades Republicans (mainly Catholics in favor of the reunification of Ireland) and Protestant Unionists, fervent defenders of the belonging of the North of the island to the United Kingdom.

The 1998 Good Friday Agreement ended the conflict, which claimed 3,500 lives and established a fragile peace, but paramilitary groups remained active.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was “horrified”, stressing in a tweet that there is “no place in our society for those who seek to harm public servants who protect the public”. he added in a tweet.

The leader of the Republican party Sinn Fein (majority in Northern Ireland), Michelle O’Neill, denounced an attack “scandalous and shameful”.

The leader of the unionist party DUP Jeffrey Donaldson, attached to the maintenance of the province in the British fold, meanwhile condemned the “cowards” at the origin of this attack. “These terrorists have nothing to offer and they must be brought to justice,” he added.

The attack comes at a delicate political moment for the British province where Brexit has reignited community tensions.

Local institutions, supposed to be shared between communities, have been blocked for more than a year. London is currently trying to agree with Brussels on a modification of the customs status of the province and to bring back the Unionists in a local government.