TEN men were being questioned by police in the Irish Republic last night after the discovery of a suspected terrorist training camp.
The find was made as part of a planned operation on the borders of Co Waterford and Co Tipperary. Police linked the discovery to the activities of the Continuity IRA, the dissident terrorist faction.
Items found at the camp included weapons, ammunition and other terrorist paraphernalia, a police spokesman said.
The men being held were aged from their late teens to their early forties and came from the Waterford, Wexford and Limerick areas. They were arrested under Irish anti-terrorist legislation that permits suspects to be kept in custody for up to 72 hours before being either charged or released.
Police said that the operation, at an area they did not specify, was continuing. The Irish police described the operation as a significant blow to the terrorists. Although the Garda has made frequent arrests and weapons seizures, the smashing of what appears to be a working training camp will be seized upon as an unprecedented success.
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Both the Continuity IRA and the Real IRA have stepped up their recruitment activities over the past nine months, partly in response to the political vaccuum in Northern Ireland, where the power-sharing assembly at Stormont was suspended last October.
Although there are strong links between the two groups, the Continuity IRA is thought to be smaller of the two, with between 50 and 80 active “volunteers”.
In recent weeks the two groups have sought to launch a new propaganda campaign, using a so-called “dirty protest” by dissident republican prisoners inside Maghaberry Prison in Co Antrim to appeal to a broader constituency of nationalists.
However, both the Continiuty and Real IRA are ostracised by the vast majority of nationalists and republicans, and enjoy virtually no support from the broader community.