Republican dissidents join forces to form a new IRA

Three of the four main dissident republican terror groups in Northern Ireland are to merge and reclaim the banner of the IRA, in an escalation of attempts to de-stabilise power sharing.

The Real IRA has been joined by Republican Action Against Drugs, which has been running a violent vigilante campaign in Derry, and a coalition of independent armed republican groups – leaving only the Continuity IRA outside the new group.

In a statement released to the Guardian, the new organisation claimed it had formed a "unified structure, under a single leadership". It said the organisation would be "subservient to the constitution of the Irish Republican Army".

This is the first time since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that a majority of the forces of dissident republicanism has coalesced.

Republican sources told the Guardian that the new paramilitary force included several hundred armed dissidents, including some former members of the now disbanded Provisional IRA who have been conducting a campaign of shooting and forcible exile of men in Derry City whom they accuse of drug dealing.

It also includes what the statement calls "non-conformist republicans", or smaller independent groups from Belfast and rural parts of Northern Ireland.

Republican Action Against Drugs and the Real IRA will cease to exist, one source close to the dissidents said.

The new organisation is planning to intensify terror attacks on the security forces and other targets related to what it regards as symbols of the British presence, according to the source.

Such targets could include police stations, regional headquarters of Ulster Bank, and the UK City of Culture 2013 celebration in Derry – which the dissidents have dubbed "normalising British rule".

In its statement the new group said: "In recent years the establishment of a free and independent Ireland has suffered setbacks due to the failure among the leadership of Irish nationalism and fractures within republicanism." This is a reference to the split between hardline republicans opposed to the peace settlement and Sinn Féin, which has followed a political strategy. Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin, Northern Ireland's deputy first minister, was a leading figure in the Provisional IRA.

In a clear dig at Sinn Féin's participation in the power-sharing executive with unionists, the dissidents' statement said: "The Irish people have been sold a phoney peace, rubber-stamped by a token legislature in Stormont."

It said that the "necessity of armed struggle in pursuit of Irish freedom" against what it described as "the forces of the British crown", would only be avoided by the removal of the British military presence in Northern Ireland. It demanded "an internationally observed timescale that details the dismantling of British political interference in our country".(1) 

It's dissapointing, but not wholly surprising. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement wasn't wholesale. Therefore by leaving out people opens the way for more alienation and violent outbreaks.

Note: 

(1) http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jul/26/ira-northern-ireland-dissident-republican-groups