Irish Republican News · February 15, 2014

PSNI patrol in Donegal; devices target British Army in England

A former mayor of Donegal has called on the Dublin government to investigate a PSNI incursion into the 26 Counties.

A PSNI Land rover was captured on camera in the border town of Lifford on Wednesday. It crossed Lifford Bridge from Strabane and travelled onto a roundabout outside the County Donegal town before turning and coming back into County Tyrone.

The PSNI claimed the vehicle “inadvertently” crossed over the border but quickly turned back.

Local residents described the incident as sinister. Donegal Councillor Frank McBrearty said the government should act immediately to defend Irish sovereignty and warned that presence of the PSNI patrol could have incited violence.

“I contacted [Garda] chief superintendent Terry McGinn. She confirmed to me that she had no idea of this incident and she asked me to email her about the incident which I have done.

“I have also emailed the Minister for Justice [Alan Shatter] to ask the British authorities and the British government why the PSNI were in our jurisdiction, and especially with the threat of dissident republicans.”

COBRA MEETING

Meanwhile, there has been no claim of responsibility for a number of devices posted this week to British Army centres in England, although the ‘new’ IRA is being linked to the development.

Each parcel contained what the police in England said were “crude” but “potentially viable” explosive devices which are said to have contained combustible black powder.

At least one of the devices is reported to have originated in the 26 Counties.

The parcels were delivered to British Army locations in Brighton, Canterbury, Slough, Oxford, Reading, and Chatham.

Their discovery marks a change of direction for the breakaway IRA groups by targeting British military infrastructure in England for the first time.

Although British security experts said the packages posed only a “low level of threat”, the development convinced British Prime Minister David Cameron to convene a meeting of the British government’s COBRA emergencies committee. According to newswire reports, military intelligence chiefs, British government officials and senior police all took part in the meeting to discuss security matters and the status of the conflict in the North of Ireland.

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