Two of those injured were pizza delivery men who the Real IRA said, while foaming at the mouth with rabies spittle, were “collaborators with British rule”. No, they quite probably were just a couple of blokes trying to put food on the table for their families.
The dissidents’ real target is Sinn Fein. Their calculation must be that they can attract some Republicans who are slowly drawing the conclusion that their organisation is now part of the sectarian state’s establishment.
The dissidents will be penetrated by informers and may just be able to get away with one successful attack every few months. Part of their thinking, and that’s not one of their strong points, is that the harassment and intimidation will radicalise a new generation of militants.
Their fundamental problem is that they are resorting to a strategy that was tested for twenty years and utterly failed. They have nothing to say about why Sinn Fein ended up where it has other than attributing it to the venality of individuals. Going back up the same blind alley with much less support, a far weaker organisation and no politics is going to be a bloody pointless farce.
“Bloody” in both senses of the word, unfortunately.
http://abumuqawama.blogspot.com/2009/03/breaking-news-real-ira-are-still-bunch.html
There was some good news, though, to come out of Northern Ireland today:
Speaking earlier today before the claim of responsibility, the Sinn Féin leader, Gerry Adams, called the attack “wrong and counter-productive” and, in an unprecedented statement, said his party had a “responsibility to be consistent … the logic of this is that we support the police in the apprehension of those involved in last night’s attack”.
It was not until a vote at a special meeting of Sinn Féin in early 2007 that the party ended decades of opposition to the province’s Protestant-dominated police force.
…and…
Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, said: “I was a member of the IRA, but that war is over now. The people responsible for last night’s incident are clearly signalling that they want to resume or re-start that war. Well, I deny their right to do that.”
…and finally…
At midday, hundreds of churchgoers from churches across Antrim gathered at the police cordon near the murder scene to hold a prayer service. Traffic was halted as congregations from the Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland, Presbyterian and Methodist churches came together to pray for the victims.