Irish terror attack a strong possibility (in the UK)

www.bbc.co.uk...

The threat level to Britain from Irish-related terrorism has been raised from moderate to substantial.

Home Secretary Theresa May said it meant an attack was a "strong possibility".

It was the first time this threat level had been published, the Home Office confirmed.

The head of security service MI5 warned last week that dissident republicans opposed to British rule in Northern Ireland could strike mainland Britain.

The threat from Irish-related terrorism to Britain is still lower than the overall threat from international terrorism, which remains unchanged at "severe".

Here we go again. Terrorism threats. Refreshingly not from Al Queada, but in fact from our old friends the IRA.

en.wikipedia.org...

The above link is a reminder of an attack which nearly killed my old music tutor. Who was so close to the blast he saw the glass wobble and crack on the buildings.

The bomb squad arrived from their Liverpool base at 10:46 am and attempted to defuse the bomb using a remote-controlled device, but they ran out of time. The bomb exploded at 11:17 am, causing an estimated £700 million (£1 billion as of 2010)[21] of damage and affecting a third of the city centre's retail space. Marks & Spencer, the sky bridge connecting it with the Arndale Centre, and neighbouring buildings were destroyed.[1] It was the largest peacetime bomb ever detonated in Great Britain.[8] Glass and masonry were thrown into the air, and behind the police cordon – up to 0.5 mi (0.80 km) away, people were showered by falling debris.[22] There were no fatalities, but 212 people were injured.

Also let's not forget

en.wikipedia.org...

At 11:58am on 20 March 1993, the telephone help charity The Samaritans received a coded message that a bomb was going to be detonated outside the Boots shop in Liverpool, fifteen miles away from Warrington. Merseyside Police investigated, and also warned the Cheshire Constabulary (who patrolled Warrington) of the threat, but it was too late to evacuate. At 12:12pm two bombs exploded, one outside Boots on Bridge Street and one outside the Argos catalogue store. Eyewitnesses said that "the first explosion drove panicking shoppers into the path of the next blast just seconds later." Buses were organised to ferry people away from the scene and 20 paramedics and crews from 17 ambulances were sent to deal with the aftermath. It was later determined that the bombs had been placed inside cast-iron litter bins, causing large amounts of shrapnel.
Three-year-old Johnathan Ball died at the scene, while his babysitter survived. The second victim, 12-year-old Tim Parry, survived the impact with multiple injuries, but died on 25 March 1993 when doctors switched his life support machine off, having asked permission to do so from his family after a series of tests had found minimal brain activity.[5] 54 other people were injured, four of them seriously

So before we get any IRA supporters or such like, read the above and realise that the IRA are not 'freedom fighters' , but are reckless and indiscriminate in their targets, babies and pensioners included.

The next question is... Why?

Is it a Tory thing?

Man I hope this does not return.
I know folks who survived the manchester Arndale center bombing in 1996,
And I lived close to Warrington when it was bombed in '93.

When the IRA were active,things were much more likely to get blown up than the now AQ threat which is given such media time IMHO.

I hoped those days were behind us,but recent months have shown us there are still some who wish to reignite hostilities sadly.

I've known a lot of military types, the sort who have served in Ireland during the troubles, the sort that said if only they were given the go ahead and eyes were looking the other way they could go in hard and within a week or 2 could reduce the problems down by 3/4's simply because they knew who they were after and how to get more names out of them.

One consistent observation was that the real master minds, the skilled bomb makers and strategists simply found new markets for their skills in more of a consultancy role for other groups across the world - and of course we know that that sort of experience is always sought after.

So this re emergence of troubles has me thinking, have those people simply returned in a timely manner as their skills are no longer required because their students have now (having survived of course) have themselves become the teachers? Or in other words is this a natural ebb and flow or a cycle or is this truly a new episode of an old story?

Just thinking out loud here really.

Whatever the situation , real or not - the press are having a field day.

It's headline news.

reply to post by Now_Then


insightful post. the bombers asside, do the people of ireland have a ligitimate claim to the northern part of their island or is a small group of people raising hell.

reply to post by threadkiller


Being English my self I would not like to say, It's sorta been drilled into me since a kid to not speak out of turn on such issues.

Historically there is the religious element between the protestants and the catholic's (or prots and tages)... As a kid I was once called out on my religion which tbh I did not know, all I knew was that on paper I was a Christian, turns out I would be of a protestant denomination - again, on paper, I couldn't give two hoots... I'd be a Jedi if it helped.

But anyone knows that the divisions are age old and carved in some sort of harder than stone material... Dare I say that the troubles can be profitable to certain parties for the chaos they cause, thus allowing organised crime and all sorts under the pretext that; if you sniff round too much you may be the next postman gunned down in the street or the next 'joyrider' (petty car thief) nailed to a fence post.

Over all I get the feeling that 99.5% of the people in northern Ireland have been happier over say the last decade or so under british rule because of the calm and the 'normality' or... well affluence is not really the word, maybe the opportunities, so history aside people just kinda got on and lived their lives. There has though, as is clear, always been the underlying element of hate towards the english... and they will always be able to fall back on history to justify that hate.