IRA "still have weapons"

The IRA has denied an intelligence assessment it held on to some weapons after its "final act" of decommissioning arms last year.

The claims about weapons were made to the Independent Monitoring Commission which published its latest report on paramilitary activity in NI.

The IRA is still gathering intelligence, according to the report.

Source: news.bbc.co.uk...

Even if there was photographic evidence of weapons being destroyed, some people will never be happy.

[edit on 1-2-2006 by Yossarian]

The IRA & weapons, huh....well there is a new development that is
happening up in Boston MA

remember that bean-town has a legacy, or whatever, of being a
Irish town with lottsa networks, contacts & what have you.

what's important is the news item i found at a place named www.opednews.com...
Boston Police Warn of Vest Piercing Gun
~ which is in the center column "General News" being located in the 6th article down~

here's the news article address;
//www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/02/18/boston_police_warn_of_vest_piercing_gun/

the boston local news reports that the FN Five-Seven handgun
(://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/02/18/five_seven)
which is manufactured in Belgium, is making bullet-proof vests obsolete.
..granted that the special ammo is only sold to military/law enforcement,
but the 2, (so far), incidents of Boston police being shot..
.tells us that the steel hardened tip bullets are out there in the public domain, so i deduce that 'somebodies' got inside connections

putting 2+2 together, one could entertain the idea that up in bean-town where there are undoubtedly lingering IRA diehards, there are live testing going on- with live targets wearing body armor....


i'm sure you'll have to go to the "oped news.com" page for the hyperlink
for a casual review of the Boston Police Under Attack article
or else sign-up on the boston.com web site




...............................................................................................................
maybe try this one:
www.fnherstal.com...

Cheers for the link.

Ian Pasiley and the rest of his DUP cronies will ALWAYS say that, even though a Protestant minister and a Catholic priest among others saw the weapons get destroyed. They have not mentioned the INLA who still are active, but not the way the UDA, UFF are

The IMC (Independent Monitoring Commission) have said it has "received report" that the Ira may have held onto some arms -

The IMC said it received reports that the IRA held on to some of its weapons, possibly for personal protection or area protection.

- however John de Chastelain (head of the international arms decommissioning body is also quoted as saying -

It said: "Last week, we were informed by security sources in Northern Ireland that they had intelligence to the effect that some individuals and groups within the IRA have retained arms including handguns.
"There was no indication that the quantities of arms involved were substantial."

news.bbc.co.uk...

- Anyone dreaming of an IRA that did not decommission huge amounts of arms hasn't been reading de Chastelain's reports.

It is true that small amounts of arms (as in a few cases of machine guns or some pistols) may have been held back 'just in case' (there are serious loyalist attacks on the nationalist/republican community......the loyalist paramilitaries having publicly and repeatedly refused to decommission their arms).

One may expect the fate of those weapons to be similar to that of the various arms several groups imported and never decommissioned in the last century (cos there are several examples).
Burial, inactivity and rust.....

......if people will engage properly and take the political path permanently.

IMO Paisley and his weird 17th century religio-political DUPer gang offer nothing positive to anyone and are all about attempting to stall progress as long as possible.

Much as they would never admit it I cannot help but get the impression that they would love the diversion another futile 'war' in NI would be.
Hopefully nationalists and republicans have gotten wise to being enticed into such a mistake.

[edit on 19-2-2006 by sminkeypinkey]

Has Paisley destroyed the peace process yet? :/ He's just not happy until everyone else is unhappy.

He and his odd little fundamentalist political-religious gang are doing their best but I think the game is up; they polled around 30% of the vote in the last round of elections, they are no majority of anything.

Thankfully others keep on talking and progress, little by little, keeps on being made.

Ian Paisly, I believe, has been like that since a child as his dad wasn in the loyalist paramlitries so he would have told him about that. He is also 83 so he is now in his last years so he feels that he can get away with anything, as he recently walked out of a meeting with Shinn Fein followed by the rest of his cronies.

Thats the ramble finished and back to the subject, IRA keeping weapons for personal protection is plausible as the members, especially the senior members, may come under attack from loyalists. Keeping weapons to defend the area is also plausible as we see every year during the loyalist maches through republican areas, which well known loyalist paramilitary figures march and start shouting abuse at the protesters, who want the orange men to stop marching on republican roads.