According to local U.K. and Northern Ireland media, authorities in Belfast and Derry have uncovered a significant terror plot meant to disrupt the U.S. President’s visit this Tuesday.
According to the Belfast Telegraph: “Police have uncovered a New IRA bomb plot aimed at eclipsing US President Joe Biden’s visit to Belfast to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.”
An anonymous source reportedly told the Telegraph:
“They were looking for parts to make a bomb…the belief is that the New IRA was planning some sort of attack to coincide with Biden’s visit, similar to the mortar attack on the cops in Strabane last November.”
The plot reportedly involved New Irish Republican Army members detonating several explosives. Local police in Derry conducted several raids and searches in known New IRA members’ homes and found evidence the members were looking for explosives components. It is not clear if any functional devices were found or any arrests made.
The New Irish Republican Army, or New IRA, is an Irish republican paramilitary group. It is a continuation of the so-called Real Irish Republican Army (Real IRA), which began to be called the ‘New IRA’ in July 2012 when Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD) and other small republican militant groups merged with it. The group calls itself simply “the Irish Republican Army”. The New IRA has launched many attacks against the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the British Army. It is the largest and most active of the “dissident republican” paramilitary groups waging a campaign against the British security forces in Northern Ireland. (Wiki)
It currently has about 250-300 members.
