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N. Ireland police: Soldiers murdered as they lay on ground

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  • N. Ireland police: Soldiers murdered as they lay on ground

    apparently the private guards assigned to the base did not fire on the terrorists, either, even when the british soldiers were wounded and later executed.

    article is a bit dated- the real IRA claimed responsibility.

    ---

    (CNN) -- The execution-style killing of two British soldiers and wounding of four other people in Northern Ireland was "an attempt at mass murder," police said Sunday.

    Police have cordoned off entry to the scene of the attack which killed two soldiers.

    British Prime Minister Gordon Brown condemned the Saturday night attack as "evil and cowardly," saying "the whole country is shocked and outraged."

    The troops are the first British soldiers to be killed in Northern Ireland in 12 years, the Ministry of Defense confirmed.

    They were shot as pizzas were delivered to their base in Massereene, in County Antrim, Detective Chief Superintendent Derek Williamson of the Police Service of Northern Ireland said Sunday. Watch the latest on the investigation »

    Two other soldiers and two pizza delivery men were also wounded. The injuries were serious, a police spokeswoman said earlier.

    Williamson called the attack "an attempt at mass murder," saying that two gunmen with automatic rifles fired an initial volley of shots, then moved forward and fired a second burst at people lying on the ground before fleeing in a car driven by a third person.

    Police have not named the victims, but Williamson described them as "very young men in their early 20s." They were due to be deployed shortly to Afghanistan, he said.

    "Our inquiries are concentrating on dissident republicans," said Williamson, referring to Catholic militants who refused to join the Irish Republican Army in supporting the Northern Ireland peace process.

    The attack stirred memories of three decades of violence that has largely faded since the 1998 Good Friday Accord.

    Thomas Burns, a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly who represents south Antrim, warned the attack could be a "devastating blow to the peace process," and a return to "bad old days again where people are being killed in open gun attacks. ... You wouldn't want ever to go back to those terrible, terrible old days of killing."

    However, Brown said the murders would not derail the peace process in Northern Ireland.

    "I assure you that we will bring these murderers to justice," he said. "No murderer will be able to derail a peace process that has the support of the vast majority of the people of Northern Ireland."

    Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein, the former political arm of the IRA, said the attack was "wrong and counterproductive."

    "Last night's attack was an attack on the peace process," he said. "Those responsible have no support, no strategy to achieve a united Ireland. Their intention is to bring British soldiers back on to the streets. They want to destroy the progress of recent times and to plunge Ireland back into conflict."

    The U.S. State Department condemned the attack in a statement.

    "We call on all parties in Northern Ireland to unequivocally reject such senseless acts of violence, whose intention is to destroy the peace that so many in Northern Ireland have worked so hard to achieve," department spokesman Robert Wood said.

    No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

    Tensions in the region have ramped up in recent days.

    Last week, Hugh Orde, chief constable of the Northern Ireland police, requested that a British military intelligence regiment help investigate what he called increased activity among dissident republican groups.

    Sinn Fein warned against bringing in the troops, saying their presence would stir bad feelings among Catholics.

    "There can be no place for so-called British Special Forces within any civic and accountable policing structures," Adams said Saturday.

    Shaun Woodward, the British government minister responsible for Northern Ireland, pointed out that the soldiers killed were not there to police the province.

    "Operation Banner has ended," he said, a reference to the 37-year British military deployment in Northern Ireland. The operation lasted from 1969 to 2007.

    "The soldiers who are here now are actually for deployment elsewhere in the world," he said, calling the troops at the base "men and women about to be deployed to Afghanistan ... [doing] humanitarian work, protecting people's lives in another part of the world."

    The attack happened about 200 yards from a police station where suspected militants are believed to have recently been detained and questioned.

    William McCrea, a member of Parliament from the loyalist Democratic Unionist Party and a Presbyterian minister, was mourning what he called "a very grievous evening."

    "Our soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan to defeat terrorism, but this is on our own doorstep," he said. "We can't go back to that."

    Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. Split between Catholics and Protestants, it was racked for decades by violence between Protestants who wanted to remain part of the UK and Catholics who wanted to join the Republic of Ireland, which is independent.

    Violence spilled over into Britain, with the IRA bombing cities including London and Birmingham. For nearly 30 years, British soldiers patrolled Northern Ireland in armored vehicles and hunkered down in bases surrounded by concrete walls and barbed wire.

    Northern Ireland now has a power-sharing government and a prevailing peace that had been welcomed by all but radical splinter groups on both sides.
    There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

  • #2
    This is surprising I had the impression the whole IRA thing was over.

    Comment


    • #3
      Not surprising at all, the IRA never gave up all their weapons nor did the Nationalists. Also bear in mind this is not the IRA it is the 'Real IRA', who never agreed with the 'Peace Process' from the start, they broke away from the IRA and formed their own group, they were also responsible for the bombing in Omagh.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Chaobam Armour View Post
        Not surprising at all, the IRA never gave up all their weapons nor did the Nationalists. Also bear in mind this is not the IRA it is the 'Real IRA', who never agreed with the 'Peace Process' from the start, they broke away from the IRA and formed their own group, they were also responsible for the bombing in Omagh.
        TY for the distinction, Ill look more into the history of it.

        Comment


        • #5
          The group was born out of a split in the mainstream Provisional IRA (PIRA) in October 1997, when the PIRA's so-called quartermaster-general resigned over Sinn Fein's embrace of the peace process.

          The man who walked out was Michael McKevitt, who is now serving a jail sentence for terrorist-related offences in the Irish Republic.

          McKevitt is married to Bernadette Sands McKevitt, sister of 'Bobby Sands (Hunger Striker).

          It is thought the Real IRA has access to some explosives, detonators and weapons' which once belonged to the PIRA.

          Shortly after its formation, the paramilitary group quickly took over from the older Continuity IRA (CIRA) as the leading home for dissidents.

          The Real IRA was responsible for the Omagh bombing as well as a string of other attacks, including bombings in London and Birmingham.

          In an attack in April (2008) RIRA members burst into a victim's home in Belfast and shot him in both legs; arrests and weapon finds followed this incident.

          There was also OIRA (Official IRA - Political Wing).

          We had to learn about the History of the troubles prior to being deployed in Theatre.

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          • #6
            Surprising that this would happen again.
            Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Dreadnought View Post
              Surprising that this would happen again.
              not really, for enough of the Irish population (to maintain a limited insurgency)British sovereignty over NI - regardless of majority support - will always be a 'go to war' issue.

              its not a big part, and in terms of actually acheiving a 32 county state they don't stand a hope in hell, but its enough to regularly cause casualties.

              we have proven that each time the 'spearhead' republican grouping is either militarily defeated, politically subjourned, or just dies out through public apathy or internecine warfare, another will eventually take its place.

              for many objective reasons the 'dissidents' will not be able to acheive a 'PIRA-like' insurgency, but that won't stop them trying - particularly given, In a throwback to the OIRA of the late 60's-early 70's, that the three dissident groupings, RIRA, CIRA, and INLA are derided by their supposed constituancy. in effect, they not only have 'the cause', they also need to 'show' nationalist/mainstream Republicanism that they are a serious, credible force, not the gangs of drug dealers, fantastists and deluded old men that they have been painted as for the last 10 years

              it is, i'm afraid, something we're just going to have to live with.
              before criticizing someone, walk a mile in their shoes.................... then when you do criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

              Comment


              • #8
                They shame Republicanism - the way forward for Irish politics is to put down the armalite, and double our efforts at the ballot box.

                We must seek peace, then a United Ireland, violence will only set reunification back and give the DUP excuses to hold back things like the Irish language act.
                Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
                - John Stuart Mill.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by crooks View Post
                  They shame Republicanism - the way forward for Irish politics is to put down the armalite, and double our efforts at the ballot box.

                  We must seek peace, then a United Ireland, violence will only set reunification back and give the DUP excuses to hold back things like the Irish language act.
                  A real shame indeed.:(

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Here we go again, I hope this is not a sign for things to come, lets pray that it isn't.

                    Police officer shot dead in town.

                    A police officer has died following a shooting incident in Craigavon, County Armagh.

                    The incident is understood to have happened near Lismore High School at Brownlow.

                    Police came under attack while investigating suspicious activity near the school.

                    The attack follows the weekend murder of two soldiers outside an Army base in Antrim. The Real IRA said they were responsible for that shooting.

                    Sappers Mark Quinsey, 23, from Birmingham and Patrick Azimkar, 21, from London, were shot dead at Massereene Army base, Antrim.

                    The soldiers were killed as they accepted a pizza delivery at about 2120 GMT on Saturday.

                    Four other people, including two pizza delivery men - Anthony Watson, 19, from Antrim and a Polish man in his 30s - were injured in that attack.

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                    • #11
                      The pace is intensifying. A second fatal shooting just happened.

                      Northern Ireland Policeman Shot Dead in Second Attack in 2 Days

                      March 9 (Bloomberg) -- A police officer was shot dead in Northern Ireland, two days after two British soldiers were killed by dissident republican paramilitaries in the U.K. region.

                      The officer was gunned down in Craigavon, in county Armagh, shortly before 9:00 p.m. while on patrol in the town, a police spokeswoman said in a telephone interview tonight.

                      The Real Irish Republican Army, formed in 1997 to oppose Northern Ireland’s peace process, claimed responsibility for the March 7 attack on the British soldiers at an army base in county Antrim, the first fatalities for the British Army in the region in 12 years. The police officer is the first to be killed since the Police Service of Northern Ireland was created in 2001.

                      “We are staring into the abyss,” Delores Kelly, a lawmaker with the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party, said tonight. “All of us have to get ourselves together to pull ourselves back from the brink.”

                      British Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited Northern Ireland today to discuss the upsurge in violence with the region’s political leaders who share power in a locally elected assembly. ...

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        its a 'surge' thing.

                        RIRA - infact even PIRA in its heyday - doesn't have the ability to keep up this tempo of attacks for a sustained period. its a surge/rest, surge/rest strategy, and it suits them politically to have a burst of frenetic activity where they get as many targets as possible in a short space of time.

                        the targets are well chosen for the 'constituancy' they are going for - soldiers and on-duty policemen - as is the manner of attack.

                        PSF's political reaction has actually surprised me - though the logic is obvious - and they take a risk by being so bold in their condemnation.

                        we will likely see more attacks on similar targets in the immediate future, and i'm afraid we are just going to have to take them. while this ASU or that ASU might be rolled up by policing, the 'endgame' in this is campaign is going to have to come from within republicanism, and the more we stick our nose into what is an 'internal' issue with externalised symptoms, the more we run the risk of doing RIRA's work for them by harking back to 'the war'.

                        painful, and possibly a little 'unmanly', but effective, rather than a massive police/military responce that makes us feel good but causes another generation of bloody stalemate and political retrenchment.
                        before criticizing someone, walk a mile in their shoes.................... then when you do criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          I think its important not to give these murderers any form of credibilty, Such as branding them terrorists. To do so would infer that they had some legitimate political gripe. They don't, they're just scum and the lowest form of life!

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Chaobam Armour View Post
                            Not surprising at all, the IRA never gave up all their weapons nor did the Nationalists. Also bear in mind this is not the IRA it is the 'Real IRA', who never agreed with the 'Peace Process' from the start, they broke away from the IRA and formed their own group, they were also responsible for the bombing in Omagh.
                            The IRA in 2005 stated:

                            28 July 2005
                            "The IRA leadership has also authorised our representative to engage with the IICD [Independent International Commission on Decommissioning] to complete the process to verifiably put its arms beyond use in a way which will further enhance public confidence and to conclude this as quickly as possible.

                            We have invited two independent witnesses, from the Protestant and Catholic churches, to testify to this."

                            26 September 2005

                            "The leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann (IRA) announced on 28 July that we had authorised our representative to engage with the IICD to complete the process of verifiably putting arms beyond use. The IRA leadership can now confirm that the process of putting arms beyond use has been completed."

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Pink View Post
                              The IRA in 2005 stated:

                              28 July 2005
                              "The IRA leadership has also authorised our representative to engage with the IICD [Independent International Commission on Decommissioning] to complete the process to verifiably put its arms beyond use in a way which will further enhance public confidence and to conclude this as quickly as possible.

                              We have invited two independent witnesses, from the Protestant and Catholic churches, to testify to this."

                              26 September 2005

                              "The leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann (IRA) announced on 28 July that we had authorised our representative to engage with the IICD to complete the process of verifiably putting arms beyond use. The IRA leadership can now confirm that the process of putting arms beyond use has been completed."
                              And you believe that??????????

                              The CIRA have claimed responsibility for the murder of the Policeman.

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