Police say IRA is behind East Belfast attacks

Original post   (by nick.clarke1, added Sunday, 9 June 2002 15:09:53 UTC+1)

The Times
            June 05, 2002

            

Police say IRA is behind East Belfast attacks

            By David Lister, Ireland Correspondent

            THE Provisional IRA is orchestrating attacks in East Belfast in
order to turn the area into a flashpoint between Roman Catholics and
Protestants, security sources believe.

            As a massive security force presence prepared for retaliatory
attacks on Catholics after five Protestants were shot, one source said that
security forces had obtained video footage of leading IRA members, including
many from outside East Belfast, co-ordinating trouble in the Short Strand
district.

            "There's no doubt that the Provisional IRA has been working this
up," a senior security source said. "There's clear evidence that the
Provisional IRA has been co-ordinating what is going on and has been
bringing a mixture of weapons into the Short Strand. They want to turn the
east of the city into another North Belfast, another Ardoyne."

            John Reid, the Northern Ireland Secretary, telephoned Gerry
Adams, the Sinn Fein president, to appeal for calm yesterday. The Government
was reassessing the ceasefires of the IRA and the loyalist Ulster Volunteer
Force after Alan McQuillan, Belfast's most senior police officer, said that
the Provisionals, the UVF and the Ulster Defence Association had all been
involved in the weekend's violence.

            Security sources believe the INLA, a splinter republican group,
may also have been involved in one shooting.

            Loyalists believe the IRA wants to turn East Belfast into a
major flashpoint to consolidate Sinn Fein's electoral position in the city
ahead of next May's elections to Stormont. They say nationalists from North
Belfast have been moved to East Belfast.