Rogue Republican terrorists in Northern Ireland no longer have mainstream public backing for their actions and they lack the structure of the defunct Provisional IRA, a former chief constable in the province has claimed.

Sir Hugh Orde, who is now president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, accepted that recent dissident attacks were of concern. But he added the world had changed and the threat posed by these groups was “very different” to the past.
¬"There is now no public support at all for dissident Republican terrorism"¬
Orde was speaking in the wake of an attack outside the court building in Newry, County Down, in which a 250lb car bomb detonated, damaging the building’s security gatehouse and a nearby church. While nobody was injured, there were fears at continuing terror strikes by rogue Republican groups.

In March last year, dissidents shot dead two British soldiers outside their barracks in Antrim hours before they were due to deploy on operations in Afghanistan. A police officer was also murdered in Craigavon, County Armagh.

Orde, who served as chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland from 2002 until last year, believed the rogue groups were aiming to destabilise the political progress made in Northern Ireland. He went on to point out that the profile of the terrorist had changed considerably from the past, and the organisation of the dissident groups was a far cry from that of the IRA.

“The threat we are now facing is very different to that of the 1970s, 80s and 90s,” Orde added. “There is now no public support at all for dissident Republican terrorism – there had previously been sympathy for the IRA in some areas.

“Loyalist terrorism has now ceased and the world is a different place. But that is not to say that dissidents do not have the potential to cause serious harm.”