UK raises threat of terrorist attack in Northern Ireland to “serious”

The terrorist threat in Northern Ireland has been raised from “considerable” to “serious” due to the increase in Republican dissidents, contrary to the peace process, as confirmed on Tuesday Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris.

This increase means that the British secret services MI5 They consider an attack in Northern Ireland “very likely” after a police officer was shot last month.

The decision has been made a few days before Northern Ireland remembers the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreementsigned on April 10, 1998, which ended more than 30 years of violence between Republicans and Catholics.

“MI5 has increased the threat in Northern Ireland from Northern Ireland-related terrorism from ‘significant’ (attack likely) to ‘severe’ (attack very likely),” it said. the minister in a written statement sent to the House of Commons (British Lower House).

“On alert”

“The public should remain alert, but not alarmed, and continue to report any concerns you have to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).”

In his statement, the minister stressed that a small number of people are still determined to cause “harm to our communities” through acts of violence that are politically motivated.

“In the last 25 years Northern Ireland has transformed into a peaceful society. The Good Friday Agreement demonstrates how peaceful and democratic politics improve society,” he stressed.

Last month, PSNI Detective John Caldwell was wounded after being shot outside a sports center in the northern Irish town of Omagh, where he had been training a group of youngsters to play football.

Law enforcement linked this attack to dissident republican groups, opposed to the Good Friday pact and seeking the reunification of the province with the Republic of Ireland.

The Government raised this threat at a time when the province does not have an autonomous Executive by the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) boycott of the province to the post-Brexit arrangements agreed with the European Union (EU), in order to avoid erecting a physical border between the two Irelands.

The DUP -the province’s second formation-, which refuses to participate in the power-sharing government, has rejected the Windsor Framework Agreement, recently signed between London and Brussels.

This formation is above all against the so-called “Stormont brake”, the tool that will allow the Northern Irish Assembly to object to future community legislation.