The terror threat in Northern Ireland has been upgraded from “considerable” to “serious” due to the increased threat from dissident Republicans opposed to the peace process, British Northern Ireland Minister Chris Heaton said on Tuesday. Harris.
This increase implies that the British secret services MI5 consider an attack in Northern Ireland “very likely”, after a police officer was shot last month.
The decision has been taken just days before Northern Ireland marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Good Friday agreement, signed on April 10, 1998, which put an end to more than thirty years of violence between Protestants and Catholics.
“MI5 has increased the threat in Northern Ireland from Northern Ireland-related terrorism from ‘substantial’ (attack likely) to ‘severe’ (attack very likely),” it said. the minister in a written statement sent to the House of Commons (British Lower House).
“The public should remain vigilant but not alarmed and continue to report any concerns they have to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI),” it added.
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 been 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 due to the boycott of the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) 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.
