Manhunt for Real IRA´s bomb expert in West Bank

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Sunday July 13, 2003
The Observer

A huge manhunt was underway last night for an
Irish republican bomb-maker who is believed to be
training Palestinian terrorists in Israel.
Israeli police and the internal security agency
Shin Bet are searching for the South Armagh man
who arrived at Ben Gurion Airport three weeks ago,
travelling on a British passport.

The expert bomb-maker was once a member of the
Provisional IRA in Newry, but switched his
allegiance four years ago to the Real IRA. It is
feared he has been sent to the Occupied
Territories to sell his expertise to groups like
Islamic Jihad.

The Observer knows the bomb-maker´s identity, but
he cannot be named for legal reasons. Police on
both sides of the Irish border confirmed yesterday
that they have known the Real IRA activist for
more than a decade. He is 40, co-owns an
engineering business along the border and also has
an address in Dundalk.

´We lost track of him three years ago,´ one senior
Garda detective said last night. ´He just went off
the radar screen and there was a concern about
where he had disappeared to.´

Israeli sources said yesterday that the man
travelled on his own passport posing as a tourist
when he arrived at Tel Aviv. Shin Bet and the
Israeli police are also aware of the man´s
identity.

They claim he slipped across the green line that
divides Israel from the West Bank shortly after
his arrival. The sources in Jerusalem said their
intelligence indicates that he has linked up with
rejectionist Palestinian groups determined to
destroy President Bush´s road map to peace.
Israeli security forces are bracing themselves for
a series of massive bomb attacks.

Senior members of the Police Service of Northern
Ireland said they suspected that if the man was in
the West Bank he was likely to be training
Palestinians to build more effective bombs. IRA
and Real IRA engineers are regarded as among the
world´s leading experts in both bomb- and
mortar-making technology.

´This is probably the Real IRA´s Colombia,´ said
one observer. ´They are selling their technical
skills to the Palestinians in return for money. It
is a fundraising exercise for the Real IRA.´

Three Irishmen, two of whom have IRA convictions,
stand accused in Colombia of training the
drug-dealing terrorist Marxist group, Farc. In
return for gaining IRA expertise, Farc is alleged
to have given the mainstream republican movement
millions of dollars.

Links between Irish republican terror groups and
Palestinian and other Middle Eastern terrorist
organisations have existed since the Ulster
Troubles began more than three decades ago.

The IRA learnt the art of mortar making in
Lebanon, where their members trained with groups
such as Hizbollah.

The vertical mortar, for instance, was modelled on
the Soviet-made Saggar missile, a weapon used by
Hizbollah in their war against the Israelis in
south Lebanon.

This weekend´s security alert is the first
evidence of alleged contacts between Palestinian
militants and dissident Irish republicans.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,690
3,997198,00.html