Real IRA 'planning assassination of leading Unionists' to end agreement

Dissidents are plotting 'spectacular', security sources warn

Dissident Republicans are planning to assassinate a major Unionist political figure, security sources in Belfast confirmed yesterday.

Northern Ireland First Minister David Trimble is among a number of senior Unionist political figures who have been warned by police that their lives could be in danger.

The warnings were issued, according to security sources, after "a lot of intelligence" was received that the Real IRA was laying such plans. The group carried out the Omagh bombing in 1998 in which 29 people were killed.

Its targeting of senior Unionists is a switch in tactics and represents a significant new threat. This year the organisation has been hard hit by arrests and by heavy jail sentences to several of its teams.

Since the Omagh bombing its activities have been mainly directed against security targets, with most of this year's attacks inflicting little damage.

In recent months it made unsuccessful car boobytrap bomb attacks on a new police recruit and on a former soldier.

It may have hit on the idea of political assassination in an attempt to provide a "spectacular" act of violence to revive its flagging fortunes and to shatter the peace process, which it opposes.

Among those warned that they could be potential targets are Mr Trimble, MPs Lady Sylvia Hermon and David Burnside, and Lord Maginnis, who as Ken Maginnis was MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone. The Rev Ian Paisley has also been warned.

Any such attack would clearly add a new dimension to the security threat and would precipitate a major crisis in the peace process. The Real IRA hope that a high-level killing would lead the Unionists to pull out of government and bring down the Northern Ireland Assembly in Belfast.

The fact that a range of politicians has been warned suggests that the intelligence received may not have specifically identified any particular figure. While the security assessment is that this is a most dangerous development, the Ulster Unionist Party appeared to play down the news.

A party spokesman said: "These are threats which are received on a regular basis and they are not specific."

The new threat came to light when Mr Paisley's son, Ian Paisley Jnr, questioned acting Chief Constable Colin Cramphorn at a Policing Board meeting about a republican "spectacular". Mr Cramphorn replied: "There are a number of serious threats that have emerged in recent weeks from dissident republican groups."