Word: iras
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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BELFAST: They may call themselves the Real IRA, but is this a real cease-fire? The Republican splinter group responsible for Saturday's horrific bomb attack in Omagh, the bloodiest in Northern Ireland's recent history, announced a "suspension" of their campaign of violence Wednesday. The reason? Widespread public anger and an appeal from Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, according to the Real IRA's statement published in the Belfast Irish News. The real reason? If they hadn't said something, Ahern was threatening to crack down on the group's Dublin HQ. Besides, there's a more important public...
...When they admitted responsibility for the attack Tuesday, the Real IRA insisted so many people died in the predominantly Catholic town because the police misread their warnings. Not so, said Tony Blair, and the British prime minister promptly released an audio tape of the group's first phone call to a Belfast TV station. "There's a bomb, courthouse," it says. In the event, people evacuated from the courthouse were led directly into the street where the car bomb stood. TIME London Bureau chief Barry Hillenbrand says it is quite possible that the terrorists intended to target the courthouse, "drove...
That's what the government was attempting to give families when it created the Education IRA last year. It was a good idea in theory. In practice, however, it doesn't do much for most families. "I would not recommend that any client save money in an EIRA," concludes Satovsky. Colleges have yet to decide how they'll count that money when determining aid, he reasons. Furthermore, in the year they withdraw from their EIRA, students won't qualify for the other generous programs created by Congress last year: the HOPE scholarship and the Lifetime Learning credit. Nor can money...
...Monday, except that they were wanted in connection with the most bloody terrorist attack in the territory's recent history. The perpetrators of Saturday's car-bomb attack that killed 28 people and wounded 220 are unknown, although police suspect a Republican splinter group that calls itself the Real IRA. But why would they plant a bomb in a mostly Catholic town? And was the most horrific part of the atrocity -- that a misleading telephone warning led people to be standing right at the spot where the explosion took place -- a mistake, or a murderous ploy? Nobody knows...
...Real IRA, at least, is well known to British intelligence. It is led by Michael "Mickey" McKevitt -- who, as former Quartermaster General of the Provisional IRA, knows where all the semtex is stashed. McKevitt was one of the most prominent figures to resign from the IRA Army Council last October in protest over Sinn Fein's involvement in the peace process. Short of cash and short of arms, McKevitt's men have been keen to talk other Republican splinter groups into pooling resources. Whether or not they were responsible, Saturday's blast may end up being the kind of publicity...