Military spooks sent to Northern Ireland over suicide plot fears

British Special Forces commanders have sent a team of military spooks to Northern Ireland to help the growing threat of a terror attack on the mainland by rogue IRA men, the British newspaper Daily Mirror reported. 

According to the report, a specialist team from the shadowy Human Intelligence Unit has joined MI5 and police combating the dissident republicans who want to launch bombings in the UK.

There is a growing fear that counter-terror officers are now fighting a fresh threat of violence from republican terror - especially in Manchester and London, the report added.

It comes after the Police Service of Northern Ireland made a request for ‘surveillance’ support over fears the Real IRA and others want to mount a new campaign of terror.

The Human Intelligence Unit, part of the UK Special Forces Group, never wear uniform and will go to the Province under the cover of working in civilian jobs, as tourists and businessmen.

The top secret unit is currently recruiting across the armed forces for new personnel who must pass the Joint Special Forces Selection course.

Last week MI5 warned that dissident IRA groups are planning an attack on mainland UK – possibly with arms and munitions smuggled in from Eastern Europe by European criminal gangs.

Now a large number of ‘undercover operators’ from the Human Intelligence Unit will support operations in Ulster while a second force will aid the Counter Terrorist Command in the UK.

A senior source said the threat from the Republican movement has not gone away since the peace agreement in 1994, it has just gone underground, he said: “We saw attacks in London a decade ago and the murder of two off duty soldiers in Northern Ireland.

“We have men and women on the ground and they are very experienced and melt into the background. Nobody will have a clue who they are”.

Source: MENA