'Real IRA' Claims It Killed 2 UK Soldiers

Police bias against IRA at fault: report

(NEWSER) - When a bomb ripped through a Belfast bar in 1971, killing 15, biased cops unjustly blamed the Provisional IRA, a new police report says. Though the bombing was at a Catholic-owned bar, police considered it to be an accidental explosion as the IRA prepared a bomb—the so-called “own-goal” theory, Reuters notes. Victims' families today welcomed the findings, reports the Belfast Telegraph, which they said cleared their loved ones of the four-decade-old allegation that they were would-be bombers. More»

Immigrants to Northern Irish capital fear for lives

(NEWSER) - More than 100 Romanian immigrants in the Northern Ireland capital of Belfast have been moved into a shelter after a series of racist attacks on their homes. A Protestant paramilitary group is suspected of orchestrating the violence, which has included bricks thrown through windows and death threats against a baby. "The whole thing has escalated very quickly," one social worker told the BBC. More»

(NEWSER) - A police officer was killed in Northern Ireland tonight amid renewed tensions with suspected Irish Republican terrorists, the Guardian reports. Responding to a call on a private manor southwest of Belfast, one officer was fatally shot in the head and another injured. The Real IRA, which claimed responsibility for killing two soldiers this weekend, has recently tried to kill several other police officers. More»

Paramilitary group observes Remembrance Day with gesture toward peace

(NEWSER) - The largest Protestant paramilitary group in Northern Ireland stood down yesterday but didn't commit to destroying its arms, the Guardian reports. The Ulster Defense Association, the third and last of the major militant groups in the region to renounce violence, announced its commitment to "a society where violence and weaponry are ghosts of the past," RTE reports. More»

Defecting foreign ministers may have been involved in Semtex deal

(NEWSER) - An IRA bomb that killed a young police officer in Northern Ireland may be linked to plastic explosives obtained from Moammar Gadhafi's regime, according to investigators. The IRA purchased a large quantity of the explosive, Semtex, from Libya in the 1980s, reports the Telegraph . Former Libyan foreign minister Moussa Koussa , who defected to Britain last month, has been named in US court documents as an official who helped supervise Libya's sale of Semtex to the IRA. “Moussa Koussa was up to his elbows in dealing with the IRA," said a conservative member of Parliament last week. "He has the blood of British soldiers and policemen on his hands.” More»