New IRA claims Belfast police station automobile bomb, warns of extra assaults

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A harmful dissident republican group, the New IRA—linked to Iran and Hezbollah—claimed duty Tuesday for a automobile bomb outdoors a Belfast police station earlier than warning of additional assaults, based on stories.

The blast focused a Police Service of Northern Ireland station in Dunmurry, with police rising patrols after the group threatened to focus on officers at their properties.

A 66-year-old man was additionally arrested Tuesday below terrorism legal guidelines following the explosion, Reuters reported.

In a press release attributed to the "management of the IRA," the group mentioned the bomb was meant to kill officers leaving the station. It warned that anybody cooperating with police "will probably be severely handled."

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Forensic investigators examine the location of a automobile bomb that exploded outdoors Dunmurry police station in South Belfast, (AP Picture/Peter Morrison)

A 2020 report by The Times , citing info from an MI5 informant, alleged connections among the many New IRA, Lebanon -based Hezbollah, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The report mentioned people linked to the group signed a guide of condolences following the 2020 killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad, elevating issues about potential exterior assist, together with weapons and funding.

"The New IRA–Hezbollah hyperlink is a helpful information level in a a lot bigger sample: the operationalization of the so-called axis of resistance ," former Protection Division intelligence officer Andrew Badger instructed Fox Information Digital.

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The European Union designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group, with Ursula von der Leyen pledging speedy implementation following a violent crackdown. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto)

"This joins Russia, Iran, China , North Korea and an increasing bench of aligned non-state actors—right into a working logistical and tradecraft community throughout the globe," Badger mentioned.

"What we're watching is the maturing of a hybrid warfare mannequin, pioneered and led by Russia and Iran, through which adversaries of the Western-led order more and more share ways, methods and procedures (TTPs) throughout geographies and ideologies," mentioned Badger, the co-author of " The Great Heist. "

The New IRA’s newest bombing additionally follows an identical tried automobile bomb assault on one other police station outdoors Belfast simply weeks in the past. It's one in every of a number of militant groups that oppose the 1998 Good Friday Settlement and wish to finish British rule in Northern Eire and set up a united Eire.

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The New IRA, linked to Iran and Hezbollah, claimed duty Tuesday for a automobile bomb outdoors a Belfast police station. (AP Picture / Peter Morrison)

It has carried out a collection of attacks in recent years focusing on police and safety forces.

"The actual problem for native Irish police and safety providers is that these teams now compound one another’s studying," Badger added.

"A tactic battle-tested in a single theatre could be within the palms of a dissident cell in one other inside months—and Western counter-terror constructions merely aren’t wired to trace that sort of cross-pollination," he mentioned.

"A Lebanese Shia militia coaching a hard-left Irish republican faction would have seemed unique 10 years in the past," he added.

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"Right now it's according to a wider pipeline together with Russian sabotage cells using native legal proxies in Europe and Iranian-directed assassination plots on U.Ok. and U.S. soil."

"The playbook of those actors—proxies, dual-use logistics, weapons-and-finance pipelines, exploitation of grievance actions within the goal nation—look like converging," Badger added.

Emma Bussey is a breaking information author for Fox Information Digital. Earlier than becoming a member of Fox, she labored at The Telegraph with the U.S. in a single day staff, throughout desks together with international, politics, information, sport and tradition.