7 Suspected IRA Dissidents Arrested

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) — Northern Ireland police arrested seven suspected IRA dissidents Thursday and searched houses and fields for caches of explosives and other weapons.

The operation in the predominantly Catholic districts of Lurgan and Craigavon, southwest of Belfast, began before dawn and involved scores of officers backed by bomb-sniffing dogs and British army explosives experts.

So far police have not announced any weapons found in the area, which is a power base for Irish Republican Army dissidents opposed to the group's 1997 cease-fire and 2005 disarmament.

But in the past year in Lurgan, police have seized weapons caches, including a homemade mortar designed to blast a police armored vehicle. Crowds of men and youths have repeatedly clashed with police and disrupted the main Belfast-Dublin railway service, which passes through Lurgan, with bomb alerts.

A Catholic legislator from Craigavon, Dolores Kelly, said most residents were "delighted" that police were cracking down on IRA dissidents. She said locals wanted police to be able to operate normally in Catholic areas.

"The community has had to live for far too long with the scourge of dissident republicans. They have no support from local people and have had little concern for the wishes of the community," Kelly said.

She said recent dissident attacks on police units, all of which failed either because the ambushes were detected or devices failed to detonate, "have taken place in built-up areas near schools and health centers and could have had tragic consequences."

Two dissident groups, the Continuity IRA and Real IRA, continue to plot bomb and gun attacks in pursuit of the traditional IRA goal of forcing Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom. The Good Friday peace accord of 1998, which was accepted by the IRA-linked Sinn Fein party, led to this year's formation of a new Catholic-Protestant administration led partly by Sinn Fein.

The Good Friday pact accepted that Northern Ireland would remain British territory as long as most of its residents want this. Polls consistently show strong support for staying in the United Kingdom, particularly within the province's Protestant majority