Will militant splinter groups fill IRA vacuum?

Not long after the Irish Republican Army (IRA) made its historic pledge to disarm last month, a taxi driver was reportedly hijacked and forced to drive his bomb-laden car toward a police station.

The driver abandoned the car about a quarter-mile away from the station, and army technicians defused the bomb. But the grim incident was blamed on breakaway republicans, and has renewed concern that diehard militants would continue fighting for a united Ireland.

The IRA, blamed for killing nearly 1,800 people since 1969, declared last month that it had ended its armed struggle against British control of Northern Ireland, fueling hope that a lasting peace had finally come to the province.

Some, however, worry that a new group could break away, as the Real IRA did in 1998 while the landmark Good Friday Agreement was negotiated, or that IRA militants would drift to splinter groups. Irish republican fringe groups have shown no signs of following the IRA's lead and renouncing violence.

"This has always been the threat to the peace process, because the physical force tradition in Ireland and the republican tradition are inextricably intertwined," says Tim Pat Coogan, Irish author of "The IRA." "To those few republicans, this is a betrayal, just as when Michael Collins signed the treaty in 1921 that set up the Irish state and partitioned the island. They'll figure that they now have to go it alone, though they don't have any widespread support."

As the world's tolerance for terrorism of any kind evaporated after the Sept. 11 attacks, Europe's long-running rebellions have sputtered. More than 700 Basque separatists are reportedly in Spanish jails, from which some former rebel leaders have issued calls for an end to the violence.

And on the turbulent French-ruled island of Corsica, turnout at this summer's annual nationalist festival was light, and Sinn Fein, the IRA's political ally, which has supported the Basque and Corsican movements, was a no-show.

Despite their increasing marginalization, just a handful of militants can wreak havoc on societies emerging from decades of conflict and prolong the slow transition to normality, analysts warn.

Irish republican breakaway groups are small and riddled with informers, but remain potentially destructive. In 1998, the Real IRA exploded a car bomb in the small town of Omagh, killing 29 people.

The veterans of such groups know no other way of life, and they can attract aimless young men who see no escape from Ulster's widespread poverty, says Michael Gallagher, leader of an Omagh victims' group. "They are still very dangerous people, and continue to recruit low- achieving people who see this as a way to become powerful," he says.

Page: 1 | 2