• The long shadow of the return of violence in Northern Ireland, 25 years later

Police have dismantled a New IRA plot to commit attacks during US President Joe Biden's visit to Northern Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Peace Agreement, The Belfast Telegraph reports. British army bomb scouts were involved in the search for material that could have been used to make explosives in Derry, Northern Ireland's second-largest city and one of the hottest spots during the conflict that claimed more than 3,500 victims over three decades.

"The plans were to carry out a mortar attack similar to the one that seriously injured two policemen last November in the town of Strabane," police sources revealed. The information came from the British intelligence services, which decided to raise the terrorist alert in Northern Ireland to the highest level ("severe risk") for the first time in twelve years.

"They're not going to keep me away," was Joe Biden's defiant response upon hearing of the terror alert. The US president, with Irish ancestry, wanted to personally highlight "the tremendous progress" of Northern Ireland and at the same time highlight the relevant role of his country in the historic agreement between unionists and republicans sealed 25 years ago (Bill and Hillary Clinton will pick up the baton in a few days).

Biden will arrive in Belfast on Tuesday afternoon and will deliver a speech Wednesday at the new University of Ulster campus to an audience of more than 20,000 people. The great security measures have forced to suspend his visit to the Stormont Assembly, which has been paralyzed for a year by the refusal of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to form a unity government with Sinn Féin, winner in the last elections.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will attend the meeting with Biden and will also participate in the events planned in Belfast. "The Good Friday Agreement was an incredible moment for our nation," Sunak said Sunday. "It was a powerful and unusual example of how people can go to great lengths to create a better future for Northern Ireland."

Biden will continue his journey during the week, symbolically crossing the invisible border between the two Irelands, with an obligatory stop in County Louth, where distant relatives of his mother of Irish origin reside. He will then continue to Dublin, where he will give a speech in Parliament before leaving for Ballina, County Mayo, where he also has part of his roots.

His visit has sparked great interest in the two Irelands, although the terrorist alert has served as a reminder of the violence that still periodically shakes Ulster, such as the shooting that left detective John Caldwell seriously injured at the end of February in the town of Omagh. The attack was claimed by the New IRA and police have arrested 15 suspects.

The New IRA emerged in 2012 from the merger of groups that do not accept the peace agreement and took over from the Real IRA, until then the most active faction of dissidents in the "republican army". "The intelligence community received credible information about plans to launch a terrorist attack on this date," Deputy Commissioner Bobby Singleton said.

The weekend has passed without notable incidents, but the police fear possible clashes coinciding with Easter Monday, when the "uprising" of 1916 against British forces is celebrated in Catholic neighborhoods.

  • Joe Biden
  • Terrorism
  • Ireland
  • United Kingdom
  • Europe
  • United States
  • Articles Carlos Fresneda
  • Rishi Sunak

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