Dissident republicans could launch attacks in Derry on Easter Monday, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has said, as it warned of “significant” policing demands in the coming days with the added challenge of US president Joe Biden’s visit.
Assistant Chief Constable Bobby Singleton told reporters on Thursday the assessment in Derry was based on “very strong community intelligence”.
There was, he said, a “real concern that there may be attempts to draw police into serious public disorder and to use that then as a platform to launch terrorist attacks on police as well”.
He said the increased threat came at a time of “unprecedented policing demand” in Northern Ireland, with about 90 legal parades due to take place.
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The visit of Mr Biden to Ireland, which begins in Belfast on Tuesday, will be the largest policing operation in the North for 10 years.
Dissident republican commemorations, which traditionally take place on Easter Monday to mark the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising, have previously led to significant disorder in Derry.
The journalist Lyra McKee was shot dead by dissident republicans in the city in Easter 2019.
Asked if guns or explosives could be used against police officers on Monday, ACC Singleton said “we’ve seen that in the past and, on that basis, we have to be prepared for that and we will be prepared for all eventualities on Monday”.
Additional officers have been moved to frontline duty and shift patterns revised in order to increase the police’s operational capacity.
The PSNI’s area commander in Derry, Chief Supt Nigel Goddard, said on Thursday two “un-notified” – and therefore illegal – parades are scheduled to take place in the city on Easter Monday, in the Rosemount and Creggan areas.
He said police had been engaging with “key community representatives” and encouraged the organisers to submit the necessary application to the Parades Commission but warned if both events are un-notified “that will require a larger police presence and operation”.
On Thursday, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin met police officers in Belfast and shared with them his condemnation of the attack by dissident republicans on Det Chief Insp John Caldwell in Omagh in February.
Speaking to reporters in Belfast afterwards, he said he was aware “they were on very high alert, not just because of the raising of the status of threats to severe over a week ago, but in terms of more imminent news in terms of the prospect of further attacks on PSNI officers”.
He said an “attack on the PSNI is an attack on all of us on this island ... I’m resolute in my condemnation of such attacks, as we witnessed on John Caldwell, and I think it’s very evil people who are contemplating this.
“This is criminality in its worst form, that is how I would describe it.”
The Tánaiste also emphasised the “tremendous progress that has been made in terms of the transformation of policing in Northern Ireland” and said it was “one of the great dividends of the Good Friday Agreement”.
Assistant Chief Constable Chris Todd said there was no intelligence the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement was motivating dissident republicans to launch attacks on police.
“We plan for the worst and we hope for the best, to be quite frank. We will respond to the intelligence as it develops We have no such intelligence that would support that at the moment,” he said.
MI5 recently raised the terrorism threat level in Northern Ireland to severe, meaning an attack is highly likely.
