The Real IRA has announced this evening that it is to disband and that only a few "corrupt" members still claim to be part of the organisation.
In a statement to the Sunday Independentnewspaper the group also confirmed it was behind the Omagh bombing, when 29 people were killed and another 200 injured. The group claimed it carried out the atrocity with the aid of another paramilitary group.
They acknowledged that the bombing removed any support for an armed campaign saying it "irreparably damaged the Irish republican struggle in the short to medium term and stifled opposition to the Belfast Agreement . . . it represented an enormous tactical blunder on our part . . " The statement was issued by men inside the high-security Portlaoise jail. It said Real IRA was at an end and only a few "corrupt" members of the Real IRA were "fraternising with criminal elements".
The statement was issued before the call by the British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair on the Provisional IRA to disband to aid the peace process.
