Senior military officers are understood to have informed the Taoiseach yesterday that representatives of some of the groups at the top of the list of suspects for the attacks on America are living in the Republic.
Irish security officials and experts have been struck in recent years by indications from US officials that they were taking very seriously the prospect of a catastrophic attack on an eastern seaboard city. US officials said they were training forces how to organise massive civil mobilisation in such an event.
Yesterday, the warnings by the Americans - which many other Western experts took to be alarmist - were shown to be accurate. Thousands were killed in the airborne attacks using civilian aircraft as huge human bombs.
One immediate reaction of some security analysts yesterday was that the scale of the assault on the US was such that it could not have been carried out by any of the groups most virulently opposed to US interests.
Mr Osama bin Laden, a Saudi national, is the inheritor of one of the largest construction companies in the Middle East and has continued to gather and amass funds.
The other groups which will also come under the examination of Western intelligence agencies will include the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ); Algeria's Armed Islamic Group (GIA); and another Egyptian group, Gama'at al-Islamiyya, also known as Islamic Group (IG); and Hamas.
All these groups have attacked US interests before. All are also known to be involved in co-ordinated action and have relations with Al Qa-ida. The groups also have representatives among the Muslim community across the Western world, including the US. They are also represented in the Republic.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, was briefed about the activities of these groups in this State when he met the Defence Forces Chief of Staff, Lt Gen Colm Mangan; his Director of Operations, Col Gerry McNamara; and the Director of Intelligence.
Representatives of the extreme Islamic groups are under some scrutiny here. It is believed that in the Republic they are engaged in what are termed "support" activities on behalf of their organisations. They organise movement of money, passports, identities and shelter for other extremists or "Mujahadeen".
Former Afghani and Chechnyan fighters are believed to have come here while in hiding. An Egyptian extremist who was sentenced in absentia to 15 years' imprisonment for offences committed in Egypt is also known to have stayed in Ireland.
Mr bin Laden's Al Qa-ida - the name roughly translates as "The Base" - is known to have had a presence in the Republic for several years.
The group has used Dublin bank accounts to move money. During the court case earlier this year in the US, Federal witnesses gave evidence about a front organisation called Mercy International Relief Agency (MIRA) which was used by Al Qa-ida to funnel funds from one part of the organisation to another.
A figure associated with Al Qa-ida shared an apartment in Montreal with a man who was arrested shortly before the millennium apparently attempting to smuggle bomb parts into the US on December 14th, 1999. Authorities found 50 lbs of explosives.
The Garda's Security and Intelligence Section at its Phoenix Park Headquarters was contacted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during its investigations into the suspected attack on the US east coast when it was established that his associate was in Dublin.
Garda∅, acting on advice from the FBI, raided three homes in south and west Dublin. At one house, while examining a notebook, a design for a switch was discovered. The design is identical to that in any ordinary electrical appliance. But one senior security source pointed out that it could also be used as a switch for a nuclear bomb.
Three men were arrested and questioned but released without charge. One is understood to have remained in Dublin and the other two are believed to have gone to Britain.
Just before the millennium there was concern among intelligence agencies that Bin Laden was contemplating a major attack on the US. This did not occur and it is possible that he delayed this action until yesterday. Mr bin Laden's extremism allows him to reason that although an attack of this scale will lead to a backlash against the Islamic world this will finally benefit his kind. Any widespread violent reaction against Muslims could benefit Al Qa-ida by marginalising and "radicalising" them. The official Western response to this attack will take into consideration its likely negative impact in this regard.
