The Provisional IRA has told its prisoners in the Maze it believes the British government will this week halt the early release of inmates, according to republican sources. The sources said that the leadership on the outside briefed the inmates last week. They said they believed the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, would this week announce that the Provisionals had broken their ceasefire.
The Provisionals thought it likely that Dr Mowlam would then halt the early release of prisoners under the terms of the Belfast Agreement, sources said.
In the briefing, the leadership said it wanted to prepare prisoners for that possibility. Hundreds of Provisional IRA inmates have already been freed and, according to official figures, only 65 remain in jail in the North.
It is understood that, apart from the one formal meeting between Dr Mowlam and Mr Martin McGuinness at Stormont last week, there has been lengthy behind-the-scenes communication between Sinn Fein and the British government on the ceasefire.
Dr Mowlam is to rule on whether the murder of Mr Charles Bennett, the attempted transatlantic arms smuggling, which came to light with court appearances in Florida, and the ongoing "punishment" attacks constitute a breach of the Provisional IRA ceasefire.
Republican sources said that the prisoners had accepted the briefing from the leadership and still remained loyal and "on board" despite the fact that their releases could be held up.
The sources said that the leadership privately accepted that Dr Mowlam, under immense pressure from unionists to take action, was "boxed into a corner". They also believed that any halt to prisoner releases would only be temporary.
But Sinn Fein would still exploit any suspension "to the hilt" for propaganda purposes, the sources said. "If prisoner releases are stopped, the line will be that the British are once again attempting to use prisoners as political hostages. It will be an opportunity to say to the world that it is unionists and the British who are holding up this process, not republicans", one source said.
However, the source also said that the suspension of prisoner releases could weaken the position of the Provisional IRA and Sinn Fein leadership. "It damages the credibility of the peace process among republican grassroots and strengthens the arguments of critics of the leadership", he said.