Police Officer killed by IRA Dissidents

Small splinter groups which have broken away from the mainstream Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) have been blamed for the death of a young PSNI officer in Omagh, County Tyrone in Northern Ireland.

At about 4pm yesterday the young constable, who had only graduated from college three weeks ago, was killed when an under-car booby trap bomb exploded beneath his vehcile as he left for work. While no group has yet claimed responsibility suspicion has fallen on three small breakaway IRA groups who operate in the north with the main suspects being Óglaigh na hÉireann (ONH). The group has previously used under car booby traps against police officers with a PSNI member losing his legs in a similar attack last year.

The attack has been condemned by Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams who said these groups would not undo the recent progress made in the peace process. Gerry Adams' Sinn Féin party is considered the political wing of the mainstram Provisional IRA which called an end to it's violent campaign in 2005. The Provisional IRA killed more than a thousand members of the British Security forces in Northern Ireland between 1970 and 1997.

A peace process which was signed in 1998 was supported by the overwhelming majority of people in Ireland, north and south, however small groups of hardline IRA members broke away claiming the peace process did not achieve enough.