'Co-ordinated attacks' | Old wounds open | MI5's response | Grappling new foe | Sinn Féin to attend funeral | For them, the war never ended | Comment: Kevin Toolis | Leading article | 'Don't worry, they won't get me' | Traitors, says McGuinness

The Irish republican terrorist groups that murdered two soldiers and a police constable in two separate attacks over 48 hours may have co-ordinated their operations, security officials have told The Times.

Alarmingly, the rifles used to murder the two soldiers are believed to be new, more sophisticated weapons imported illegally into Northern Ireland by the dissident groups.

The rise in the dissident republican threat was considered so alarming that MI5 had to switch resources from other key areas and devote more effort towards countering the groups. It was known that the leaders of the dissident groups had recruited young republicans who were "clean skins" - people with no IRA background - making it more difficult to identify them. It was assumed they would need special training and probably on both sides of the border.

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Martin McGuinness sounds exactly like a Northern Ireland Secretary at the height of the Troubles

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Times Archive, 1979: Five soldiers killed in IRA offensive

Army speculation of a campaign lasting another ten years was confirmed by the IRA. There would never be a truce, it said

• IRA murders three soldiers in ambush, 1982

• Two soldiers killed by IRA sniper, 1977

• Policemen die in ambush, 1975

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There is no unified command structure linking the Real IRA, which claimed responsibility for killing the soldiers on Saturday, and the Continuity IRA, which claimed responsibility for killing PC Stephen Carroll on Monday. However, officials said that there appeared to have been an unprecedented level of “basic co-operation” in plotting such big attacks.

A teenager and a 37-year-old man were in police custody last night in connection with the murder of PC Carroll. The 48-year-old Catholic police officer was hit in the back of the head when a gunman fired through the rear window of his unmarked patrol car.

The Government was anxiously awaiting last night any response from loyalist paramilitaries. The Times has learnt that the leadership of the Ulster Volunteer Force met on Monday — before the police officer was murdered — and is continuing to monitor republican violence, although it has resolved for now to maintain its ceasefire.

The growing crisis forced Sinn Féin to make its clearest endorsement yet of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and its strongest condemnation of republican terrorism.

Martin McGuinness, a former commander of the Provisional IRA, stood side by side with Sir Hugh Orde, Northern Ireland’s Chief Constable, and Peter Robinson, the First Minister and Democratic Unionist leader, to make a public appeal for information that would lead to criminal prosecutions of the murderers.

“These people are traitors to the island of Ireland,” Mr McGuinness said. “They have betrayed the political desires, hopes and aspirations of all of the people who live on this island.”

Government sources said that it was a “hugely significant” moment in helping all the parties to make the case that the terrorist groups were isolated.

Police officers have called for a fundamental review of security arrangements. Terry Spence, the chairman of the Police Federation of Northern Ireland, said that officers had been coming under attack from dissident groups increasingly in recent months.

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