AN elaborate sting operation by MI5 and the police appears to have thwarted a plan by republican dissidents to launch a terrorist campaign in Britain and Northern Ireland to derail the peace process.

MI5 officers posed as French arms dealers to uncover what appears to have been a plot by the Real IRA, obtain its shopping list of weapons and also to drain it of funds. The operation took months and involved co-operation with the authorities in France, where the bogus arms deal was to take place.

Police have been appalled at the extent of the campaign the dissidents appear to have been planning, which could have rivalled the Provisional IRA’s terrorism in intensity.

Officers waited until money had been handed over and the alleged arms buyers had returned to Ireland before pouncing. They seized a six-figure sum in cash.

Four suspected republican dissidents have been arrested and charged. A senior security source described the operation as “by no means over yet”.

None of those charged made any plea in preliminary hearings last week and there is no evidence so far that any of them are members of any illegal group.

If successful, the deal would have given the Real IRA — who bombed Omagh in 1998, killing 29 people — the ability to shoot down helicopters, pierce armoured vehicles and shoot their targets with long-range sniper rifles.

A security source said: “It shows the intent to buy that stuff. They thought they had made contacts to buy heavy weaponry, they had made all the plans to do so and they had made plans to use it.”

Weapons for which the dissidents allegedly handed over money include:

• Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles.
• Long-range sniper rifles.
• Heavy machineguns capable of slicing through armour plate and bringing down helicopters or low-flying aircraft.
• Pistols with silencers
• Sam 7 surface-to-air missiles, which can used against helicopters.
• Booby-trap devices.
• Disposable rocket-propelled grenades, a weapon once used by the IRA to attack the MI6 headquarters in London.

The size of the armoury apparently being sought by the dissidents and the success of the sting underlines the judgment made by the Independent Monitoring Commission earlier this year when it said: “Dissident republicans remain determinedly committed to terrorism and deeply engaged in other crime, but they are not always capable of fulfilling their paramilitary ambitions and have recently been foiled by successful police operations.”

The latest security success is further evidence of the extent to which dissident groups have been penetrated by informants and monitored electronically.

There have been several occasions on which dissidents, from both the Real and Continuity IRA, have been arrested while training with weapons or moving them.

The last sting operation, Operation Samnite, was launched by MI5 in 2002. Then undercover officers of Middle Eastern appearance posed as Iraqi intelligence agents working for Saddam Hussein.

The Real IRA sent three members to Slovakia where they met the agents in an Arab restaurant and attempted to arrange an arms deal. All three were convicted of conspiracy to buy weapons on their return to the UK.

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