THE IRA and Sinn Fein in South Derry have split, with up to 40 members and supporters offering to co-operate with dissidents. Security forces fear the possibility of an escalation in violence as various militant groups start to work together to build a “left republican alternative”.

The defection of an entire IRA brigade would considerably strengthen them, and could transform the security situation.

Details of the new organisation will be given at a public meeting in Toomebridge, Co Antrim, on Tuesday night. Paddy Murray, a dissident republican and former IRA bombmaker from Co Antrim, is one of the organisers of the meeting. “We are trying to get as many people as possible genuinely thinking of an alternative to the Provos,” he said. Murray is currently on bail awaiting kidnapping charges.

“There will be other, less public, meetings later where serious business will be done,” predicted one Real IRA member. “The South Derry people say they can provide 40 men who are well-trained and not informers,” he added.

Michael McDowell, the Irish minister for justice, has estimated that the Continuity IRA and Real IRA have about 200 active members each.

Some of those planning to attend the meeting are hoping that Dominic McGlinchey, whose father of the same name was a notorious INLA leader, will give a lead and act as a rallying point for dissident republicans. McGlinchey previously opposed dissidents and supported the republican leadership, but now says he will wait until after the meeting before making his current position clear. His decision could swing a large section of republican support in South Derry.

Both Real IRA and security sources say there is already co-operation between republican splinter groups and the South Derry IRA. They cite the discovery of a nail bomb and command wire in Bellaghy, Co Derry, at the beginning of July.

Security forces have warned of a possible escalation of dissident republican activity in the autumn as attempts are made to restore devolved government.

Eleven days ago, a partially detonated 70lb bomb was defused by the Irish army at a house being built for Lord Ballyedmond, the Unionist peer formerly known as Eddie Haughey, at Hackballscross in Co Louth.

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