Cokes & Jarks.

This is coolbert:

For those of you who thought the Easter Accords had settled the troubling situation in Northern Ireland once and for all, NOT SO FAST!

The Real Irish Republican Army [RIRA] still active and only recently during the trip to Ireland of Queen Elizabeth attempting to create some major mayhem. Those RIRA hardcore elements and even Ulster dissident loyalists under the renewed scrutiny of the British Special Reconnaissance Regiment [SRR].

Those persons members of the RIRA referred to as "cokes"! The real thing, Coke the beverage liking to call itself the "real" thing!

Thanks in to a variety of sources in this instance:

"Queen in Ireland: Real IRA may have planted bomb"  [the Telegraph]

"Catholic dissidents are thought to have planted the device found on a bus heading to Dublin, amid warnings from a security expert that it could mark the start of a series of devices designed to disrupt the Queen’s visit."

RIRA sending a message more than anything else, that pipe bomb was not intended to go off and do damage? This attempt was more for internal consumption of hard-core Republican elements and nothing more? So will be the thinking?

"Could this ‘police officer’ be a soldier?" [the Times]

Member of the SRR acting in a counter-terrorist capacity, undercover soldiers with authority to conduct surveillance and use deadly force and weaponry within England if in furtherance of actions against terrorists.

"The Det [SRR active in Northern Ireland] is made up of the army’s best urban surveillance operators using skills honed in Belfast against republican and loyalist terrorists. Its speciality has always been close target reconnaissance: undercover work among civilians, observing terrorists at close quarters, and carrying out covert searches of offices and houses for information and weapons."

A self-described regiment but consisting only of what seems to be about one hundred to three hundred troops, men and women both. NOT a full scale regiment as that term is generally understood but nonetheless having a high number of very capable and dedicated troops.

"The unit was very egalitarian when it operated in Northern Ireland. An operator’s rank was always regarded as less important than his or her capabilities; it was also the only UK special forces unit to use women."

"The Det [SSR] broke into homes to gather intelligence and plant listening devices or hidden cameras. Weapons were left where they were found but 'jarked' with tiny transmitters placed inside them that would provide warning should they be moved."

"N. Ireland Attacks Part of Broader Pattern" [Intel News from 2008]

"The recent dissident republican attacks in the North are reprehensible and severely reckless. But they are by themselves unlikely to destabilize the ongoing reconciliation process in Northern Ireland . . . groups such as the RIRA are not only 'tiny'; they also lack 'the capacity to maintain a serious and sustained campaign' . . . 'lack public support, they lack finance, they lack personnel and they lack munitions and equipment.'"

RIRA most worrisome to even Gerry Adams. Condemned as being a group that is not working toward peace in Northern Ireland. Splinter groups hard to control and not in step with reality but HAVING AN INFLUENCE FAR OUT OF PROPORTION TO THEIR NUMBERS!

coolbert.