Physical force republican groups unite to form new IRA

Three of the four main dissident republican terror groups in Northern Ireland are to merge and reclaim the banner of the IRA, in a major escalation of attempts to destabilise power sharing.

The Real IRA has been joined by Republican Action Against Drugs, which has been running a violent vigilante campaign in Derry, and a loose coalition of independent armed republican groups – leaving only the Continuity IRA outside the group.

In the dark isolation of a dirt track just across the border in the Irish republic the 15 minutes seemed like a lifetime. I had been dropped near a disused farmhouse after being driven at top speed out of Derry city centre close to the Bogside, the neighbourhood that bears most of the scars of the Troubles.

The instructions were firm, the tone cold: walk down, parallel to the city's ancient walls, wait for a car to stop, get in, say nothing and be taken to the destination.

The republican dissidents who oppose the peace process were going to extraordinary lengths to deliver a statement about a development in their armed campaign; their insistence on security, and insurance that in the process they were not being tailed was extremely thorough.

"Following extensive consultations, Irish republicans and a number of organisations involved in armed actions against the armed forces of the British crown have come together within a unified structure, under a single leadership, subservient to the constitution of the Irish Republican Army.

"The leadership of the Irish Republican Army remains committed to the full realisation of the ideals and principles enshrined in the Proclamation of 1916.

"In recent years the establishment of a free and independent Ireland has suffered setbacks due to the failure among the leadership of Irish nationalism and fractures within republicanism. The root cause of conflict in our country is the subversion of the nation's inalienable right to self-determination and this has yet to be addressed. Instead the Irish people have been sold a phoney peace, rubber-stamped by a token legislature in Stormont.

"Non-conformist republicans are being subjected to harassment, arrest and violence by the forces of the British crown; others have been interned on the direction of an English overlord. It is Britain, not the IRA, which has chosen provocation and conflict.

"The IRA's mandate for armed struggle derives from Britain's denial of the fundamental right of the Irish people to national self-determination and sovereignty – so long as Britain persists in its denial of national and democratic rights in Ireland the IRA will have to continue to assert those rights.

"The necessity of armed struggle in pursuit of Irish freedom can be avoided through the removal of the British military presence in our country, the dismantling of their armed militias and the declaration of an internationally observed timescale that details the dismantling of British political interference in our country.

"Signed Army Council … IRA."