UK Justice Secretary Pledges More Help To Northern Ireland Police To Tackle Terrorism

Umer Jamshaid Published March 29, 2023 | 09:29 PM

The UK government will make sure that the police and secret services in Northern Ireland have all available resources to tackle the growing threat of terrorism in the area, UK State Secretary for Justice and Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said on Wednesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 29th March, 2023) The UK government will make sure that the police and secret services in Northern Ireland have all available resources to tackle the growing threat of terrorism in the area, UK State Secretary for Justice and Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said on Wednesday.

Earlier in the week, UK counterintelligence service MI5 raised the terror threat level in Northern Ireland from "substantial" to "severe," meaning that a terror attack is "highly likely."

"Of course we will make sure all the resources available to the PSNI (the Police Service of Northern Ireland)," Raab told the UK lower house as regards measures the government is taking in response to the increased threat.

Raab also said that the growing terrorist threat was disappointing, adding, however, that the number of terrorist attacks in Northern Ireland had significantly fallen since the peak years of 2009-2010.

On Tuesday, UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Chris Heaton-Harris said, commenting on the decision of MI5 to change the threat level, that there had been a growth in terrorist activity in the region in recent months, targeting police officers in particular.

Over the second half of the 20th century, Northern Ireland saw a bloody conflict between nationalists fighting for a unified Ireland and loyalists who wanted to keep Northern Ireland part of the UK. The conflict was resolved in 1998 with the signing of the Good Friday peace accord that saw Catholics and Protestants sharing power in Northern Ireland. Since then, there have still been minor cases of politically motivated violence in the region, with a series of riots erupting in loyalist areas as recently as in spring 2021.