Supt Mark McEwan says threat from dissident republicans remains ‘severe’
A senior PSNI officer says the threat posed to the lives of police men and women from violent dissident republicans in the North West remains “severe”.
Supt Mark McEwan has revealed that from September 2014 there had been 15 bomb incidents in the Derry City & Strabane District council area.
They included seven attacks on the police.
In early August, a lethal mortar bomb device was found in Strabane cemetery after dissident republicans abandoned it.
Detectives believe it was an attempt to kill police officers lured into the area.
The same month dissident republicans detonated a bomb in a bin on the Skeoge Road.
In July this year, a hawk-eyed serving police woman foiled a bid by dissident republicans to kill her or her husband after they left a booby trap bomb under their car in Eglinton.
Supt McEwan, the police district commander for Derry and Strabane, said there had also been 15 shootings since September 2014.
Six of which were paramilitary-style attacks in which he said the victims suffered “life-changing injuries”.
He also revealed that after forensic analysis it had been established that a suspected assault rifle found in the Ballycolman estate following the cemetery mortar bomb find was actually a replica firearm.
Supt McEwan said his officers were dedicated to keeping people safe.
“Because they have chosen that for a career, there is an element within this community who feel that it’s OK to try to mount attacks to kill or seriously injure these people,” he said.
“In doing so they have no regard for the safety of other members of the community and in fact totally disregard that safety, whether it’s about lives or, indeed in terms of disrupting community life or causing fear and intimidation.”
He appealed for people in the community to come forward with information about the dissidents.
“Is this the type of activity that people within our community want to tolerate?” he said.
“I don’t believe it is.”
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