Garda\u00ed have arrested two men on suspicion of membership of a violent right-wing extremist organisation.<\/p>\n
The arrest follows the discovery of component parts of a suspected improvised explosive device (IED) across the border in Newry by the PSNI.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The discovery and arrest have been seen as a significant, but not unexpected, development in Garda Headquarters, given the deteriorating climate of hatred and violence from the far right towards asylum seekers and foreigners.<\/p>\n
The two men were arrested following a major surveillance operation by Garda security services, working in conjunction with the PSNI.<\/p>\n
They were arrested by the Special Detective Unit (SDU) \u2014 the force\u2019s operational anti-terrorism unit \u2014 in the Abbeyleix area of Offaly at around midnight on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
They are being detained on suspicion of membership of an unlawful organisation under the Offences Against the State Act 1939.<\/p>\n
This suggests the two men are suspected of being part of an actual organisation, believed to be a relatively new violent far-right extremist organisation.<\/p>\n
The numbers in the organisation are understood to be small.<\/p>\n
PSNI officers recovered component parts of a suspected IED at the scene in a search carried out on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
It is understood that the Garda Security & Intelligence Service has been putting additional resources into preventing and investigating the possible emergence of a violent far-right organisation in Ireland.<\/p>\n
Various units, including the SDU, have been on a heightened \u201cstate of alert\u201d for such a development, not least given the escalation of violence and arson attacks directed at asylum seekers.<\/p>\n
One of the lines of inquiry is to establish the possible intended use of the suspected IED and whether or not asylum accommodation could have been targeted.<\/p>\n
Digital devices linked to the two men arrested are currently being examined.<\/p>\n
The Irish Examiner further understands that the SDU are supporting the investigation into the arson attack on an Ipas centre in Drogheda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Garda\u00ed have arrested two men on suspicion of membership of a violent right-wing extremist organisation. The arrest follows…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7782,42,1629,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-125093","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-gardai","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-immigration","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}