Semtex and "Shoot on Sight"
Ian Paisley Junior's comments that the police should adopt a "shoot on sight" policy towards dissident republicans have caused a predictable furore, with Dolores Kelly, Alex Maskey and Basil McCrea lining up to criticise the former junior minister.
Given Ian Jr.'s clarification that he is not calling for a revival of a "shoot to kill" policy (which was alleged to involve pre-planned ambushes of suspects, rather than attempts to arrest them) it's hard to know what, in practice, this debate is all about. A police officer confronted by an armed assailant already has the right to use a personal protection weapon.
The "shoot on sight" comments were provoked by the failed rocket attack on a police patrol at Lisnaskea. The Deputy Chief Constable Paul Leighton has confirmed that the warhead contained semtex from what he called "old stocks". Indeed it's thought the rocket launcher itself was an old Provisional IRA weapon.
Back in General De Chastelain reported that the IRA had destroyed all its weapons. His team made an inventory of the weapons and compared it with one given them by the British and Irish security forces the previous year. They reported that "our inventory is consistent with these estimates and we believe that the arms decommissioned represent the totality of the IRA's arsenal".
The security force estimates were never published. In the light of Lisnaskea, various unionists, not just Ian Paisley Junior, have been asking how much of the IRA's semtex might have found its way to the dissidents. Presumably the security forces have an up to date estimate. However, given that such intelligence might be based on tip offs from informers, it seems unlikely that they will be any keener to publish their figures than they were back in 2005.
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