BELFAST, Ireland, March 12 (UPI) -- Security forces on both sides of the Irish border searched Thursday for a bomb reported smuggled into Northern Ireland by a dissident group called the Real IRA.
Meanwhile, the leader of Northern Ireland's largest paramilitary organization vows no retaliation for the killing of two soldiers and a police officer, allegedly by republican gunmen.
Jackie McDonald, the "brigadier" of the Ulster Defense Association, told The Times of London there was "no danger of retaliation."
He said while there was fear some loyalist group would stage a retaliatory attack, he felt most didn't want to return to the old days and that the current surge in violence was actually pulling former warring factions together.
The bomb alert has been in effect since authorities got intelligence reports that the Real IRA has smuggled a large device into Northern Ireland from the south, The Guardian said. One investigator said nobody has any idea where a bomb might be set off.
Heads of the two police forces, Hugh Orde of the North and Fachtna Murphy of the South, planned to meet Thursday in Belfast on a possible cross-border response to the upsurge in the violence. Orde said he believes the killings aren't all related.
