Omagh relatives try to shut Real IRA website
From:ireland.com
Thursday, 11th May, 2006


Omagh bomb victims will today urge the US government to help them shut down a website linked to the terror group behind the atrocity.

Relatives of some of those murdered in the Real IRA massacre are meeting the US Consul General in Belfast, Dean Pittman.

Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was among 29 people killed in the no-warning strike on Omagh, said the focus would be on winning Washington's backing for a move against a site promoting the 32 County Sovereignty Movement.

"The service provider is based in Toronto (Canada), but they have sister companies in the US," Mr Gallagher said.

"When they put something up on the internet they are broadcasting it into the US. We are asking the US Government to talk to their Canadian cousins and say this website is contrary to the current climate of putting pressure on terrorists and terrorist supporters."

Mr Gallagher was in Toronto earlier this year as part of his campaign. He told them how the 32 County Sovereignty Movement was the Real IRA's political wing.

The Omagh families will also use the meeting at Mr Pittman's offices to express their thanks for the US administration's support for their £14 million civil action against five men they suspect of plotting the August 1998 bombing.

The landmark case at the Northern Ireland High Court will not be heard, however, until after the trial of South Armagh electrician Sean Hoey - the man accused of the Omagh murders.

Mr Gallagher added: "We also want to thank them because it was an American FBI agent, David Rupert, who infiltrated the Real IRA and was a key aspect in getting Michael McKevitt, its leader, convicted."

Good to hear someone's keeping the RA on their toes.

The only thing I have to add is to correct the author when he says that it was no-warning attack - there was a coded phone call before the explosion that misled local police into evacuating people from the supposed bomb site further down the street to where the bomb was actually planted, upping the casualties.

Thats right i forgot about that a bloody awful mess, thank god it's all over

Well when you have people making digs at the Brits every chance they get, it keeps the tensions simmering

[quote="IrishAngel"][quote="stuzzo"]Good to hear someone's keeping the RA on their toes. quote]

pity they loyalist terrorists cant be sorted out too

I think the Brits set themselves up for jabs considering their history

Whereas the Irish have been fucking angels throughout The Troubles...

*dons tin hat*

*ducks*

Exactly, defending our turf thats all

Don't you pay attention? We, the poor Irish, are the most oppressed people in the entire history of the world. Ever. And it's all you dirty fucking Brit's fault. I mean, sure, you're not doing anything directly to affect it, in fact, you'd have to go back many generations to find any kind of loose connection between yourself and the evil oppression of the purely innocent Irish, but it's there, and don't you forget it. We won't, anyway, not when it gives us an excuse to make totally baseless comments at an entire race of people, something that's only ok for us to do, because we're oppressed, and you're not.

i dont think it was a few generations, i'm only thirty and i remember having to answer to brits every time i wanted to go up the road a few miles, and i wouldn't class english as a race, would you, i'd say more a nationality and it wasnt a jab at anyone in particular certainly not ALL english

I'm not going to get into an argument over this. I went to school in Holywood, and everytime the local loyalists starting shooting each other the squaddies from Palace Barracks had to stand there and stop every car and hope to god they didn't get shot. My sympathies are torn.

Again, another thread that makes me go

The US government does consider the assorted militant IRA factions to be terrorists, yes? If it makes exceptions to its definition to terrorism that we can't very well take it seriously when it talks about 'combatting terrorism'.

Well, Sinn Fein have been allowed to raise funds in the US for decades.

Has Sinn Fein renounced violence?

Yup they have.

They're the political arm of the Provisional IRA, the main Republican body that carried out terrorist activities during the Troubles. But because they were representing the poor opressed Irish, it was totally ok for them to raise to money in the US to buy guns to bomb us here, especially if they killed a couple of Brits in the process. I'm sorry it took something as tragic as September 11th to wake people up.

One could say the same thing about Fatah, I imagine, and yet I don't think we have their political arm on the terrorist list. I agree though that they shouldn't have been given money by so many idiotic Americans. I can't imagine that Irish Americans really feel as though they have grievances with Great Britain that justify terrorism though.