Patterns of Global Terrorism 1998 - United Kingdom

In April feuding Catholic and Protestant parties signed the landmark Good Friday Accord. This historic agreement outlined a comprehensive power-sharing arrangement between both communities in a multiparty administration of Northern Ireland. For the first time, the Irish Republican Army's political wing, Sinn Fein, was allowed to join the new administration, as long as its leaders remained committed to "exclusively peaceful means." Both sides hotly debated the meaning of this and other provisions in the accord following the signing. The most contentious issue was whether the IRA would abandon its weapons and bombs. Notwithstanding the IRA's commitment to uphold its cease-fire, several splinter groups continued to engage in terrorist activity.

As the debates wore on over the summer, Ireland suffered its worst single terrorist act. On 15 August terrorists from one of the splinter groups, the self-styled Real IRA, exploded a 500-pound car bomb outside a courthouse in downtown Omagh, killing 29 persons and injuring more than 330 others. This attack followed another terrorist bombing by the Real IRA in Banbridge on 1 August, which injured 35 persons and damaged approximately 200 homes.

By November the accord appeared on the verge of collapse as neither side could come to agreement on key issues. Both sides worked vigorously to jump-start negotiations by Christmas so that the new government could take power by February 1999. Only one paramilitary group-one of Northern Ireland's most vicious, the Loyalist Volunteer Force-willingly has surrendered a cache of weapons. Both sides viewed the group's disarmament as a sign that a breakthrough in the stalled peace accord was possible. The IRA continued to resist what it labels a "surrender" of its arms, however, while in its view the conditions that caused the conflict remain unresolved.

The United Kingdom continued to cooperate closely with the United States on counterterrorism issues in 1998. In September, British authorities arrested Khalid al-Fawwaz, a Saudi national, who is wanted by the United States for conspiring to murder US citizens between January 1993 and September 1998. Al-Fawwaz remains in British custody pending his extradition to the United States.