Armstrong seeks answers regarding semtex

Ulster Unionist MLA Billy Armstrong has demanded answers following the use of semtex in a rocket attack on police officers in Lisnaskea on Saturday, and subsequent comments by Assistant Chief Constable Paul Leighton.

The Mid-Ulster Assemblyman, himself a former RUC Reserve constable said,

"I was deeply concerned to learn that there was a rocket attack on police officers in Lisnaskea on Saturday. The fact that semtex was used at all raises a number of questions, and even more are raised by the comments of ACC Paul Leighton that the semtex "looks as if it came from old stocks … it does not appear to be new semtex, so it does not raise a concern with me that they have a new supply of semtex."

The key question is this. If the semtex is indeed "old stocks" then presumably it comes from the old stocks of the Provisional IRA - the very same stocks that were supposed to have been decommissioned before the DUP agreed to go into Government with Sinn Fein.

If so-called dissident republicans have access to "old stocks" of semtex, then surely it is entirely possible - if not highly likely - that they also have access to old stocks of other IRA weaponry. The Chief Constable needs to make a statement as a matter of urgency to clarify this situation. This strikes at the very heart of the whole decommissioning process.

There have already been dissident republican firebomb attacks in my own Mid-Ulster constituency. We are in the midst of planned police station closures in Mid-Ulster. The community is already deeply concerned at a perceived lack of security presence on the ground in Mid-Ulster and the west of the Province in general, so the news that dissident republicans have access to semtex will be deeply unsettling for the law-abiding community here.

I find myself in total agreement with my Party colleague Tom Elliot's call that the Army be deployed in the west to support the police so that this situation is not allowed to escalate."