by John Coulter in Belfast

Cross-border anti-terrorist co-operation between the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Garda Síochána is at the centre of a new security strategy aimed at cracking down on dissident republican death squads.

The latest tactics were revealed as the security forces averted two terrorist attacks last weekend. Only the detonator of a 400lb car bomb exploded outside the Belfast headquarters of the Policing Board. Just hours later, in County Fermanagh, a covert police operation prevented Real IRA gunmen from murdering a Catholic police officer in the border village of Garrison.

The anti-terrorist operation saw suspects arrested in both the north by the PSNI and in the republic’s border county of Leitrim by the Garda Special Branch.

Earlier this year, dissident republicans killed two soldiers and a police officer in separate attacks.

Republican candidates opposed to Sinn Féin’s pro-policing policy have been trounced at the ballot box in recent years, fuelling fears that dissident republicans are trying to re-ignite a sectarian terror war in the north by attacking members of the security forces.

Such killings would put enormous political pressure on the already fragile power-sharing executive at Stormont, with hardline Unionists demanding that Peter Robinson’s DUP pull out of the Executive.

Dissident republicans also seem to be targeting Catholic police officers in a bid to stop Roman Catholics joining the PSNI.

Under a policy drawn up by former Hong Kong Governor Chris Patten, there was a drive to recruit more Catholics to make the new police service more acceptable to the nationalist community in the north.

That policy bore fruit when Sinn Féin formally recognised the PSNI. However, a section of the republican community still maintains that a terror war against the security forces is the only way to bring about a united Ireland.

While much of the dissident republican terror activity has been confined to the border region, it is feared that death squads will try to copy the Provisional IRA, who succeeded in spreading their terror campaign throughout Northern Ireland and then across to mainland Britain.

There are also fears that dissident republicans are targeting leading Sinn Féin politicians after Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness branded them “traitors” after an attack on the security forces.

They may also try to provoke loyalist groups into a reaction by attacking Unionist politicians.

The bottom line, though, is that Ireland is now witnessing a degree of co-operation between the security forces in the north and south not seen since the crackdown on the IRA during its border campaign of 1956-62.