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about the big stories in the news.

This week, as the security services declare that Northern Ireland-related terrorism

now represents a substantial threat to Great Britain,

David Aronovich asks, who are the new IRA?

They were just ordinary people.

They weren't wearing masks or anything like that.

It was just individuals I'd never seen before.

The car pulled up and says, are you, Henry?

And I said, yes.

And they said, well, have you left your mobile phones

and any electronic equipment at their hotel as instructed? I said, yes. I they said, well, have you left your mobile phones and any electronic

equipment at your hotel as instructed? I said yes. I was driven across the Irish border into a very

isolated place. Within the hour, another car pulled up. Another individual came out. He handed me a statement,

and after I wrote the statement down in my notebook, he burned a copy of his own statement and drove off.

It was the most bizarre experience, a very strange encounter,

but that was how I first got the first communique from the new IRA.

Good evening.

That was the journalist Henry MacDonald telling the story of how,

four years ago, he was called in to witness the birth of the new IRA.

Earlier this month, as a result of this group's activities, the threat level to Britain

...