Some Cock And Bull

First off we have some serious (if highly improbable) cock-waving by Resistance Republicans via a rather bland report by the BBC:

“Dissident republicans claim to have used newly acquired Semtex in a bomb attack on police in west Belfast.

A mortar was fired from a tube attached to railings at the City Cemetery at around 22:30 GMT on Friday.

It was detonated by a command wire. A family escaped injury when their car was hit by debris.

It was not possible to verify the claim that a new batch of Semtex was used as the police would not comment on the nature of the device.

It is understood the mortar device contained a conical-shaped warhead designed to penetrate armour.

Dissident republicans claim the mortar contained the military explosive Semtex and a commercial detonator.

They claim both were newly acquired – in other words, not from old supplies previously under the control of the Provisional IRA.”

I think there was also some stuff in there about magic beans but I stopped reading after a while…

Next up is some serious bull (of the ordure kind) carried in a suitably alarmist report by the Unionist-leaning Newsletter:

“Dissident republicans are attempting to forge links with Islamic extremists in an effort to bolster their terrorist capabilities, Jeffrey Donaldson has warned.

The DUP MP, who sits on the Commons’ defence committee, was responding to BBC claims that the bomb used to attack police officers in west Belfast on Friday contained newly-acquired Semtex explosive.

When asked if the UK’s security services were alerted to the possibility of dissidents attempting to access weaponry through Islamic extremists, Mr Donaldson replied: “Absolutely.””

Ah yeah. As in absolutely desperate to create a false analogy between the conflict in Ireland and the conflict in the Islamic world in the hope of eliciting some sympathy for the tattered remnant of Britain’s first and last colony. Again…