US to brand Real IRA 'terrorists'
The Real IRA was responsible for the Omagh bombing
The US State Department is expected to announce on Wednesday that it is officially designating the Irish republican group the Real IRA as a foreign terrorist organisation.
This means that the group, which has been blamed for a series of bomb attacks in Northern Ireland and mainland Britain, will have any assets it has in America frozen.
BBC State Department correspondent Richard Lister says the move was expected and is likely to be welcomed by the UK Government, which sees the group as a major threat.
He says that London has been working behind the scenes to ensure the Bush administration took this step.
The sanctions would mean:
A freeze on assets in the US Real IRA members denied US visas Ban on Americans giving them money or support
Real IRA attacks
The Real IRA has been held responsible for some of the most high-profile terrorist attacks by an Irish organisation in recent years.
It said it carried out the 1998 bombing in the town of Omagh in Northern Ireland, which killed 29 people and injured more than 200.
It has also been blamed for attacks on the BBC's Television Centre, London's Hammersmith Bridge and the headquarters of the British Secret Service, MI6.
BBC bombing
In its annual report on global terrorism, the US State Department has estimated that the total membership of the dissident republican group has more than doubled, to between 150 and 200 people.
The State Department says the group does receive considerable support in the US. Richard Lister reports that many Irish Americans who are opposed to the Northern Ireland peace process have switched their allegiance from the mainstream IRA.
America is home to the world's biggest Irish
Diaspora, with more than 40 million people of
Irish descent - more than 10 times the number
of people currently in the Republic of Ireland.
-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001