Police say gang from IRA tried to abduct dissident

BELFAST -- The Irish Republican Army tried to abduct a leading IRA dissident from a Belfast bar, Northern Ireland's police chief said yesterday, reviving arguments over whether the outlawed group will ever renounce violence and disband.

Leaders of the moderate Catholic and Protestant parties demanded clear, new peace commitments from the IRA after Chief Constable Hugh Orde disclosed Friday night's abduction attempt.

Police responding to a telephone call from the pub prevented the gang of abductors from escaping by ramming into their van at a nearby intersection. Inside the van, they found four IRA suspects and the would-be abductee, alleged IRA dissident Bobby Tohill.

Police arrested the four suspects and were interrogating them yesterday. Witnesses said as many as three other people ran away from the vehicle into Catholic west Belfast, a primary IRA power base nearby. Tohill, 44, was hospitalized with cuts and bruises but later discharged himself.

Orde said the four suspects are connected to the mainstream IRA, formally called the "Provisional" IRA, or PIRA. The Provisionals have been observing a cease-fire since 1997, but dissident groups called the Real IRA and Continuity IRA are trying to break it.