ATTACKS ON DRUG SUSPECTS FOILED

Gardai in north inner Dublin have seized weapons and prevented at
least two attacks on local figures suspected of drug dealing. A
sawn-off shotgun was recovered a week ago in the Buckingham Street
area, and a week earlier uniformed gardai arrested two men after
discovering balaclavas and a hatchet in a car in the same area.

Two men were arrested under Section 30 of the Offences Against the
State Act, the law normally used in cases where terrorist activity is
suspected.

It is now believed there may have been no IRA or other republican
paramilitary involvement in the incidents.

According to Garda sources, a local criminal who has joined local
anti-drugs campaigns is suspected of being behind the incidents.

It is suspected he and his associates may have been trying to pass
themselves off as IRA or republican activists in carrying out attacks
against drug-dealers. Local sources say the man had apparently been
planning to kill or seriously wound a drug-dealer with the shotgun,
which was found by gardai in Buckingham Village on August 24th.

Gardai have prepared a file for the Director of Public Prosecutions.
There is suspicion locally about the sincerity of the man's anti-drugs
stance. According to some sources, it is suspected that he may be
working with other dealers who wish to spread their trade to the north
inner city.

Gardai suspect that Provisional IRA members were responsible for an
attack on another petty criminal and small-time drug dealer from the
area last November.

Gerard Moran (35), from Rory O'Connor House in Hardwicke Street, died
when he was shot at close range with a shotgun as he delivered pizza
in Drumcondra on November 21st. Mr Moran had a number of run-ins with
anti-drugs activists and had threatened figures linked to the
Provisional IRA.

IRA members were also suspected of being involved in gun attacks on
houses in south Dublin last year and earlier this year. No one was
injured in the attacks, which were seen as warnings to suspected
drug-dealers.

According to gardai in the city yesterday, there is little evidence
that the Provisional IRA is planning any significant violence against
drugs-dealers.