The boys are back in town

Two soldiers dead on the weekend and now a policeman killed near Craigavon as well. The Real IRA has taken responsibility for the attack on the barracks - and that attack, whatever your views on Northern Ireland, must be seen as the work of a well-drilled guerilla unit, a worrying sign for those of us who want peace- and the Continuity IRA is now claiming the Craigavon shooting.

Nobody should be surprised about these latest outbreaks. It hasn't been in anyone's interest to report it but there have been a series of bomb, gun and rocket attacks against Army and PSNI forces in Northern Ireland in the last few months.

The reality is that there's provinces of Afghanistan and Iraq that are safer for British forces than Northern Ireland right now.

There is also another element coming into play. The drastic cooling, some would say freezing, of the Irish economy combined with similar happening in the British economy means the supply of money going to Northern Ireland to fund expansion of services in rundown areas and employment schemes for ex prisoners and so on, is drying up.

A clear, if unspoken, element of the peace process was the notion that the "revolution will be drowned in baby milk" and while the funds were flowing, that went well.

But now, things are different. If, as I suspect, the Republic pulls out of the recession quicker than Britain, then there will be a clear economic argument for Irish unity as well.

Also, on all the news reports, we hear that the dissidents have "no community support". They might not enjoy widespread acclaim but they obviously have enough people in the community willing to aid them that they can store relatively large amounts of sophisticated weaponry and plan attacks like the raid on the Army barracks knowing they have a network of safehouses and the like in which to retreat.

If I was a betting man, I'd lay money on the two guys who pulled the trigger at the barracks attack having got a Ryanair flight out of somewhere like Shannon or Knock early yesterday or Sunday morning with the full intention of settling down in somewhere like Croatia where the dissidents have close contacts for the summer.