THE IRA has been secretly rearming while pretending to be decommissioning. In a flagrant breach of the Good Friday ceasefire agreement, senior IRA commanders bought a consignment of powerful new Russian special forces assault rifles in Moscow late last year.
They purchased at least 20 AN-94s, which can fire 1,800 bullets a minute and pierce body armour. The weapons can be used as a traditional machine gun or in sniper mode as a high-velocity rifle for assassinations.
The deal was detected by the Russian security services, which passed details to British military intelligence in London. Cabinet ministers were briefed on it, along with senior Northern Ireland politicians.
Details remained secret, however, until being disclosed to The Telegraph by military intelligence officers in London last week.
Coming days after the discovery of an updated IRA "hit list" containing the addresses of leading Tory MPs, this will fuel fears that the terrorists are preparing for a resumption of violence and further threaten the political process.
Quentin Davies, the shadow Northern Ireland secretary, said last night: "The Good Friday agreement is a sham if the IRA are handing in weapons with one hand and buying them again with the other.
"This, coupled with the list targeting politicians, the Colombia affair and the killings that continue in Northern Ireland means that Sinn Fein/IRA must now be called to account."
The disclosure is the most damning evidence to date that the IRA is continuing to build up a huge arsenal, despite twice handing over a small quantity of largely antiquated arms to General John de Chastelain's decommissioning body.
Last summer three IRA men were held in Colombia after trying to construct a new type of mortar bomb.
Despite this, Dr John Reid, the Northern Ireland Secretary, said two weeks ago that he was delighted at the latest IRA act of decommissioning. "This is very welcome news which shows IRA decommissioning was not an isolated event."
Ian Paisley junior, a Democratic Unionist member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, said: "The security forces told me the IRA tried to bring these weapons in on two occasions. I know they failed the first time, but it appears they succeeded on the second.
"This is more clear evidence that the IRA is not on ceasefire and Sinn Fein should not be in Government."
Military intelligence officers told The Telegraph that a senior IRA team was dispatched to Moscow last autumn to buy the weapons from a renegade group of Russian special forces officers. One said that the weapons have been bought so that the IRA could "continue to be a well-oiled machine".
Siobhan Browne, who was jailed for buying guns for the IRA in Florida in 1998, said last year that the terrorists were "gearing up for a bloodbath, an ethnic cleansing". She said the Good Friday Agreement was a "sham" and that "the IRA will never give up their guns".
The IRA files targeting Tory MPs were found by detectives raiding the houses of former IRA prisoners in Belfast and Londonderry in search of documents stolen in the break-in at the Special Branch offices at Castlereagh.
Dr Reid said: "There is no indication the IRA is either about to or intending to recommence its campaign. But clearly there is a long way to go for all paramilitary groups to cease all their activities." He was unavailable for comment on the latest IRA breach.