he was told by British and Irish intelligence sources..

Yesterday Mick noted tonight’s investigation by journalist Peter Taylor of the Provisional IRA bombing of a Remembrance Sunday service in Enniskillen in November 1987. The Irish Times picks up the story here [subs req]

Taylor reports he was told by British and Irish intelligence sources that Mr McGuinness was the leading figure on the IRA’s Northern Command at the time of the Enniskillen bombing, in which 11 Protestant civilians were killed. Intelligence reports also indicated, according to the programme, that three days before the attack, Mr McGuinness, while accompanied by three IRA members from the South, was stopped by gardaí on the Donegal border. “The subsequent intelligence assessment was that McGuinness was going to be briefed on the Remembrance Day attacks.” The programme also reports that in the hours after the bombing Mr McGuinness was recorded leaving Belfast to travel to Fermanagh to meet members of the local IRA to find out what went wrong, and that he subsequently met the head of the IRA’s Donegal operation.

And, as does the Belfast Telegraph here, the Irish Times’ Gerry Moriarty notes the Northern Ireland deputy First Minister’s pre-broadcast denial

Mr McGuinness yesterday described the claims as “completely false”. He said the allegation that he was linked to IRA Northern Command at the time of the Enniskillen bombing was “a securocrat fantasy based on untrue briefings from faceless individuals within the intelligence apparatus long hostile to Sinn Féin”.

Pete Baker