Northern Ireland's decade-old peace process will not be derailed by recent dissident nationalist attacks, Reuters quoted an independent watchdog as saying today. Militants, who want to break British control of Northern Ireland by force, killed two British soldiers and a policeman in separate attacks in March. The groups, made up of former members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), have vowed further attacks, including in mainland Britain. "This is a challenge and a testing of the peace process by the people who have always been violently opposed to it," the Independent Monitoring Commission said in a report. "It does not represent an unravelling of the peace process." The attacks marked the worst violence since a 1998 peace deal ended 30 years of conflict between the IRA, seeking a united Ireland, and groups wanting to maintain the province's union with Britain. The commission, which was set up in 2004 to monitor the activity of paramilitary groups, added that the renewal of activity was disrupting community policing.
