Sinn Fein runs risks in handling Northern Ireland violence

By Carmel Crimmins - Analysis

BELFAST (Reuters) - Republicans in Northern Ireland's power-sharing administration have reassured their Protestant partners by denouncing guerrilla killings this week, but they risk losing support from hard-line nationalist backers.

Sinn Fein, political ally of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), won plaudits from Protestants who want the province to stay part of the United Kingdom by branding pro-Irish splinter groups as "traitors" for their attacks on security forces.

Two British soldiers were shot dead last weekend and a policeman was killed on Monday in attacks by dissident minority republican guerrillas who seek to reunite Ireland by military means.

The comments by Martin McGuinness, once a senior IRA commander fighting British soldiers in the 1970s and now Deputy First Minister of the province, have angered some nationalist hardliners.

"Sinn Fein and the British forces would want to be careful that they don't inflame the situation by their response," said Jim McAllister, who was a Sinn Fein councilor during the 1980s and 1990s but is no longer a member of the party.

"I think Martin McGuinness has gone some way toward inflaming it."

The attacks by the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, the deadliest in Northern Ireland in over a decade, come after a number of botched attempts to kill members of the security forces.

McGuinness's comments were designed to reassure Sinn Fein's sometimes reluctant Protestant partners in a power-sharing assembly that they are serious about a 1998 peace deal, which ended the IRA's decades long campaign against British rule.

But in his use of language - the word "traitor" is one of the worst insults in the pro-Irish nationalist camp - McGuinness was also sending a signal to hardliners that he will freeze them out to protect the path Sinn Fein has taken.

Former foes have applauded him and his words have helped cool temperatures in Protestant areas, reducing the threat of tit-for-tat violence which once gripped Belfast.

"When we heard Martin McGuinness speak the other day he spoke from the heart," said Frankie Gallagher, of the Ulster Political Research Group, an organization close to the Ulster Defense Association (UDA), a pro-British paramilitary group.

"Once that leadership was shown, I think it dissipated a lot of anger within our communities."

TESTING TIMES

The Continuity IRA and the Real IRA have warned their operations will continue until Northern Ireland is no longer part of the United Kingdom.

More violence could yet trigger retaliation from Protestant groups, potentially putting Sinn Fein under pressure from Catholic communities who traditionally look to it for protection rather than the police.