Bombs have been going off across Britain during the past three weeks. These explosions have left behind them many unanswered questions about the identity and political aims of those responsible.
In order to make even an informed guess about these questions it is necessary to take a look at the present state of the struggle in Ireland against British imperialism. The arrest of a number of experi enced Provisional leaders in the last two months has made a pause in IRA military operations necessary to permit the regroupment and retraining of their forces. Previous pauses of this kind have been exploited by the British propaganda machine to loudly proclaim the demise of the Provos. While this has had little effect in the past, there are two major differences I tae present situation.
Firstly, the British have been having some success in the propaganda war the Assembly elections showed confusion among even the strongest Provo supporters. Secondly, there is a growing mood in favour of troop withdrawal in Britain which the Provisionals take very seriously. They see continued military action on their part as an essential element in speeding up this trend.
For these reasons, a lull in military action on their part could result in tangible benefits for British imperiasm abeason to wake some torm of military action in Britain would therefore. be logical, since it would keep the military struggle going while enabling a regroupment of IRA forces to take place in the North.
An error made by many on the left is to assume that the Provisionas have not learned from the past mistakes of the Republican movement.