Police arrest 5 IRA dissidents following wave of bomb attacks in Northern Ireland

Police arrest 5 IRA dissidents over Ulster attacks

DUBLIN — Police say they’ve arrested five Irish Republican Army dissidents on suspicion of involvement in a wave of bomb attacks this year in the British territory of Northern Ireland.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland said it arrested three men Wednesday in the border town of Newry. The Garda Siochana police force in the neighboring Republic of Ireland said its officers arrested two men as part of the same investigation.

IRA dissidents detonated two car bombs last month outside the Northern Ireland office of the British spy agency MI5 and a police station in the border village of Newtownhamilton. Neither blast caused damage or serious injuries.

The dissidents seek to wreck the IRA’s 1997 cease-fire and the Catholic-Protestant government in Northern Ireland.