The police were actually conducting house searches. Firearms, hand grenades and explosives were seized. Three people were arrested. According to the police, the plan was to commit attacks with the seized material and kill police officers. Investigators assume connections with the republican splinter movement New IRA.
The situation in Northern Ireland remains tense 25 years after the Good Friday Agreements. They then put an end to three decades of “troubles”, in which the mainly Catholic republicans and the mainly Protestant unionists faced each other.