Alan Ryan Micka Kelly



A PLOT to kidnap a Dublin criminal was foiled when gardai discovered cable ties and surgical gloves in a car driven by an IRA gang.

The gang were on their way to attack a former close associate of dead terror boss Alan Ryan. The associate has now become a target for the so-called IRA ‘clean-up operation’.

Armed detectives swooped on the car near the city’s busy Connolly Station as hundreds of commuters passed by unaware.

Meanwhile, two other once-feared Real IRA members have been forced to flee their north Dublin homes because of the hitlist. They are now in hiding.

Officers are becoming increasingly concerned about the activities of feuding dissident Republicans.

The Herald recently revealed that provos from Northern Ireland want to take over Alan Ryan's Dublin operation and have planned to remove a number of those who were close to the murdered gangster.

A source said: "It is some fall from grace for these fellas. They spent years strutting around with Ryan issuing threats and extorting money from criminals but now they are the one's under deep pressure.

Hunters

"The hunters have truly become the hunted -- they are pretty much isolated from senior members of the IRA who have come to Dublin to clean out the organisation."

The target of the foiled kidnap plot is from the Ballybough area and had a lucky escape when officers spotted the IRA gang in the city on Wednesday.

Gardai from the Emergency Response Unit and the Special Detective Unit were involved in the operation. The car was stopped and searched in the city centre and the occupants questioned. No arrests were made but gardai believe that the men were on their way to carry out an abduction.

Meanwhile the north Dublin duo now in hiding are holed up in a southside location after coming under massive pressure on three separate fronts.

Sources say that the two men -- a heavily tattooed mobster who was rarely seen away from slain RIRA boss Alan Ryan's side and his close mate -- are so concerned about being targeted that have installed "protective metal mesh" at the entrance to their property.

One of the north Dublin men was arrested by members of the Garda Special Detective Unit last November as part of Operation Ambience, the major crackdown on dissident Republicans that followed Ryan's paramilitary funeral in September.

The other man has close links to the chief suspect for murdering Kilbarrack drugs trafficker Michael 'Micka' Kelly in September, 2011.

But sources say that attention from the gardai is the least of the problems for the well known dissident Republicans.

"Most of the main players who ordered and organised Alan Ryan's murder are back in Dublin now and they have made it known that they are not in fear of Ryan's crowd at all.

Another problem for the duo is that senior former Provo's from Northern Ireland who are trying to take over the dissident organisation have "no time whatsoever" for the two men.

The Herald was previously briefed on internal plans to remove a number of those who were close to Ryan after the dissidents drew up a chilling hit-list of 13 Dublin based gangsters.

A high-level dissident source told the Herald that over 10 more figures in the Dublin area will be removed as they are deemed too much of a "risk" to the organisation.

Shocked

"We were shocked when we came down and saw the type of sh** that Ryan had running the show. They are nothing short of a rabble and they have no place in the organisation," the source explained.

Dublin-based RIRA members have been ordered to abandon their extortion activities in the north inner city after it was established that they were being "closely monitored" by detectives. Already targeted by the new leaders in the 'clean-up' have been Alan Ryan's former pals Declan "Fat Deccy" Smith (30) who was shot in the leg earlier this month in Saggart and Nathan Kinsella (34) who was kneecapped in Ballyfermot last November.