Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

LONDON, Aug 22 (Reuters) - A British member of parliament said on Sunday he believed nationalist militants in Northern Ireland hoped to stage attacks on the British mainland, possibly against high-profile conferences of political parties. Patrick Mercer, a former army officer who served in Northern Ireland and now a Conservative MP known for his expertise on security issues, raised the alarm about the threat from splinter groups seeking to end British control of Northern Ireland.

"I have no doubt there is an aspiration, a hope, a desire to bomb the mainland (Britain) and probably the Tory (Conservative) or indeed any of the party political conferences," Mercer told Sky News.

The threat from nationalist splinter groups seeking to end British control of Northern Ireland is at its highest level since a 1998 peace agreement largely ended three decades of conflict. The groups say the guerrilla Irish Republican Army (IRA) betrayed the republican cause by ending its campaign.

The Observer newspaper quoted sources in Northern Ireland as saying dissidents were targeting the October 3-6 conference in Birmingham, central England, of the Conservatives, the dominant partner in Britain's three-month-old coalition government.

An IRA bomb attack on the Brighton hotel where then Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was staying for her party's conference in 1984 nearly killed her and the rest of her cabinet. She was unscathed, but five people died and some close colleagues were badly injured.

Mercer told Channel 4 News later he did not believe the dissident groups had the means to carry out an attack on that scale but said there was no room for complacency.

The Liberal Democrats, in coalition with the Conservatives, and the opposition Labour Party, both hold annual conferences in September, in Liverpool and Manchester respectively.

Three children were hurt this month when a bomb aimed at police officers exploded in the town of Lurgan. That followed the planting of booby trap bombs under the cars of an army officer, a policewoman and an ex-policeman. [ID:nLDE67D055]

Some experts on Northern Ireland doubt whether the splinter groups have the ability to carry out a large-scale attack in mainland Britain.

Laurence Robertson, a Conservative MP who chairs a British parliamentary committee on Northern Ireland, told Sky he had no information that dissident nationalists planned a mainland bombing campaign but said the threat they posed had to be taken seriously and had to be stopped.