No difference in terrrorist attacks past or present

The terrorist attack claimed by Islamic state in the city of London outside the Houses of Parliament, which claimed the lives of civilians and a police officer and the terrorist shot dead by the police, was a harsh reminder of the carnage and suffering such attacks inflict upon innocent civilians going about their daily business.

For such an attack to have happened at a time when in Northern Ireland victims of IRA terrorism had to endure the many glowing tributes from misguided church leaders and political figures on the death of Martin McGuinness describing him as a peacemaker for his role in the peace process was indeed difficult to accept.

This is the same individual once described as “a Godfather of IRA terrorism”.

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Those victims of IRA terrorism, who publicly spoke out and stated that Martin McGuinness never condemned repented or apologised for any IRA atrocities and rightly described him as a terrorist, are to be commended for telling the truth.

None more so than Norman Tebbitt who was nearly killed and his wife paralysed after the Brighton bomb in 1984 carried out by the IRA under the command of the IRA Army Council which included Martin McGuinness.

The terrorist attack by a lone member of Islamic State in London in 2017 is no different to the IRA attack in Brighton in 1984 or anywhere else.

I wonder how the victims of this atrocity would feel if in years to come leading members of Islamic State were to be heralded as peace makers and if the police officers who shot dead Islamic State members engaged in terrorist activity were to be taken to court on murder charges.

This is not fantasy world but sadly the real world for security force members and victims of IRA violence in the United Kingdom.

Walter Millar, Cookstown