ABC News is reporting that the Royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton could be a possible target of dissident republican terrorists who have committed more than 40 terror attacks over the last year.

The ABC investigative team quotes Mark Hamilton, chief superintendent of the police service in Northern Ireland that "It is fair to assume that people are worried about an attack on the mainland," said

There have been no specific threats targeting the royal wedding  but officials told ABC News that there is "concrete intelligence" that the real IRA are attempting to extend their presence beyond Northern Ireland to London.

Officials heading up the counter domestic, MI-5 have recently increased their surveillance of potential Irish terrorist leaders and raised the threat level of such groups from moderate to substantial.

"There is a massive effort by the intelligence services and the police to track these people down," said Superintendent Hamilton.

Professor Martyn Frampton, a history lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London, and the author of a new report "The return of the Militants: Violent Dissident Republicanism” said such dissident groups could strike at any time.

"I think these people would have no compunction at all about carrying out an attack, if they could, on an event like the royal wedding," he said.

“Attacks on the mainland, particularly here in London, I think, remain the holy grail for these organizations," said Frampton in an interview with Good Morning America yesterday.

"They would say it is an opportunity to target the British establishment," Frampton added.

The latest dissident attack occurred on April 6 when a 25-year-old police officer died after a bomb exploded under his car. Constable Ronan Kerr was killed in his neighborhood in Omagh in County Tyrone.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny has stated that co-operation between the police forces North and South is at its highest level ever at present.

____________________________

RELATED STORIES

Provo dissidents blamed for the murder of Ronan Kerr

Community unites to say goodbye to murdered Catholic policeman

Thousands walk for peace in Omagh, Northern Ireland
____________________________