The Real IRA was blamed for the attack on the Homebase store

A year ago, the IMC revealed a breakaway faction from the Continuity IRA, Oglaigh na hEireann, had been formed.

It said the group, it called ONH, was trying to attract Real IRA members.

In its latest report, the IMC said this group was involved in pipe bomb attacks against the police and an attack at a site used by the travelling community.

The four-member commission also observed the Real IRA had stepped up its activity with a spate of firebomb attacks and aspired to mount an attack in Britain, while the Continuity IRA remained a threat.

In the latest report, the commission said the breakaway ONH group posed a greater threat and had "become more dangerously active".

"We believe it was responsible for two pipe bomb attacks against PSNI officers and premises in September and November and for a bomb which failed to detonate at a travellers' site in Coalisland in November 2006," it said.

The IMC said members of the group undertook a `tiger' kidnapping in October, "we think largely for personal gain".

Real IRA

The IMC said the Real IRA was responsible for a firebomb campaign against six DIY stores and two other shops across Northern Ireland in October and November.

It was also behind two bomb hoaxes in the border city of Newry during November, one shooting and a mortar attack against a police station in Craigavon.

"This amounts to the highest level of sustained paramilitary activity since RIRA's incendiary campaign in the winter of 2004/05," the commission noted.

We believe the INLA was responsible for two shootings in September and November 2006, two assaults both in October and for exiling some people from Strabane in October IMC

The Continuity IRA was blamed for firing shots at a police station in Keady, County Armagh, in November and for two, possibly three, so-called punishment shootings, one assault and threats against a number of people.

The commission believed one of the shootings and the threats were not sanctioned at leadership level.

The report noted other dissident republican incidents occurred which could not be attributed to a specific group.

These were assaults - some of them sectarian - the targeting of police officers and intelligence gathering on drug dealers.

"We also believe that dissidents from south Derry have held a training camp," the IMC said.

In previous reports, the Irish National Liberation Army's activity was assessed as low, with its members showing no real desire to mount a sustained campaign of violence.

The INLA was accused of raising funds through the smuggling and sale of black market tobacco, drug dealing and operating protection rackets.