THE discovery of an explosive device in a Lisburn on Saturday does not herald the start of a new offensive by dissident republicans with police warning prison officers about the risk of attacks in recent weeks.
The viable explosive device is thought to have fallen from the car of a prison officer, although the exact target has yet to be confirmed.
Prison officers are aware they are under threat. Adrian Ismay died in March of this year from injuries sustained when a bomb exploded under his van while a number of officers in the Lisburn area have been warned to step up their security in recent weeks.
Targetting prison officers carries with it a lot less risk than attacking an armed off-duty police officer.
Many of the more recent prison service recruits are paid a basic civil servant's wage and were, until recently, unlikely to have considered themselves under serious risk of attack as few of them would have any direct contact with republican inmates.
There are currently fewer than 30 prisoners housed in Roe House, the republican separated wing of Maghaberry prison. The long-running dispute they are engaged in with the NI Prison Service remains raw and unresolved.
The likelihood of solving the dispute, while tensions remain high on the inside and the threat level severe on the outside, grow more remote by the day.
The attack in Lisburn appears to have been foiled, more by accident than design.
But as the death of Mr Ismay shows the dissident group calling itself 'the IRA' remains engaged in a deadly offensive against prison staff.
Such an offensive is unlikely to create a fertile environment for negotiations to end the prison dispute and ironically will only lead to further arrests and an increase in the numbers of republican prisoners being held in Roe House.
