BELFAST, July 13: A manhunt is under way for a former Irish Republican Army bombmaker suspected of training Palestinian militants in the West Bank, British and Irish newspapers reported on Sunday.

Israeli security sources confirmed they were looking for an Irish suspect but declined to give further details, citing a gagging order slapped on the case by Israeli authorities.

Israel has been on alert for attacks by foreigners acting on behalf of a Palestinian uprising in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip since two British Muslims carried out a suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv nightclub in April, killing three people.

According to reports in London’s Observer and Dublin’s Sunday Independent the suspect had been a member of the mainstream IRA guerrilla group, but switched allegiances to the dissident Real IRA splinter group four years ago.

The papers say he entered Israel on a British passport and slipped into the West Bank.

Palestinian militants have largely suspended attacks as part of a truce brokered by the Palestinian leadership in order to advance a U.S.-backed “road map” to peace.

Links with Northern Ireland stretch back to the early days of the three decade conflict between Catholic republicans fighting to end British rule and Protestant loyalists committed to maintaining it.—Reuters