"Panel: IRA no longer poses a terrorist threat"

This is good news for the Northern Irish.

DUBLIN, Ireland - The Irish Republican Army has begun reducing its membership and shut down key units responsible for weapons-making, arms smuggling and training, an expert panel reported Wednesday in findings designed to spur a revival of Catholic-Protestant cooperation in Northern Ireland. ...

The assessment reported that the IRA — which last year declared a formal end to its campaign to overthrow Northern Ireland by force and handed its weapons stockpiles to disarmament chiefs — had recently shut down three command units and “run down its terrorist capability.”

The report said the IRA has disbanded military structures, including the departments responsible for weapons procurement, engineering and training, and it had cut back rank-and-file members and stopped payments to them, the report said.

Let's hope this sticks. And let's hope we read about something very similar happening sometime in the near future with al-Qaida, Hamas, Fatah, Hizbollah, and other Islamic terror groups.