The ongoing political stalemate between Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is being exploited by dissident Republicans, whose killing power is now at an all time high, it has been warned.

This week the IMC, the organization charged with monitoring the activities of Northern Ireland's paramilitary groups, warned that the threat from dissident Republicans was at its highest level since 2003.

"From May to the end of the period under review there was a more concentrated period of attacks that at any time since we started to report on them four and a half years ago," explained IMC commissioner Joe Brosnan.

Warning that dissidents were now attempting to exploit the ongoing political stalemate between Sinn Fein and the DUP, he said, "In the past few months RIRA and CIRA have both been more active at the same time.

"One possible reason for this may be a perception that the absence of progress on the devolution of justice and policing has created a political vacuum, or may have caused disaffection among Republican, supporters, which the dissidents think that they are able to exploit."

The RIRA, which is now reported to have split into two opposing factions, was blamed for a bomb attack which seriously injured a police officer in May. It was also responsible for three paramilitary shootings and assaulting a Sinn Fein assembly member in July.

The CIRA was blamed for a bomb attack on police in June and a rocket attack on officers in Co. Fermanagh in August. It was also blamed for violence in Craigavon in August and threats against customs officers and Vehicle Licensing Authority employees.

Both groups were reported to have had "limited success" in recruiting disgruntled IRA members.

The INLA was responsible for the only paramilitary killing during the six month period, with the murder of Emmett Shiels in Derry.

The IRA was said to "remain on an exclusively political path."

However, the IMC said the ongoing failure of the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster Defense Association to decommission could not be allowed to continue unchallenged.