A man claiming to be a former member of the Real IRA says the group has established links with Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah that could lead to a new wave of terrorist attacks in Northern Ireland and mainland Britain using suicide bombers.

The man, who spoke to the Belfast News Letter on condition of anonymity for safety reasons, said that he would be able to give up 25 members of the dissident Republican Group if he were to receive a new identity from authorities.

The man left the RIRA because he did not want to see “suicide bombers in shopping centers.”  He said that the representatives of both organizations had met in the South, and that Hezbollah was the conduit between the RIRA and Islamic terrorists.

"I left because of what I foreseen," he continued to the News Letter."I knew where I was heading – we were going to use the Muslims and they were going to use us.”

The man, who says he has been giving information to the Garda for some years, claims the RIRA no longer used cell phones after Hezbollah showed then how easily traceable they were.

He went on to say that they started to communicate covertly in open bars and by using an e-mail account whose password changed every second day. Information would be exchanged by leaving messages in draft messages.

He also said his status in the dissident group meant he knew what attacks were planned but that he was not privy to when they would take place.

Though he has been passing intelligence to the Gardai, he feels they have compromised his securinty and that he has made attempts to contact British intelligence.

He is now living in fear of his life and said there was only a 30 percent chance that he would be alive by the end of the week.

The Northern Ireland Office would not make any comment to the Belfast News Letter about the issue saying they could not talk about the work of the intelligence services.