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Omagh lookout 'used kids as cover'
By Staff Reporters

CHILDREN may have been used as cover for the lookouts working for the terrorists who bombed Omagh.
The news comes as Special Branch officers were expected to face a damning new report today. A major review carried out by Dan Crompton of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary is believed to be highly critical of their analysis of information and the way they made use of evidence and follow up lines of inquiry.
The report was being handed over when the Chief Constable Hugh Orde meets his Policing Board in Belfast today
The review was ordered in the aftermath of the seriously flawed police investigation into the Omagh bomb outrage of August 1998 which left 29 people dead.
The role of Special Branch in the run-up to Omagh was strongly criticised after it emerged that police were warned 11 days in advance of the Real IRA atrocity but information was never passed to officers on the ground.
It is understood that the Crompton report also reveals deep frustration felt by senior investigating officers towards Special Branch generally in Northern Ireland. The report is likely to call for sweeping changes in how the intelligence gathering network is run.
The report on the Omagh investigation comes as it has emerged that three young boys may have been in the back of a car driven by a man whom police believe could have been scouting for the gang.
They were spotted parked on a grass verge on the outskirts of the town in the hours before the attack.
It's understood at least two witnesses have told investigating detectives they saw children playing beside a blue Corsa or Nova while a group of men, one wearing a rugby shirt, leaned across the roof examining a map.
Parked nearby outside a meat plant on Omagh's Dublin Road, two miles from the town centre, was a red Vauxhall Cavalier - the same type of car which carried the huge bomb - with a man slumped in the front passenger seat.
Three young boys were also spotted in the back of the second car, and although a direct link has yet to be established, detectives are investigating the possibility this may have been a scout car with the children as rear seat passengers to help the terrorists bluff their way past any security checkpoints.
Assistant Chief Constable Sam Kinkaid, the officer heading the new inquiry into Omagh, refused to comment on the line of inquiry.
But in Belfast he confirmed: "We are still trying to identify any scout cars that accompanied the car carrying the bomb. There is every possibility that the occupants of such a car would have tried hard to look inconspicuous."
Meanwhile, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has categorically denied his Government was involved in any deal with the dissident republican group in the aftermath of Omagh. He told the Dail: "The allegation is as outrageous as it is deeply offensive."