Report: IRA still spying, running crime rackets

? The Irish Republican Army has halted violence but is still gathering intelligence on enemies and remains deeply involved in organized crime, according to a report published Wednesday by Britain and Ireland.

The Independent Monitoring Commission’s 46-page report raised doubts about when the outlawed IRA will disband in support of Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace accord and its central goal: power-sharing between the province’s British Protestant majority and Irish Catholic minority.

Experts on the Independent Monitoring Commission, including a former CIA director, said the IRA remained committed to infiltrating and stealing documents from British intelligence agencies, government departments and political parties.

The IRA’s seven-man command quickly issued its own statement saying its rank-and-file members were fully observing the group’s six-month-old peace declaration.