DUBLIN Ireland AP Five suspected Irish Republican Army dissidents pleaded guilty Tuesday to committing a botched armed robbery that ended after police shot dead one of their comrades. The three judges presiding over Ireland's anti-terrorist Special Criminal Court said they would pass sentence Wednesday on the four men and a woman who admitted they ambushed an armored van containing 250000 pounds dlrs 375000 in May. Anti-terrorist detectives had been keeping the gang under surveillance as part of their efforts to suppress the so-called Real IRA a rump of dissidents opposed to their outlawed group's July 1997 truce. Police Det. Chief Superintendent Sean Camon offered a detailed description of the moments when officers confronted the gang on the main highway south of Dublin. Camon said police moved in immediately after the gang disguised as government road workers stopped the cash-loaded van at gunpoint and began trying to break it open using sledgehammers and a steel cutter. Camon said the gang had planned to cut open the roof of the van pour in gasoline and threaten to burn alive the two security guards inside if they didn't surrender the cash. He said police killed Ronan McLoughlin 28 after he tried to hijack a passing civilian's car and pointed his loaded .357 Magnum revolver at police. Stephen Carney 23 was arrested after pointing his pump-action shotgun at officers then crashing one of the gang's getaway vehicles into two police cars. Philip Forsythe 25 and Danny McAllister 43 were found hiding in nearby hedges. Camon said McAllister had been operating the cutter while Forsythe had been wielding a fake rocket launcher. Saoirse Breatnach 24 was arrested after failing to hijack another passing car using her Kalashnikov assault rifle then losing a fistfight with police. Police arrested the final gang member 34-year-old Pascal Burke about 2 miles 3 kms away where he was waiting in a stolen van containing radio scanners and mobile phones intended to ease the gang's getaway. Camon said Burke had previously been convicted in 1989 of possessing explosives and spent five years in prison while Carney and McAllister both had five previous convictions related to terrorism and petty crime. Police presume the gang's intention was to raise funds to buy arms for the Real IRA faction which in August committed the worst atrocity in the three-decade history of the Northern Ireland conflict a car bomb in the town of Omagh that killed 29 civilians and wounded 370. The Real IRA called an open-ended truce in September. The IRA has frequently robbed banks and armored cars in the Irish Republic to fund its operations. sp-ms APW19981201.1042.txt.body.html APW19981201.0887.txt.body.html