Irish militants linked to the New IRA (NIRA) met with officials at the Iranian embassy in Dublin during a ceremony to honor the deceased Iranian general Qassem Soleimani. British authorities later arrested nine NIRA members after they attempted to acquire weapons and Iranian- and Lebanese-designed bomb-making technology from the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah; NIRA operatives had traveled to Lebanon in 2018. The NIRA members intended to use the weapons to target security forces in Northern Ireland.