A group calling itself the Irish Republican Army claims to have mailed packages containing  homemade bombs to British military recruiting centers last week, The Daily Mail reported.

Authorities said seven suspicious packages were mailed to military facilities in southern England between Tuesday and Thursday.

The “IRA” claimed responsibility and vowed that “attacks will continue when and where the IRA sees fit.” Scotland Yard said a group using a recognized IRA code word contacted a media outlet in Northern Ireland over the weekend to claim responsibility for mailing the packages.

Downing Street said the small but potentially deadly devices, which were rendered harmless by police and bomb-disposal units, carried "the hallmarks of Northern Ireland-related terrorism." A spokesman for Number 10 said postal officials and military base staffers had been warned to remain "extra vigilant" in looking for suspicious packages.

Security sources called the devices the work of “amateur” terrorists seeking to impress more established rivals.

“I understand that they were amateurish in their construction,” said Independent MP Patrick Mercer, a former Army colonel who commanded British troops in Northern Ireland.

He said the devices were believed to have been sent by a splinter group called the “Real IRA,” and that the faction was debating whether to stage new attacks in Britain. The Real IRA, formed in 1997, carried out an August 1998 bombing in Omagh, Northern Ireland that killed 29 people and injured hundreds more, and claimed responsibility for a 2009 attack on a British barracks that killed two UK soldiers.

Other security sources pointed to a two-year-old faction that calls itself the “New IRA,” the The London Telegraph reported.

The New IRA, now the largest of the violent Catholic groups remaining in Northern Ireland, is believed to be an amalgamation of Real IRA members and “independent” militants.     

British Army recruiting centers have remained open since discovery of the bombs last week, but they are now on high alert.

The IRA declared a formal end to hostilities against Britain in 2005.

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