diff --git a/scripts/remove.references.xml b/scripts/remove.references.xml
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..320fd158
--- /dev/null
+++ b/scripts/remove.references.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<project default="remove.references">
+<!-- this script is used to remove the <references> node from a content.xml file (within a content.jar file) -->
+<!-- run: ant -f /path/to/folder/with/remove.references.xml -DworkDir=/path/to/folder/with/content.jar -->
+<!-- eg., to work in current dir: 
+	wget https://raw.github.com/jbosstools/jbosstools-download.jboss.org/master/jbosstools/updates/requirements/remove.references.xml;  ant -f remove.references.xml -DworkDir=`pwd` 
+-->
+	<target name="remove.references">
+		<antcall target="unpack.content.jar"/>
+
+		<echo file="remove-references.xsl">&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+&lt;xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="2.0">
+	&lt;xsl:template match="/">&lt;xsl:apply-templates select="*"/>&lt;/xsl:template>
+	&lt;xsl:template match="*">&lt;xsl:copy>&lt;xsl:for-each select="@*">&lt;xsl:copy />&lt;/xsl:for-each>&lt;xsl:apply-templates />&lt;/xsl:copy>&lt;/xsl:template>
+	&lt;xsl:template match="references" />
+&lt;/xsl:stylesheet></echo>
+
+		<move file="${workDir}/content.xml" tofile="${workDir}/content.old.xml" overwrite="true" />
+		<xslt style="remove-references.xsl" in="${workDir}/content.old.xml" out="${workDir}/content.xml" />
+
+		<delete file="remove-references.xsl" quiet="true"/>
+
+		<antcall target="pack.content.jar"/>
+	</target>
+
+	<target name="unpack.content.jar">
+		<unzip src="${workDir}/content.jar" dest="${workDir}" />
+		<delete file="${workDir}/content.jar" />
+	</target>
+
+	<target name="pack.content.jar">
+		<zip destfile="${workDir}/content.jar" basedir="${workDir}" includes="content.xml" />
+		<delete file="${workDir}/content.xml" />
+		<delete file="${workDir}/content.old.xml" />
+	</target>
+</project>
diff --git a/target-platform/pom.xml b/target-platform/pom.xml
index 7e870fd4..f587a1fc 100644
--- a/target-platform/pom.xml
+++ b/target-platform/pom.xml
@@ -300,6 +300,7 @@
 
       <build>
 	<plugins>
+
 	  <plugin>
 	    <groupId>org.jboss.tools.tycho-plugins</groupId>
 	    <artifactId>target-platform-utils</artifactId>
@@ -316,9 +317,73 @@
 		</configuration>
 	      </execution>
 	    </executions>
+	  </plugin>
+
+	  <plugin>
+	    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
+	    <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
+	    <version>1.7</version>
+
+	    <executions>
+	      <execution>
+		<phase>package</phase>
+
+		<configuration>
+		  <quiet>true</quiet>
+		  <target>
+		    <!-- ANT script to remove the <references> section from the mirror repo content.xml. -->
+		    <ant antfile="../scripts/remove.references.xml" dir=".">
+		      <property name="workDir" value="./target/target-platform.target.repo" />
+		    </ant>
+		  </target>
+		</configuration>
+		<goals>
+		  <goal>run</goal>
+		</goals>
+	      </execution>
+	    </executions>
+
+	    <dependencies>
+	      <dependency>
+		<groupId>commons-net</groupId>
+		<artifactId>commons-net</artifactId>
+		<version>1.4.1</version>
+	      </dependency>
+	      <dependency>
+		<groupId>org.apache.ant</groupId>
+		<artifactId>ant</artifactId>
+		<version>1.8.2</version>
+	      </dependency>
+	      <dependency>
+		<groupId>org.apache.ant</groupId>
+		<artifactId>ant-nodeps</artifactId>
+		<version>1.8.1</version>
+	      </dependency>
+	      <dependency>
+		<groupId>org.apache.ant</groupId>
+		<artifactId>ant-trax</artifactId>
+		<version>1.8.0</version>
+	      </dependency>
+	      <dependency>
+		<groupId>org.apache.ant</groupId>
+		<artifactId>ant-commons-net</artifactId>
+		<version>1.8.2</version>
+	      </dependency>
+	      <dependency>
+		<groupId>org.apache.ant</groupId>
+		<artifactId>ant-apache-regexp</artifactId>
+		<version>1.8.2</version>
+	      </dependency>
+	      <dependency>
+		<groupId>ant-contrib</groupId>
+		<artifactId>ant-contrib</artifactId>
+		<version>1.0b3</version>
+	      </dependency>
+	    </dependencies>
 
 	  </plugin>
 	</plugins>
+
       </build>
     </profile>
   </profiles>