BELFAST Northern Ireland was on edge on Monday after a huge car bomb only just failed to cause devastation at the weekend, in a new threat to the long-troubled province’s fragile peace process.
Dissident republicans may even be planning a Christmas “spectacular”, reports suggested after two incidents within hours fuelled fears of renewed violence, more than a decade after a landmark peace accord. The Northern Ireland Assembly, in which once sworn enemies share power in Belfast, was due to meet and was expected to condemn the weekend attacks, which also saw police exchange gunfire with paramilitaries.
“We need to close them down,” said Gerry Kelly, a member of the assembly for Sinn Fein, once the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
“People don’t want a return to the place where these people want to bring us back to … We need to show them that the community is moving on and we are moving on with politics,” he told BBC radio.
In the most alarming attack of recent months, a car containing a 400-pound device crashed through barriers outside a police headquarters in Belfast late on Saturday and partially exploded, police said.
A police spokeswoman said two men were seen running away from the car after it crashed through the barriers of the province’s policing supervision board.
Half an hour later, a small explosion went off inside the vehicle. “Had this device functioned as the terrorists planned, there would certainly have been widespread damage and destruction,” the spokeswoman said. “It is also very probable that this ‘no warning’ device would have led to very serious injury or loss of life,” she added.
Northern Ireland police chief Matt Baggott called it “a reckless act — not just in doing damage but also the potential loss of life.”
Agence France-Presse
|
