IRA dissidents plant car bomb in Belfast

November 23, 2009|Associated Press

DUBLIN - Irish Republican Army dissidents left a 400-pound car bomb outside police reform headquarters in Belfast but the homemade device failed to detonate, Northern Ireland’s police commander said yesterday.

As politicians warned of a rising threat from IRA diehards, four other suspected IRA dissidents were arrested yesterday following a gun attack on police.

Chief Constable Matt Baggott said Saturday night’s attempted bombing of the Northern Ireland Policing Board office in Belfast’s docklands represented an attack on the province’s entire peace process.

That process has created a joint Catholic-Protestant government and growing support for law and order, achievements that the dissidents hope to undermine.

The explosives-laden car caught on fire but didn’t explode and caused no damage to the Policing Board building, where a cross-community panel oversees police operations.

Security guards said they saw two men running away.

The attackers’ suspected getaway vehicle was later found burning - to destroy forensic evidence - in the nearby New Lodge district, a poor housing project long known as an IRA stronghold.