‘New IRA’ in car terror blast
FOUR men were being questioned last night after a dissident republican group was suspected of exploding a car bomb.
The attack came just after 8pm on Saturday when a vehicle blew up outside the courthouse in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
Two men in their 20s were arrested and two more aged 34 and 42 were held later yesterday.
Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said: “Our main line of inquiry is against the New IRA… like most dissident republican groups in Northern Ireland, [it] is small, largely unrepresentative and determined to drag people back to somewhere they don’t want to be.”
Damage
Mr Hamilton detailed how a pizza delivery driver was hijacked on Saturday evening and his car packed with explosives before being left outside the court.
He said: “We believe that some time after 6pm… a pizza delivery driver was hijacked. He had his Ford Fusion car taken off him by at least two armed men.
“A bomb was put in that car, driven at least half a mile… and around three minutes later a phone call went in to the Samaritans in West Midlands in England, which was then passed to West Midlands Police.
“In the intervening minutes we had already found the car and started to evacuate the area. At around 8.09pm, the bomb detonated. Fortunately it didn’t kill anybody and fortunately it didn’t cause widespread damage but clearly it was a very significant attempt to kill. The bomb detonated just as we were leaving the area and it is only by good grace local people were not killed.”
Those evacuated included hundreds of hotel guests,
150 people from a Masonic Hall and a large number of children from a church youth club.
CCTV footage shows a figure running from the vehicle after parking it, a large group of young people walking past and the moment the car exploded.