Car bomb bid to murder policeman in Ulster

POLICE in Northern Ireland were on high alert last night after dissident republicans attempted to murder an officer with a car bomb and a second explosive device was discovered near a police station.

The bomb placed under the car of an offduty constable in east Belfast could have killed his wife and two young children, the Police Service of Northern Ireland said.

The policeman was about to take his family out for Sunday lunch when he found the bomb. Assistant chief constable George Hamilton said: ‘ If that officer had not checked under his car we would have been looking at a murder or multiple murders.’

The booby-trap device was defused in a controlled explosion by the Army.

It was recovered from under the officer’s car partially intact and police hope forensic tests on the remains could identify those who made and planted it.

A pipe bomb was found close to the gates of a police station in the town of Tandragee in County Armagh. It was also near the homes of elderly residents and they had to be evacuated before being allowed to return when the security alert had ended.

A police spokesman said Army experts had examined the bomb and declared it to be ‘a viable device’.

Mr Hamilton said he was linking the Belfast attack to ‘anti-peace’ dissident republicans, who have already murdered two police officers.

Police have been warning for months that republican militants remain determined to kill members of the security forces.

On November 1, prison officer David Black, 52, was shot dead as he drove along the M1 motorway on his work to work at the high-security Maghaberry prison in County Antrim, which houses dissident inmates.

A group styling itself the ‘new IRA’ claimed that attack. It was formed in the summer when several splinter groups joined forces.

Nearly two weeks later, a booby-trap bomb was found in a road in west Belfast. It is believed to have fallen from a soldier’s car.

In recent months police in Belfast and Londonderry have recovered mortars capable of piercing the armour of police vehicles and causing multiple deaths.