Foiled, IRA plot to blow up a ferry on Brexit Day
Sinn Fein say bomb could have been ‘catastrophic’
IRISH republican terrorists tried to use a lorry bomb to blow up a ferry on Brexit day, police believe.
Officers were warned on Friday – January 31 – that an explosive device had been left on a truck at Belfast docks heading for Scotland, but a massive search failed to find anything.
After another tip-off on Monday, officers searched 400 HGVs and found the device on a lorry in the Silverwood Industrial Estate in Lurgan, Co Armagh.
The bomb – described by officers as ‘a viable device’ capable of causing ‘carnage’ – may have been placed in the wrong trailer by the bungling terrorists, police said last night. As a result it remained in the yard rather than crossing the Irish Sea, where police said it was intended to explode ‘at around the time the UK left the EU’.
It is understood it was discovered on the trailer unit of a lorry owned by a company that specialises in transporting frozen goods across Europe. It was made safe by Army bomb disposal officers. Police believe the botched bombing attempt is the work of the Continuity IRA.
Yesterday politicians in the province condemned the murderous plot which they said could have caused ‘catastrophic’ damage and massive loss of life.
DUP leader Arlene Foster said the lorry bomb was a chilling reminder of the terrorism threat facing Northern Ireland. ‘The potential damage which could have been caused and loss of life either here, on board a ferry, or in Great Britain do not bear thinking about,’ she added.
Detective Superintendent Sean Wright, from the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s Terrorism Investigation Unit, said dissident republicans had ‘deliberately and recklessly attached an explosive device to a heavy goods vehicle in the full knowledge and expectation that it would put the driver, road users and the wider public at serious risk of injury and possible death’. He added: ‘The only conclusion that we can draw is that, once again, dissident republicans have shown a total disregard for the community, for businesses and for wider society.’
The Continuity IRA were blamed after a bomb exploded near Wattlebridge in County Fermanagh, on August 19 in what police said had been an attempt to lure officers to their deaths.
Sinn Fein’s policing spokesman, Gerry Kelly, said: ‘If it had exploded, you are talking about catastrophic loss of life, and whoever planted this bomb needs to know that. There is no purpose and they need to desist and go off the stage and move away from any such actions.’ Ulster Unionist policing spokesman Doug Beattie called on the Government to take robust action against the dissidents.
‘This was no minor device, this was a very deliberate attempt to cause an explosion on a ferry, and, given the inherent instability of these devices, it could easily have detonated in the lorry’s yard, on the M1, in the middle of Belfast or on a ferry itself in the middle of the Irish Sea,’ he said.
‘We are dealing with people here who do not give a damn about the safety of anyone else. It is clear that violent republicans do not care for the people of Northern Ireland, regardless of what community they come from. They are sadistic, career terrorists who need to be locked up for a very long time.’
Police have appealed for anyone who saw anything suspicious on the industrial estate between 4pm and 10pm on Brexit Day to come forward.
■ Brussels sparked fury last night after announcing it issued a new £1billion bill to Britain on Brexit Day. Boris Johnson was presented with demands for the extra cash last Friday, just hours before the UK left the bloc at 11pm, with eurocrats insisting the timing was ‘dictated by EU law’ and was ‘pure coincidence’.
‘Sadistic career terrorists’