Police suspect that the attack was carried out by republican dissidents. Photo: AP
Bomb attack in Northern Ireland, police suspect republican dissidents
In the suburbs of Belfast, Northern Ireland, a car bomb exploded in front of a police station at night, causing no casualties. After the second such incident this year, the police announced that they were attacking suspected republican dissidents.
The attackers planted a bomb with a gas cylinder in the stolen vehicle of the delivery man, after which the car was taken to the police station. Videos of the burning vehicle circulated on social media at around midnight local time. According to local media, the fire was extinguished by firefighters.
On March 30 this year, a similar bomb exploded outside a police station near Lurgan. At the time, the Nova Ira paramilitary group claimed responsibility for the attack.
“There are a lot of similarities between the two attacks (…) we currently have a hypothesis that this could be the work of New Ireland,” Deputy Deputy Chief Constable of Northern Ireland Bobby Singleton said today. He added that investigators were open to the possibility of an investigation, which he said was still in its early stages, but that there was still “a suspicion of lethal intent” within UK borders.
Singleton praised the police officers who immediately evacuated nearby houses in order to protect the community.
Politicians condemned the incident. First Minister of Northern Ireland Michelle O’Neill from the Sinn Fein party, which supports the unification of Ireland, said that those behind the attack “do not really represent anyone”. Unionist Party leader Gavin Robinson described the incident as deeply worrying.
So-called republican dissidents are individuals and groups who support Irish unification but do not recognize the landmark 1998 peace deal that largely ended three decades of separatist violence known in Ireland as The Troubles.
