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Two arrested in Irish bomb plot

"This was timed to cause embarrassment [to Trimble] ... but in fact the terrorists are just underlining that he is a serious and very credible unionist figure and a threat to them."

Ulster Unionist Party spokesman

Police in Northern Ireland said yesterday they had arrested two men following the discovery of a massive bomb in the province's second city Londonderry.

The discovery of the 540kg device -- more than twice the size of the devastating 1998 Omagh bomb -- came on the eve of a crunch meeting of the province's main Protestant party which could derail efforts to revive the flagging peace process.

"One man aged 33 and another aged 24 have been arrested earlier this morning in connection with the bomb find in Londonderry [Sunday]," a police spokeswoman said.

Police said they believed that the bomb, which was primed and ready for use, was the work of dissident Irish republicans opposed to the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement which aimed to end three decades of conflict in the British-ruled province.

Some immediately drew a connection between the foiled attack and a meeting of the ruling council of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) where leader David Trimble faces a challenge from hardliners who believe he has made too many concessions to republicans.

"This was timed to cause embarrassment [to Trimble] ... but in fact the terrorists are just underlining that he is a serious and very credible unionist figure and a threat to them," a UUP spokesman said.

The bomb was discovered in a van that had been abandoned on a bridge over the River Foyle. Police had earlier noticed the driver acting suspiciously.

The Irish Republican Army (IRA) called a ceasefire in its war to drive Britain out of Northern Ireland in 1997, but dissident groups such as the Continuity IRA and the Real IRA have continued to mount sporadic attacks.

The latter group was responsible for the 1998 attack on the market town of Omagh in which 29 people died, the bloodiest single act in 30 years of violence between majority pro-British Protestants and minority pro-Irish Catholics.

"The people who are involved in these activities are opposed to the peace process, they want to destroy the peace process," former IRA commander Martin McGuinness, now a leading figure in the guerrilla group's political ally Sinn Fein, told the BBC.

Northern Ireland's stop-start peace process has been in trouble since last October, when the discovery of an alleged IRA spy ring collapsed the powersharing government set up in Belfast under the Good Friday deal.

London and Dublin's efforts to revive powersharing could be dealt a heavy blow if the 860-member Ulster Unionist Council votes to reject an Anglo-Irish peace blueprint in what was expected to be a tight contest last night.
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