Police in Northern Ireland have foiled a terror plot involving a bomb twice the size of the one that devastated Omagh in the single biggest atrocity of the Troubles.
The 270kg device was discovered close to the border, near Forkhill in South Armagh. It had a command wire that ran from Northern Ireland to a firing point inside the Irish Republic, police said on Monday.
Its discovery came after a weeklong search operation involving armed police officers, British army helicopters and Irish troops on either side of the South Armagh-North Louth border region. During the seven-day operation, a number of homes were evacuated and a road leading to a horticultural business was closed to protect the public.
‘DEVASTATING’
A senior police commander said there could have been a “devastating outcome” if the bomb had been detonated.
The area is a stronghold for the Real Irish Republican Army (IRA). It was from this region that the Omagh bomb plot was hatched and executed 11 years ago. Last month, the Real IRA staged a show of strength in the nearby village of Meigh. Armed dissidents patrolled the village with Kalashnikov rifles and rocket launchers and stopped traffic at a makeshift roadblock. A police patrol that drove into Meigh withdrew when officers realized they were outgunned.
“The actions of terrorist criminals in planting this device in the Forkhill area put local people and police officers at significant risk,” said local the police commander, Chief Inspector Sam Cordner.
“Their target may have been the police, but they did not care who they killed or injured,” he said.
The remains of the device, which contained fertilizer-based explosive, have been removed for examination, a police spokesman said.
EXPLANATION
“I challenge those who have planted this bomb in the community to come forward and explain why they have done so. How is this furthering the struggle for Irish freedom?” Sinn Fein Member of Parliament for Newry and Armagh Conor Murphy said.
The Real IRA and Continuity IRA have attempted to mount major bomb attacks since their terror campaigns intensified at the start of this year.
In January, the security forces defused a 135kg bomb in Down, which they said was destined for Ballykinley army base on the coast.
Five months later, about 45kg of explosive was found in a field near Rosslea in Fermanagh. British troops and police officers remain the Real IRA and Continuity IRA’s principal targets in their campaigns to destabilize the power-sharing settlement in Northern Ireland.
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