|
Northern Irish Police Foil Bomb Plot
Belfast, 19 April (AKI) - Police on Wednesday arrested four men in Northern Ireland, after a major security operation in the town of Lurgan, County Armagh uncovered component parts of a bomb that could have weighed up to 90 kilogrammes. Part of the town remains cordoned off, reports said. The plot comes amid intensifying efforts to revive a local government that shares power between Irish nationalists and pro-British parties. Dolores Kelly, an MP for the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SLP) one of two main nationalist parties, which supports the reunification of Ireland by consent and opposes violence, said police officers had discovered the four suspected members of the dissident splinter group, Continuity Irish Republican Army (IRA), manufacturing the bomb during a raid on a scrapyard in Lurgan. Such splinter groups still believe in violent means to end British rule in Northern Ireland, despite the main IRA announcing last year it had abandoned its armed struggle. The device which was in an advanced stage of preparation would be detonated by bomb disposal experts in an unknown location later on Wednesday, Kelly was quoted as saying by Ireland Online. She condemned those responsible, saying they were constructing the bomb in a highly residential area of Lurgan town centre and close to a shopping centre used by local people. There have been no major bomb attacks in Northern Ireland since August 1998, when the Real IRA another IRA splinter grouo, detonated bombs in the market town of Omagh, killing 29 people and injuring 200. A somewhat shaky peace has held since the landmark Good Friday agreement of 1998, which led to a new assembly with devolved powers. In mid-2005, the the IRA announced an end to its armed campaign and its intention to pursue its aims of uniting Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland solely through political means. Soon afterwards, the arms decommissioning body declared that it was satisfied the organisation had put all its weapons out of use. The Northern Ireland assembly was suspended in autumn 2002 when a row erupted over allegations about IRA activities. It is due to be be recalled in May. Bombs blamed on IRA activists went off at the BBC offices in west London in March 2000 and in August 2001. Posted by: Steve 2006-04-19 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=149098 |