A letter-bomb addressed to a member of the Progressive Unionist Party in Ballymena, Co Antrim, was intercepted and made safe yesterday. The party leader, Mr David Ervine, described the bomb as a sophisticated device intended to kill.
Staff at the main postal sorting office in Railway Street became suspicious of the package and alerted police. The area was sealed off, and the device was made safe by army bomb disposal experts.
The package was addressed to Mrs Jean Rainey, a PUP branch secretary in the town.
The PUP North Antrim Association said last night it had been told that either dissident loyalists or drugs criminals had sent the device.
Mr Ervine said he did not wish to attribute blame until the police had completed their investigations. A letter-bomb was received by a party member in June, "but this one would seem to be of greater sophistication and that is a worrying development," he added.
Mrs Rainey said no threats had been issued to party activists in the town. "I have three sons and most days they go and get the mail from the front door. It could have been any one of them or myself. That's the most shocking thing about it."
She said she was unsure who was behind the attack. "It's hard even to believe that anyone could do that, but these days you don't know who it could be."
Meanwhile, a 17-year-old man is in a stable condition in intensive care after being shot in the neck in south Belfast on Sunday night. Two men were arrested after the incident, which occurred shortly after 9 p.m. in the Donegall Pass area.
Windows were shattered in a gun attack on a house in Andersonstown, west Belfast, at 11.20 p.m. on Monday. Several people in the house at Riverdale Park North were treated for shock. Four shots were directed at the house, breaking glass in the front door, an upstairs window and the windscreen of a car parked in the driveway.