The PSNI has warned of a new threat from dissident republicans after intercepting a 200lb bomb when a car was stopped on the outskirts of Armagh city.
Army bomb disposal experts carried out a controlled explosion on the car. Police and soldiers are believed to have been acting on intelligence when they stopped the vehicle near Killylea.
Its boot was packed with several hundred pounds of home-made explosives, a firing pack and detonator. Body armour was also in the car, security sources said. The driver, believed to be from Cookstown, Co Tyrone, was last night being questioned by detectives.
Asst Chief Constable Stephen White said the bomb bore the hallmarks of dissident republicans.
"My analysis of it is that there's a significant, high threat from dissident republicans." He pointed to the arrests at the Kilwilkie estate in Lurgan on Monday, where a number of weapons, a bomb detonator and ammunition were found as further evidence of the growing threat.
Northern Secretary Dr John Reid vowed to stop those responsible from derailing the peace process. "Those responsible for this simply do not seem to understand that they cannot murder, maul and maim people into their way of thinking," he said.
"Today people are working on a common cause to make Northern Ireland a better place and yet there are still some without a strategy who think they can bomb and blast their way into the past. They have no support, no strategy, no sympathy and they will not succeed."
In Derry, several hundred Catholic construction workers have been told by the PSNI that intelligence reports indicate that a loyalist paramilitary group, believed to be the UDA, plan to carry out gun attacks against them.
Derry's most senior police officer, divisional commander Stuart Tosh, said yesterday that his intelligence information suggested that loyalist paramilitaries intended to carry out attacks on Catholic construction workers on sites in the mainly Protestant Waterside area of the city.
Chief Supt Tosh's warning, issued 12 days after a lone UDA gunman attempted to murder a Co Donegal tradesman in the Waterside, stated that the police had "identified a significant threat" to Catholic workmen.
It is understood that police officers visited 40 building sites in the north-west area on Monday to inform contractors that the lives of their Catholic employees were at risk.
A site manager, Mr Stuart Graham, who is based at a Gilbert-Ash development in Derry's Waterside, said although his workmen reported for work yesterday morning, they were depressed and anxious.
The North's Security Minister, Ms Jane Kennedy, who visited Derry yesterday, said those who made such threats were thugs.
"Clearly there is a very real danger here at the moment," she told reporters.
A 28-year-old Lurgan man was last night charged with possession of a fire-arm, ammunition and explosives with intent to endanger life, and with possession of items for terrorist purposes. He will appear at Craigavon Magistrates' Court today.