Tensions rise after bomb find near base

TENSIONS and political uncertainties in Northern Ireland have been further heightened by the discovery of up to 1,000lb of home made explosives in Co Armagh on Thursday night. It is not yet clear whether the find was a bomb fully primed or assembled.

No organisation has yet admitted leaving the device close to a British army base near Armagh city, although suspicion is falling on a republican splinter organisation, the Continuity Army Council, and the IRA.

The explosives were found under bales of straw covered by black sheeting in a trailer on Thursday evening. It was abandoned at the gateway to a field on the Hamillownsbawn Road, a mile outside Armagh city and about half a mile from the British army base at Drumadd. The RUC said it was trying to establish if the explosives were in transit to the base.

British army bomb experts have been dealing with the explosives. A controlled explosion was carried out and the bomb experts hope to complete their work today. Some 12 families have been evacuated from their homes.

The find comes eight days after a 600lb bomb left outside the RUC headquarters at Strand Road, Derry, was defused by the British army. The IRA Continuity Army Council (CAC) - it opposes Sinn Fein's political strategy - admitted planting that bomb.

The CAC has also claimed the bomb which destroyed the Killyhevlin Hotel in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, in July. It also unsuccessfully tried to plant a car bomb in Belfast in August. One senior security source said yesterday: "We don't know whether it was the IRA or the so called Continuity Army Council, or whether there is any distinction between the two."

However, unionist politicians were not drawing any distinction's between the two groupings. The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, called for a swift British army/RUC response. "The IRAN has got to be put down militarily," he said.

Mr John Taylor, deputy leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), claimed the IRA was preparing for a new onslaught in Northern Ireland. "It underlines how correct the prime minister has been about the conditions upon which Sinn Fein can enter the talks. The Dublin Government and John Hume are once again being made to look foolish by Sinn Fein and the IRA."

Mr Seamus Mallon, deputy leader of the SDLP, said the timing of the bomb was no accident. "It was deliberately timed to be as destructive as possible to the peace process.