A SOLDIER has escaped unharmed after an unexploded booby-trap device fell off his car outside his Co Down home yesterday.
The levels of intelligence known to the bombers has caused some alarm to the authorities.
The soldier spotted the device lying on the driveway of his home in Bangor as he prepared to drive away. Some 30 houses in the immediate vicinity of the quiet Chatsworth neighbourhood were evacuated and the bomb was made safe by British army technical experts.
Police later said the bomb was viable and capable of causing “catastrophic” death and injury.
The intended victim is an army major thought to be stationed in the locality. Police believe dissident republicans are behind the failed attack which followed the car bombing of a police station in Derry city centre in the early hours of Tuesday. No one was injured in that attack but serious blast damage was caused in the Strand Road area.
PSNI Chief Superintendent Nigel Grimshaw condemned those responsible for yesterday’s incident. “When you place any sort of device in a quiet residential area, where a lot of people would have been going about their daily business, the results could have been catastrophic – it could have killed or caused very serious injury,” he said.
“The bottom line is this was a member of the community going about their daily business. The individual should consider [himself] very lucky.”
DUP Assembly member and policing board member Peter Weir said: “I have no doubt that, by their actions, the criminals are trying to send a message that they can come into a law-abiding and peaceful part of Northern Ireland in order to peddle their own brand of evil. They are mistaken.”
The bombers were “crazed fanatics” he said who “must be crushed”.
SDLP justice spokesman Alban Maginness said the attack suggested a high level of intelligence in the hands of those responsible.
“There should be a full and frank statement from the PSNI indicating who is responsible for this attack that informs on the nature and capacity of the explosive device, on how sophisticated it was.”
Ulster Unionist Assembly member Leslie Cree said the authorities could not be complacent just because the device did not explode.
“There is no doubt this shocking attack further confirms fears of a surge in dissident activity, and it is clear that any cut to the policing budget is not an option in the current climate. We need to deploy additional resources and make ending the dissident campaign a political and policing imperative.”
Alliance North Down Assembly member Stephen Farry described it as a callous attempt to cause death and injury. “We must not let these people wreck the peace process – the public does not want Northern Ireland to be dragged back into the terrible days of the Troubles,” he said.
Independent unionist Assembly member Alan McFarland said: “It is obviously disturbing in that the threat from dissidents is moving outside the big cities where dissidents have tended to work. It is the first time they have gone into provincial areas like Bangor.”
One of several buildings badly damaged in Tuesday’s early morning Real IRA car bomb attack outside Derry’s police headquarters at Strand Road collapsed yesterday, just feet from forensic officers who were combing the scene of the 200lb bomb blast.
Several dozen forensic officers continued their search as the road outside the police station, one of the main city centre arterial routes, remained closed to traffic. That closure is expected to continue until at least this evening.
This resulted in an at-times heated meeting yesterday between business proprietors and senior police officers who defended what they said was the need for the section of the road to remain shut until the examinations were completed.
Several buildings across the road from the Strand Road police station sustained serious structural damage.