Man arrested following latest suspected dissident attack on police

A man has been arrested by the PSNI following the discovery of a mortar bomb and a command wire in west Belfast late last night.

The arrest of the 22-year-old was linked to the discovery of a device in the Glen Road area of the city, which led to the evacuation of 12 homes.

British army technical officers were called in to deal with the alert, which ended this morning.

The incident followed a similar attempted attack by suspected dissident paramilitaries on a PSNI vehicle in the nearby Falls Road last week.

In that incident, a command wire was used to detonate an improvised device near the City Cemetery as the police patrol passed by.

The vehicle was hit, but only minimal damage was caused and no one was hurt.

A dissident group, styling itself the IRA, said it carried out the attack.

The BBC in Belfast said it was told by the group the device contained a quantity of semtex explosives.

If true, this could mean dissident groups now have access to new supplies of high explosives rather than simply acquiring munitions, which were once in the hands of the Provisional IRA.

It was the same grouping that murdered prison officer David Black as he drove to work along the M1 in Co Armagh in November 2012.