A 300lb car bomb has been discovered in Co Down days after a warning was received. Police and army disposal experts have been carrying out tests on the vehicle since Tuesday when a telephone bomb warning was received.
The viable home-made device, which has now been made safe, was placed in the back of a black Volkswagen Bora in the village of Castlewellan.
The callers claimed the bomb was originally intended for the nearby British army base at Ballykinler but that it had been abandoned.
The suspect car was parked on the village’s Dublin Road close to the Burrenreagh Road junction.
PSNI Superintendent Greg Blain said that the bomb was on a road used regularly by pupils, parents and teachers.
“The people who carried this out showed a callous disregard for the lives of everyone in our community,” he said.
“They planted a large viable device in a car, abandoned it in an area close to local houses and schools, and then phoned through vague warnings about the locality and nature of the threat.
Supt Blain said the caller who made the bomb warning to a local newspaper claimed to be from a so-called dissident republican organisation.
The last 18 months has seen an upsurge in violent activity from republican paramilitaries opposed to the peace process. More than a dozen unsuccessful murder bids have been launched against PSNI officers in that time.
PA