BRITISH police patrol cars led a procession of traffic onto the M6 motorway yesterday when it reopened 30 hours after two bombs were discovered on an underpass on Thursday.
The IRA last night admitted responsibility for the bombs and suspicious devices. A male caller to the RTE newsroom in Dublin used a code word.
The security alert began on Thursday morning when a phone call to a Walsall hotel said a bomb had been planted on the M6 motorway. The area was immediately thrown into chaos when Warwickshire police received an "authenticated" telephone call saying a similar device had been planted on the M1.
Two bombs were later found on an underpass at Junction Nine of the M6. One device was destroyed in a controlled explosion and the second failed to explode. No bombs were found on the M1.
Supt Richard Fowler of the West Midlands Police said last night he could not comment on reports that one of the bombs found at Junction Nine of the M6 contained Semtex.
At one stage during the police search yesterday, two junctions of the M5 motorway were closed when a barrel was found beside the road. A police spokeswoman said the barrel was checked by members of a bomb disposal team and found to be harmless.
A spokesman for the motoring organisation, the RAC, said: "The motorway network around the intersection between the M5 and the M6 is usually the busiest in Europe and it would be fair to say that its closure has caused absolute chaos for drivers.