New car bombing in Northern Ireland

Dissident republican extremists in Northern Ireland are "hell-bent on killing police officers". This is according a police chief, who made the warning on Friday after an overnight car bombing that left two people injured. New car bombing in Northern Ireland Police and firefighters were hailed as heroes for evacuating families from homes just minutes before the car bomb exploded at around midnight local time outside an unoccupied police station in Newtonhamilton, in County Armagh, near the border with the Republic of Ireland. A warning had been given minutes earlier in a telephone call to a hospital in Belfast. The attack was the second car bombing in the province in 10 days. It followed a warning from security chiefs that the terrorist threat level in Northern Ireland was at its highest since the 1998 car bombing in the town of Omagh, which killed 29, including a pregnant woman. "These people are hell-bent on killing police officers in the area," regional police chief Sam Cordner said Friday. Two people, including an elderly woman, were slightly hurt in the explosion. Northern Ireland's government chief Peter Robinson condemned the attack, which increased fears that dissident elements of the formerly terrorist Irish Republican Army (IRA) could step up their campaign of violence ahead of Britain's general election on May 6. Robinson said the bombers would not stop Northern Ireland continuing on the road to peace, a sentiment backed by his deputy, Martin McGuinness, who said the main parties were united in working together "for the greater good. "We cannot allow them (the dissidents) to define our future. They will not break the will of the community," said McGuinness, whose Sinn Fein Party once had close links with the IRA. Dissident groups unhappy with the mainstream IRA'S decision to lay down arms have continued to wage a low-level terrorist campaign in Northern Ireland. They are opposed to the peace process which was launched in 1998 and has brought Northern Ireland a regional power-sharing government in which Protestant Unionists and Catholic Republicans work together. Ten days ago, a car bomb exploded outside the headquarters of Britain's domestic intelligence service, MI5, in Holywood, north-east of Belfast. One passer-by was injured. That blast occurred as Northern Ireland marked a major step forward in the peace process by electing its own justice minister to the power-sharing government. David Ford is overseeing judicial and police services in the province 38 years after the crucial powers were assumed by London at the height of the "Troubles." "With the progress that has been made in Northern Ireland, people will be asking who are the dissident republicans fighting for now?" Ford said Friday. The province's mostly Catholic pro-Irish Republicans were locked for decades in a conflict with the mainly Protestant Unionists, who want Northern Ireland to remain part of Britain.

New car bombing in Northern Ireland

Police and firefighters were hailed as heroes for evacuating families from homes just minutes before the car bomb exploded at around midnight local time outside an unoccupied police station in Newtonhamilton, in County Armagh, near the border with the Republic of Ireland.

A warning had been given minutes earlier in a telephone call to a hospital in Belfast. The attack was the second car bombing in the province in 10 days.

It followed a warning from security chiefs that the terrorist threat level in Northern Ireland was at its highest since the 1998 car bombing in the town of Omagh, which killed 29, including a pregnant woman.

"These people are hell-bent on killing police officers in the area," regional police chief Sam Cordner said Friday. Two people, including an elderly woman, were slightly hurt in the explosion.

Northern Ireland's government chief Peter Robinson condemned the attack, which increased fears that dissident elements of the formerly terrorist Irish Republican Army (IRA) could step up their campaign of violence ahead of Britain's general election on May 6.

Robinson said the bombers would not stop Northern Ireland continuing on the road to peace, a sentiment backed by his deputy, Martin McGuinness, who said the main parties were united in working together "for the greater good.

"We cannot allow them (the dissidents) to define our future. They will not break the will of the community," said McGuinness, whose Sinn Fein Party once had close links with the IRA.

Dissident groups unhappy with the mainstream IRA'S decision to lay down arms have continued to wage a low-level terrorist campaign in Northern Ireland.

They are opposed to the peace process which was launched in 1998 and has brought Northern Ireland a regional power-sharing government in which Protestant Unionists and Catholic Republicans work together.

Ten days ago, a car bomb exploded outside the headquarters of Britain's domestic intelligence service, MI5, in Holywood, north-east of Belfast. One passer-by was injured.

That blast occurred as Northern Ireland marked a major step forward in the peace process by electing its own justice minister to the power-sharing government.

David Ford is overseeing judicial and police services in the province 38 years after the crucial powers were assumed by London at the height of the "Troubles."

"With the progress that has been made in Northern Ireland, people will be asking who are the dissident republicans fighting for now?" Ford said Friday.

The province's mostly Catholic pro-Irish Republicans were locked for decades in a conflict with the mainly Protestant Unionists, who want Northern Ireland to remain part of Britain.