Police lured to dissident republican double-bomb trap in Armagh PSNI says officers called to reports of a bomb in Lurgan, Co Armagh, met by the detonation of a concealed second device ‘absolutely designed to kill.
Dissident republicans tried to kill police officers in a double-bomb trap in Northern Ireland, it was confirmed on Sunday.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland said that a search team looking for an explosive device had a narrow escape after a second bomb exploded in Lurgan, County Armagh, around teatime on Saturday.
During the police search operation, officers also came under attack from youths throwing petrol bombs and bricks.
Suspicion has fallen on Continuity IRA, the most hardline of the dissident republican factions opposed to peace and power-sharing in Northern Ireland. CIRA has a small but active base in the North Armagh-Lurgan area.
PSNI Supt David Moore said the bomb that exploded was “significant and absolutely designed to kill”.
The security alert started on Saturday morning after a caller rang the Samaritans to claim a bomb had been left close to Victoria Street in Lurgan.
Supt Moore said this call was the start of an elaborate trap to kill his officers.
He added: “It is my belief that the phone call and the first device were designed to lure police into the area to be targeted by the second device.
“This was a clear and unequivocal murder attempt on the policemen and women who serve the community in Lurgan.”
As PSNI officers were evacuating homes in Victoria Street having found the first bomb, a second explosive device was detonated, he said.
Supt Moore added: “It is also disappointing that during this operation police officers were subjected to repeated attack with petrol bombs and bricks by a small and unrepresentative section of the community.”
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As a result of the security operation, the railway line between Belfast to Dublin was disrupted, with passengers having to be ferried between Lisburn and Newry before catching another train to the Irish capital.
Northern Ireland’s education minister and the Sinn Féin assembly representative for the area, John O’Dowd, condemned those responsible for this terror attack in his constituency.
“Those behind this alert are not representative of the people of Lurgan and should stop these pointless actions immediately,” he said.
The region’s justice minister, David Ford, said whoever was behind the attack “had a clear intention to kill police officers”.
“They showed absolutely no regard for local residents, who could have been killed or injured,” he said.
The SDLP, Alliance, the Ulster Unionists and Democratic Unionist party also condemned those who placed the two bombs in the Co Armagh town.
Continuity IRA has been active in North Armagh for almost two decades now and was responsible for killing the first ever PSNI officer to die at the hands of paramilitaries. In March 2009, a Continuity IRA gunman shot dead 48-year-old constable Stephen Carroll in nearby Craigavon.
The hardline republican faction has mounted several attacks on the security forces as well as frequently disrupting the Belfast to Dublin rail route with hoax bomb alerts. It is the least likely of the three main dissident republican groups to consider a ceasefire and is politically aligned to republican Sinn Féin.
