Police HQ in N. Ireland Target of Car Bombing
A weekend of violent outbreaks leads to the arrest of four men in what is being called a "foiled terrorist attack."
Police headquarters in Belfast, Northern Ireland was the target of Saturday night's car bombing containing 400 lbs. of explosives. There were no injuries from the blast which only partially exploded, as reported by the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
It is unclear if the bomb malfunctioned or if it was not capable of creating a larger blast. According to the police, the car crashed through barriers at Clarendon Dock in Belfast at around 7:10 p.m., Saturday night. No warning was given before the attack.
Police believe a separate car which was set on fire nearby, not long afterwards, is linked to the attack. They are asking anyone with information to come forward.
The police are seeing an increase in violent outbreaks on the province take place not only over the weekend but over the year, demonstrating what is believed to be the republican dissidents widening their attacks across Northern Ireland. The republican dissidents are a reference to militants opposed to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended decades of sectarian violence in the province.
In both Fermanagh and Garrison, shots were fired at police officers. There were no reports of injuries but four men were arrested in what is being called a "foiled terrorist attack" by the PSNI.
Alex Attwood, an SDLP police board member, said the scale of attacks appears to be widening and organized, as he told The Guardian, "The incidents at Clarendon Dock and in Fermanagh are very grave concerns. It appears that the dissidents are broadening the scale of their attacks on democracy."
Three murders have taken place in March of this year when Real IRA shot police officers, Mark Quinsey, 23, and Patrick Azimkar, 21, at Massereene Army base in Antrim and Continuity IRA shot PSNI Constable Stephen Paul Carroll in Craigavon.
Though the province has remained mostly calm, since the shootings, the International Monitoring Commission, a group set up to monitor the activities of paramilitary groups, has reported 11 attempts to kill PSNI members throughout Northern Ireland.
The IMC warns that the three main dissident groups, the Continuity IRA, the Real IRA and Oghlaigh na hEireann, are now working more closely together than in previous years, and issued in its report, "The overall level of dissident activity was markedly higher than we have seen since we first met in late 2003. Dissident republicans were violent and showed intent to kill if the opportunity arose."
