Police in Northern Ireland opened an attempted murder investigation on Friday, following a home bomb attack on the car of two officers, which sparked a wave of political condemnation.
The attack, carried out with “a possible explosive device”, took place on Thursday in the town of Strabane, near the border with the Republic of Ireland, the Police Services for Northern Ireland (PSNI) said.
It is the first time in years that an anti-police bomb has exploded in this British nation with a troubled past.
In April 2021, Northern Irish Police defused a bomb, consisting of explosives attached to a container of flammable liquid, found under the car of a female police officer in the town of Dungiven. The act was claimed by the New IRA, a dissident republican group from the former Irish Republican Army (IRA).
The officers targeted by the new attack on Thursday were patrolling their usual area when they sensed the blast but were not injured, said Bobby Singleton, head of the PSNI.
They later found evidence of the device’s presence, including its apparent wiring, he said.
Police “an important line of inquiry” believe the New IRA may be behind this attack, which comes at a time of great instability in Northern Ireland.
The region has been stripped of its autonomous government and parliament since February due to a blockade by the unionist party DUP in protest against the special trade statute applied after Brexit, which they denounce as a separation from the rest of the UK.
The attack was condemned on Friday in Belfast, London and Dublin.
“They won’t be able to drag society back,” tweeted Republican Sinn Féin Vice-President Michelle O’Neill, who is expected to become regional prime minister if institutions are restored, urging the population to “Unite against these reckless actions.”
British Northern Ireland minister Chris Heaton-Harris called it a “reckless act” and “highly dangerous”.
And the Irish Prime Minister, Micheál Martin, believed that “any attempt to harm members of the security forces or the PSNI would be absolutely scandalous and must be condemned”.
The 1998 peace accord ended three decades of bloody conflict between Catholic Republicans and Protestant Unionists that left some 3,500 dead.
