Ireland, November 22: A Massive car bomb that failed to explode properly in Northern Ireland was designed to cause widespread destruction, police say.
The car, carrying 180kg of explosives, crashed through barriers outside a police building in Belfast and partially exploded.
Elsewhere, police exchanged shots with paramilitaries in a border village. Three people have been arrested.
The attacks come at a delicate time for Northern Ireland’s peace process. The main Protestant and Catholic parties, who share power in the province’s devolved assembly, are at loggerheads over when policing and justice responsibility should be transferred from London.
The threat from dissident paramilitary groups opposed to the peace process is “very serious” and at its highest level for six years, according to the watchdog monitoring their activities.
A police spokeswoman said two men were seen running away from the bomb-laden car after it crashed through the barriers shortly after 7pm local time.
Half an hour later, a small explosion went off inside the vehicle.
“Police believe at this early stage that the device only partially exploded. It had contained some 400 pounds (180kg) of explosives,” she said.
“Had this device functioned as the terrorists planned, there would certainly have been widespread damage and destruction.
“It is also very probable that this ‘no warning’ device would have led to very serious injury or loss of life.”
Northern Ireland police chief Matt Baggott called it “a reckless act – not just in doing damage but also the potential loss of life”.
Northern Ireland has been largely peaceful since the 1998 Good Friday agreement paved the way to powersharing between the province’s Protestant majority and Catholic minority.
But the killings of two British soldiers and a police officer in March this year – the first of their kind in about a decade – highlighted the renewed threat posed by dissident paramilitary groups.
—Agencies