Security forces in Northern Ireland defused a bomb which fell off a policewoman's car on Saturday, the third bomb targeting police or a soldier encountered in the province in less than a week.
Security forces in Northern Ireland defused a bomb which fell off a policewoman's car on Saturday, the third bomb targeting police or a soldier encountered in the province in less than a week.
The device dropped off as the policewoman drove away from her home in Killkeel, County Down and was made safe after a lengthy operation.
Security forces also defused a booby trap bomb planted under a soldier's car on Wednesday, in the first apparent attack against an army officer since a fatal shooting by nationalist militants last year.
On Tuesday, nationalist militants exploded a car bomb outside a police station in Londonderry.
Attacks, often aimed at police, have increased since nationalist splinter groups seeking a united Ireland killed two soldiers in March 2009 at an army barracks in County Antrim, northwest of Belfast, and killed a police officer a day later.
Most analysts agree the groups do not pose a fundamental threat to a 1998 peace deal that largely ended violence between predominantly Catholic nationalists and mainly Protestant unionists who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK.
The three decades of conflict cost more than 3,600 lives.
"This device was designed for one purpose -- to kill and injure," police superintendent Barbara Gray said in a statement. "We are fortunate that we are not dealing with a murder today."
The policewoman targeted is the niece of an independent republican local councilor, Martin Connolly, who quit the nationalist Sinn Fein three years ago when the party decided to put its support behind the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Police and justice powers in the province were transferred to Belfast from London in April. Connolly declined to condemn Saturday's attempted attack, saying he "did not want to get into the politics of condemnation".
Sinn Fein said this week it would attempt to engage in talks with what is regarded as the political wing of the Real IRA dissident group following recent attacks.
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