A pensioner targeted in a bomb attack today claimed it happened because he was a member of a Northern Ireland policing forum.

Two pensioners escaped injury when a bomb exploded at their home in Co Tyrone, it emerged today.

A protestant shot dead by republican gunmen in front of his catholic girlfriend in Northern Ireland was a former loyalist paramilitary prisoner, it was disclosed today.

Mr Ivan Barr, the Sinn Fein Chairman of Strabane District Council, said he was horrified by the killing of a protestant man as he left the home of his Catholic girlfriend las night.

Dissident republicans are being blamed for the overnight explosion outside a Co Tyrone RUC station.