Real IRA blamed for granade attack

Dissident republicans were today blamed for a grenade attack on an RUC Station.

Two parked cars were damaged and residents close to the Strand Road RUC Station base had to be evacuated as the device exploded at on the nearby Asylum Road.

The Real IRA, which in its Easter message vowed to continue the struggle to free Ireland from British rule, has been behind a series of attacks on security bases in Northern Ireland.

Security sources and politicians suspect that the group responsible for the Omagh bomb were behind this latest attack.

The Real IRA has carried out a number of attacks in the north west, including a ‘‘barrack buster’’ mortar attack on Ebrington barracks in Londonderry and last year it breached the perimeter fence of Ballykelly army base.

In the most recent incident, part of the Trehen Road in Londonderry was sealed off for three days when a bomb was planted inside a car.

Last week, the security forces made safe a fully primed barrack buster mortar bomb inside a van at Altmore Forest in Co Tyrone, believed to have been left by the Real IRA.

Democratic Unionist Security spokesman Gregory Campbell said it appeared to be part of the sequence of security related incidents perpetrated by republican terrorists.

‘‘If they repeatedly do this at some point they are going to be successful. There’s going to be a number of people killed or seriously injured. The security forces must maintain their vigilance,’’ he said.

He accused the terrorists of putting civilian lives at risk: ‘‘These people have no regard for who happens to be in their way.’’