Pipe bombs found at GAA ground

Two pipe bombs have been found in a GAA ground in Co Derry, the RUC said today.

Army bomb disposal experts were called to deal with the devices which were uncovered during a search of Desertmartin Gaelic Athletic ground near Magherafelt.

They were found near an entrance and by a perimeter fence.

Two other bombs have also been defused in Garvagh and Gulladuff.

The devices are favoured by loyalist paramilitaries who yesterday issued a warning that Gaelic Athletic Association grounds in counties Derry and Tyrone would be targeted.

The dissident loyalist Red Hand Defenders - a name used in the past as a cover name for both the Ulster Defence Association and the Loyalist Volunteer Force - issued a warning that it was planning to step up its terror campaign.

The group also claimed responsibility for a pipe bomb placed in the letterbox of Sinn Fein MP Martin McGuinness’s Cookstown constituency office and a booby trap device under the van of a republican ex-prisoner in Armagh yesterday.

Security forces were also examining a Red Hand Defenders’ claim that a device had been left at the courthouse in Dungannon.

A suspicious object was also being dealt with outside a bank in South Parade in south Belfast, off the Ormeau Road.

The Red Hand Defenders’ threat and the recent attacks prompted SDLP chairman Alex Attwood and Sinn Fein MLA Conor Murphy today to call on the Northern Ireland Secretary to constantly review the UDA ceasefire.