Boys injured in blast

Two boys were injured tonight in an explosion at a horse racing event in Northern Ireland.

Dissident republicans were blamed for the small blast which occurred when a police cone containing the device was moved.

It is understood the boys, aged 15 and 16, received slight shrapnel wounds and burn marks following the incident at Farmacaffley point-to-point races in south Armagh.

As Army bomb disposal experts were called to the scene, security sources indicated the target was most likely police officers.

‘‘A car was waiting to move and these two young lads have moved a cone sitting in front of it,’’ one said.

‘‘Those who planted it obviously were hoping police would be moving the cones but they have hit the wrong people.’’

Police Service of Northern Ireland Inspector Jim Fulton said the cones had been placed by police to ease traffic congestion at the races.

‘‘This was a reckless and indiscriminate attack in which two children have been injured,’’ he said.

‘‘Thankfully their injuries are not life-threatening.’’

Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid denounced those responsible for the attack as ‘‘the lowest of the low’’.

‘‘These cowards have stooped to new depths in bombing two innocent teenagers at a sporting event,’’ he said.

‘‘The perpetrators of this vicious explosion do not belong in any right-thinking society, they belong in the past.’’

Conor Murphy, a local Sinn Fein member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, pointed at dissident republican paramilitary involvement.

‘‘If it is dissidents then they should disband at once,’’ he said.

‘‘These people have nothing to offer, they have no strategy, no policies and no support.’’