Firefighters hailed over car bomb response

Firefighters were hailed as heroes today after evacuating residents moments before a car bomb exploded outside a police station in the North.

But there has been criticism at the lack of police presence in the area when the device detonated at the front of Newtownhamilton police station in south Armagh, injuring a man and elderly woman.

The front of the building was reportedly riddled with gunfire by those who abandoned the car at around 10.30pm last night. A telephone warning was made to a hospital in Belfast and the bomb exploded less than an hour later.

The station was unoccupied at the time and police were en route to the town when the bomb went off.

Fire service personnel were already at the scene and helped take local people to safety before the explosion.

Assembly member Danny Kennedy contrasted the response of the two services.

“The police were still not present at that time (when the bomb exploded) and had it not been for the excellent and very prompt work of local firemen then we could’ve had a very serious situation,” said the Ulster Unionist.

“Clearly those (police) response times are not appropriate, they are not in line with responses that should be given, given the overall security situation.”

Evacuated residents have been taken to nearby Newtownhamilton High School.

The attack, which damaged a number of homes, a pub and a community centre, happened 10 days after a device inside a vehicle was defused outside the station.

That incident came 24 hours after a Real IRA car bomb exploded outside the regional headquarters of MI5 in Holywood, Co Down, minutes after justice powers were devolved to Stormont from London.

The North’s new Justice Minister David Ford said the latest bombing was not just an attack on the people of Newtownhamilton but on the wider political process.

“With the progress that has been made in Northern Ireland, people will be asking who are dissident republicans fighting now?” he said.

“Are they fighting the notion of self-government on a scale never seen before in Northern Ireland?

“Are they fighting representatives from across this community who form the Northern Ireland Executive or are they fighting the people from all parts of the community who make up the police service?

“Those who planted this bomb want to drag Northern Ireland back to the dark days of murder and mayhem, they want to undermine the political process, they want politics to fail. I am determined that we will all continue to stand together so that they will not succeed.”

Newry and Armagh Sinn Fein MP Conor Murphy said: “There is little doubt that this bomb is the work of one of the small militarist factions. These people are opposed to the peace process and have no strategy to bring about political change or deliver Irish unity.

“This bomb sends a message that the peace process needs to be defended.”

In a separate incident last night, a pipe bomb exploded behind a house in the Chestnut Hill area of Brackaville, Coalisland, Co Tyrone, at around 11.30pm.

A man and a woman who were in the house at the time were not injured, but a number of windows were damaged.