LONDONDERRY: On Sunday, Two men were arrested over a car bomb attack in Northern Ireland`s Londonderry and police were searching into whether the New IRA militant group was responsible.
As per, Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton statement, “The men in their twenties were under arrest after the explosion on Saturday evening outside the city`s courthouse.” He further added that, "Fortunately it didn`t kill anybody but clearly it was a very significant attempt to kill people here in this community,"
Investigation main focus was on the New IRA - one of a small number of groups opposed to a 1998 peace deal that largely ended three decades of violence in the British-run province. They have carried out sporadic attacks in recent years.While, Politicians from all sides - including Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the nationalist Irish Republican Army (IRA) - condemned the explosion. "SHAME ON YOU"
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Saturday`s blast came at a time when police in both Northern Ireland and European Union-member Ireland have been warning that a return to a hard border between the two after Brexit, complete with traditions and other checks, could be a target for militant groups.
The Northern Ireland police force said it was just given minutes to evacuate children and hundreds of hotel guests before the explosion of what they described as a highly unstable, crude device that could have detonated at any time. Officers on patrol spotted a suspicious vehicle at the scene at about 1955 GMT, then received a warning five minutes later that a device had been left there.
"The New IRA, like most dissident republican groups in Northern Ireland, are small, largely unrepresentative, and just determined to drag people back to somewhere they don’t want to be," he said.
The last fatal attack involving a car bomb was carried out in 2016 by the New IRA when a prison officer was fatally injured by a bomb left under his van in Belfast. About 3,600 people were killed in the conflict that was fought between mainly Protestant unionists who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom and predominantly Catholic nationalists.
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