'Dissidents behind' bomb attack

A taxi driver was told to take the bomb to the police station

Dissident republicans are being blamed for an attempted bomb attack on a police station in Lurgan.

A device was placed in a taxi at about 2200 BST on Tuesday and the driver was told to take it to the station. He abandoned it outside a nearby GAA club.

As the Army made the device safe, 30 petrol bombs, bricks and bottles were thrown at police. Seven officers were injured in the incident.

The SDLP's Dolores Kelly said dissident republicans were behind the attack.

"This is the work of dissident republicans, there is no doubt about it," the assembly member said.

"In Lurgan we are used to home-made bombs being used to entice police officers to a location where they are attacked.

"This is a sinister development in that pattern of activity, the driver was forced into the position of being a reluctant bomber."

Trouble

Sinn Fein councillor Michael Tallon also condemned the attacks, but said police officers had helped escalate the trouble.

"If this is dissidents, what was done has stirred up a lot of trouble," he said.

"I totally condemn what has happened here. I totally condemn the device going into the car of a man going about his working day, but I also condemn the actions of the PSNI, the PSNI was heavy-handed."

Upper Bann DUP MP David Simpson said it was a very sinister incident.

He said: "I understand the device was in a barrel form and was a very credible device and could have done damage and we could have had fatalities in the Lurgan police station.

"This comes days after we are given another statement from the Provisional IRA saying they have ordered their men to stand down and everything is going to be hunky-dory.

"Now we see the credibility of that statement again."

Craigavon Borough Council's Ulster Unionist mayor George Savage said it was a "worrying development".

"There is an old saying - these people just don't go away," he said.

"The people who put that bomb in that car, they meant to kill, no doubt about that."

Army technical experts, who made the device safe, described the bomb as "crude but viable".