Tag: Bomb

  • UK: Bomb under policeman’s car

    UK: Bomb under policeman’s car

    A viable bomb placed under a serving police officer’s car in Belfast was a murder attempt by dissident republican paramilitaries, the police have said.

    The unexploded device was discovered on the Upper Newtownards Road at about 14:00 GMT on Sunday.

    Army bomb disposal officers have been called to deal with the device and have carried out a controlled explosion.

    The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said the bomb was “clearly intended to kill the police officer”.

    Evacuated

    In a statement, PSNI Assistant Chief Constable George Hamilton said: “It is very fortunate that this device was detected before it exploded and that no one was killed or seriously injured.

    “Initial investigations would indicate that this was a viable device placed below an officer’s car sometime in the last 48 hours.”

    ACC Hamilton added that the officer’s family and neighbours “were also put at risk of serious harm”.

    A number of houses in the area have been evacuated. The nearby Stormont Presbyterian Church has been opened for residents forced to leave their homes.

    The Upper Newtownards Road has been closed to traffic between the Knock Road junction and Cabin Hill Park.

    ACC Hamilton added: “Our belief is that this attempted murder was carried by those opposed to peace from within dissident republicanism.

    “They don’t care who they attack, they don’t care who they kill. They are simply anti-peace and determined to carry on bringing pain and devastation to families and communities by maiming and killing.”

    Booby-trap

    In recent years, dissident republican paramilitary groups have carried out a number of attacks on PSNI officers.

    In April 2011, Constable Ronan Kerr was killed when a booby-trap car bomb exploded under his car in Omagh, County Tyrone.

    The previous year, Constable Peadar Heffron lost a leg in a similar attack as he drove to work in Randalstown, County Antrim.

    The SDLP’s spokesperson on policing, Conall McDevitt, condemned the latest attack, describing it as a “cynical and deplorable act”.

    He said: “Those seeking to target police officers are undermining not only the stated will of the people of Ireland who have long since rejected violence, but also the desire for a new beginning for policing in the north, which is shared by the majority of citizens.”

    Mr McDevitt urged anyone with information about the attack to contact the PSNI.

    ‘Cowardly act’

    Robin Newton from the DUP said the attack was an attempt to murder.

    “Those who placed this potential bomb have nothing to offer the community except heartache and sorrow,” the East Belfast MLA said.

    “I pay tribute to the PSNI officers and the bomb squad officers who risked their lives to make the area safe, not only for the intended victim but all who live in close proximity,” Mr Newton said.

    The Alliance MLA for the area, Chris Lyttle, said: “My immediate thoughts and prayers are with the officer and the family directly affected by this cowardly act.”

    “I’d also give my full support to every serving PSNI officer working to uphold the rule of law at this difficult time,” he added.

     

     

     

     

    BBC

  • UPS air cargo blocked by Britain over security concerns

    UPS air cargo blocked by Britain over security concerns

    UPS air cargo blocked by Britain over security concerns

    Fake bomb was found on UPS flight in March while printer cartridge bomb was discovered on one of firm’s planes in 2010

    Adam Gabbatt
    guardian.co.uk

    Packages being removed from a UPS container at East Midlands airport after suspected bomb was found

    Packages being removed from a UPS container at East Midlands airport after a suspected bomb was found in October 2010. Photograph: Darren Staples/Reuters
    Packages being removed from a UPS container at East Midlands airport after a suspected bomb was found in October 2010. Photograph: Darren Staples/Reuters

    The Department for Transport has barred the delivery firm UPS from moving air cargo through sites in the UK due to “security requirements”.

    A spokeswoman would not reveal which sites had been restricted and why the move had been taken. Asked if it was due to an explosive device, she said the DfT would not “give details of security arrangements”.

    In March, an investigation was launched after a fake bomb was placed on a UPS flight to Istanbul. The Metropolitan police arrested a 26-year-old man, but said the incident was not terrorist related. The suspicious device travelled to Turkey from the UK without being detected.

    In October 2010, a printer cartridge bomb was found on a UPS cargo plane at East Midlands airport, triggering new security measures in the UK, implemented from November.

    The UPS plane was bound for Chicago, and an alarm clock on a mobile phone attached to the device was set to go off at 10.30am BST – when the plane would have been over the eastern seaboard of the US.

    “The safety of the travelling public is paramount and our security regime is kept under constant review,” the DfT spokeswoman said.

    “We can confirm that, following careful consideration, the department has restricted the number of sites in the UK at which UPS Ltd are permitted to screen air cargo until it has satisfied current security requirements.”

    She added: “For obvious security reasons we will not comment on the details.”

    UPS was not immediately available for comment.

    via UPS air cargo blocked by Britain over security concerns | World news | guardian.co.uk.

  • Suspicious ‘wedding cake’ package reaches Istanbul in UK cargo aircraft

    Suspicious ‘wedding cake’ package reaches Istanbul in UK cargo aircraft

    A fake bomb carried on board a cargo aircraft from Britain to Istanbul, consisting of a wedding cake box with a timer, wires and a detonator, wasn’t discovered until the plane reached its destination.

    upsThe suspicious package went undetected after being delivered to carrier UPS in Camden, north London, a fortnight ago, according to ITN.

    UPS is the same airline that carried a bomb disguised as a printer ink cartridge from Yemen to East Midlands airport last year.

    According to the Metropolitan Police, a search was carried out at an address in north London after the latest incident and a 26-year-old man arrested. He was later bailed to return on a date in May.

    A spokesman at the Department for Transport said they were aware of the incident and took it very seriously.

    ‘We have already begun an investigation which will look at all aspects of this incident, including UPS’s procedures,’ a Department for Transport spokesperson commented.

    ‘The UK has one of the toughest security regimes for air cargo in the world. All security measures are subject to continuous review.’

    In a statement, UPS confirmed that ‘a suspicious package’ travelled in its network aboard an all-cargo aircraft from the UK to Turkey.

    ‘UPS is cooperating with the British Department for Transport’s investigation of the incident,’ the statement continued.

    The bomb hoax is not believed to be linked to terrorism.

    In the wake of the 2010 incident involving two bombs disguised as printers and sent to the US by Yemen-based al-Qaeda, cargo screening procedures across the world were supposed to have been tightened.

    via Suspicious ‘wedding cake’ package reaches Istanbul in UK cargo aircraft | Metro.co.uk.

  • While you were watching Egypt, Balkans are like a bomb ready to explode

    While you were watching Egypt, Balkans are like a bomb ready to explode

    SHARP-EYED observers have noted that some of the protestors that brought down Egypt’s president used the clenched-fist logo of  Otpor, the well-organised, foreign-financed civic resistance movement that helped topple Slobodan Milosevic in 2000. Parts of the Serbian press, notes Florian Bieber, an academic who works on Balkan affairs, have claimed that former Otpor activists helped train some of the opposition groups.

    balkans

    With the world’s attention on the Arab world, the political instability gripping much of the western Balkans has largely been ignored. Yet so serious is the unrest here—including mass demonstrations in BelgradeTirana and Skopje—that one diplomat told me his country’s foreign ministry had asked him if he thought that Egypt-style revolution might sweep northwards into the Balkans. (His answer was an emphatic “no”.) Here is a round-up of recent developments:

    Kosovo held an election on December 12th, but still has no government. Following allegations of “industrial-scale” fraud, re-runs had to be held. Until an apparent breakthrough yesterday, the country’s politicians had been unable to secure the basic outlines of a deal which would permit the formation of a government. Now, however, a faction within the Democratic Party of Kosovo of Hashim Thaci, the acting prime minister, has been forced to drop its insistence that its man, Jakup Krasniqi, the acting president, be given the job formally.

    Behgjet Pacolli, a tycoon, now looks set to become president. In exchange his party, the New Kosovo Alliance, will enter into coalition with Mr Thaci. Mr Pacolli is married to a Russian, which, given Moscow’s refusal to recognise Kosovo’s independence, leaves some Kosovars appalled.

    Two years after independence, Mr Thaci has never been so weak politically. He has been weakened by a row with Fatmir Limaj, the outgoing minister of transport, who enjoys much support in the party. Internationally, his standing has been shredded by a recent Council of Europe report making all sorts of lurid allegations against him. EULEX, the EU’s police mission in Kosovo, is now investigating. Partly as a consequence Kosovo’s European integration process has failed to get off the ground. Five of the EU’s 27 members do not recognise Kosovo.

    The situation in Macedonia is little better. Nikola Gruevski, the prime minister, has set off for Washington seeking support for his attempts to speed EU and NATO integration, but he may get his ear chewed off when he arrives. Solving the almost 20-year-old name dispute with Greece appears less of a priority in Skopje than ever. Construction of a giant  plinth that will support a statue of Alexander the Great is proceeding briskly, guaranteeing fresh outrage in Greece.

    The Social Democratic opposition has pulled out of parliament, and Macedonia is gripped by the saga of A1 Television, whose bank accounts have been frozen for a second time by the courts. Mr Gruevski’s opponents say that the government is trying to muzzle the last bastion of free speech in the country. Nonsense, claim government supporters. The courts are simply clamping down on tax evasion. In fact, the two arguments do not contradict each other. The smart money is on an early election in June.

    Meanwhile a small group of Albanians and Macedonians fought a pitched battle in Skopje castle on February 13th, where the government has begun building what it says is a museum, in the shape of a church. The problem is that the castle is in an Albanian, and hence Muslim, part of town. When the Albanians protested, saying that the structure was being built over an ancient Illyrian site,  Pasko Kuzman, the chief archaeologist, said construction would stop. But builders went in at night to continue their work, which led the Albanians to try and dismantle the structure. And so on, and so on.

    Over in Albania the prime minister, Sali Berisha, has accused the opposition of staging a coup, following a demonstration on January 21st that went horribly wrong when Republican Guards allegedly fired on opposition supporters, killing four. The demonstration sprang from charges by the opposition, led by Edi Rama, the Socialist mayor of Tirana, that Mr Berisha was returned to power in June 2009 by fraudulent elections. Unlike Macedonia, Albania is a member of NATO, but its EU integration path has effectively stalled.*

    The Serbian government has been holed and is taking on water—but has not sunk yet. Mladjan Dinkic, head of the G17 Plus party and Serbia’s deputy prime minister, had been openly criticising his governmental colleagues from President Boris Tadic’s Democratic Party. On February 14th Mirko Cvetkovic, the prime minister, moved to sack him. Mr Dinkic resigned today but stopped short of pulling his party out of the government.

    How long the Serbian government can limp on like this is anyone’s guess. Tomislav Nikolic, leader of the opposition Serbian Progressive Party, has said that unless new elections are called before April 5th he will lead more protests in Belgrade. Watch this space.

    Last but not least, Bosnia and Hercegovina. Elections there were held on October 3rd, but there is still no government at state level. No surprise there. Progress on anything, let alone EU integration, has been stalled in Bosnia since 2006 in the wake of the failure of the so-called “April Package” of constitutional reforms. Al Jazeera recently announced plans for a Balkans channel, based in Sarajevo and broadcasting in what it delicately calls “the regional language”. Given the station’s role as the cheerleader of revolt in Tunisia and Egypt, one can understand diplomats’ concerns.

    Global Agenda

  • Bomb explodes near N Ireland MI5 base

    Bomb explodes near N Ireland MI5 base

    The Real IRA has admitted it was behind a car bomb which exploded outside MI5’s Northern Ireland headquarters.

    Palace

    The blast seems to have been timed to coincide with the precise moment that policing and justice powers devolved from Westminster to Stormont.

    It happened at about 0020 BST outside Palace Barracks, in Holywood, County Down. Police said no warning was given.

    The bomb went off as the surrounding area was being evacuated. An elderly man was treated for minor injuries.

    The bomb was placed in a taxi, which had been hijacked in the Ligoniel area of north Belfast, about seven miles from Holywood, at about 2150 BST.

    The driver was held hostage by three men for about two hours before being told to drive his taxi to the barracks.

    The vehicle was abandoned at the base just before midnight prompting police and security staff to evacuate the area. The bomb exploded about 20 minutes later as the evacuation was still taking place.

    An elderly man walking near the barracks at the time of the explosion was treated in hospital for minor injuries.

    There were two explosions – first the bomb and then the petrol tank, destroying the car and damaging other property.

    Chief Superintendent Nigel Grimshaw said the police had not received a telephoned warning about the attack.

    He said the taxi used was destroyed in the “significant explosion”.

    The senior officer visited the scene on Sunday night.

    “I saw young children in the arms of mothers and fathers, where we had moved people from the community into a local community centre – that’s the type of people who were affected by this totally callous act.

    “There is no question in my mind that it was designed to kill or seriously injure and that’s exactly what would have happened, were it not for the actions of my officers, military colleagues and indeed the community themselves who co-operated fully with us.”

    Up to 60 people were moved from their homes and spent the night in a community centre.

    The attack appears to have been timed to coincide with the transfer of policing and justice powers from London to Belfast.

    Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward said this “democratic transition stands in stark contrast to the activity of a criminal few who will not accept the will of the majority of people of Northern Ireland”.

    “They have no support anywhere,” he added.

    BBC