Foiled bomb attack in Derry highlights deteriorating security situation in Northern Ireland
A foiled bomb attack in Dungiven, County Derry, targeting a police officer, has brought the deteriorating security climate in Northern Ireland into sharp relief.
The explosive device was reportedly attached to a container of flammable liquid next to the police officer’s car on Monday (April 20).
According to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), the device was “designed to cause a fireball which would have engulfed the victim’s car and anyone in it or close by”.
The targeted police officer, who is female, reportedly works part-time with the PSNI in a civilian role.
The disrupted attack comes in the wake of nearly two weeks of nightly protests and rioting by loyalist groups across Northern Ireland.
There has also been an upsurge of violence in Derry, with so-called dissident Republican groups blamed for a sharp rise in punishment attacks targeting drug dealers and criminals.
Dissident Irish Republicans, and specifically the New IRA group, are also suspected of targeting the police officer in Dungiven.
Northern Ireland’s First Minister, Michelle O'Neill, condemned the attempted bombing as a “shocking and deplorable attempt on the life of a police officer that will rightly be reviled across the community”.
O'Neill, who is also the vice-president of the largest Irish Republican group Sinn Féin, called on the group behind the attempted bomb attack to “disband”.
However, Northern Ireland’s First Minister, Arlene Foster, adopted a more factional position by appearing to implicate the entire nationalist community in the foiled attack.
Foster, who is also the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, said: "To the Republicans who sought to murder this young mother, your campaign is futile, you will never succeed".
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