Northern Ireland police arrest four after bomb parts found

BELFAST - Police in Northern Ireland arrested four people yesterday on suspicion of terrorism after finding bomb-making equipment in a town close to the capital Belfast.

The arrests come as efforts intensify in the province, which has enjoyed nearly eight years of relative peace following a three-decade sectarian conflict, to revive a local government run by Irish nationalists and pro-British parties.

"Suspected bomb-making materials have been seized by police including a quantity of fertiliser," a police spokeswoman said. "Police have confirmed that they are linking this to dissident republican terrorists".

The spokeswoman said four men, aged between 22 and 46, had been arrested under the Terrorism Act.

Earlier, Dolores Kelly of the moderate Catholic SDLP party, said the bomb-making equipment was discovered in a breakers' (salvage) yard surrounded by houses and commercial properties and the bomb being made was believed to weigh 200 lb (91 kg).

"There is no doubt that these dissident republicans were intent on causing major trauma and damage," Kelly said. "They were also playing with the lives of the people of Lurgan by making such a sophisticated device in the heart of the community."

The IRA has been observing a cease-fire since the 1990s. Last year, the IRA promised to give up all violence to pursue its aims of uniting Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland through political means.

However, breakaway groups like the Real and Continuity IRA do not support the ceasefires.

The last major bomb attack in Northern Ireland was in August 1998, when the Real IRA detonated bombs in the market town of Omagh killing 29 people and injuring two hundred - the single worst attack of the Northern Irish conflict.

Since then, the peace ushered in by the landmark Good Friday Agreement earlier the same year has largely held, although political stability remains elusive.

Bombs blamed on Irish republicans have gone off in London since then however, notably at the BBC television centre in March 2000 and at Ealing Broadway in August 2001.

- REUTERS