A suspected bomb has been found underneath a car at a garage in Ballymena, County Antrim. Army bomb disposal officers are at the scene.
It is understood the device was discovered after the car was placed on a lift at the garage, on the Pennybridge industrial estate. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said two controlled explosions had been carried out and several nearby premises had been evacuated.
The local Democratic Unionist party MP Ian Paisley Jr said: “Whilst we do not know the viability of this suspect device, it is worrying that individuals are still engaging in this activity. People in Ballymena do not want to be dragged back to the past when such security alerts were unfortunately all too regular an occurrence.”
Suspicion is likely to fall on republican dissident groups. This week the anti-ceasefire Óglaigh na hÉireann faction fired a handheld rocket at a PSNI armoured Land Rover in north Belfast. The rocket failed to explode and no one was injured.
All the three main armed republican groups opposed to the peace process and power-sharing settlement in Northern Ireland have attempted to kill police officers and British soldiers using under-car devices, a tactic pioneered by the Provisional IRA during the Troubles.
In April 2011 a Catholic PSNI recruit, Ronan Kerr, was killed by a bomb placed under his car by a republican dissident group based in East Tyrone.
A year earlier a booby-trap device exploded underneath a car driven by another Catholic police officer, Peadar Heffron, in Randalstown, Co Antrim, causing serious injuries.
