'Eradicate Threat' Call After Police Bombing

Republican terrorism from their dissident faction has to be tackled with a campaign aimed at "eradicating the threat".

That's according to the Ulster Unionist spokesperson on policing matters, the MLA and NI Policing Board member, Basil McCrea who has described the dissident campaign as "corrosive" and has called for a "committed campaign to eradicate the threat".

He was commenting as it emerged that a police officer involved in evacuating the area around Strand Road police station in Londonderry during Tuesday's bomb attack was in fact lucky to be alive.

PSNI Sergeant Adrian Simpson alerted people who were standing in a fast food shop within a few feet of the car containing the device.

He risked his own life by walking past the bomb to bring people to safety.

Two hundred pounds of homemade explosives were used in the car bomb attack in which no one was injured, but several businesses were badly damaged.

A republican organisation calling itself Oglaigh na hEireann has claimed it was behind the bomb attack.

Mr McCrea said: "Despite the fact that dissident activity appears to be gathering pace, I am deeply worried that there is no focused response.

"It is time the Office of First and Deputy First Minister, the Northern Ireland Policing Board and the Chief Constable stepped up to the plate with a real plan of action.

"This is not going away, and unless we see real engagement with this growing threat the people of Northern Ireland will lose heart.

"The dissident campaign is corrosive, and threatens to drag us backwards - already such attacks are once again becoming a feature of life here," he said.

"Despite this, our response seems frighteningly blasé and suggests no strategy for dealing with increasingly regular attacks.

"We need a committed campaign to eradicate the threat before near misses become tragedies," the MLA said.

The politician's comments came as the Derry policeman explained that security cameras monitoring the area outside the Strand Road police station showed that there were three people in a nearby kebab shop.

The Sergeant said: "They were about 15ft from where the taxi had stopped.

"Those three people were completely unaware of the danger they were in.

"What we knew was there was a bomb outside the station which could go off at any time, and those people were completely unaware," he added.

"I'm sure it was frightening for people to have a police officer bursting in through the door at that time of the night and shouting very loudly that they needed to leave immediately."

"I have to consider myself lucky - if things had gone differently, people would have been killed."

Just hours after the explosion, in Bangor, an Army major also had a close call when a booby-trap bomb fell from his car.

The officer was driving away from his home in the Chatsworth area of Bangor, a quiet residential area, around 7.50am on Wednesday when he noticed a suspicious object lying on the driveway.

Around 30 homes were evacuated while the device was made safe.

See: West Belfast Families Flee Alert

(BMcC/CD)