U.S. Water News Online
BELFAST, Ireland -- British army explosives experts defused a firebomb planted at a waterworks by dissident Irish republicans opposed to the Northern Ireland peace process, police said.
The bomb disposal team was called in after police said they received several warnings, purporting to come from the Continuity IRA, that a device had been left at the works in Keady, a mainly Catholic village in South Armagh, close to the Irish border.
Superintendent Bob Moore said those who planted the bomb, which was made from a gas cylinder and a container full of gasoline hidden in a garbage bin, were guilty of a "reckless and dangerous act."
"The device contained a lethal cocktail which, had it gone off, had the potential to cause considerable damage and would certainly have risked the lives of anyone in its vicinity," he said in a statement.
"It also had the potential to cause serious disruption to the water supply for around 10,000 homes."
The waterworks is not manned, but is visited daily by staff making checks, police said.
The mainstream Irish Republican Army called a cease-fire in its war against British rule in Northern Ireland in 1997.
But splinter groups such as the Continuity IRA and the Real IRA, who oppose the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, have continued to mount sporadic attacks in Northern Ireland and Britain.
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