Terrorist attack in Ireland

Irish terrorists blew up the city
A powerful explosion occurred last Saturday in the provincial town of Omagh (Northern Ireland): 28 people were killed and another 220 were injured of varying degrees of severity. This is the largest terrorist attack in the entire 30-year history of religious unrest in this British province.

220kg of explosives were planted in a car parked on the main street of Omagh, 110km west of Belfast.
The explosion occurred at 14.30, exactly an hour before a carnival procession with the participation of several thousand people was supposed to take place here. The impact of the blast wave was so powerful that several buildings turned into ruins, and almost the entire central part of the town was left without glass. A fire immediately started in the ruins.
After sorting out the rubble, rescuers and police discovered 28 corpses. Among the dead were five children and 16 women. Foreigners also suffered: two Spaniards spending their holidays in this town were killed, and another 12 were seriously wounded.
Forty minutes before the explosion, the terrorists warned the city authorities that they had mined the courthouse. As a result, hundreds of people were evacuated from there to High Street, where a car filled with explosives was parked.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. But law enforcement agencies believe that this is the work of extremists from one of three underground Catholic groups that broke away from the Irish Republican Army at one time: the Real IRA, the Continuation IRA or the Irish National Liberation Army. The total number of militants in these groups is about 300 people. They refused to lay down their arms and stop the terrorist attacks, despite the truce with Protestants announced by the leadership of the main armed organization of Catholics - the IRA. In recent months, extremists from these groups have carried out terrorist attacks in other Northern Irish cities, but these explosions were most likely precautionary in nature and did not lead to casualties.

ALENA Kommersant-MIKLASHEVSKAYA

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 150 dated 08.18.1998, p. 4

Themes:

Great Britain. Situation in Northern Ireland