Loyalist terrorists admit planting car bomb

A Loyalist terrorist organisation has admitted responsibility for the car bomb which led to a major security alert in Antrim today. The Red Hand Defenders said that it planted the device, which was left in Ballycastle, where the Auld Lammas Fair was in progress.

The grouping has been used as a cover in the past for attacks mounted by both the Ulster Defence Association and the Loyalist Volunteer Force.

British Army bomb experts defused the device following a telephone warning. The bomb was discovered in a white Ford Sierra car in Castle Street, which the RUC then sealed off.

Reports say that the bomb consisted of a timing device, a detonator and two containers of flammable liquid. Police later seized fourteen suspected acid bombs during a raid on a Loyalist part of North Belfast. A woman was arrested.

Superintendent John Bustard hit out at the terrorists who abandoned the car bomb. He accused those who planted the bomb of attempting to murder innocent people.

He said: "Not for the first time in recent weeks terrorists have tried to inflict misery and pain on a local community. Thankfully, the vigilance and skill of the security forces has averted a potential tragedy."

Kevin McGarry, tourism, development and recreation manager for Moyle District Council, which organised the event, said: "From a tourism impact it's a big negative, a lot of traders were hit badly."

People were evacuated to the seafront for almost five hours while the device was dealt with. Mr McGarry added: "What group or organisation can claim this, because all they have done is harm their own people?

"It's difficult to understand the motives of these people that they could even contemplate something like this. People are totally bewildered, it's crazy." The two-day fair, which is over 400 years old, attracts tens of thousands of visitors.