BELFAST, June 18 (Reuters) - Security forces in Northern Ireland have defused a 300 lb (136 kg) bomb in an abandoned van outside a police station, which would have been deadly if it had been detonated, police said on Friday.
Some 350 people were evacuated from their homes in the border village of Aughnacloy in County Tyrone late on Thursday, after police were made aware of a telephone warning and told the device would go off within the hour.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said dissident Republicans opposed to Northern Ireland’s peace process had called in a coded warning to a Belfast newspaper but declined to say which dissident group had claimed responsibility.
"I have no doubt that if this device had detonated it would have caused complete devastation and lives would certainly have been lost," PSNI Superintendent Brian Kee said. Local inhabitants said the van was abandoned with the engine running and the driver’s door open.
Those responsible were believed to have escaped across the nearby border into Ireland in a car which was found burned out in County Monaghan and police on both sides of the border were working together to identify them.
A 1998 peace agreement largely ended three decades of violence between predominantly Catholic groups who want a united Ireland and mainly Protestant unionists who want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom.
The main paramilitary organisations on both sides, such as the Provisional IRA, have surrendered their weapons, but militant splinter groups have stepped up attacks recently.
Dissidents have attacked security forces several times, with the Real IRA believed to be leading much of the campaign including car bombings and shooting at police officers.
In a separate incident on Friday, police said a pipe bomb was thrown at the rear of the PSNI station at Brownlow in Craigavon, County Armagh but it too failed to explode.
