THE British army has made safe a device containing 250 lbs of home made explosives after a security alert near the south Armagh Border. Other bomb making equipment was also recovered from the scene of the four day operation outside the village of Cullyhanna, the RUC said last night.
Bomb experts were sent to a derelict building on Thursday after a joint RUC army patrol discovered what is believed to be a number of oil drums with wires leading from them.
The alert came amid heightened fears of renewed IRA attacks, fuelled by the defusing of a 1,000 lb bomb abandoned by an IRA team in the grounds of Belfast Castle on New Year's Eve.
Police said last night that they believed the Cullyhanna explosives had been there for some time and were not planted recently.