Continuity IRA claim responsibility for Fermanagh attack

Dissident republicans have claimed responsibility for an explosion close to the Co Fermanagh estate of Unionist peer Lord Brookeborough…

Dissident republicans have claimed responsibility for an explosion close to the Co Fermanagh estate of Unionist peer Lord Brookeborough last night.

The Continuity IRA said it set off a bomb at Colebrooke, and police sealed off the area following reports of a loud explosion during the night.

Viscount Brookeborough was not on the estate last night but his mother said the blast had been on a road outside the estate and near a church. No one had been injured, she said.

The PSNI said a Co Fermanagh newspaper received a call, accompanied by a recognised code word, claiming to be from the Continuity IRA and saying it had made the attack.

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News of the attack was given to peers in the House of Lords just before the British Prime Minister's statement on the state of the IRA and loyalist ceasefires was read to them.

Lord Brookeborough, an honorary colonel in the Territorial Army, is the son of the 1st Viscount who was Prime Minister of Northern Ireland from 1943 to 1963.

As Captain John Brooke he succeeded his father as Stormont MP for Lisnaskea, Co Fermanagh in 1968 and held the seat until the dissolution of the parliament in 1972 when direct rule was introduced.

Meanwhile, there is a security alert ongoing at Belfast International Airport. Police are searching the terminal building and car parks after a bomb warning, a police spokesperson has said.