The loyalist paramilitary group the Red Hand Defenders has claimed responsibility for planting a pipe bomb outside Holy Cross Primary School in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast.
The device was defused discovered outside the school in the flashpoint area just an hour before the start of the first term of 2003 this morning. It was found at the front gates of the school.
The Red Hand Defenders - a cover name used by the loyalist Ulster Defence Association - made the claim in a call to the BBC in Belfast.
School governor Fr Aidan Troy said: "This is a frightening development. We thought we had left all of this behind but this is horrific and some of the children didn't come to school because of the alert".
British army technical officers experts were called in and pupils were forced to take an alternative route to class.
The school was at the centre of a loyalist blockade just over a year ago. In 2001 pupils and their parents endured daily verbal abuse from loyalist mobs living close to the school.
The three-month ordeal followed a dispute between the Catholic and Protestant communities living in the area.
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