Security operation ends at Fermanagh blast scene

An explosion three days ago in Co Fermanagh close to the estate of a unionist peer left a crater three-and-a-half feet wide by…

An explosion three days ago in Co Fermanagh close to the estate of a unionist peer left a crater three-and-a-half feet wide by two feet deep, police said today.

As a three-day security force operation ended at the scene of the attack at Colebrooke, near Northern Ireland Police Board member Viscount Brookeborough's estate, it emerged the device exploded on a bank on the side of the road.

The dissident republican Continuity IRA claimed responsibility for the explosion in a telephone call to a Co Fermanagh newspaper, using a recognised codeword.

News of the attack was broken to peers in the House of Lords on Wednesday just before the Government's statement on the state of the IRA and loyalist ceasefires was read to them.

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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.

PA