A dissident republican group has said it will target the homes of PSNI officers as it claimed responsibility for a bomb attack on a PSNI station in west Belfast.
The New IRA said that they carried out Saturday’s attack at Dunmurry PSNI station with the intention of killing officers.
A video released by the PSNI shows the explosion in a high jacked car outside the station as people were being evacuated. Police as treating the incident as attempted murder.
The Irish News said that in a statement from the “leadership of the IRA”, using a codeword, the group also threatened that anyone providing information to the PSNI “will be severely dealt with”.
The attack happened on Saturday morning after a delivery driver was hijacked in the Twinbrook area at around 10.50pm and ordered by paramilitaries to take a bomb to Lurgan PSNI station.
The bomb which the Real IRA said contained Semtex high explosives, included an electrical detonator and a “timing device which had 30 minutes on it”.
“This was to give the driver time to get away,” the statement said. “The gas cylinder was to create a fireball.”
“The driver was told to shout ‘there’s a bomb in the car’ and leave the area.”
“The intention was to kill police coming out of the station,” the statement said.
“This was not an attack on the station, it was an attack aimed at police leaving the station.”
Speaking at a joint press conference at Parliament Buildings in Belfast, Sinn Féin leader Michelle O’Neill, alongside the DUP’s Emma Little-Pengelly who is Deputy First Minister, and Police Chief Constable Jon Boutcher, said they were jointly sending a clear message of condemnation.
“We are absolutely united in condemnation of what has happened, nobody wants to see this on our streets, nobody wants to see the fear that that community experienced on Saturday evening,” Michelle O’Neill said.
“I don’t think this is a day for political nonsense,” she added. “I think this is a day for strong condemnation.”
Emma Little-Pengelly said: “I think it’s really important that we do stand very strongly together, that we send very clear messages.
“There is a responsibility across all of the political parties, particularly at a leadership level, to be sending a very clear message, a condemnation of this terrorist attack on Saturday night, but indeed, a very clear condemnation right across the piece.
“Terrorism is always wrong. It is always without justification, should that have been 10, 20, 40, 50 years ago or on Saturday night.
“Let’s send that clear message, let’s send that clear leadership, particularly to our young people coming up, that this is absolutely not for the future.
The Chief Constable said that the attack on the police service was an “attack on all of us”, urging the public to come forward with information “before these people actually harm or kill somebody”.
“It’s everybody’s responsibility to call out these reckless attacks, and that’s why we stand here today, shoulder to shoulder, in doing that,” he said.
“There is no place for these mindless thugs, these idiots who think it’s acceptable to carry out such stupid attacks.
“I can promise you, we will use all of our resources to identify them and bring them before the courts.
“I want everybody to remember this, an attack on the PSNI is an attack on everyone, on all of us.
“Again, I will appeal with anybody with any information about the people responsible to please, please, please contact us before these people actually harm or kill somebody.
“Please contact us if you know something, even if you think you might know who’s responsible.
“Please, please, please reach out to the PSNI before they actually do kill somebody.”