Three-day alert ends in Belfast
Families have been allowed to return to their homes at the end of a three-day security alert on Belfast’s Antrim Road, which led to the discovery of two bombs.
Antrim Road residents had been uprooted from their homes since Tuesday.
The area has now been re-opened, however some cordons close to where the devices were found will remain in place into Friday morning.
Both bombs have been made safe by officers from the Army Bomb Squad, but police say both had the power to maim or kill.
The second bomb was found behind a scout hall, close to where the first shrapnel bomb was discovered outside a video rental store.
Hundreds of people, including children as young as six, walked past the first bomb which may have been planted as early as Sunday.
Designed to scatter shrapnel across a wide area, police believe it was intended to lure them into the area but say innocent passers-by could have been killed.
“I now need tangible information. I’ve been out in the community and everyone I meet wants to support policing. Nobody wants to see another Omagh”, Mr Baggott said.
“This is not an army occupation. We are simply the police.”
After the first bomb was found, a second alert was caused by what turned out to be the power source to detonate that device. But the presence of a second bomb was later confirmed.
Dissident group Óglaigh na hÉireann is believed to be behind the devices, after a recognised codeword was used in the last in a series of telephone warnings.
Politicians say those responsible have little support within the community.
“The right thing to do is contact the relevant authorities to deal with these matters and move on with life, as people in north Belfast have done over a load of years – they don’t want to be brought back,” Sinn Féin’s Conor Maskey said.
SDLP MLA Alban Maginness told UTV that he hasn’t met anyone who has “any sympathy or any support” for the perpetrators.
“It is an outrageous attack on the whole community and these people that have carried it out ought to be, and I think are being, condemned by the vast majority of the community here in north Belfast,” he said.
“They claim that they want to unite Ireland – well they are not and they cannot through violence do that and we know that from the past.”
DUP MP Nigel Dodds said it was clear those responsible have “nothing to offer society only a return to the fears and disruption of the past”.
He added: “Those responsible prove only how totally inconsiderate they are of other peoples’ well-being and I condemn their actions utterly.”
