Device used to ‘lure’ police in Craigavon
A device was used to lure police officers into an area of Craigavon where officers were attacked with missiles, the area commander has said.
Officers were attacked with heavy masonry by a mob of up to 20 people as trouble flared at the Drumbeg and Meadowbrook Estates on Saturday night.
Three baton rounds were fired by police.
Two PSNI vehicles were damaged but no-one was hurt.
The police ombudsman has been informed.
Dissident republicans are being blamed after a suspected mortar bomb was fired at Brownlow station in a separate incident.
The device missed the barracks and no-one was injured.
Police have not been able to identify what exactly was fired near Brownlow station, which was blown up in 1993 by the Provisional IRA.
Officers manning a cordon on the nearby Tullygally road following a security alert involving a gas canister saw a fireball.
The alert which was declared a hoax ended shortly after 1am on Sunday and the road was re-opened.
“From time to time we face trying circumstances. it is very clear that yesterday’s events were locally orchestrated and were an attempt to lure my officers into a secondary attack,” said Chief Inspector Jason Murphy.
“They are disrupting the lives of other people.”
Mr Murphy said rioters used large pieces of masonry and metal bars to try to break into his officers’ Land Rovers to attack them.
“This was an attempt to kill or seriously injure our officers,” he said.
Sinn Fein assembly member John O’Dowd said the attack was “wrong”.
“I would challenge those who claim to speak politically for these factions to tell the republican and nationalist community exactly how these sorts of activities advance the cause of a united Ireland one iota,” he said.
“The fact is they don’t. A peaceful and democratic path to Irish unity exists and it is the path that the vast majority of republicans are now on,” he added.
In March 2009, the Continuity IRA shot dead PC Stephen Carroll in Craigavon not far from the site of the latest attack.
Dissidents were behind last week’s murder of 31 year old Kieran Doherty in Londonderry as well as a number of other attacks on police stations.
Mr Doherty was bound and shot by the Real IRA in Londonderry on Wednesday night.
On Monday night a 250lb car bomb caused damage to the wall and security hut at Newry courthouse, Co Down.
A viable mortar bomb, which failed to detonate, was recently left near Keady police station in South Armagh.
“It is certainly very reckless coming on the back of what’s happened in Keady and Newry,” DUP MP David Simpson said.
