AUGHNACLOY, Northern Ireland, June 18 (UPI) -- Army explosives experts detonated a 300-pound bomb Friday afternoon after it was found in a van outside a border police post in Northern Ireland.
Superintendent Brian Kee of the Police Service of Northern Ireland said the bomb would have taken lives if it had gone off as planned, Ulster Television reported.
"The intention of the people responsible for planting this bomb in the middle of the village of Aughnacloy is to murder police officers with no regard for the people who live in this community," Kee said. "They completely ignored the fact that there could easily have been passers-by or nearby residents caught up and killed or seriously injured in an explosion."
About 350 people were evacuated to a church hall after the bomb was discovered Thursday night, the Belfast Telegraph reported. Roads into and out of the town were closed.
Aughnacloy, a village of about 800 people, sits on the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic in County Tyrone, 60 miles south-southwest of Belfast. There were three killings there during the Troubles, two carried out by the IRA in the 1970s and one where a British soldier shot a Catholic dead in disputed circumstances.
