DUNDALK, Ireland, Dec. 2 (UPI) -- A mortar bomb seized in the Irish Republic was intended for an attack on Northern Ireland, Irish police said Thursday.
The foiled attack is believed to have been planned by the reputed republican dissident terror group Oglaigh na hEireann, which split from the Continuity Irish Republican Army, which itself split from the Provisional IRA in 1986.
The bomb was seized from a car near Dundalk, a town near the Northern Ireland border, police said.
Four men -- two in their 20s and two in their 30s -- were questioned by police, The Guardian reported.
Two of the men in custody were believed from Northern Ireland and another from Dundalk, the newspaper said.
The major north-south M1 highway was closed in both directions for four hours near Dundalk Tuesday night while an army team removed the bomb from the car.
The bomb posed no "significant threat to the public," a police spokesman told the newspaper.
The Irish Republican Army is a dissident group that fought an armed campaign for nearly three decades to end British rule in Northern Ireland before renouncing violence.
