BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- Bomb disposal experts Sunday probed an abandoned truck for booby-trapped bombs near a battered village police station where Irish terrorists killed a police officer in a sophisticated mortar attack.
The officer killed in the village of Carrickmore was the fifth to die in eight days of terrorism by the outlawed Irish Republican Army. Six officers were injured, one seriously.
Constable Paul Clark, 29, a father of three, was killed Saturday night in the attack on the heavily fortified police station in County Tyrone, one of the most dangerous spots in Northern Ireland for security forces.
An IRA team launched a salvo of at least six mortar shells from a firing platform on a hijacked flatbed truck parked some 250 yards away.
The shells whizzed over the steel security grille into the police compound in a deadly 30-second attack, wrecking two buildings, including the canteen and housing block with some 40 policemen inside.
The blasts sent deadly fragments of glass and metal through the air as officers scrambled for cover.
'We could see policemen running -- undressed and some with their equipment on -- from their bedrooms,' said Inspector Colin Smith. 'It wasn't until the last explosion had gone off that we realized there were men injured and started to deal with them.'
The men managed to take cover in the basement before three shells devastated the housing building.
The area was sealed off Sunday. No bombs were found.
'It would seem the IRA has been getting expert training with mortars,' a police source said. 'Their previous mortar attacks have been very inaccurate, some of them hitting civilian buildings.'
In Dublin, Gerry Adams, the newly elected leader of Sinn Fein -- the political wing of the IRA -- said the struggle against the British would continue but 'we will do everything we can to prevent civilian casualties.'
Adams was elected Saturday unopposed at a conference attended by 300 delegates from throughout Ireland and Ulster.
