LONDON -- An explosion damaged an army recruiting office in a shopping center in Derby Monday, police said.
Derbyshire Police said preliminary investigations indicated the explosion was caused by a bomb placed on a rooftop in Derby, 135 miles northwest of London.
An army recruiting center and an adjacent seven- story building were extensively damaged.
No one was injured but debris was showered on the few people who were in the area when the blast occurred at 9:15 a.m., police said.
An army bomb disposal unit was called in to search the shopping center for additional devices.
The attack was suspected by police to be part of the outlawed Irish Republican Army's campaign to drive British troops out of Northern Ireland so that it can be united with the Irish Republic.
Increasingly, the IRA has struck targets on the British mainland. In July, an IRA car bomb killed Ian Gow, a prominent Conservative Party member of Parliament and a strident critic of the IRA.NEWLN:
