Northern Irish police have arrested a 66-year-old man in connection with a car bomb attack on a police station in Dunmurry, a suburb southwest of Belfast, after the dissident republican group New IRA claimed responsibility for the attack and threatened further violence against police officers at their homes.
The explosion occurred late on Saturday night after a delivery driver was hijacked, a gas cylinder-type device was placed in the vehicle, and the driver was forced to bring it to Dunmurry police station. No fatalities occurred, though two infants were among residents evacuated from nearby homes. Police officers were praised for their courage in running toward the scene to protect the community. The arrested man was detained under the United Kingdom's Terrorism Act on Tuesday and taken to a specialist detention facility for questioning, while searches continued across east and west Belfast.
In a statement claiming responsibility, the New IRA said it had intended to kill police officers leaving the station, and warned that officers' homes would be its next targets. The group typically delivers such claims through coded messages to local newspapers. The Dunmurry bombing followed a similar attempted attack on 30 March in Lurgan, a nearby town, where a device failed to detonate outside another police station — an incident the New IRA also claimed. The pattern of escalating attacks has drawn concern from authorities, who say it demonstrates clear intent to kill police and destabilise communities.
The New IRA is one of a small number of armed dissident republican groups that reject the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the peace deal that largely ended decades of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland — a region of the United Kingdom on the northeastern part of the island of Ireland. The agreement stipulates that Northern Ireland will remain part of the UK unless a majority votes in a referendum to unify with the Republic of Ireland to the south. The New IRA, which is designated a terrorist organisation by the United States among others, opposes this framework and has continued a campaign of violence, targeting not only police but also journalists in recent years.
The attack drew condemnation from across the political spectrum. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged that those responsible would face justice. Northern Ireland's First Minister Michelle O'Neill, of the pro-Irish unity Sinn Féin party, said those behind the attack "speak for absolutely no one," while Gavin Robinson of the Democratic Unionist Party, which supports Northern Ireland's place within the UK, called the incident "deeply concerning." Additional police patrols and checkpoints have been announced in the aftermath. The last police officer killed in Northern Ireland, Constable Ronan Kerr, died in 2011 when a bomb exploded under his car outside his home — making the New IRA's latest threat a significant and alarming escalation.