CIRA mount attack
CIRA mount attack

The Continuity IRA has claimed responsibility for a bomb left in Armagh on Wednesday.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the organisation said Armagh City Hotel and a neighbouring PSNI station police had both been targets of the car-bomb attack.

A spokesperson for the anti-Good Friday Agreement group said the hotel had been targeted because it regularly hosted meetings of Armagh District Policing Partnership and let members of the Crown forces use its premises.

The spokesperson said the hotel would be targeted again if it continued to host meetings of the policing body and serve Crown force members.

The device, which included several gas cylinders, was defused in a number of controlled explosions.

Three members of Republican Sinn Fein from County Armagh were subsequently arrested in raids in the Armagh city area.

The party condemned the raids as “the latest incidents in the continual harassment of Republicans by British Crown Forces”.

The party’s publicity spokesperson, Ruairi Og O Bradaigh, said masked PSNI policemen entered the home of one man as he returned from work last night and refused to let his children leave the house.

“In previous cases this British State harassment has led to spurious charges against members of the organisation which were later dropped,” he added.

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© 2006 Irish Republican News