Group of children picked up unexploded pipe bomb, one of two devices thrown at police station

This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

A group of young children picked up an unexploded pipe bomb thrown overnight at a police station in west Belfast.

Two devices were hurled at Woodbourne police station, which is close to an interface between republican Andersontown and the loyalist Suffolk estate.

No one was injured when the other device blew up in the attack at around 10.30pm on Monday. It was thought to have been carried out by Republican dissidents.

Chief Superintendent George Clarke, the area's police commander, said the children had been caught up in a reckless attack aimed at killing or maiming his officers.

He said such devices were "extremely volatile, very, very dangerous, utterly lethal and could function at any time".

"Dissident republicans haven't moved forward and realised the way to advance any argument is political. No one has come forward to claim this [attack].

"I cannot see the logic of throwing bombs at the back of a police station and then leaving an unexploded one for children to pick up."

Democratic Unionist councillor Brian Kingston said witnesses reported that a group of primary school-age children had lifted one of the bombs.

He said: "A group aged around nine, 10, 11, mixed boys and girls, came round the side of the police station carrying an object. "They placed an object on the ground and they scarpered.

"What had happened was that the children had found a second device at the rear of the police station and had decided to carry this round the side of the station."

Kingston added: "This is a combination of childhood innocence and a terrorist attempt to maim and kill.

"The thought of what could have happened to those children if that device had exploded – they could have been ripped apart- it doesn't bear thinking about."

The bomb attack comes after a lull in dissident republican terrorist activity since before the G8 summit in June. There have been a large number of arrests of republican dissident suspects on both sides of the Irish border and a number of attacks thwarted by both the Garda Síochána and the Police Service of Northern Ireland.