Those who left a mortar type device in a Strabane graveyard have been branded as "fascists".

The device was found after police searches in the early hours of Saturday in the Townsend Street and Cemetery Road areas.

A number of families had to be evacuated from nearby properties while experts made the device safe.

A clearance operation is underway but residents have been permitted to return to their homes.

Condemning the alert, West Tyrone Ulster Unionist MLA Ross Hussey said those responsible were "fascists".

"Once again the good people of Strabane have had their lives placed in danger and their daily routines disrupted by what can only be described as fascists," said Mr Hussey, who is the party's representative on the Policing Board.

“I would like to commend the bravery and diligence shown by the security forces as they sought to locate the device and move people away from the Townsend Street and Cemetery Road area to places of safety.

“There is very little I can say about the mentality of people who would use the sanctity of a graveyard to attempt to murder police officers.

“No doubt the people responsible would claim to be republicans fighting to ‘liberate' Ireland. In reality they are a criminal gang of bully boys and fascists whose only achievement this weekend was to force local people, some in their eighties, to leave their homes in the middle of the night and seek refuge in church halls or with friends and relatives."

He added: “These so-called dissidents are simply despicable and the entire community must provide the Police with unequivocal support so they can remove them from our midst and place them behind bars where they belong.”

Belfast Telegraph