'Improvised explosive device' found by police in west Belfast

[EC]

A mortar-bomb-style device has been discovered during a security operation in west Belfast.

It was found on grassland close to the Poleglass estate in the city on Tuesday evening.

Police said the “improvised explosive device” was left in an area where children passed by to go to school and nursery school.

Det Insp Stuart Griffin of the Police Service of Northern Ireland said: “This device had the capability to cause serious injury and was left in an open public area where anybody, including children, could have found it.”

The local Sinn Féin councillor, Stephen Magennis, said the disruption was unacceptable. “Those responsible for this device need to explain to this community what it will achieve,” he said.

The find comes less than a week after the PSNI raided a home in Ballymurphy, also in the west of the city, during which they discovered half a kilo of Semtex, two hundred rounds of ammunition and two handguns.

A 45-year-old man with an address in Sunderland appeared in Belfast magistrates’ court earlier on Tuesday to face charges in connection to the Ballymurphy searches on last Thursday night.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/22/improvised-explosive-device-found-by-police-in-west-belfast

[truth_seeker]

Who are the players and sides? More specifically is the IUD thought to be the work of Republican-Catholic interests, or UK-Protestant interests?

I do of course condemn it, whichever side it is from.

[EC]

Honestly, right now it's impossible to tell. Both sides have a kill happy remnant. By the speed at which Sinn Fein condemned it though, I'd say IRA.

[truth_seeker]

Honestly, right now it's impossible to tell. Both sides have a kill happy remnant. By the speed at which Sinn Fein condemned it though, I'd say IRA.

Interesting. I had felt following 9/11/2001 that both sides swore off terrorist violence, lest they be held in the lowest possible esteem, like muslim terrorists.

I hope for the most part that still remains, and this is an "outlier."

[EC]

There will always be some. They got hooked on killing, violence and intimidation back when it was "acceptable" and just keep on going. Probably will until they die off.

But in general, you are right. Sectarian violence was already decreasing before 9/11 - afterwards it dropped off sharply, partially due to progress in negotiations, partially due to the general population of NI telling them to sod off, partially due to a sudden and dramatic drop in funding for the IRA (their biggest fundraisers were and still are from NYC) but mostly because of the anathema of terrorist acts.

[truth_seeker]

There will always be some. They got hooked on killing, violence and intimidation back when it was "acceptable" and just keep on going. Probably will until they die off.

But in general, you are right. Sectarian violence was already decreasing before 9/11 - afterwards it dropped off sharply, partially due to progress in negotiations, partially due to the general population of NI telling them to sod off, partially due to a sudden and dramatic drop in funding for the IRA (their biggest fundraisers were and still are from NYC) but mostly because of the anathema of terrorist acts.

I happen to have ancestors from every corner of the British Isles. My mother's maiden name hails from a small river in Ayrshire, Scotland, which became a common surname among Ulster Scots, aka Scots-Irish, ours being a Canadian branch thereof.

Along the way in history, in 1798 the Protestants and Catholics in Ulter joined, to form the United Irishmen movement and to revolt against the crown, but my people had been gone since 1718.

https://www.google.com/search?site=&source=hp&q=united+irishmen&oq=united+irish&gs_l=hp.1.0.0l10.1444.5274.0.9449.13.13.0.0.0.0.256.1718.1j11j1.13.0.ecynfh...0...1.1.64.hp..1.12.1642.0.dXH6JymJpbw