Pipe bomb 'missed officer's face'

Published Friday, 26 October 2012
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A pipe-bomb thrown at police when they were lured into Poleglass by a hoax emergency call narrowly missed an officer's face, it has emerged.

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Police were attending a report of a violent domestic in the Glenwood View area when their vehicle was targeted shortly before 8.40pm on Thursday.

PSNI Superintendent Philip Knox said the device was capable of causing serious injury or death.

"One of the officers involved tells me that the device passed inches from his face before landing close to the police vehicle. Luckily the fuse burnt itself out on the ground," he said.

Around 20 houses were evacuated while examinations were carried out. Residents returned to their homes at around 3am on Friday.

"The officers targeted were responding to what they believed was a genuine call for help," said Supt Knox.

"We consider ourselves extremely fortunate today that we are not dealing with a much more serious incident and that all of the responding officers were able to walk away from that situation unharmed," added the senior police officer.

It now transpires that they were lured to the area with a hoax call so some cowardly individual could attack and try to kill them with a pipe bomb.

Superintendent Philip Knox

Ulster Unionist MLA Ross Hussey is a member of the Policing Board. He has hit out at those responsible for a bomb attack.

"Obviously the finger of suspicion will point at so-called 'dissident' republicans and comes just a day after the Home Office announced that the threat level from dissident republicans to Great Britain has been downgraded from "substantial" to "moderate".

"The police exist to serve and protect the entire community and it is essential that the entire community demonstrates support for the Police and actively assists them to combat all forms of criminality and terror from whatever source."

Superintendent Knox issued an appeal for help from the community in finding the attacker.

"At this stage the description we have is of a male, around 5' 10" in height of a slim build wearing a dark hoody and dark baggy tracksuit bottoms."

It is the second time in four months that officers have been targeted this way. In June a bomb was thrown at two officers when patrols responded to a report of a domestic in Twinbrook.

They were left shaken, but unharmed by the attack.

© UTV News
Comments Comments
5 Comments
Lee in Belfast wrote (205 days ago):
we will see a parade soon from people in the area demanding a stop to such attacks and condemning it outright..wont we??
Robert in Antrim wrote (205 days ago):
Why dose utv always refer to poleglass as west Belfast are you afraid to mention its real borough Lisburn
NIC in Belfast wrote (205 days ago):
Beatings ,Murder,Bombing . Terrorists still in Business. But Hey Derry has got City of Culture so dont worry about Belfast Unacceptable
realist in belfast wrote (205 days ago):
Will the SDLP sinn fein and the catholic church condemn this latest attempt at murder of our police officers by republican extremists ?
gazza in belfast wrote (205 days ago):
once again republican terrorists try to murder police officers , wheres the arrests of these terrorists ? the police are too busy arresting bandmen for playing their instruments too hard , what a crazy country!!
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