Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Thatcher calls meeting on IRA blast

BELFAST Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher broke off her annualvacation Saturday and called an emergency security meeting to respondto the Irish Republican Army bombing that killed eight Britishsoldiers in Northern Ireland Friday night.

The bombing was part of a new IRA terror campaign that has left21 British soldiers dead in Northern Ireland this year.

Thatcher returned to London amid increasing calls to reviveinternment, the policy of detaining known terrorists without trial, acontroversial move that failed as a deterrent in the 1970s.

Saturday night, she summoned her senior minister for NorthernIreland, Ulster Police Chief John Hermon and the British Armycommander in the province to her London office for emergency talks.

Northern Ireland Secretary Tom King, who also interrupted hisvacation to fly here before heading for Downing Street, saidinternment was under constant review but that the 1970s experiencehad demonstrated the problems it could pose.

Thatcher previously has ruled out internment in the belief thatit would be counterproductive, giving the IRA a propaganda coup andcreating instant martyrs among the terrorists, as it did before.

The latest IRA attack left 28 soldiers injured alongside sevendead comrades - another died later - after a bomb exploded beside thebus taking them from Belfast airport to their base in County Tyrone.

It was the deadliest single blow by the IRA against the Britisharmy in Northern Ireland since 1982. It brought to 26 the number ofBritish military personnel killed in a summer IRA blitz in NorthernIreland, mainland Britain and continental Europe.

The IRA claimed responsibility Saturday for the latest bombingin a statement to the Irish media and declared, "We will not lay downour arms until the peace of a British disengagement from Ireland isgranted to our nation."

In recent weeks, terrorist strikes have been launched againstoff-duty troops or low-security military bases on the Continent, inLondon and here. Security officials responded by declaring a stateof heightened alert for all military personnel.

They began a major inquiry into the IRA strike, focusing on twomajor questions: How did the terrorist organization know that an ordinary 52-seatcivilian bus was carrying off-duty troops returning from furlough? How was the IRA able to place a massive explosive device beside themain road from Omagh to Ballygawley, one of the busiest in theprovince, frequently used by military and police and under particularsecurity surveillance? Police said Saturday night that they wereunaware of the military bus trip.

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