An initial examination of a device believed to have been left by loyalists near shops in Dundalk, Co Louth, suggests it contained only fireworks powder. The device was described as very crude but it contained the main constituent parts for a bomb: a timer, batteries and a detonating mechanism. It was all packed into a 3.5kg camping gas cylinder along with black powder.
The Army's Explosive Ordnance Defusal team from Monaghan conducted a controlled explosion on the device after it was discovered near the Greenacres shops, outside Dundalk.
After declaring it safe, the EOD officers brought the device back to Dublin where it was examined further yesterday.
Initial tests suggested the black powder had been removed from fireworks, probably bought over the Hallowe'en period, and packed into the cylinder.
It was impossible to determine if there was sufficient powder to have actually caused an explosion.
The controlled explosion used to clear the device before the EOD team approached it also destroyed the detonating mechanism and it is not known if it could have worked either.
The device is the latest in a series of primitive bombs and incendiary devices left in Dundalk and other Border towns and claimed by the splinter loyalist group, the Loyalist Volunteer Force.
The LVF is the group the Portadown loyalist, Billy Wright, set up two years ago. He is serving a jail sentence for threatening to kill a Protestant woman in the town. The LVF has carried out a small number of sectarian assassinations in the North and has few firearms.
It is not known to possess any commercial explosives or to have any bomb-making skills.
Attention was drawn to the device in an anonymous telephone call from the North by a man who gave an LVF codeword.
Other loyalist paramilitaries have recently shown an ability to make dangerous bombs. Both the mainline paramilitary organisations, the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster Defence Association, are believed capable of making effective bombs but both organisations are, generally speaking, holding to the ceasefire called in October 1994.
The under-car bomb which killed a minor loyalist figure in Bangor, Co Down, last month is believed to have been the work of figures associated with the small loyalist organisation, the Red Hand Commando.
According to local sources, Glen Greer (28), who was killed in the explosion, was suspected of having passed information to police about drug smuggling which led to several men being arrested on drugs charges.