A 45lb bomb packed with homemade explosive discovered at Belfast Airport has been made safe by Britsh army bomb disposal experts. A man purporting to be from the Real IRA calaimed reposnsibility for bomb.
Car parks at the airport were closed after a telephoned warning and security forces carried out a search where a silver Volvo car was identified.
The car was left in a car park opposite the main terminal at Aldergrove.Earlier there had been two bomb warnings, one to a Catholic priest by a man claiming to be from the Real IRA.
In a separate incident, searches are being carried out in the Herbert St and Flax St areas of Belfast after a telephone warning that unexploded pipe bombs had been abandoned.
Chif Inspector Graham Shiels condemned the planting of the "deadly and substantial bomb", as an act of madness. "Had this device exploded scores of people could have neen killed or injured," he said.
Meanwhile, an RUC spokeman said a man was shot in the ankles after been taken from his home in Newry, Co Down. He was first beaten by five masked men.
British army technical officers this morning made safe a pipe bomb that was thrown at the rear of a house in Ballymena, Co Antrim.
The incident occurred in the early hours of this morning, when the device was thrown at the rear of the house in the Sandown Park area of Ballymena.
In a separate incident, a report of a suspicious object found in the garden of a house at the Founatain in Derry has been revealed as a hoax. Two houses were evacuated when the alert was raised.