A pipe-bomb thrown at a house in Co Antrim was made safe last night when British army bomb experts carried out a controlled explosion, writes Suzanne Breen.
The device is believed to have lain undiscovered in the garden of the house in Ballymena until late afternoon when the Catholic Reaction Force, a republican group not frequently heard of, claimed that it had carried out an attack there on Monday night.
The CRF claimed responsibility for the attack in calls to Belfast newsrooms. The group also claimed that it was behind a gun attack on a Protestant house in Clough mills, Co Antrim, on Monday night. An 11-year-old boy escaped uninjured when a bullet smashed through his bedroom window while he slept.
In June, after Protestant houses were attacked along the peaceline in north Belfast, the CRF contacted media outlets threatening to have armed patrols on the streets.
Some observers believe that in the past the CRF has been used as a cover-name by the Provisional IRA. It is very similar to the cover-name used by the Provisionals in claiming the Whitecross massacre in January 1976, when 10 Protestant workers were shot dead.
In 1998, a group claiming to be the CRF threatened a number of Protestant clergy along the Border.