British army bomb disposal teams carried out a number of controlled explosions on a car found abandoned outside a police station in west Belfast last night.
The alarm was raised at about 11pm when the vehicle was found close to New Barnsley police station.
A number of homes in the Springmartin area were evacuated and families had to spend the night in a community centre.
The security alert has now been called off after police described the bomb as a hoax.
A man has been arrested in connection with the incident and residents have been allowed to return home.
This week has seen a significant rise in dissident activity in the North.
Yesterday, a British army major narrowly escaped after an unexploded booby-trap device feel off his car outside his home in Co Down.
The officer spotted the device lying on the driveway of his home in Bangor as he prepared to drive away. Some 30 houses in the immediate vicinity of the quiet Chatsworth neighbourhood were evacuated and the bomb was made safe by British army technical experts.
Police later said the bomb was viable and capable of causing “catastrophic” death and injury.
Police have said they believe dissident republicans were behind the incident.
Dissidents are also thought to be responsible for the car bombing of a police station in Derry city centre in the early hours of Tuesday. No one was injured in that attack but serious blast damage was caused in the Strand Road area.