A fourth man has been arrested by detectives investigating a failed mortar bomb attack by dissident republicans in Co Derry.
Police said the 31-year-old was detained in the city and taken to Antrim for questioning. Three other suspects arrested on Sunday in the wake of the foiled terror bid remain in custody.
Detectives are trying to trace the movements of a van and a motor cycle which they believe was used by a gang which came within minutes of attacking the city’s police headquarters.
Officers intercepted both vehicles on Sunday night and seized four primed missiles as they were being transported towards the Strand Road station. The mortars were ready to be launched — fired from the back of the van which had its roof cut out.
The men detained on Sunday — two aged 37 and one aged 35 — all come from Derry and had been known to the PSNI.
Two were arrested when police rammed the Dublin-registered white Citroen Berlingo van on the Letterkenny Road and stopped a black Honda CBR motorcycle following behind. The third man was detained sometime later at a house in the city’s Creggan estate.
Dissident republicans in Derry, this year’s UK City of Culture, have been under round the clock surveillance amid heightening fears they are prepared to go to any lengths to disrupt the programme of events.
But there will be alarm inside their ranks as well that police were able to act on high level intelligence.
Police chiefs admitted the terrorists came dangerously close to inflicting massive casualties.
Chief Superintendent Stephen Cargin, the district commander in Derry, said: “There is no doubt about their intention. They were intent to kill and cause maximum police fatalities.”
The devices had been recently constructed and were similar in design to the type of bombs manufactured and used with such devastating effect by the Provisional IRA before they called a halt to their terrorist campaign in July 2005.
Nine officers were killed when a police station in Newry, Co Down, was hit in a missile attack in February 1985.
Mr Cargin said many civilians could also have died had Sunday’s attack not been foiled — not just in flats and houses close to the station at Strand Road, which was blasted with a 400lb car bomb in 2011, but as the bombs were being transported through heavily built-up urban areas.
The Superintendent added: “This was a risky, risky operation. Those mortars could have gone off at any time, and even if they (the terrorists) had reached the intended target there was no guarantee they would have hit it, because these mortars are so unreliable.
“Can you imagine what the outcome would have been had they landed nearby, on a gas tank or a petrol tank? It does not bear thinking about.”
PA