An anti-terrorist operation on Thursday in Northern Ireland resulted in the seizure of weapons and ammunition intended according to investigators to try to kill police officers, before violence broke out, injuring 16 police officers, the police announced on Friday. order.
Three searches were carried out late Thursday afternoon in Londonderry – the scene of “Bloody Sunday”, where 13 civil rights protesters were killed by British soldiers in 1972 – during an operation carried out following information, according to the Northern Irish Police.
Three people arrested
Investigators seized cash, a handgun, and in the third location searched, two military hand grenades, another handgun, around fifty cartridges and more than a kilo of plastic explosive.
Two men and a woman have been arrested and taken into custody under the Anti-Terrorism Act, police say, citing dissident New IRA Republicans as their main lead, a group that notably claimed responsibility for the assassination attempt. from a police officer in the town of Omagh earlier this year.
Sixteen police officers injured
“The importance of this discovery cannot be underestimated,” Deputy Commissioner Mark McEwan said in a statement. Investigators are convinced that the proceeds of these seizures were intended to try to kill police officers.
Following this operation, the security forces suffered projectiles and molotov cocktails, at the end of a hot day and when many young people were around, according to the chief commissioner deputy, Bobby Singleton. Sixteen injured police officers were reported, he added, citing burns, head injuries and possible fractures.
“Severe” level of terrorist threat
The terror threat level in Northern Ireland was raised to serious last March, meaning an attack is “highly likely”, after police officer John Caldwell was shot multiple times.
Police in Northern Ireland have come under sporadic attack from dissident republicans and have been regularly targeted during the 30-year conflict over British rule in Northern Ireland, which left an estimated 3,500 dead before the war. signing of the 1998 peace accords.
Concern among the ranks of the Northern Irish police grew last month after a massive data leak allowed dissident Republicans to get their hands on a document including the names and ranks of some 10,000 police officers , put online by mistake and remained visible for three hours.