Provos tell Britons: future attacks may be aimed at civilians

Press, 20 December 1978, Page 8

Provos tell Britons: future attacks may be aimed at civilians

International

NZPA-Reuter

London

Britain has gone on full-scale bomb alert after two powerful explosions rocked London and Irish republican guerrillas said that they might trigger more blasts, inflicting heavy civilian casualties.

A statement issued in Dublin by the provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army admitted responsibility for a 36-hour spate of bombing in London and five English provincial cities. During the night the police stopped and searched cars in central London and a close watch was kept on air and sea ports, but republicans planted in the Midlands 600,000-strong Irish population had gone to ground again. A 13.6 kg car bomb exploded outside Government offices in London shortly after midnight on Tuesday and a second bomb, in a carpark under a hotel, sent hundreds of guests rushing

into the street in their ; nightclothes. There were no serious injuries from any of the bombs — all of which went off in the early hours of the morning when streets were relatively deserted. But the I.R.A said: “We deliberately chose the time and the targets. We now give due warning to you, the English people, that in future both the targets and the timing might be changed.” Brutal acts against republican prisoners — almost 1000 of whom are at present in jail — “Would inevitably force us into considering inflicting heavy civilian casualties,” the guerrillas added. The prisoners referred to

are taken to be guerrillas convicted of murder and o,her violent crimes, mostly in the Maze jail in Belfast, who want to be classed as political prisoners. They have been refusing to wash, wear prison clothes, or use lavatories in their campaign for a change of status. The worst I.R.A. bomb attack on the British mainland came in 1974 when 19 drinkers were killed and 180 injured by napalm-type devices in two Birmingham pubs. The attack caused a wave of revulsion and is believed to have deprived republican guerrillas of support among the Irish Roman Catholic community in Britain.