London combed for I.R.A. bomb material

Press, 18 November 1981, Page 8

London combed for I.R.A. bomb material

NZPA London Road blocks were set up throughout Greater London yesterday as the police continued their search for 227 kg of gelignite known to be in the possession of an Irish Republican Army group. A police spokesman said the road blocks were being moved between main and minor roads to cover all exit routes out of'the capital. “We have set up the road blocks because it is a fair bet that anyone who has heard about the operation during the day will try to move the stuff at night,” he said. The police yesterday had completed their search of two of- the 26 metropolitan police districts, but had not found any explosives. The amount of gelignite they are looking for is 50 times as much as that used in the recent London terrorist blasts. In Surrey the police are expected to spend a week searching more than 40,000 garages • and lock-up premises. In the Thames Valley 50,000 buildings will be checked over the next few days.

The Hertfordshire police said they had also drawn a blank in their search,. “But we have found one or two other little tidbits,” said a spokesman. Z Scotland Yard said: “The Commissioner is grateful for the degree of co-operation and understanding shown by the public in assisting the Metropolitan City of London, and British Transport Police forces with this important task.” -The authorities fear the explosives will be used in a stepped up pre-Christmas bombing campaign by the 1.R.A., which has made four bomb attacks in London in the last month, killing three and injuring more than 30 others. The last bomb blast on Friday night wrecked the house of the British Attor-ney-General (Sir Michhael Harvers). He escaped assassination because he had delayed his return home. Authorities cancelled all police leave and assigned 16,000 officers to the .search. They said it would go on round the clock until the nolice had checked more

than 300,000 garages, unused premises and other possible hiding places in the city of seven million- people. Before police lifted their news black-out on the operation, thousands of plainclothes detectives and uniformed police with dogs specially trained to sniff out explosives spread out across London to try to find the cache of gelignite, enough to fill 14 suitcases. The police antiterrorist squad homed in on special target areas and haunts of known I.R.A. sympathisers. Twice in the last 10 year?, the police have found I.R.A. stores of explosives hidden in London. In 1972 they discovered dozens of bombs in a garage rented by an I.R.A. leader and in 1976 they uncovered 90 kg of explosives in another car shed. The 1.R.A., fighting for independence from Britain for Northprn Ireland, brought its bombing campaign back to London after a series of hunger stikes in Northern Ireland where 10 guerillas starved to death this year trying to win politicalprisoner status.