Bomb kills U.K. soldiers

Press, 20 November 1989, Page 8

Bomb kills U.K. soldiers

NZPA-AP Belfast A roadside blast killed three British soldiers on patrol in Northern Ireland, hours after a car bomb outside the Army's east-England headquarters injured a sergeant and his wife, the police said.

The sergeant lost both legs in the explosion, Essex county police said. A hospital spokesman said his wife’s injuries were “relatively minor.” No group claimed responsibility for either attack. But police and the Home Secretary, David Waddington, blamed the Irish Republican Army. The British Army patrol was in two , armoured Land-Rovers in the foothills of ■the Moume Mountains about 10km from the Irish Republic on Saturday afternoon when an explosive device was detonated, apparently beside the road, the Royal Ulster Constabulary said.

The blast hurled the first vehicle off the road. All the casualties were in that vehicle, the police said. The men in the second vehicle escaped injury and were able to raise the alarm.

At the British Army headquarters for eastern England in Colchester, 83km

north-east of London, a bomb hidden in a car exploded as an off-duty staff sergeant, Andrew Mudd, and his wife were setting out from the parking area at married quarters, the police said. The two were dragged from the burning wreckage of their car by a lieutenant who was driving past, witnesses said. Neighbour Ronald Tuckwell said the car was “a mass of flames.” "People had pulled the occupants out when there was a sudden burst of flames and the whole car was engulfed,” he said. '

Mr Waddington blamed the outlawed 1.R.A., which is trying to drive the British out of the predominantly Protestant province and unite it with the Roman Catholic Irish Republic. On the outskirts of Armagh in Northern Ireland on Friday night, police said, gunmen in a car overtook David Halligan, aged 57, aqd fired 40 shots into his body, killing him. Mr Halligan was a part-time member of the Ulster Defence Regiment. Since the fighting began in 1969, 266 police, 601 army personnel, and 1902 civilians have been killed.