Overview
- The delivery driver, hijacked at gunpoint in Kilwilkie around 10:30pm Monday, was forced to take an object in his white Audi to Lurgan police station and then ran to alert security staff.
- Following Tuesday’s overnight security operation, police evacuated about 100 homes, carried out a controlled explosion, reopened central roads by morning, and removed the Audi near 11am.
- Ammunition technical officers said the item was a crude but viable improvised explosive device that posed a serious risk and could have caused devastation if it detonated.
- The PSNI’s specialist terrorism unit is leading the probe in what police describe as a likely dissident republican attack using a proxy-bomb tactic that coerces an innocent driver to deliver a device.
- Political leaders in Northern Ireland and Dublin condemned the act, residents sheltered in Lurgan Town Hall, and police appealed for information as they examine possible links to republican commemorations and warn of a lingering threat.