Irish police defused a car bomb Saturday night 10 miles from the center of Dublin鈥攚ithin lethal distance of 聽bike race鈥攁fter receiving an anonymous tip.
“This was a deadly, full-size bomb which had been wired up and ready for imminent use,” a security source told the聽Irish Independent. “If it had gone off it would have caused total devastation.”
Hundreds of thousands of spectators flocked to Lucan, a South Dublin suburb, to watch the race, one of European cycling’s three multiweek Grand Tours.聽
“It cannot be ruled out that it may have been intended to disrupt the Giro d’Italia race,” another source .听罢丑别 for a car bomb is just over a quarter mile.
The bomb, fashioned out of a milk churn and 50 pounds of fertilizer explosives, was found in a car with Northern Ireland plates in the Finnstown Country House hotel parking lot. In addition to the plates, police quickly linked the bomb to , an offshoot of the century-old radical military organization, through its construction with a remotely detonating timer power unit.
Paul Williams of the Belfast Telegraph writes that a 50-year-old Dublin man with RIRA connections has been arrested.聽Northern Ireland says it believes the bomb was , but rather for a target in Northern Ireland.
The bomb might have been intended for the Giro and its spectators, but hundreds of wedding guests staying at the Finnstown received the brunt of the fallout鈥攖hey spent the night of the incident stranded outside.