IRA Bombings Wound 6 in Belfast

BELFAST, Northern Ireland —  The outlawed Irish Republican Army disrupted the burial of a slain policeman Friday with a car bomb blast at the cemetery gates and a coordinated blitz across Belfast. At least six people were wounded.

The IRA said it carried out the attacks in retaliation for what it termed police brutality at nationalist funerals. But a British official said the IRA action “breaks every conceivable standard of human behavior.”

The officer, Peter Nesbitt, was killed by an IRA booby trap Tuesday night when he went to investigate a robbery report at a candy store.

The cemetery bombing and three other blasts Friday injured at least five policemen and a civilian and forced the evacuation of scores of people along the route of the funeral procession.

In a separate attack, IRA gunmen killed a 50-year-old Protestant man as he repaired a truck in the village of Kilkeel, 30 miles south of Belfast. The IRA claimed its victim was a member of the security forces, but police sources said it was a case of mistaken identity.

In the cemetery bombing, a car packed with explosives and parked by the graveyard gates exploded as police officers began gathering for the funeral of their fallen colleague. Shrapnel injured four officers.

Funeral Delayed

The funeral was delayed three hours. Weeping mourners were taken to a police station while officers searched the cemetery for more bombs. The dead man’s casket, draped with a British flag, was left in the hearse.

At least 36 bomb hoax calls were reported along the funeral procession, adding to the delays, and in the span of two hours, three more bombs exploded along the route.

Two bombs exploded at a new shopping arcade in the city center, causing widespread damage and injuring a policeman and a woman shopper. A third bomb exploded near the Belfast offices of the British Broadcasting Corp.

The IRA said it attacked the cemetery because of “wanton police brutality” at the funeral of its guerrillas. The IRA is fighting to end British rule in the mostly Protestant province of Northern Ireland so it can be united with the predominantly Roman Catholic Irish Republic.

The IRA claimed that since December, 1983, 25 Irish nationalist funerals have been disrupted by police.

But Nicholas Scott, British minister in charge of law and order in the province, said he was horrified by the cemetery attack.

“Even in war, people are allowed to bury their dead in peace and dignity,” Scott said. “But this action breaks every conceivable standard of human behavior.”