THE security operation around a cemetery where violent dissident republicans abandoned a deadly mortar bomb has now ended.
Police and Army Technical Officers spent two days at the scene in Strabane before the device was eventually made safe.
Security chiefs also had to a carry out a sweep of the area for fear of a secondary device may had been left as a booby trap.
Those who left the device in the cemetery have been branded as “despicable”.
It is believed the device was to have been fired at a passing police patrol.
Searches started in the early hours Saturday morning after reports that a device had been left in the Townsend Street/Cemetery Road area.
A number of elderly people in their 80s had to be evacuated from their homes and the graveyard was closed for most of the day.
Area police commander Supt Mark McEwan said today: “We received information about a bomb of some sort just after midnight on Friday.
“This bomb was placed in a graveyard and positioned where it could be used to attack passing police patrols.
“The bomb was left with the intent to kill police officers. It could have killed anyone passing by.
“There was a complete disregard for the community.
“No one has claimed responsibility. One line of inquiry is violent dissident republican activity.
“The blame for the disruption rests with those individuals or groups who appear determined to pursue an agenda of violence and destruction which can only be to the detriment of all our community.
“I would continue to appeal to everyone to work with us to reduce the threat that these people pose, and to keep people safe.”
Officers had issued a public warning at 2.50 am on Saturday morning, advising the public that the area was being searched and asking people not to touch any suspicious objects but to call police immediately.
SDLP councillor Patsy Kelly said: “This is not the first or the second time that they’ve done this and I don’t know why they’re continually doing this because it’s the people of Strabane that they are inconveniencing and disrupting.
“People use that graveyard every day of the week, anybody could have come across that device and God knows what the consequences could have been.
“To leave this in an area like this is despicable.”
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