Belfast in Chaos as IRA Bombs Explode

The outlawed Irish Republican Army planted at least five bombs Monday, hijacked nearly 50 buses and cars and made more than 50 telephoned bomb threats, plunging the city into chaos, authorities said.

“It’s complete chaos, but fortunately there have been no injuries,” a police spokesman said of the IRA offensive, held to protest a police crackdown that forced the postponement of an IRA funeral.

Dozens of police officers in riot gear scuffled with about 1,000 mourners as the Irish flag-draped coffin of a slain IRA fighter was carried from his home. The coffin bearing Laurence Marley, 41, who was killed last week by Protestant gunmen, was carried back into his home and the funeral postponed. No injuries or arrests were reported.

Traffic was tied up for hours in the city of 250,000 and dozens of buildings were evacuated because of phony bomb calls by the IRA.

Bomb on Hijacked Bus

In Belfast, four bombs exploded--one on a hijacked bus abandoned in the middle of the city--and police discovered a van with loaded automatic mortar launchers near a police station.

British army experts fanned out across the city, detonating dozens of suspicious packages and abandoned cars.

The thud of the explosions resounded across the city and traffic was paralyzed for hours.

Police said masked gunmen stole nearly 50 buses, cars and trucks and abandoned them in roadways to increase the confusion.

Responsibility for the offensive was claimed by the IRA, which is fighting to end British rule in mostly Protestant Northern Ireland so that it can be united with the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic Irish Republic.

Meanwhile, a prison siege at Magilligan Jail by 30 Protestant inmates holding two hostages dragged into its second day over their demands that officials abandon plans to forcibly integrate them with Catholic prisoners.

Officials said the hostages, a Catholic prisoner and a guard, had not been mistreated. A Protestant chaplain in the seized prison wing was acting as a mediator.

But authorities refuse to change their plans requiring Catholic and Protestant prisoners to eat and exercise together at the jail near Londonderry, 80 miles northwest of Belfast.