The World - News from Dec. 23, 1987

A Protestant paramilitary leader was killed in the town of Lisburn when a bomb exploded as he turned the ignition key in his car, police in Northern Ireland reported. John McMichael, 39, was second in command of the Ulster Defense Assn., the largest Protestant paramilitary organization in the predominantly Roman Catholic province. The outlawed Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility for the killing in messages delivered to Belfast newspapers. Radio news reports said the IRA accused McMichael of ordering the killings of many Irish nationalists and called the attack on him a “preemptive strike” because his organization was planning a bombing campaign.