The World : IRA Civilian Toll Deplored

The leader of Sinn Fein, the legal political wing of the outlawed Irish Republican Army, criticized the IRA for killing civilians in a string of botched attacks in Northern Ireland in 1988. “I think the onus is on the IRA to safeguard the civilians from injury and death,” Gerry Adams said in Belfast. In its traditional New Year message, the IRA conceded last week that 1988 had been a difficult year with many of its guerrillas killed and several attacks bungled. Among the victims killed in IRA bomb attacks intended for other targets were a family of three returning from a U.S. vacation, two men near a swimming pool and an elderly man and his granddaughter who were outside an unmanned police station.