Terrorists Resume Havoc in Britain

Irish terrorists returned to the British national election campaign Friday, causing havoc across Northern England with small bombs and threats against rail lines and highways.

There were no injuries, and there was only slight damage, but incidents immediately blamed on the outlawed Irish Republican Army brought major disruption to travelers along the nation’s principal north-south arteries.

Friday’s bombs and hoaxes were the fifth in a series of economically damaging strikes against the British government in what analysts called an attempt to keep the future of Northern Ireland on the political agenda.

Small bombs exploded outside main rail stations in Doncaster and Leeds in northeastern England during the morning rush hour Friday after coded telephone warnings.

Callers also warned of blasts at Crewe and Stoke-on-Trent in northwestern England. The areas were cleared and trains were canceled, but bomb disposal teams found no explosives.

Friday’s incidents convulsed all three principal electrified rail lines between north and south.

Other hoax warnings of bombs at four different junctions shut sections of the M6 freeway in a busy section of the English northwest. No explosives were found on the highway, either, but a 27-mile stretch was closed for four hours.

The IRA, which seeks independence from Britain for Northern Ireland, has claimed responsibility for all of the repeated disruptive attacks since March 26, including one that forced postponement of the Grand National, Britain’s premier horse race.

Prime Minister John Major, campaigning for a May 1 election that he is expected to lose, told reporters that Friday’s attacks were “the work of the IRA showing their usual contempt for people’s lives and for property.”

Labor Party leader Tony Blair, a heavy favorite in the May 1 election, called the attacks outrageous attempts to disrupt the election campaigning.

“They will not succeed,” Blair said.

The IRA must either take the democratic path “or they will be cast out of this process forever,” he said.

*

Northern Ireland, where Protestants loyal to Britain hold a 6-4 majority, has figured little in the election campaign. Blair agrees with Major that the IRA, which broke a 17-month truce early last year, must call a new truce before it can be admitted to peace talks scheduled for resumption after the election.

For the IRA, the disruption campaign brings high exposure and causes high economic cost at low risk, analysts said.

The Republican News, the weekly newspaper of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA, estimates that April 3 threats to three national freeways cost up to $125 million in economic damage to Britain.

About 40,000 heavy trucks a day use the M6 section closed by Friday’s hoax, according to the Freight Transport Assn., which estimates losses of up to $2 million an hour in extra fuel costs, drivers’ pay and additional expenses.

About 100 freight trains a day would normally transit the Crewe and Doncaster tracks affected by Friday’s events, the association said.

British police have dealt repeated blows to the IRA on the mainland in recent months with the arrest of undercover operatives and the seizure of large amounts of arms and explosives.

The losses may be one reason the IRA is now focusing on economic terror, analysts said. Another may be that the incidents win big headlines in England but have little impact on daily life in Northern Ireland.

Thus, the IRA speaks to the most militant republicans while Sinn Fein woos voters who might be repulsed by any return to major violence.

Last year, the IRA exploded huge bombs in the Docklands section of London and in the downtown shopping heart of Manchester.