Bomb Blast Injures Officer in N. Ireland

A bomb exploded at a police station in central Northern Ireland, heightening tension ahead of a controversial Protestant march today.

“We had a report of an abandoned car, and several houses were being evacuated, when there was an explosion,” a police spokesman said. One policewoman was lightly wounded in the blast.

Northern Ireland is in the throes of a fragile peace process after truces by the nationalist Irish Republican Army and other pro-Irish and pro-British guerrilla groups.

The blast today was at Stewartstown Royal Ulster Constabulary station, west of Belfast.

“A big blue flash came over the rooftops,” a witness said.

Police said no one had claimed responsibility for the blast.

A member of the public had alerted the police to an abandoned car outside the police station, and police moved quickly to evacuate the area before the bomb exploded, officials said.

The bombing followed a week of violence by hard-line Protestants demonstrating against a decision to ban the pro-British Orange Order from marching through a Roman Catholic neighborhood in the town of Portadown during an annual parade.

Police and troops threw a defensive ring around the Garvaghy Road neighborhood to stop the Protestants from marching through the Irish nationalist zone.

Britain has flown 2,000 troops to the volatile province in the past two weeks amid fears that the annual Protestant “marching season” might be even more turbulent than usual.

There have been six nights of rioting, vehicle hijackings and shootings. Three schools--two Catholic, the other an integrated institution--were damaged early Saturday by arsonists in predominantly Protestant towns north of Belfast.

And Protestant militants resumed rioting in the area at night, hijacking and burning at least four cars and tossing homemade gasoline and nail bombs at police armored personnel carriers. Police said they arrested four suspected rioters and seized crates containing about 170 gasoline bombs.

Tension over the parade has upset the efforts of the uneasy home-rule coalition administration to restore normality after three decades of communal strife and guerrilla war.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Saturday appealed for calm before today’s march, which is scheduled to start in the morning.