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Alert declared ‘elaborate hoax’ (BBC News Northern Ireland)
Police have said a security alert that closed the village of Clady for more than 24 hours was an “elaborate hoax”.
A van was abandoned on a bridge in the County Tyrone village on Wednesday night with its warning lights on.
A controlled explosion was carried out on the van on Thursday after police were told a 600lb bomb was in it.
Inspector Ivan Morton said he believed dissident republicans were responsible, and said the risk to life had been “very, very real”.
He also said recent events, such as the 600lb bomb found in County Armagh last month, meant police had to proceed with extreme caution.
“We have to take the threat level into consideration,” he said.
“It is the stated aim of these people to kill police officers.
“We would consider all information and events that have happened throughout the province and we base our operation on that.”
Two men, aged 34 and 28, have been arrested.
A number of roads leading to the village which were closed in the alert have since reopened.
Day of disruption
Local people said they were angry at the disruption caused by the hoax.
“You couldn’t get in and out of the village, and the youngsters couldn’t get to school,” said resident Patrick Corrigan.
“Clady’s very peaceful, and all this has done is torture and annoy people.”
Kirk’s Bar was one of many businesses that were forced to close.
Owner Seamus Kirk said it was “just a total waste of time”.
“It wastes police time, it wastes people’s time, and what good does it do?
“I’d like to know what it was all about,” he said.

Suspect van is blasted apart by Army experts in Northern Ireland (Belfast Telegraph)
This was the dramatic scene as a controlled explosion was carried out on a van at the centre of a long-running security alert which closed down a Co Tyrone village.
The explosion was carried out on the van around 7pm last night after the village of Clady on the Tyrone/Donegal border had been brought to a standstill as a massive security operation was mounted following reports of a 600lb bomb abandoned near a bridge.
Police have not yet commented on whether it was a viable device or a hoax in the van. Army experts were still examining the scene late last night.
Army Technical Officers had earlier sent a small robot towards the van to assess the risk.
Two men, aged 28 and 34, were arrested last night following a call to police claiming a device had been left in a Transit van just 20 metres from a key bridge that connects Co Tyrone to Co Donegal.
Clady was plunged into chaos as police officers and army moved in on the van which had been left in the area with its hazard lights flashing around 9pm on Wednesday night.
Residents hastily organised their own cordon before police arrived on the scene.
A PSNI spokeswoman confirmed the Army had carried out a controlled explosion on the van and said police and army remained on the scene last night as a precaution.
There was speculation last night that the alert was a hoax.
Independent Strabane councillor Gerard Foley, who lives in the village, said residents were furious at the disruption caused.
“All our lives have been turned completely upside down due to this stupidity,” he said.
“The community were put out for the whole day over the head of nothing.
“Residents could not go to the shops, the Post Office, to the chapel , anywhere yesterday. Businesses were also left frustrated.
“But I am glad the whole thing is over and the place is starting to return to normal and no damage has been caused.”
The alert effectively turned the village into a dead end; stopping cross-border commuters from getting to work and stopping transport lorries from travelling on to Belfast and Dublin.
It also brought back memories of times past that no one in the small village of around 420 residents wishes to return to.
Richard Doherty, owner of the Finn View Service Station, said: “It’s the last thing you want — especially in the climate we are in now.
“This whole episode will have cost thousands of pounds in lost business.”
One resident, among a handful who had spent much of the afternoon waiting for the arrival of Army Technical Officers, said that pensioners in the village had been the hardest hit.
“There is only one shop in the village and for pensioners who have no means of transport, they’ve had to get a taxi, which costs £5 into Strabane and another £5 to get out,” he said.
“This is a quiet village, there’s no painting on the kerbstones and such. We had a checkpoint by the bridge for over 30 years and we don’t want this sort of thing here.
“Since the checkpoint has been taken down young people who left to live in Castlefinn and Strabane have been coming back, the village is coming back to life.
“This sort of thing is a novelty for the schoolchildren who don’t know what it used to be like but we don’t want a return to this sort of thing.”
Meanwhile, residents were evacuated from their homes in Limavady as another security alert took place yesterday.
Police said an object found in the Meadowvale Park area was not suspicious.
Last month a 600lb bomb was discovered abandoned close to several houses in Forkhill, Co Armagh and defused by army experts. It was bigger than the bomb which killed 29 people in Omagh in 1998.
In May the components of what police described as “a very large bomb” were found in a field near Roslea in Co Fermanagh.