The Five Demands

In pictures: Police and Army search Ardoyne after car bomb (News Letter)

Just a day after Chief Constable Matt Baggott said security would be stepped up in the wake of what he called a ‘surge’ in dissident republican activity, police and soldiers were out searching the streets in north Belfast.

The security operation involved searches under cars, in back gardens and under paving stones in Ardoyne.

A man, understood to be a taxi driver, had his car hijacked on Sunday night and was ordered to drive to Victoria Square shopping centre in the city centre with a bomb in his car.

Three masked men in boiler suits forced the man to take the device into the capital’s centre. He abandoned the Renault Laguna car at the entrance to the shopping centre’s car park and then alerted police at nearby Musgrave station.

The bomb partially exploded as Army experts prepared to examine it.

No-one was injured.

It is understood more than 20 investigators have also been carrying out door-to-door enquiries in Ardoyne on Tuesday afternoon.

A police spokesman said: “Police carried out a search operation in the Jamaica Street area of North Belfast in relation to the investigation into the explosive device at Victoria Street on Sunday 24 November.”