Security operation in Belfast after police station car bomb

BELFAST, United Kingdom: Police launched a security operation in Belfast on Sunday after a car bomb reportedly exploded overnight outside a police station, with no reported casualties.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said in a statement it was at the scene of a “security alert” in Dunmurry, southwest of the Northern Irish capital.

Videos circulated on social media showing a vehicle on fire at the police station around midnight. Fire crews and police worked to put out the blaze, according to local media. The PSNI said an evacuation operation was underway.

Local politicians denounced the latest apparent attack.

Soracha Eastwood, MP for the area, said it was “distressing and disturbing that a car bomb exploded outside the police station”.

“It is only through the grace of God that there are no casualties,” she said in a message posted on X.

Gavin Robinson, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party — the British region’s main pro-UK party — called the incident “deeply concerning”.

It comes a month after a delivery driver was forced by masked men, one armed with a pistol, to drive an explosive device to a police station in Lurgan, west of Belfast.

“If this was another attempt by dissident republicans to intimidate communities and target the police, then it must be met with the full force of the law,” Robinson said.

So-called “dissident republicans” are pro-Irish unity individuals and groups who do not accept 1998 peace deal that largely ended three decades of sectarian conflict known as the “Troubles”.

The groups are smaller than the Provisional IRA, which ended its violent campaign in 2005. The groups have used improvised explosive devices and mortars in past attacks.