Car Bomb Rocks Northern Ireland Town

A car bomb exploded in a staunchly pro-British Protestant town Monday, a few hours after peace talks on Northern Ireland's future resumed.

Police said no injuries were reported from the blast in Portadown, 30 miles southwest of Belfast, but one building was badly damaged by fire.

"Flames are shooting into the sky...I have seen people in tears, people are shocked and stunned," said Portadown Mayor Kenneth Twydle.

Several telephoned warnings to Belfast media allowed police to evacuate nearby streets before the explosion, but no group claimed responsibility for the latest bombing,

In Belfast, peace negotiations resumed Monday without the Sinn Fein party, which is in alliance with the Irish Republican Army. Sinn Fein has been excluded from talks because of two killings this month blamed on the IRA.

David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionists-the largest Protestant party--said the bombing "underscored the silliness" of plans to let Sinn Fein return to the talks within two weeks.

Trimble, who represents Portadown in the British Parliament, said an unclaimed car-bomb attack on one Protestant town Friday and the bombing today are "the IRA's response to the conduct of the talks."

Sinn Fein is demanding to meet with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and says that otherwise it might not return to the talks March 9, the date specified by the governments. Blair's office said he was considering their request.

But Ulster Unionist negotiator Ken Maginnis said a Blair-Sinn Fein meeting now during the "quarantine period" would "fatally undermine" the negotiating effort.

A Protestant party was readmittted to the negotiations at Stormont Monday, the center of British administration for Northern Ireland where the talks began in June 1996.

The Ulster Democratic Party was barred four weeks ago after the pro-British paramilitary group it represents, the Ulster Defense Association, admitted killing Catholics in violation of its own October 1994 truce.

Sinn Fein had been suspected of Friday's bombing of a predominantly Protestant town, Moira, 20 miles southwest of Belfast. That unclaimed attack, which injured 11 people, came eight hours after the British and Irish governments ordered Sinn Fein out of the talks.

Both governments now say they believe that a dissident anti-British gang calling itself Continuity IRA was responsible for Friday's attack. The group, opposed to Sinn Fein's talks strategy, also bombed a Protestant town in September, the day after Sinn Fein entered the negotiations.

Sinn Fein argues it has no proven paramilitary links--a position dismissed by everyone else at the table.

This week the governments hope negotiators will forge ahead without Sinn Fein on two key planks: a new Belfast assembly, in which Protestants and Catholics would govern in a coalition, and a new cross-border council in which lawmakers from Befast would cooperate formally with the Irish Republic.

Sinn Fein is the only participant to oppose the package.

Written by Shawn Pogatchnik.
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