Irish Republican Army

BELFAST BOMBS INJURE 27 IN N. IRELAND Two bombs that exploded within hours of each other in a busy downtown shopping center left 27 people injured, police said yesterday. The Irish Republican Army in a telephone call to a Belfast organization said it planted the device that exploded in a stairwell of an office building in the Ann Street pedestrian mall. A second bomb went off six hours later at an electrical components shop nearby but caused no injuries. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

A bomb apparently intended to kill British troops or Ulster police officers exploded in a public swimming pool yesterday, killing two civilians and wounding four others, police said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but police said the bombing appeared to be the work of the Irish Republican Army. They said an armed man took over the indoor swimming pool and held swimmers at gunpoint as he planted the bomb against an inside wall of the building in the predominantly Catholic neighborhood of Falls Road in West Belfast.

MISSING this St. Patrick's Day: What Catherine McCartney calls some Irish-Americans' "romantic view of the IRA that doesn't fit with reality. " She knows this first-hand, as one of five sisters of Robert McCartney, a Catholic murdered in a barroom brawl by members of the Irish Republican Army. After first intimidating witnesses, the IRA offered to shoot the killers, Mafia-style (an offer the McCartney family refused). The McCartney killing followed a $50 million bank robbery, which only highlighted the IRA's similarity to the Mob. Even many Irish Catholics see the paramilitary group as a barrier to a peaceful solution in Northern Ireland.

LONDON BOMB PRECEDES QUAYLE Authorities found a bomb in a phone booth near the heart of the government district where Vice President Dan Quayle was to meet yesterday with British officials. Police suspect the bomb was planted by the IRA, making it the second time in a month the outlawed Irish Republican Army apparently has managed to place an explosive near government buildings. The earlier device blew up, but nobody was injured. Home Secretary Kenneth Baker said quick action by police "saved a great deal of destruction, damage, possibly even death.

French authorities arrested an unspecified number of suspected terrorists in connection with the just-completed economic summit and bicentennial celebrations, the interior minister said yesterday. The French news agency Agence France-Presse and state-owned television reported that three people arrested belonged to the Irish Republican Army. The television reports indicated, however, that the alleged IRA members were thought to be planning an attack on British military bases in West Germany, and not against anyone attending the economic summit.

In coverage of the Philadelphia St. Patrick's parade in the March 17 Inquirer, the word terrorist was used to cite Irish Northern Aid sympathy with the Irish Republican Army's "terrorist campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland. " Perhaps you can clear up a problem I have defining the word terrorist. More to the point, perhaps you can explain the difference between a "terrorist" and a "freedom fighter. " We fought against British colonialism in 1776 much the same way the Nationalists are fighting their war against British colonialism in the six occupied counties of Ireland today.

Two British soldiers were killed and two were seriously injured last night when a bomb hidden in an abandoned truck exploded, British army spokesmen said. The outlawed Irish Republican Army (IRA) claimed responsibility for the attack at Glassdrummand in southern County Armagh, along the border with the Irish Republic. The bomb went off as the soldiers were examining the abandoned truck, which had been left near their heavily fortified observation post. More than 30 people have died in guerrilla attacks in Northern Ireland this year.

An off-duty policeman and a bartender were shot to death as they drank together in a pub in the village of Maguiresbridge, about 12 miles from the Irish border. Police said that the killings were done by three masked men and that they suspected the outlawed Irish Republican Army. They identified the dead officer as Detective Constable Derek Breen, 29. The other victim was John McCabe, 25, bartender at the Talk of the Town. The gunmen fled the scene, leaving a small bomb that exploded 45 minutes later and started a fire.

British troops shot to death three IRA guerrillas in what was seen as the start of a tougher policy to combat increased guerrilla attacks. Some media reports said the guerrillas were killed yesterday as they prepared to attack a soldier of the Ulster Defense Regiment. The Royal Ulster Constabulary, Northern Ireland's police force, gave only brief details of the incident in Omagh, 50 miles west of Belfast. It said the shooting occurred after soldiers encountered armed men in a vehicle and that there were no casualties among the security forces.

Bridget Anne Walsh Conry, 95, an immigrant from Tullinaglug in County Sligo, Ireland, who endured turbulent politics, personal heartbreak and hard work, died of congestive heart failure Monday at Lower Bucks Hospital. She was one of the first homeowners in the local Levittown, the post-World War II suburban phenomenon, and helped start St. Michael the Archangel Church in the community. Mrs. Conry worked on her family's small farm and walked four miles a day to a two-room school in the rugged west of Ireland.

Scores of Philadelphia-area college students - many of them taking part in popular study-abroad programs - were riding London subway trains and buses yesterday morning when bomb attacks rocked the city's transit system. None appears to have been injured, but the events traumatized some local students and professors living in London this summer. "It's been hell," Villanova University professor Peggy Chaudry said in a phone call from London. She spent the day comforting and accounting for the 43 Villanova students studying at the London School of Economics and working as business interns this summer.

Bomb blasts ripped through three subway trains and a double-decker bus here yesterday in a coordinated attack that killed at least 37 people, paralyzed the city's transport system, and reminded the world that no major city is safe from those bent on targeting civilians. An additional 700 people were wounded in what was London's worst attack since World War II, more deadly than the Irish Republican Army's most lethal efforts. A previously unknown al-Qaeda affiliate claimed responsibility, and while that claim could not be verified, British authorities said the bombings had all the hallmarks of an Islamic extremist group.

The IRA's role Re: "IRA: Give up the guns, go straight," Trudy Rubin, March 16: While I'm not happy with some incidents that allegedly individuals associated with the Irish Republican Army may have committed, I do not believe the IRA should necessarily be disbanded. The IRA, unlike many of the loyalist paramilitaries, has faithfully heeded the cease-fire. Yet, there has been no talk of excluding the loyalist political parties from the peace process. That process was brought about by armed resistance to British tyranny, and it is only that threat that keeps the British at the table.

MISSING this St. Patrick's Day: What Catherine McCartney calls some Irish-Americans' "romantic view of the IRA that doesn't fit with reality. " She knows this first-hand, as one of five sisters of Robert McCartney, a Catholic murdered in a barroom brawl by members of the Irish Republican Army. After first intimidating witnesses, the IRA offered to shoot the killers, Mafia-style (an offer the McCartney family refused). The McCartney killing followed a $50 million bank robbery, which only highlighted the IRA's similarity to the Mob. Even many Irish Catholics see the paramilitary group as a barrier to a peaceful solution in Northern Ireland.

They are the most famous sisters in the world right now, seeking retribution for a brother allegedly murdered by members of the Irish Republican Army. As they began a frenetic visit to Washington yesterday, which will culminate in an Oval Office meeting this St. Patrick's Day morning, the five McCartney women and their dead brother's fiancee were seen as something else: The way to final peace in Northern Ireland. That was the view and the hope of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D., Mass.

This St. Patrick's Day won't include a visit to the White House by Sinn Fein head Gerry Adams. President Bush rightly withdrew a traditional holiday invitation to all of Northern Ireland's political leaders to mark his displeasure with their inability to forge a power-sharing agreement. The Bush administration has also added its voice to calls for Sinn Fein to disband its paramilitary wing, the Irish Republican Army, which refuses to give up its thuggish ways. For decades, the IRA enjoyed the reputation of being protectors in nationalist communities of Northern Ireland.

If Fleet Street doctor Richard Dawood saw a briefcase sitting by itself in a Starbucks, "I'd report it to the establishment," he said. If he saw a bag sitting alone on the street, he wouldn't dream of touching it, and might either call police or look for an officer nearby. The acute public radar of the British is the result of years of bitter experience, when London and other locales throughout the country were frequent targets of Irish Republican Army bombs. But such alertness appears almost quaintly useless now as British citizens and government officials struggle to come to grips with a new, post-9/11 breed of terrorists who, unlike the IRA, may be using weapons not to win a political battle but instead to kill as many people as possible.

Were feds expecting an Oklahoma City bombing? Citing documents and interviews, the Associated Press yesterday said two federal law enforcement agencies had information before the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing suggesting that white supremacists were considering an attack on government buildings, but the intelligence was never passed on to federal officials in the state. FBI officials in Washington were so concerned that white separatists at the Elohim City compound in Muldrow, Okla.

The simple words I'm sorry hold incredible power. They can't erase a wrong; can't make things perfectly all right again. But they have an amazing way of bringing together the guilty and the victimized - helping both to leave the past behind and move on. In a surprising move, the Irish Republican Army issued its own "I'm sorry" this week. It apologized for the deaths of about 650 civilians during its long campaign against British control in Northern Ireland. Specifically, the IRA apologized for an "operation" in Belfast on July 21, 1972.