Monday, November 23, 2009 DUBLIN: A car carrying a 400-pound bomb was driven through barriers at the Policing Board headquarters in Belfast, Northern Ireland, police said Sunday.Two men ran away from the vehicle, and there was a small explosion about half an hour later, as the building was being evacuated, the Police Service of Northern Ireland said in a statement. They believe the bomb exploded only partially.PSNI Chief Constable Matt Baggott condemned the attack as "reckless."Barry Gilligan, the chairman of the Policing Board, called it "an attack upon the entire community."He said the target was "not just an empty office building on a Saturday night," as a significant number of people who lived nearby were "put at risk.""Had this device functioned as the terrorists planned, there would have been widespread damage and destruction," an unnamed police spokesman said in the PSNI statement.There were no injuries, the police said.The car crashed through barriers at Clarendon Dock in Belfast at about 7:10 p.m. (2:20 p.m. ET) Saturday night, police said.They said there was no warning before the attack. Irish terrorists often -- but not always -- send messages warning about bombs before they explode.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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