| Background provided by CNN: Suspected Irish Republican
Army dissidents exploded a bomb at a rural Northern Ireland hotel Sunday
evening in an apparent attempt to derail the province's peace process.
The bombing - the first such attack in Northern Ireland since 1998 - was
condemned by every political party in Northern Ireland including Sinn Fein,
the political wing of the IRA. There were no reports of serious injuries
in the blast, at the rear of Mahon's Hotel, in Irvinestown, County Fermanagh,
southwest of Omagh, at 7:20 p.m. The explosion came after a warning to
the BBC radio station in Belfast that two bombs had been left at two hotels
in the area. The caller claimed he was from the Continuity IRA, a small
dissident group opposed to the IRA's 1997 truce.
Land: Northern Ireland is mainly a low, often marshy, plain, with an
irregular coast.
Population: The majority of the population is of Scottish or English
ancestry, known as Scotch-Irish, and the remainder is Irish. Although Northern
Ireland has no state church, the descendants of the Scotch-Irish are predominantly
Protestant (51 percent of the population), while the descendants of the
original Irish inhabitants are overwhelmingly Roman Catholic (39 percent).
Government: As a part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland elects
members to the British House of Commons.
The United Nations has provided intelligence that an armed group of
terrorists, controlled by parties unknown, has been the ones responsible.
The United Nations has asked for help in this matter from =1FS=. |
