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Northern Ireland Policeman Critically Wounded in Car Bombing

   VOA News 08 January 2010

   A  Northern  Ireland  police  officer is in critical condition after a
   bomb blamed on Republican militants exploded under his car.
   The  officer, a Catholic named Peadar Heffron), was driving to work in
   Randalstown,  in  County  Antrium  northwest of Belfast, when the bomb
   went off.
   It  happened a short distance from where two Northern Ireland soldiers
   were  killed  last  March.   Those killings, along with the death of a
   police  officer, were the first in more than a decade and marked a low
   point  in  Northern  Ireland  since  1998, the year of the Good Friday
   peace accord.
   Over   the   past   year,   attacks  aimed  at  undermining  the  2007
   power-sharing   agreement   between   the   province's  Catholics  and
   Protestants have increased.

Some information for this report provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.

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