A security alert at a Border village has ended after a controlled explosion on a suspicious object.

The object was found to be “nothing untoward”, said the Police Service of Northern Ireland, after an operation saw the closure of Main Street in Derrylin, Co Fermanagh.

A number of homes and businesses were evacuated during the alert which lasted a number of hours.

Several road diversions in the area, including on the main cross-border road from Cavan to Enniskillen, have been lifted.

Chief Inspector Graham Dodds said army bomb experts examined the object following a controlled explosion on Saturday afternoon. </s> Three security alerts in Derry have ended after the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) confirmed the incidents, including one where they carried out a controlled explosion, to be hoaxes.

The security alerts were in the Circular Road, Southway areas of Creggan and Northland Road at St Mary’s College. Residents who had been evacuated have returned to their homes.

The PSNI had carried out a controlled explosion on a vehicle on Monday that was hijacked by masked men in Derry and examined two other abandoned vans. The incidents have resulted in fresh disruption in the city after a car bomb exploded outside its’ courthouse on Saturday. Nobody was injured in the attack on Bishop Street which the PSNI believes a dissident republican group called ‘the New IRA’ was responsible for.

There was a large bang and black smoke from the first van on Monday after an army bomb disposal robot entered.

Police said the van had been hijacked by three masked men who threw an object in the back before abandoning it on a residential street. “We can confirm that all three alerts are hoaxes, however, we cannot underestimate the impact these incidents have had on our community,” the PSNI said early on Tuesday.

Officers had evacuated homes and cordoned off both areas as they inspected the vehicles. A Royal Mail postal van was hijacked nearby later on Monday by four masked men, one of whom was reported to have a gun, police said. A third vehicle, an Asda delivery van, was left across Northland Road opposite St Mary’s College. There had also been an attempted hijacking of a local bus elsewhere, police said.

Meanwhile four of the five people arrested by police investigating the car bomb at the weekend have been released. A fifth man (50) remains in custody in connection with the explosion. The PSNI said four men - two aged 21, and others aged 34 and 42 - were released unconditionally on Monday night. The investigation is continuing.

Assistant chief constable of the PSNI Mark Hamilton said he has not seen anything that links Brexit to the bombing in Derry at the weekend or the hijackings on Monday. He also said there was no evidence to support speculation that the incidents are a response to the 100th anniversary of the War of Independence.

Mr Hamilton told RTÉ’s News at One on Monday there was no specific information to connect the car bomb and the hijacking incidents and that doing so would be purely speculation.

“Obviously we’re concerned that the events are connected and obviously alongside the events of Saturday night we have a significant investigation running into the crime on Saturday which has led to five arrests, it may well be that all these events are connected,” he said.

“I’ve seen nothing that links Brexit to any of these issues, the threat in Northern Ireland has remained severe since 2009, unfortunately there’s always some expectation that attacks could happen.

“It’s very important for everyone to understand that we’re not expecting trouble [from Brexit], we’re not expecting violence, we’re not expecting difficulties.

“I’m very concerned for the people of Derry. . .In the longer term we don’t want a sense of fear or uneasiness creeping into the community either here in Derry or across Northern Ireland.”–Additional reporting Reuters </s> DUBLIN (Reuters) - Irish police seized a substantial quantity of firearms and a suspected explosive device near the border with Northern Ireland on Friday as part of an investigation into the activities of militant Irish nationalist groups there.

The searches took place near the County Louth village of Omeath, which lies on a small peninsula separating part of the border between European Union-member Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland.

The currently seamless border will become the United Kingdom’s only land frontier with the EU when it leaves the bloc, scheduled for the end of March.

Police on both sides have warned that any hardening of the border as a result of Brexit, with the potential return of customs posts, could be a target for the small number of militant groups still active in Northern Ireland after a 1998 peace deal ended three decades of violence in the province.

“During the searches to date Gardaí (Irish police) have recovered a substantial quantity of ammunition of varied caliber along with a mortar tube (pending examination by Garda ballistics experts),” the police said in a statement.

The recovery of the ammunition was part of ongoing police investigations targeting militant groups based in the area. The army’s bomb disposal unit was assisting at the scene, the statement added.

A militant group calling itself the “IRA” said this week it was responsible for a car bomb which detonated outside a court house in the Northern Irish city of Londonderry in January, highlighting the threat still posed by groups opposed to the peace agreement.

No one was injured in the blast, which the group said was not linked to Brexit. </s> A major police investigation is continuing in Derry after a car bomb exploded outside the city’s courthouse on Saturday night.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has said its main line of inquiry was that the dissident republican group the New IRA was responsible.

Four men – two in their 20s, a 34-year-old and a 42-year-old – were arrested and were being questioned on Sunday night by police.

Nobody was injured in the attack, which happened on Bishop Street at about 8.10pm. CCTV footage shows the car being abandoned outside the courthouse and a figure dressed in black running away. Armed and masked men had earlier hijacked the car, a Ford Fusion, from a pizza delivery driver in the Brandywell area of the city.

A bomb – described by police as a “crude and unstable device” – was put into the car and driven for half a mile through the city to the courthouse. The driver abandoned the car and ran off in the direction of the Bogside.

Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said the car was abandoned at about 7.23pm, and that shortly afterwards a call was received by the Samaritans in the English West Midlands warning of the car bomb.

That call was passed on to West Midlands police, who then passed it on to the PSNI. A patrol had already spotted the vehicle and had begun to evacuate the area. The bomb exploded at 8.09pm.

PSNI officers cut gates at the back of a youth club to allow 150 people – who were taking part in a charity quiz – to escape from the building on to the city’s walls. Other people were instructed to close doors and to move to the back of buildings.

A group of young people were recorded on CCTV making their way past the bomb about 20 minutes before it exploded.

In a statement, the dissident republican political party Saoradh linked the attack to the 100th anniversary of the Soloheadbeg ambush, which marked the beginning of the War of Independence.

The attack has been widely condemned. Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Karen Bradley said it had “rightly been met with utter condemnation from all parts of the community”.

Tánaiste Simon Coveney said there was “no place and no justification possible for such acts of terror, which seek to drag Northern Ireland back to violence and conflict”.

Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan said the attack had been carried out against the people of Derry but also against communities across the island of Ireland who had enjoyed the results of the peace process for many years.

Security sources said the attack was a reminder of the continued threat from dissident republicans and voiced concern about the risk of further attacks if a hard border was introduced under Brexit.
The village of Derrylin, close to the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, is sealed off after a suspicious object is found. The object is later determined to be “nothing untoward”.