Were loyalists behind Heron Way explosion?

TWO young girls were left terrified in the early hours of last Friday morning when a pipe bomb exploded close to their Waterside home.

No one was inside the house where the blast occurred at the time the device detonated at Heron Way at around 1am on July 27.

But a number of homes in the district were evacuated and Army bomb experts were sent to the scene.

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Mother of the children, Nicola Betts was wakened in her nearby home by the explosion.

Nicola said the two children were camping in the front garden at the time and were terrified by the incident.

“We rushed downstairs and the kids ran in petrified. I also have a two month old baby who was also wakened,” she said.

DUP councillor Gary Middleton said that the pipe-bomb attack was “inexcusable and reckless in the extreme’’.

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“Leaving a device in a built-up area where any passerby could have picked it up is ridiculous. That is what could have happened in this incidence and we could have been looking at a fatality here,’’ he said.

Police have appealed for anyone with information to contact them at Strand Road.

Although no group has claimed responsibility for this explosion, and for a previous device left in the same general area of the Waterside, there is mounting speculation that loyalist paramilitaries were involved.

One motive being suggested was that the device was targetted at property belonging to relatives of a dissident republican.

However a PSNI spokeswoman said: “Detectives are keeping an open mind and following all lines of enquiry.”