Two men were arrested on Friday in Northern Ireland in the attempted murder investigation opened after the discovery of an explosive device under her car of a policewoman, act claimed by the new IRA, announced Friday the North police. Irish.

The two men, aged 26 and 36, were arrested in Londonderry and are being questioned by investigators, Commissioner Richard Campbell said in a statement on Twitter.

Discovered on April 19, the device, composed of explosives attached to a container containing a flammable liquid, was designed to create "a fireball that would have engulfed the car and anyone who was in or near it", he said. - he specified in a call for witnesses published on the website of the Northern Irish police.

"The terrorists placed the bomb in the back of the car, directly where the three-year-old daughter is sitting" of the policewoman, he stressed, denouncing a "cowardly and despicable act".

An important step forward in the investigation into the death of Lyra McKee

If investigators keep "an open mind," the police official called "an important lead" the claim that was made on behalf of the new IRA, a republican dissident group of the historic Irish Republican Army (IRA). In April 2019, the new IRA admitted responsibility for the death of journalist Lyra McKee, who was shot and killed while covering a riot in Londonderry. The group had claimed his death was accidental.

This case comes after more than a week of clashes in early April in Northern Ireland, in a context of tensions exacerbated by the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union.

They had started in Unionist enclaves where some believe that the provisions intended to regulate post-Brexit trade in the province call into question its attachment to Great Britain.

These riots have resurfaced the specter of "Troubles", violence having opposed for three decades Republicans - mainly Catholics in favor of reunification with Ireland - and Protestant unionists, fervent defenders of membership in the United Kingdom.

The Good Friday Agreement concluded in 1998 ended the conflict that left 3,500 dead and established a fragile peace, but paramilitary groups remained active.

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