Pipe bomb brought home by girl, 4

A four-year-old girl had a narrow escape in west Belfast when she picked up a pipe bomb and brought it into her house.

A four-year-old girl had a narrow escape in west Belfast when she picked up a pipe bomb and brought it into her house.

The child discovered the device in the Springfield Road area near Belfast's "peaceline" separating nationalist and loyalist communities.

Police say she carried the unexploded bomb into her house to her mother who immediately removed it to their front garden.

Army bomb-disposal experts were summoned to the scene and dealt with the device.

There have been more than 50 pipe-bomb and gun attacks on nationalist homes by loyalists since the New Year.

The Ulster Defence Association and other dissident loyalist paramilitaries have been accused of orchestrating the attacks.

However, the other large loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Volunteer Force, has fallen under suspicion following discovery of a bomb-making factory in a block of flats in north Belfast.

The haul in the Mount Vernon area of the city included 11 pipe bombs, home-made explosives and a substantial primed and ready bomb consisting of 45lbs of explosives packed into a fire extinguisher.

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