Policeman, 25, killed in Omagh car bomb attack

A CATHOLIC police officer was killed when a bomb exploded under his car in the town of Omagh in Northern Ireland yesterday.

Ronan Kerr was blown up when the device was detonated under the vehicle outside his home on the outskirts of the Co Tyrone town at about 4pm.

The 25-year-old, who joined the Police Service of Northern Ireland in May and began work in December, was praised by his chief constable as a "modern-day hero".

PC Kerr is the second officer to die in a suspected terrorist attack since the PSNI was formed out of the Royal Ulster Constabulary in 2001.

No group claimed responsibility last night, but dissident republicans have planted dozens of booby-trap bombs under the private cars of police officers since 2007.

Most of the bombs failed to detonate, but two policemen lost their legs in attacks in May 2008 and January 2010.

PSNI chief constable Matt Baggott said: "We have lost one of our brave and courageous police recruits, someone who joined this fine service simply to do good, joined to serve the community impartially and to be someone I describe as a modern-day hero."

He added: "Tonight is one of the most sombre and saddest evenings of my service, tonight tragedy has returned to Omagh. I have no words to describe the awfulness of the events of this afternoon and my abhorrence and anger at this wasted life."

Prime Minister David Cameron has condemned the "wicked and cowardly" bomb attack, saying the perpetrators were trying to take Northern Ireland back to a "dark and bloody past".

In previous statements, the dissidents have stressed their determination to target any Irish Catholics who join the PSNI. Yesterday's killing was the first fatal attack on Northern Ireland's security forces in two years.

Newly-elected Irish prime minister Enda Kenny called the killing "a heinous and pointless act of terror". He added: "Those who carried it out want to drag us back to the misery and pain of the past. They are acting in defiance of the Irish people."

Neighbours of the victim in the Gortin Road area of Omagh – a town synonymous with one of the greatest horrors of the Northern Ireland conflict – said the police officer had just entered his car alone when it exploded. Passers-by tried to douse the flames with extinguishers.

Dissidents opposed to the Northern Ireland peace process shot dead two off-duty British soldiers and a policeman in March 2009. Last year they detonated half-a-dozen car bombs outside security installations, businesses and a courthouse but caused little damage.

IRA dissidents committed the deadliest single bombing of the Northern Ireland conflict in Omagh in 1998 when a car bomb detonated amid a crowd of evacuated shoppers and workers. Twenty-nine people were killed and more than 200 injured.

Northern Ireland's police force has been transformed in the past decade – a policy of favouring Catholic recruits helped to turn the force from 8 per cent Catholic in 2001 to 30 per cent Catholic today.