Police Warning on Northern Ireland

No Agreement on Parades Crisis

The Chief Constable said the province was going through "dangerous times" after the IRA's killing of two RUC officers earlier this week.

"I have no doubt there are people on both sides who want to see trouble in the coming weeks and it behoves us all to isolate these people," he said.

Mr Flanagan blamed loyalists for a booby-trap bomb attached to the car of a Sinn Fein councillor. The army safely defused the device.

The bomb was detected outside the home of James McCarry. He's been a Sinn Fein member of Moyle district council in County Antrim for eight years.

"I have young children and the local school bus stops at the gate just in front of the car," said Mr McCarry. "It might not have been me they killed. There could have been quite a few other casualties."

The Sinn Fein President, Gerry Adams, has called on Republicans to exercise extreme vigilance. No group has yet said it planted the bomb.

A Government spokesman says the Prime Minister will make a statement on Northern Ireland in the Commons next week.

"He thinks it is important just to set out what we have been doing and what he believes we can do to take things forward," said the spokesman.

No details have been revealed about what Mr Blair may propose, but he is expected to discuss Northern Ireland with President Clinton at the G-7 Summit in Denver.

According to the Government spokesman, Mr Blair is hoping that the US will continue to reinforce the view that the strategy being pursued by Sinn Fein/IRA - use of violence and politics interchangeably - is not acceptable.