The bomb was planted outside a hotel in County Fermanagh

Unionists Suspect IRA Involvement in Fermanagh Bombing Attempt

Up to 1,000 lbs of explosive was packed into an abandoned car parked outside a hotel in Lisbellaw, near Enniskillen. Residents and hotel guests were evacuated from the area after a warning was telephoned through.

No organisation has claimed responsibility for planting the device, but intelligence chiefs believe it may have been the work of the Continuity Army Council (CAC), which groups Republicans opposed to the IRA's ceasefire, renewed on 20 July.

The Fermanagh scare was the first such incident since the ceasefire was declared.

Loyalists fear, however, that the IRA may have been involved. Loyalist representatives participating in all-party talks at Stormont - which Sinn Fein is due to join next month - said that without a formal IRA denial, the possibility of IRA involvement could not be ruled out.

And Unionist MPs are demanding that the Government halts the scaling down of security measures in the province, which began after the ceasefire declaration.

Peter Robinson, the Democratic Unionist MP for East Belfast, claimed that both the British and Irish governments had been fooled by the Republican leadership.

Mr Robinson said: "This should bring a cold shower of reality to the dreamers and bluffers who attempted to portray the IRA ceasefire announcement as being anything other than a phoney and tactical device."

Billy Hutchinson of the Progressive Unionist Party said: "We have to examine where this attack came from and have to assume the people responsible could not have moved without the blessing of the provisionals."