A HUGE bomb planted close to the Northern Ireland border was intended to murder police officers, a security chief said last night.

The device, containing 600lb of fertiliser-based home-made explosives, was defused by Army bomb disposal experts outside Forkhill, in south Armagh.

Dissident Republicans were being blamed for setting the bomb – with a command wire which led across the border to a firing point. Newry and Mourne police commander, Chief Inspector Sam Cordner, said the bomb was targeted against PSNI officers, but said, had it been detonated, it would have demolished nearby houses, killing the occupants.

As detectives launched a major investigation and forensic experts studied the device, he accused those who planted it of not caring who they killed.

He said: “There could have been a devastating outcome to this incident. The actions of terrorist criminals in planting this device in the Forkhill area put local people and police officers at significant risk.

“Their actions were reckless and dangerous in the extreme. Their target may have been the police, but they did not care who they killed or injured.”

The alarm was first raised last Tuesday with a phone call to a local newspaper. Inspector Cordner said the location was “very, very vague”, covered a wide geographic area and it was much later when the device was found at the side of the Carrie Road with a command wire leading across a field to a firing point in the Irish Republic.

Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson said the bomb showed there was a clear and ongoing threat of terrorism.

“It shows that there are evil people out there still prepared and with the equipment to take life in Northern Ireland.”

Irish Justice Minister Dermot Ahern said:“In the vote on the Good Friday Agreement, the Irish people, in the first act of all Ireland self-determination since 1918, completely rejected violence. Those behind yesterday’s bomb need to heed the will of the Irish people.”