IRA Bombs London Commuter Rail Links
LONDON — Guerrillas of the Irish Republican Army blew up a rail link west of London and a firebomb closed a line to the north, leaving up to 40,000 commuters without regular service Monday.
British Rail suspended service between London and western England after the IRA set off a bomb late Sunday on a line in the town of Reading, a day after a botched bombing in Belfast, Northern Ireland, killed 10 people and injured up to 60.
An incendiary device damaged a bridge in Buckinghamshire north of London on a main line into the capital, railway officials said Monday. The line was closed for forensic examination.
Meanwhile, in Belfast, two Catholics died in a Protestant backlash for the IRA’s weekend attack.
A Catholic taxi driver shot in the head just hours after the IRA attack died of his wounds in a hospital Monday. Later, the outlawed Ulster Volunteer Force telephoned Belfast’s Downtown Radio to say that a prominent nationalist had been shot to death in his house.
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