Protestant brings bombs into government building



He was stopped by two security guards.
BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) -- Belfast's most infamous militant stormed into the Northern Ireland Assembly headquarters Friday with a bagful of pipe bombs, forcing an evacuation that overshadowed the politicians' failure to meet a deadline for forming a new Catholic-Protestant administration.
Two security guards trapped Michael Stone -- an icon of Protestant extremism because of his grenade-and-gun attack on an Irish Republican Army funeral in 1988 -- halfway inside the brass revolving door of Stormont Parliamentary Building.
Stone, a long-feared figure who boasts of his desire to kill Sinn Fein leaders, repeatedly screamed "No surrender!" as one guard twisted Stone's arm and another pulled a handgun from his jacket.
Bombs found
British army experts using remote-controlled robots later discovered at least six working pipe bombs inside a bag he was carrying, police said.
"Today could be a defining moment, not least because a serious attempt to kill and injure people in this parliament building was only averted by the bravery of staff members. Now we need to match that bravery," said Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, whose IRA-linked party represents most of the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland.
Stone's thwarted attack came on the day when a Catholic-Protestant administration, the central aim of the Good Friday peace accord of 1998, was supposed to be resurrected after four years of deadlock.
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