A police recruit was killed yesterday when a bomb planted under a car exploded outside his home in Omagh, Co Tyrone.
The booby-trapped Ford Mondeo is believed to have blown up when Ronan Kerr, 25, got in to drive to work.
Last night the Real IRA, the breakaway republican terror group, was the prime suspect for the bombing. Politicians fear the extremist group is trying to disrupt elections for the Northern Ireland assembly.
There have been a series of attacks in recent weeks, including a bomb found in Londonderry last week.
The latest blast will have sent shivers through the people of Omagh, where 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, were killed when a Real IRA car bomb exploded in August 1998.
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Police sources described the bomb that killed Kerr as a “teacup-sized” device.
He was part of a new wave of Catholic recruits to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, which was created in the wake of the peace deal in the province.
Matt Baggott, his chief constable, said last night: “We have lost one of our brave and courageous peacemakers, someone who joined this fine service simply to do good things, to serve the community impartially and to be what I would describe as a modern- day hero.”
Kerr joined the PSNI in May last year and had served in Omagh since December. A senior officer said he had “literally been with us for weeks”.
Colleagues said he lived at home with his mother. The house is believed to have been badly damaged in the blast just before 4pm, the same time as the 1998 bomb. Several nearby houses were evacuated.
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Last night Northern Ireland was girding itself for more violence before next month’s elections. On May 5, the province will elect 108 members of the legislative assembly and members of the 26 local councils.
Politicians on all sides insisted the policeman’s death would not turn back the clock to the Troubles.
Peter Robinson, first minister of Northern Ireland, said the victim was a “brave young man who was prepared to serve his community”.
He described those responsible as “dinosaurs who want to drag us back” to the past.
Gerry Adams, the president of Sinn Fein, said: “We are determined that those responsible will not turn back the peace process.”
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David Cameron said: “Those who carried out this wicked and cowardly crime will never succeed in dragging Northern Ireland back to a dark and bloody past. Their actions are rejected by the overwhelming majority of people from all parts of the community.”
Cardinal Sean Brady, head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, called on the killers “to realise the futility of their actions”.
The Real IRA broke away from the Provisional IRA in late 1997 when it became clear that the latter would accept the Northern Ireland peace deal.
The Real IRA reactivated three years ago and its attacks have been escalating ever since. It has left booby-trap bombs under the cars of soldiers, police officers and civilian police workers, particularly targeting Catholics.
Most bombs have failed to explode but two policemen lost legs in attacks in May 2008 and January 2010.
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In March 2009 two soldiers were shot dead and two others wounded outside barracks in Co Antrim. They were the first soldiers killed in Northern Ireland for 12 years.