IRA bomb targets MI5

DUBLIN – Irish Republican Army dissidents detonated a bomb today outside the British spy headquarters in Northern Ireland, police said, hours before rival Catholic and Protestant leaders were to elect a new justice minister in a long-sought step in peacemaking.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland said IRA dissidents held a Belfast taxi driver at gunpoint in his home and used his cab to carry the bomb to the security walls of Palace Barracks, a former British Army base that houses the Northern Ireland branch office of domestic spy agency MI5.

Police said the blast caused no serious injuries.