N. Ireland Blast Injures Two Men

An explosion injured two men Wednesday in a Catholic area of Belfast, but the cause of the blast was not immediately clear.

Northern Ireland’s police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, said it was not yet known whether the explosion behind a house in the west Belfast neighborhood of Ballymurphy was caused by a gas leak or was terrorist-related.

The blast came one day after the Ulster Freedom Fighters, Northern Ireland’s largest pro-British paramilitary group, threatened to break its six-year cease-fire. The outlawed group had accused Catholic groups of waging a campaign of intimidation against Protestants living in north and west Belfast.

The RUC said the blast occurred in a garden shed. The two victims were a father and his adult son, both of whom suffered head injuries. Their conditions were not known.

Bomb disposal experts were examining the shed to try to pinpoint the cause of the explosion.