N. Irish police defuse car bomb near venue of next G8 leaders meet

BELFAST (REUTERS) - Northern Irish police defused a bomb in a car on Saturday close to where G8 leaders will meet at a summit in June and said that the device was likely to have been intended for a police station nearby.

Army bomb disposal experts defused the device after a security operation that lasted almost 36 hours in the county Fermanagh town of Enniskillen. The Group of Eight leaders meet just outside the town in three months' time.

A senior Northern Irish officer said police believed the bomb was en route to a police station in a town nearby and would have killed or injured people if it had not been intercepted.

"Once again our community has been disrupted and the lives of residents put at risk by an element intent on causing loss of life and disruption," District Commander Pauline Shields said in a statement.