
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 8, 1991                   TAG: 9102080018
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: LONDON                                LENGTH: Short

MORTAR FIRED AT BRITISH LEADER

Prime Minister John Major and Britain's war Cabinet narrowly escaped injury Thursday when a mortar shell fired from a nearby van exploded in the back yard of his official Downing Street residence, just 40 feet from the room where he and his senior Cabinet colleagues were meeting.

The attack, which took place in the midst of one of the highest security alerts in British history because of the Persian Gulf war, apparently was carried out by the Irish Republican Army without a direct link to the conflict. It was launched from Whitehall, the main artery of central London's government district.

Security experts said they believed the IRA may have tried to capture world attention already heightened by the war. But the organization, which claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement Thursday night, said it had been planned long before the conflict and before Major took office last November.

The explosion shattered bombproof windows in the ground-floor room where Major and other officials were meeting but injured none of them. "We were sitting in the Cabinet Room when the windows came in," Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd told reporters afterward.

Officials said Major coolly told colleagues, "I think we had better start again somewhere else," and adjourned the meeting to an underground conference room.

Major told the House of Commons it was clear from the timing of the attack that it was "a deliberate attempt both to kill the Cabinet and to do damage to our democratic government."

by CNB