IRA-Type Bomb Defused After Boys Use It as Makeshift Soccer Ball
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BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Schoolboys played soccer with a suspected Irish Republican Army bomb, thinking that it was a doll’s head before a teacher recognized what it was, police say.
The device, containing a pound of plastic explosive, was safely defused by bomb-disposal experts after it was discovered last week, police said.
The boys found what they thought was a doll’s head on their way to school in Enniskillen, 70 miles southwest of Belfast. After kicking it down the street, they stuck the device to a school gatepost with the attached magnet, police said.
A teacher, arriving for work, realized that the boys had found a bomb and notified police.
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