Two people have been injured in a car bomb explosion outside a police station in Newtownhamilton, County Armagh, Northern Ireland .
The attack came as security sources said the threat posed by dissident republicans in Northern Ireland was higher than at any time since the Omagh bomb almost 12 years ago.
The explosion happened at about 2325 BST on the 22nd April 2010. Police were told in a call to a Belfast hospital about an hour earlier that a vehicle had been abandoned.
Officers were en route to the station, which is staffed on a part-time basis, when the explosion happened.
The two people's injuries are not life-threatening. The bombers had fired shots in the air before driving off.
The two people who were treated in hospital - a woman in her 80s who was blown off her feet by the blast and a man who sustained a minor shrapnel injury - are said to have been left "extremely shaken".
These are people who are hell-bent on killing police officers in this area
Chief Inspector Sam Cordner
Bomb condemned by politicians
Structural damage is believed to have been caused to the police station and other homes and businesses were also damaged.
The car in which the bomb was placed completely disintegrated.
Local people criticised those responsible for leaving the device and the police response which meant that homes were evacuated by the fire service.
Last week, the Army defused a car bomb outside the village's police station, one of a number of attacks on police and security bases in Northern Ireland recently, including an explosion at Palace Barracks in Holywood.
