Second bomb found in British base

ONLY a faulty fuse prevented a second bomb explosion within a week in the Akrotiri Sovereign Base Area (SBA) yesterday, but base authorities said they did not suspect a terrorist campaign.

A small home-made device containing TNT explosive – whose fuse had been lit but had not gone-off – was discovered next to a busy road through the base at around 1pm, bases spokesman Mervyn Wynne Jones said.

Last Thursday night, a bomb went off outside the SBA police station at Phasouri, damaging lighting outside the building.

Wynne Jones said yesterday’s bomb was “nowhere near” the Phasouri police station, but he added the possibility of the two attacks being linked “could not be ruled out.”

The device was found in a pumping station next to the M1 about half-way between Curium archaeological site and Phasouri by a bases security officer on routine patrol. The road was closed off while SBA explosives experts defused the device.

Wynne Jones stated that, as with the attack last week, SBA police believed it was the work of a “crank” and not terrorists.

“There is nothing sinister about the incident,” Wynne Jones told the Cyprus Mail. He said the M1 was used “as much by civilian traffic as by (British) military vehicles.”

He said there were no plans for security patrols within the SBA to be stepped up.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.