Police: Bomber who forgot to set clock forward blew self up

Police: Bomber who forgot to set clock forward blew self up

April 1, 2014 4:31 PM By Cora Van Olson

Some residents in the Long Lane and South Inner City area in the Irish city of Dublin had their Sunday night interrupted by the frightening blast of a car bomb around 11 p.m., followed by the strange sight of the bomber “dripping in blood” from the blast of his own bomb, get into a cab and leave the scene.

The blast came from a car bomb set to go off under a parked Volvo SUV. The SUV was completely destroyed, and the explosive so powerful that anyone walking nearby would have been killed, police say. The case is a perplexing one. The explosives used by the bomber were not cheap, “This certainly was a high-grade explosive used in this bomb. It wasn’t garbage stuff,” according to a senior unnamed source.

The bomber, however, who police believe may have been affiliated with an inner-city gang, seems to have made an amateurish mistake, and it seems that the change to Daylight Savings Time could have been at the root of it. “It could be a case where he didn’t put his watch forward on Sunday [at 1am] and the timer went off too soon,” said the same senior source.

The other possibility is that the bomber didn’t expect such a large explosion, and was too close to bomb when went off.

In any case, police are searching for the whoever gave the injured bomber a lift, as well as the bomber, who they think may have some serious injuries and be in need of medical attention.

So far. there is no known motive for the bombing. The owner of the SUV was identified as a local business man, who reportedly has no criminal history.