LONDON - Irish terrorists sent fresh signals of frustration and defiance to Britain yesterday with two bomb blasts that punctuated a national election campaign and saluted the anniversary of the republican struggle against British rule in Northern Ireland.
There were no injuries in the twin attacks, but they brought chaos to the national rail network in the aftermath of an audacious escape plan by hard-core Irish Republican Army prisoners that was foiled at a jail near Belfast.
The bombs, blamed by police and the British and Irish governments on the IRA, exploded a half-hour apart early yesterday morning in the northern English town of Wilmslow, an affluent suburban community and important junction about 160 miles northwest of London. Police think the bombs were placed and timed so that the second would strike emergency personnel responding to the first. It narrowly missed.
The explosions tore up track and destroyed signaling equipment, crippling service between London and the nearby northern metropolis of Manchester, whose downtown shopping area was savaged by a huge IRA bomb last June.
Yeltsin proclaimed a ban yesterday on foreign car purchases from state coffers as of next Tuesday, and he ordered those already imported at taxpayer expense to go to the auction block.
The moves are expected to win cheers from a struggling population and could mute today's nationwide labor strike.