Ambush, car bomb target Northern Irish police

BELFAST (Reuters) - Gunmen ambushed and shot at police in Northern Ireland overnight and a car bomb partially exploded at the Belfast headquarters of the police watchdog in further incidents of increasing violence in the province.

Police said two people were arrested in connection with the ambush which took place in the village of Garrison, 25 miles (40km) from Enniskillen where a 1987 bomb killed 11 people, one of the deadliest attacks during Northern Ireland's 30 years of sectarian strife.

No police were hurt in the incident in which officers returned fire at the assailants.

In a separate attack, a car laden with a 400 lb (180 kg) bomb was driven through the security barrier at the Belfast headquarters of the Northern Ireland Policing Board.

The bomb partially exploded, setting the car on fire, but no one was hurt.

Sporadic violence in Northern Ireland has increased in recent months since Republican dissidents killed two British soldiers and a police officer in two separate attacks in March, threatening a decade-long peace process.

"It appears that the dissidents are broadening the scale of their attacks," Policing Board member Alex Attwood said in a statement.

The March killings marked a low point since a 1998 peace deal mostly ended 30 years of conflict between the IRA, seeking a united Ireland, and groups wanting to maintain British control of the province.

The policing board is a watchdog meant to ensure impartial policing in the province.

Three days ago, army experts defused a bomb which they said also targeted police officers.

(Writing by Andras Gergely in Dublin; Editing by Janet Lawrence)