Police suspect Real IRA in blast at postal center

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Police investigating an explosion at a postal sorting center late Saturday night believe the blast was the work of the Real IRA, a faction of the Irish Republican Army.

No one was injured in the explosion.

Alan Fry, the head of Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Unit, told reporters he believes the powerful device that was placed in the doorway of the sorting center was in remembrance of the 75th anniversary of the Easter Uprising in Ireland.

Alistair Campbell, the press officer for the Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard, told CNN police received several calls from neighbors at 11:30 p.m. local time about the explosion at the postal center in Edgware, in northwest London.

He said officers from the anti-terrorist unit on the scene found a high-explosive device weighing almost one pound. He said they would resume their work at daylight, in hopes of recovering more pieces of the device and other forensic evidence.

Campbell said no one was in the building at the time, and the structure suffered minor damage in the explosion. No prior threat was made, he said.

Campbell said one of the original founders of the IRA, Michael Collins, once bombed a postal sorting center, and that this explosion may have been some kind of an act of remembrance.

The Real IRA also claimed responsibility for bombing London's Hammersmith Bridge last year. Campbell said Collins also targeted that bridge.

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