A car bomb claimed by dissident Republican paramilitaries has cast a cloud over the transfer of key powers from London to Northern Ireland.
The long-troubled province appointed its own justice minister in charge of police and justice affairs, the last stage in a handover of executive powers from London to Belfast.
But the transfer was marred by the bomb in a hijacked taxi which exploded minutes after the midnight handover, near the Northern Ireland headquarters of Britain's MI5 security agency in a Belfast suburb.
The device, claimed by the dissident Republican Real IRA, exploded at the rear of Palace Barracks, a former British army complex just outside Belfast which now houses hundreds of MI5 employees, said a police spokeswoman.
Nobody was seriously injured, but a number of houses in the area were evacuated and residents moved to a local community centre, police said.
"I was just dazed, I did not know what was happening. There was just this loud bang and I thought something had blown in the house," said Jackie Budd, who lives metres away.
Politicians vowed that the attack on the offices of MI5 -- which monitors paramilitary activity in the province -- would not blow the political process off course.
"The important thing is to keep the political process in the driving seat," said Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein, an ex-commander of the paramilitary Irish Republican Army (IRA), now at the heart of political power.
Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward said the transfer of powers "stands in stark contrast to the activity of a criminal few who will not accept the will of the majority of people of Northern Ireland.
"They have no support anywhere," he added.
The United States urged leaders to stay focused on the peace process and pledged its support for the province.
The car bomb "should in no way deter momentum toward realizing the promise of the Good Friday and St. Andrews (peace) agreements," said State Department spokesman Philip Crowley.
He said this included "the conclusion of the devolution of policing and justice powers from Westminster to Belfast, as occurred today."
"The United States stands fully with the people of Northern Ireland in rejecting those who would continue to use violence as a tool," added Crowley.
The new justice minister, David Ford of the cross-community Alliance Party, was voted in after a deal brokered between the pro-London Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Republicans Sinn Fein, who seek a united Ireland.
"This is, I believe, a significant day for Northern Ireland," said the new minister, adding that the overnight bomb attack underlined the need for politicians to work together.
Northern Ireland endured three decades of civil strife between Catholics who wanted the province to become part of the Republic of Ireland and Protestants who wanted to stay within the United Kingdom.
The violence largely ended with the signing of the 1998 Good Friday peace accords, which paved the way for the current power-sharing administration between the Protestant DUP and the Catholic Sinn Fein parties.
The main paramilitary groups including the IRA have laid down their arms, but sporadic violence still plagues the province, including the killing of two British soldiers and a policeman last year.
Dissident republicans opposed to the peace process are usually blamed.
Britain seized control of policing and justice from Northern Ireland's local ministers in 1972, at the height of the violence known as "The Troubles", in a bid to control the worsening security situation.
But it prompted the fall of the devolved administration and London retained control throughout the conflict, in which more than 3,500 people died.
When lawmakers approved the power transfer deal last month, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown hailed it as the "final end" to decades of strife.
Ford said his appointment as justice minister "is a step forward in the peace process, in the political process, and in ensuring that the institutions which have been in place since 1998 are firmly affixed."
