Petrol bomb targets drilling campaign in Ireland

An energy company planning to drill for shale natural gas in Northern Ireland said the home of one of its workers was bombed.

Tamboran Resources said last month it aims to drill what it says was a "scientific borehole" at a site in Northern Ireland. Since the July 21 announcement, the company said it secured an injunction that prevents outsiders from interfering with its operations because of a string of protests.

The company said its workers have been the target of threats from groups worried the drilling campaign would lead to hydraulic fracturing, the controversial drilling practice dubbed fracking.

A petrol bomb was thrown at the home of one of the company's workers, though nobody was injured in the attack.

"This was an orchestrated and abhorrent attack on a local family in the middle of the night," a statement published in the Daily Telegraph in London said Monday. "We condemn this latest attack that follows a number of unlawful incidents at our [drilling] site and threats that have been made to security staff."

Protesters in Balcombe, a village on the southern coast of England, became unruly last year. There, energy company Cuadrilla Resources carried out exploratory shale work, though no fracking was conducted at the site.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack on Tamboran Resources.