Last Car-Bomb Victims Buried

The shattered town of Omagh was burying the final eight civilians slain by a terrorist car bomb as medical staff dealt Thursday with more than 300 survivors bearing physical and mental scars.

Twenty-eight people died in Saturday's blast in the religiously mixed town 70 miles west of Belfast, the most deadly attack in the three decades of Northern Ireland's conflict. The Irish Republican Army dissident gang responsible, the so-called "Real IRA," is facing a security crackdown on both sides of the Irish border.

Meanwhile, it emerged that the political activist most closely identified with the faction, Bernadette Sands-McKevitt, had her U.S. visa application refused by the State Department after she visited the Dublin embassy last week.

Sands-McKevitt, sister of the IRA hunger-strike leader Bobby Sands and common-law wife of the Real IRA's reputed commander, met members of Congress during her previous American lobbying trip to oppose April's peace deal that allows Protestants and Catholics to share power in Northern Ireland.

She denies that her legal pressure group, called the 32 County Sovereignty Committee, supports the Real IRA. But she had hoped to travel to New York and Washington to criticize an accord she argues will ensure continued violence because it did not bring about the end of Northern Ireland as a Protestant-majority state linked with Britain.

Sixteen funerals were held Wednesday as the people of Omagh, both Catholics and Protestants, tried to come to terms with their pain and suffering, CBS News Senior European Correspondent Tom Fenton reports.

Among Wednesday's funerals was that of a 12-year-old boy who wrote a poem a few months ago about his hopes for the Northern Ireland peace process.

"Scatter the seeds of peace over our land," he wrote, "so we can travel hand in hand across the bridge of hope."

The hope in Omagh Wednesday was that this latest and worst atrocity will somehow be a catalyst for a real peace. The public and political outrage - on both sides of the religious divide - is so strong and universal, even the most committed terrorists may think twice before exploding more bombs.

As when the splinter group declared responsibility Tuesday for the bombing, the latest declaration was relayed to the Dublin office of the Belfast-based newspaper Irish News by a caller using a recognized code word.

It read: "As a direct result of the Omagh tragedy and also in response to the appeals of Bertie Ahern and others, we are currently embarking on a process of consultation on our future direction.

"In the meantime, all military operations have been suspended from 12 midnight."

The anonymous caller also said "no timeframe" was attached to the declaration.

In its earlier statement, the group apologized for the deaths, saying its warnings were not properly followed.

"Despite media reports, it was not our intenton at any time to kill any civilians. It was a commercial target, part of an ongoing war against the Brits," the statement said.

"We offer apologies to these civilians."

Britain's top official in the province, who was accompanying Prince Charles on a tour of the shattered town, denounced the apology as a "pathetic attempt to...excuse mass murder."

"It is contemptible, and it is an insult to the people of Omagh," said Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam.

The police and Ulster Television in Belfast also rejected the group's claim that it gave clear warnings.

News media said the claim appeared authentic and reflected embarrassment over the bombing, which killed mainly women and children.