The explosive device thrown at a police patrol in Strabane was a fairly minor incident, given the amateur nature of it and the fact it caused no damage or physical injury to the officers or the vehicle they were travelling in.
However, the timing of the attack was significant, in that it occurred on the same day Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness died and shortly after his body was walked through the streets of his native Derry.
Strabane has not been a hot bed of dissident republican activity in recent years. The majority of criminality in the town centering around the 'taxing' of drug dealers by vigilante groups.
In April last year Strabane man Mickey Barr was shot dead in a Dublin bar after being linked to the ongoing drug feud in the city between the Kinahan and Hutch crime families.
While he was given a paramilitary style funeral in Strabane, arrests made afterwards were of Dublin criminals with links to the 'new IRA' and not natives of the Co Tyrone town where he had been all but shunned for his involvement with organised crime.
Whether the handful of dissidents who do still remain in the town, mainly rejects from the discredited group Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD) claim Tuesday's attack remains to be seen.
If the attack was linked to events just 15 miles away in Derry, where people had lined the streets for the return of the body of Martin McGuinness, that would be significant.
These are the people McGuinness called "traitors to Ireland" and this attack may well have been an attempt to appear relevant and capture headlines on such an historic and poignant day for republicans.
