Bloody Friday is the name given to the bombings by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Belfast on 21 July 1972, during the Troubles. At least twenty bombs exploded in the space of eighty minutes, most within a half hour period. Most of them were car bombs and most targeted infrastructure, especially the transport network. Nine people were killed, including two British soldiers and five civilians, while 130 were injured. The IRA said it sent telephoned warnings at least thirty minutes before each explosion, and claimed the security forces wilfully ignored some of the warnings for its own ends. The security forces denied this and said they were overstretched by the sheer amount of bombs and bomb warnings, some of which were hoaxes.