POLICE in Northern Ireland were attacked with bottles and other missiles early yesterday after a crowd of youths went on the rampage through a town in Co Down.

A man was arrested today after eight police officers came under gun attack in Belfast during a fresh outbreak of violence in the city.

Eight police officers have come under gun attack in Belfast as a fresh outbreak of violence hit the city.

Sinn Fein today urged Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble to visit a nationalist community in east Belfast.

SIXTEEN soldiers were injured during overnight sectarian street clashes in flashpoint east Belfast.

Sixteen soldiers were injured during overnight sectarian street clashes in flashpoint east Belfast.

The situation at a sectarian flashpoint in east Belfast is spiralling out of control, unionist politicians and Protestant clergymen in the district warned tonight.

Political efforts to stem the rising tide of violence at sectarian flashpoints across Belfast were intensifying today with a number of high-profile meetings following a night of further violence in the city.

Lives will be lost unless the violence in east Belfast ends, the British government was warned tonight.

Unionists and nationalists have blamed each other for rioting in east Belfast which left several people injured last night.

Violence along an East Belfast peaceline will not end unless the security forces stop treating a nationalist neighbourhood as a no-go area, Democratic Unionist MP Peter Robinson claimed today.

Gunfire was reported in Belfast tonight as police and army were drafted in to keep rival sectarian mobs apart at two of the city’s troublespots.

Reports of an explosion in a riot-ravaged part of east Belfast were today being investigated by police.

THIRTEEN police officers were injured after sectarian rioting erupted in a bitterly divided Belfast neighbourhood, it emerged yesterday.

Thirteen police officers are reported to be injured in East Belfast last night when they came under what they described as sustained and orchestrated attacks by nationalists.

Seven officers were injured in a sustained and orchestrated nationalist attack on them and on the loyalist Cluan Place area as an Apprentice Boys parade dispersed.

A pipe bomb thrown into the nationalist Short Strand area in east Belfast today was intended to kill Catholics, Sinn Fein said.

Police have used water cannons to break up a nationalist riot following a controversial Protestant Orange Order parade in west Belfast.

Police used water cannons to break up a nationalist riot today following a controversial Protestant Orange Order parade in west Belfast.

An independent team of observers is needed to establish who is responsible for triggering street clashes along one of Belfast’s sectarian interfaces, it was claimed today.

Belfast erupted in sectarian violence for the fourth night in a row after loyalist and republican gunmen wounded three people.

Two people are tonight being treated for bullet wounds as a sectarian flashpoint area in east Belfast erupted in more violence.

Gunshots were fired in east Belfast tonight as violence erupted for the fourth night running.

Three people were shot last night as sectarian rioting erupted around the nationalist enclave of Short Strand in east Belfast last night.