RUC probe blast bomb reports

Police in Northern Ireland were today investigating reports of gunfire and a blast bomb being used during fresh sectarian street disturbances along a Belfast peaceline.

Rival loyalist and nationalist gangs threw stones, bricks, bottles and metal bolts at each other and police during the latest clashes in the Limestone Road, Tiger Bay and Newington areas in the north of the city.

The windows of a house on the Catholic side in Newington Street were damaged by what appeared to be an explosive device, possibly a blast bomb.

Both sides alleged gunfire was aimed at them.

Police maintained a heavy security presence in the area after they came under attack during the sporadic violence, which died down at 5am.

The flashpoint area skirts the Duncairn Road where street disturbances flared last week.

It is near a community centre in the nationalist New Lodge area which was targeted last Friday in a gun attack blamed on the loyalist Ulster Defence Association.

Community leaders in the loyalist Tiger Bay and nationalist Newington area blamed the other side for orchestrating last night’s clashes.

In the first sign of trouble, RUC officers were called to the Limestone Road area of north Belfast yesterday afternoon after nationalist and loyalist youths clashed but were able to restore calm.

Eddie McClean, a community worker in the loyalist Tiger’s Bay area, alleged the trouble started when a group of nationalists attacked Protestant houses.

He said they were confronted by a loyalist mob which chased them back to their side of the peaceline.

Windows were broken as both sides unleashed a hail of stones and bottles.

The police asserted control but Mr McClean accused republicans of being behind the attacks.

‘‘It’s very volatile. It’s definitely being orchestrated by Sinn Fein because these attacks are happening too often,’’ he added.

Sinn Fein Assembly member Gerry Kelly, who led a delegation of north Belfast nationalist residents to Dublin yesterday to discuss the summer disturbances with the Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen, blamed the UDA.

He said: ‘‘There will always be a blame game, but I am telling you the blast bomb attacks, the shooting attacks and all that are coming from loyalists. It is not coming from ordinary residents.

‘‘It is coming from the UDA.’’

The Ulster Defence Association/Ulster Freedom Fighters, whose ranks include jailed loyalist Johnny Adair, has in the past fortnight withdrawn support for the Good Friday Agreement.

On the nearby Oldpark Road, two women and three children were treated for shock following the latest overnight pipe bomb attack on a house.

The device was thrown through the living room window at around 12.30am and caught fire.

The occupants put out the fire and Army bomb disposal experts were able to defuse the device.

The incident followed a spate of pipe bomb attacks in Belfast, Lisburn, Coleraine and north Antrim.

The pipe bomb is a favoured weapon of loyalist paramilitaries who have been blamed for the bulk of over 100 similar attacks this year mostly on Catholic targets.