SF calls for independent monitors at flashpoints

Independent monitors must be placed at sectarian flashpoints across Belfast in a bid to identify ringleaders orchestrating street violence, republicans demanded today.

The demand came as Sinn Fein held new talks with Northern Ireland Security Minister Jane Kennedy after another night of trouble which left nine police officers hurt.

The latest casualties were treated after major disturbances in the east and north of the city during which petrol bombs and shots were fired.

The Government is under growing pressure to quell the violence amid fears it will spread to other areas.

Loyalists and republicans have blamed each other, and today Sinn Fein representatives urged Ms Kennedy to call in independent monitors to help identify the men organising the rioting.

North Belfast councillor Eoin O’Broin claimed the loyalist Ulster Defence Association had led attacks on nationalist communities in the north and east of the city.

"The cause of the problem is an orchestrated campaign by the UDA, while the behaviour of the police in their refusal to adequately deal with attacks on Catholic homes is exacerbating the problem," he said.

Mr O’Broin said he and his party colleague, Joe O’Donnell, and two residents from the Short Strand in the east of the city and Alliance Avenue in the north, had called for increased security measures for both flashpoint areas at the meeting.

"We need to have independent monitors on both sides of the interface to provide an independent assessment of the trouble and expose those responsible," he added.

The summit formed part of fresh efforts to stem the rising tide of sectarian violence in Belfast after another night of street clashes.

Police said at least nine officers were injured when they came under attack during intense loyalist rioting in the east of the city.

Blast bombs and gunfire damaged a number of police vehicles as trouble continued until the early hours.

Police fired 27 plastic bullets as they came under what a spokesman called a "continuous barrage" of petrol bombs and other missiles.

A bus was hi-jacked, but recovered before it could be destroyed, and ambulance crews were forced to leave their east Belfast depot and operate from the other side of the city when the trouble spread to their front doors.

Meanwhile, in the north of the city, a pipe bomb exploded at the back of a home in the loyalist Glenbryn Park area of Ardoyne.

Gunfire was also reported in the adjoining nationalist Alliance Avenue area, police said.

Ms Kennedy’s fellow Northern Ireland Office minister Des Browne was then facing tough questions from a delegation of nationalist SDLP councillors from across the city in the afternoon.

North Belfast SDLP councillor Martin Morgan said they would be asking what practical steps the Government planned to take to ease the suffering of those living at flashpoints.

"The on-going violence in areas of Belfast is devastating local communities," he said.

"We have suffered a summer of nightly attacks and intimidation. People living in these areas are at their wits’ end. These attacks must be brought to an end before someone else loses their life."

Meanwhile, Ulster Unionist MLAs and councillors were meeting to discuss the spiralling situation tomorrow.

The talks follow a week of vicious sectarian rioting which has now left at least 34 police officers injured and communities on both sides of the peaceline devastated.