Forensic experts examine bullets fired at home

Forensic experts were today examining bullets fired at a Belfast home in a gun attack linked to a feud among rival loyalist paramilitary factions.

A family escaped injury when five shots smashed through the living room window of their house at Clare Glen, in the Ballysillan district of north Belfast.

A couple and their two children were at home when the gunmen struck last night. Sources have linked the shooting to a bitter power-struggle inside the Ulster Defence Association, Northern Ireland's largest loyalist terror grouping.

Earlier, a UDA commander was targeted by bombers for a third time within a fortnight.

Army explosives experts defused a pipe bomb outside the home of John "Grug" Gregg on the outskirts of the city. Gregg is closely aligned to the team who expelled feared terror boss Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair from the organisation in October, a move which sparked the current tensions.

Two days earlier a similar device was discovered at his house in the Rathcoole area of Newtownabbey.

Earlier this month he found explosives packed to his car. Gregg was jailed in the 1980s for a failed murder plot against Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams.