Loyalists blamed after bar and church attacks

Loyalists were blamed today for setting fire to a bar and attacking two Catholic churches with paint bombs in Co Antrim.

As police defended their action after Protestant paramilitaries took over an east Belfast housing estate after forcing alleged drugs dealers to leave their homes, nationalist politicians claimed the incidents near Ballymena were sectarian.

Extensive damage was caused to the pub at Martinstown where the remains of a petrol bomb were later found.

Paint bombs were thrown at the churches on the town’s Crebilly Road and Broughshane Road.

Earlier, up to a dozen families had to be evacuated from their homes for four hours after a blast bomb exploded at a house on the Antrim Road.

Unionist and nationalist representatives criticised police in Belfast after dozens of hooded paramilitaries took to the streets in the city’s Garnerville estate where up to six families were forced out, allegedly because of drugs involvement.

But Chief Superintendent Wesley Wilson said: “People may have had the impression police were not in control, but they were in control of the situation.”

East Belfast Democratic Unionist Party MP Peter Robinson claimed: “There were activities going on which people were unhappy about. Police were not acting against that.

“You then get circumstances coming about where communities start looking to paramilitaries to take the action the police are failing to take.”