Petrol bomb attack on police 'unacceptable'

A police chief today condemned petrol bombers who attacked his officers during a security alert in Londonderry.

Up to 40 youths hurled at least a dozen petrol bombs together with bricks, bottles and sticks at the security forces responding to what turned out to be a bomb hoax in the nationalist Bogside.

The trouble which ran through to 2am this morning erupted when an army bomb disposal expert was tasked last night to a suspect device attached to the windscreen of a vehicle in Rossville street.

There were no reports of police casualties during the attacks.

Police Service of Northern Ireland Inspector John Allen branded the attack as “unacceptable”.

He said: “My officers were in the area to deal with a potentially serious incident and were hindered in their attempts to prevent damage or injury to the local community.

“At least a dozen petrol bombs were thrown along with bricks, bottles and sticks and it is by sheer good fortune that neither my officers or members of the public were injured.”

SDLP Derry City councillor John Tierney condemned those responsible for the violence and said they did not represent the community.

He said: “Local people do not support this type of behaviour. It certainly seems that the hoax device was planted for the purpose of attracting the police into the area so it was an orchestrated incident.

“People in the Bogside and neighbouring areas saw enough of this trouble in the past and it will not achieve any more today than it did then.”