Belfast riots

DUBLIN — Northern Ireland police have come under live fire during a third straight night of rioting in Irish-nationalist parts of Belfast, but have reported no injuries.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland said Wednesday a lone attacker armed with a handgun fired four to six shots as riot police combated masked men and youths overnight in Ardoyne, a hard-line Catholic district in north Belfast.

Witnesses say the shots appeared to have been aimed at a police surveillance camera recording the actions of the rioters, who also threw dozens of Molotov cocktails and at least one homemade grenade.

Politicians have accused Irish Republican Army dissidents of directing the violence that began Sunday night and spread to several working-class Catholic neighborhoods.
LONDON — Six months after the British government handed control of the police in Northern Ireland to local officials, the worst rioting in years has left 82 police officers injured in Belfast, the provincial capital, including an officer who was hospitalized in stable condition after a concrete slab was dropped on her head from a rooftop.

The rioting peaked on Monday in the northern Belfast district of Ardoyne, set off by one of the most emotive occasions on the calendar, the annual July 12 marches by the Orange Order. The order, a Protestant fraternal organization, has been a bulwark of Protestant — and British — supremacy in the six northern counties of Ireland. The marches celebrate the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, when the Protestant English king, William of Orange, secured British dominion in Ireland for more than 200 years.

Police officials in Northern Ireland said on Wednesday a lone attacker armed with a handgun fired four to six shots as riot police combated masked men and youths overnight in Ardoyne. Witnesses quoted by The Associated Press said the shots appeared to have been aimed at a police surveillance camera recording the actions of the rioters.

Hundreds of rioters in Ardoyne battled the police with gasoline bombs, bricks, metal bars and planks on Monday after police officers in riot gear moved in to remove about 100 protesters who had staged a sit-in to prevent the Orange Order marchers from passing through a predominantly Roman Catholic neighborhood.

The confrontation was a throwback to the violence that erupted regularly during the Orange Day parades in the years before the 1998 Good Friday agreement, which set a blueprint for peaceful settlement of the enmities between the mainly Protestant unionists, who seek to keep the province a permanent part of Britain, and the mainly Catholic republicans, who want a united Ireland. It led eventually to the establishment of the power-sharing government that has ruled in Belfast since 2007.

But the parade issue lingered, and it erupted anew last week when the Orange Order rejected a new system for mediating routes and timing, raising anger, particularly among republicans.

'Significant arrests' promised after Belfast riots

Nationalist protesters build barricades in the street during clashes with police in Belfast. Photograph: AP Police in Belfast came under fire for a third successive night as Northern Ireland's political leaders condemned those behind the violence.In Ardoyne, the scene of Monday night's major disturbances, a lone attacker armed with a handgun fired four to six shots as police clashed with masked men.

Nationalist protesters build barricades in the street during clashes with police in Belfast. Photograph: AP Police in Belfast came under fire for a third successive night as Northern Ireland's political leaders condemned those behind the violence.In Ardoyne, the scene of Monday night's major disturbances, a lone attacker armed with a handgun fired four to six shots as police clashed with masked men.

rish nationalist rioters attack Police Service of Northern Ireland officers with water cannon in North Belfast

Police used water cannon to help contain the violence

A senior police officer has said there will be "significant arrests" of those involved in rioting in Belfast.

Up to six shots were fired at police during a third night of violence in north Belfast on Tuesday.

Petrol bombs and a pipe bomb were also thrown by nationalist rioters in the Ardoyne area. About 100 officers used water cannon and baton rounds.

Assistant Chief Constable Duncan McCausland said children as young as 10 were involved in the violence.

He said as well as throwing stones and petrol bombs, young children were being used as shields by "sinister elements" organising the riots behind them.

ACC McCausland said police had hours of video footage from before the violence started and would use it to identify the rioters.

"There will be significant arrests in the forthcoming days - individuals will not go scot free," he said.

The rioter who dropped a concrete block on a policewoman on Monday night - seriously injuring her - had already been identified he added.

"Wherever he is in Northern Ireland he can sit and be worried - we will be coming for him," he said.


On Tuesday night, burning barricades were put in place and laser pens were shone at police. Some officers suffered minor injuries.

Politicians have condemned the violence, which has flared at the height of the loyalist marching season.

Sinn Fein have said dissident republicans and "anti-social elements" are behind the violence.
'Madness and mayhem'

SDLP councillor Nicola Mallon spent most of Tuesday night in Ardoyne and said children under 10 were again involved in the rioting.

She described it as a night of "absolute madness and mayhem" and said local residents are growing increasingly worried about the situation.
Rioter attacks police A rioter attacks police in the Ardoyne area on Tuesday evening

Northern Ireland's Justice Minister David Ford said there was an "extremely sinister edge", in terms of those who were encouraging the rioting.

There was also trouble in North Queen Street area of north Belfast on Tuesday night where youths built a barricade across the road.

In the Markets area of south Belfast a bus was damaged by stone-throwers and a car was recovered by police as youths tried to hijack it.

A car was also stolen in Lurgan, County Armagh and four petrol bombs were thrown at a police vehicle in Londonderry.
Leadership

Northern Ireland's first and deputy first ministers are to hold talks later with Chief Constable Matt Baggot about the riots.

Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness were criticised on Tuesday by Assistant Chief Constable Alistair Finlay, who called on them to provide more leadership.

The Chief Constable said the meeting must concentrate on finding a way to prevent trouble in the future.

More than 80 police officers had been injured over the previous two nights of rioting by nationalist youths.
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"There is no excuse and no place for violence in civilised society”

Violence condemned by ministers

On Monday, night a policewoman suffered head injuries when a lump of concrete was dropped on her from a roof in Ardoyne.

Police later released aerial footage of the violence, which showed officers coming under sustained attack from people throwing bricks and wielding metal bars and planks.

First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, said there had been "outright thuggery and vandalism".

Mr Robinson added: "There is no excuse and no place for violence in civilised society. Both the deputy first minister and I have been, and will continue, to work for a resolution of the difficulties around parading."

BBC Ireland correspondent Mark Simpson said the violence had brought politicians together, "but the problem was the rioters don't seem to be listening".

He said so far police had been unable to stop the violence, but "they had been successful in containing it".

The chief constable, Matt Baggott, said the cost of policing Monday's violence would run into millions of pounds.


BELFAST — Rioters in Northern Ireland fired shots and hurled petrol bombs at police during a third night of violence blamed on republicans opposed to the British province's peace process.

Young children were among hundreds who took to the streets of Ardoyne in north Belfast overnight Tuesday as violence continued following the peak of the marching season, a traditional flashpoint for sectarian tensions.

First Minister Peter Robinson and his deputy Martin McGuinness, who have appealed for calm, were to meet Northern Ireland's police chief Matt Baggott later Wednesday to discuss the ongoing tensions.

Authorities are blaming a small group of troublemakers for the unrest, with Baggott describing trouble earlier this week as "recreational rioting with a sinister edge." Witnesses have also told of how children got involved.

"I was directly confronted by a nine-year-old last night," Father Gary Donegan, a local priest, told BBC radio, saying he had "physically pulled stones out of children's hands."

"At one stage, it looked like the Milan catwalk," Donegan added. "It was ridiculous. There were girls out with little parasols... it was a bit like a Eurodisney theme park for rioting."

Local councillor Gerard McCabe, of republicans Sinn Fein, said the culprits were "an anti-social group hell bent on torturing the community."

There were reports of four to six shots being fired at police in mainly Catholic Ardoyne which police are investigating, while rioters also threw stones and missiles.

Police deployed a water cannon in response but reported no new injuries to officers, although 82 have been hurt in clashes on previous days, including a female officer who had a concrete block dropped on her.

The disturbances come at the height of Northern Ireland's marching season, a traditional flashpoint in the troubled province's history.

Unrest often flares as Protestant marchers -- in favour of continued British rule of the province -- pass through areas mainly populated by Catholics, who are generally opposed to rule from London.

In the most violent riots of the past few days on Monday, dissident republicans threw petrol bombs and concrete slabs at Protestant Orangemen and their police escort as they marched through Ardoyne.

Monday was July 12, which is the climax of the marching calendar and sees Protestants mark Prince William of Orange's victory over the Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

Despite the relative calm in Northern Ireland since the 1998 peace accords, violence frequently breaks out around July 12 as Catholics try to prevent the marches from going ahead.

The province's First Minister Peter Robinson and his deputy Martin McGuinness both criticised the violence Tuesday, saying it was out of keeping with modern-day Northern Ireland.

"I am disgusted at the outright thuggery and vandalism that has taken place over the course of the last 48 hours," said Robinson, leader of the Democratic Unionists, Northern Ireland's largest Protestant party.

"There is no excuse and no place for violence in civilised society... We must keep our entire focus on defeating those who would seek through violence and destruction to drag us back."

McGuinness, of Catholic republicans Sinn Fein, said: "Our experience demonstrates that the way to deal with any disputes or contention is through dialogue and agreement."

The leaders' response came after Northern Ireland police's number two Alistair Finlay criticised their grip on events and urged them to speak out against the violence, in a rare challenge.