Follow up uncovers crude devices in north Belfast

In the aftermath of bitter rioting in north Belfast police have recovered three unexploded pipe bombs and the remains of five exploded devices in a follow up search operation.

Police conducted the searches of the area following serious disturbances in the area, which took place on Sunday September 23.

Fifteen police officers were injured during violent sectarian clashes in north Belfast.

Four were wounded when a blast bomb was thrown at their vehicle on Halliday’s Road on Sunday September 23 around 9.20pm.

The incidents began on Sunday afternoon when Catholic and Protestant gangs taunted each other for about an hour before hurling missiles at each other. About 200 people were involved in the incident which erupted in the Limestone Road area of the city at about 3pm.

According to the RUC, missiles thrown at security forces included hammers, parts of dumb-bell sets, angle irons, blast bombs and large fireworks. Shots from a handgun were also fired.

RUC Assistant Chief Constable Alan McQuillan said he believed paramilitaries have been involved in recent disorder in the area.

He said: “In all those areas, on both sides, if you scratch those areas you find members of paramilitary organisations. I have no intelligence or information that would lead me to suggest there were plans for that rioting yesterday but the reality is in all those areas, on both sides, once rioting starts, the paramilitaries are there and they have an impact on it, they become involved in it.

“We have people involved who clearly have access to guns, clearly have access to some of these blast devices. Even the average Belfast rioter does not have that. There are people from paramilitaries in the background.”

Meanwhile, army bomb experts defused a pipe bomb type device found outside a house on the Woodvale Road in Belfast.

The area was cordoned off while the security operation was carried out in the early hours of Monday.

Earlier, a bomb went off at the Brookfield Mill on the Crumlin Road. A second device failed to explode and was taken away for forensic examination. (AMcE)